The Truth Is in the Stars Page #6

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occupy an imaginative

realm much like magic.

As Kirk,

I explored the universe

unafraid of what surprises

lay beneath the black cloak

of human ignorance.

I've come back to

familiar surroundings

to meet with an actor

I directly inspired

and, oh, yes,

a slick hand at magic, too.

Where the magic is,

you have to believe

that it's there.

That's magic.

Magic is-is

merely saying,

"That can't be done"

and then you do it.

And when you first do it,

they go, "That's a great trick",

that's a great trick"

and then eventually, you go,

"Well, that thing

can be done."

The reason my wife doesn't

like magic, is she goes,

"It's not magical

if you can do it,

now it's just a thing,

it exists"

and I think, that's fascinating.

Let's create the illusion

of how it could be done,

and then that illusion

becomes your reality.

If I say to you

this coffee is hot,

when it's not,

and I believe it,

for me it's hot!

Your perception

is that it's hot.

When I was eight

or nine years old,

I discovered Star Trek,

and I became

immediately addicted,

and my addiction was specific,

I mean I love the whole thing,

but your work as Kirk

was so inspiring to me,

the idea of this guy

who was brilliant,

um, instinctual,

romantic,

masculine...

That's me!

This sense of humor,

where I went.

"That's what I wanna do."

Now what I really wanted to do

was pilot the Enterprise.

I didn't know that they were...

They were two different things,

but, that was the

beginning of my interest in

when watching you

through those episodes,

Kirk was always moving

through this galaxy,

this mission,

with a sense of awe.

The writers of Star Trek

had some brilliant ideas.

Yeah, they certainly

were able to articulate

the challenge

in a way that invited dialog.

The most powerful

episode you ever did

on which the,

the divide between peoples were,

they were one guy was

black on the right side,

and one guy was white

on the right side

and out of that was this enmity,

and this hostility,

and this death match

until they literally,

completely destroyed each other.

That was one of my

favorite episodes, too.

It's just brilliant.

You're coming back to

pay for your crimes!

And long after you

and I are gone,

people will watch

those episodes,

and they may seem kitschy

and they may seem outdated,

but the integrity that

you all brought to it

made it real for us,

and it left a mark.

You were on Star Trek.

Voyager, I made it to that one.

Voyager, yeah.

As you well know,

there is-there is a magic,

and especially if

you're a Star Trek fan,

to walking onto the ship

and they close the door

that gets you onto

the ship and now,

wherever you look,

you're on the ship!

I mean, if you look out a

window there's a starfield

and if you walk down a corridor

it leads to a real room.

That's why we go into acting.

There is one other individual

who rounds out our group.

An artificial intelligence.

The mind of a mathematician,

and the soul of an artist.

Take me

on this wonderful

journey you're taking me,

to a man like

Dr. Stephen Hawking.

If you were going to go see.

Dr. Stephen Hawking

in Cambridge,

what would you ask him?

The question that I

think is kinda fun, is,

"Why?"

I'm fascinated as to the

why of it all. Yeah.

If this is all purposed

in some way,

what is that purpose?

You know, how did

the universe begin,

Big Bang, I go, "Okay",

I'm with you, Big Bang."

The second before the Big Bang,

there was nothing,

and then suddenly

there was something?

Well, what was in the nothing?

What was in the nothing

that made the Big Bang?

What... If you keep

going back,

go back one more,

go back one more,

go back one more.

It leads me

to have to embrace

the idea of a Creator

that put the motion of

the universe into play.

That is why I have spirituality,

because I believe we

have an intended purpose

for existence in time and space.

How are ya?

So, are you guys

ready to go to Mars?

Absolutely.

Any time.

So, the first thing I

wanna point out is that

this is more than

just a panorama

you're fully tracked

so you can move...

This is real?

Yeah, this is all

made from real data.

I've skied in this area.

Yeah.

I welcome you to move

around in this space,

'cause what you're seeing

is a full 3-D world.

You have a beam coming

out of your eye.

Like a superhero.

That is so wild.

What's the Rover doing now?

I mean, these days,

what's it up to?

So, it's continuing to explore,

and one of the great

things about this tool is,

so, every time we get

new images of Mars,

the world round you will just

fill in with more and more data.

So our goal is to drive

about a third of the way

up that big mountain,

and 180 degrees around

in the other direction

180 degrees around

this direction is...

Yeah, so this is

remarkable here.

Yeah.

Do we know the

qualities of the soil?

Is it earth-like?

Can you get a corn

crop going there?

I think there's a

lot of radiation.

What Bill and Chris are

walking on is a sediment.

It's made of broken

bits of Mars' rock,

and so it's actually

not so alien,

because almost all of Mars' rock

is this volcanic

material called basalt.

It's the most common kind

of rock in the solar system.

We have it erupting in Hawaii

and Iceland right now.

It's all over the

surface of Venus.

It's all over the

surface of asteroids,

and forms this sediment

across the surface

and if you picked it up

and kind of brushed

it in your hand,

it would just look

like a red sand.

It looks totally navigable.

I mean,

that Rover looks like it

could go almost anywhere.

It looks like Arizona in a way.

Looks like a place

the water went away.

Yeah, some places you go,

it's just sand for as

far as the eye can see,

and then other places

there's just giant,

rocky boulders everywhere.

Do you see that thing move?

A dark shadow behind that hill?

Uh, Sasquatch that

would be my guess,

Sasquatch probably.

He's everywhere.

Wouldn't it be funny if

somethin' popped out, there?

Jesus, look at that!

It's a Hominid!

So, Chris,

uh, Mars Rover, huh?

It's amazing!

Chris Hadfield,

great Canadian

astronaut, teacher,

scientist, thinker, writer...

Fellow Spaceship Commander.

And a Spaceship Commander.

Station, this is Houston,

are you ready for the event?

I'm ready for the event.

Mr. Shatner, this is

Mission Control, Houston.

Last time we talked,

you were 250 miles straight

up above Los Angeles

and we had a ten minute

window of communication.

In preparation for

you to call me,

I was thinking,

how do you-how

do you welcome.

Captain Kirk on board

your spaceship?

Open arms.

Yeah, open arms,

but-but, you know,

there's the military

tradition so I thought,

you know, when someone

comes on the ship,

you blow the bosun's pipe.

It's that standard

hailing bosun's whistle,

and I managed to

get a copy of it,

and I got it set up so

that as you and I started

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