The Truth Is in the Stars Page #7

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I'd like push play and

hold the microphone

so you could hear

this silly noise.

So picture me scrambling

around on the ship

tryin'-tryin' to properly

welcome you aboard,

but it was delightful to have

you on board my spaceship,

the-the International Space

Station for a while.

It was a delight to talk to you.

We're here at JPL,

and the head of JPL says,

"Hey, Chris, you're the best."

You're gonna go and you

are gonna uncover

"bacteria and water on Mars."

Would you go?

Would you go?

No.

Oh, I'd go.

What will I do with my horses?

Someone else could...

Who will ride them?

Could lead them and

feed them for a while.

So you'd go?

The willingness to

take a personal risk

in order to-to

uncover uh an idea,

to turn over a rock,

to push back the edges

of some black cloak,

that, to me, is the really

interesting part of it.

Got it, but what about

your little granddaughter

waving her bum in the air

when you play the guitar?

You won't see that

for two years.

Uh, I agree.

There is always a trade off

of what you're dreaming of doing

and what you'd like

to do right now,

and as my wife pointed

out to me a long time ago,

giving up on your dreams does

not come for free either.

The-the first people

that we either send to

go start permanently

living on the moon,

which I think will happen

within our lifetimes.

And then eventually,

figure it out that we can

send people as far as Mars.

We need people

who have everything

going for them

that you possibly can.

In our lifetimes,

all space flight has occurred.

You know, no human being

had-had flown in space,

when I was born,

when you were born.

All that has happened

in less than a lifetime,

and yet,

we've permanently left Earth

in that short period of time.

There's six people up on

a space station right now.

They've been up there

for over 15 years,

coming in on 16 years,

rotating crews.

We've been in this really

small place for so long,

and suddenly,

we have developed the capability

to start to see everything else.

What's it like to

float in space?

What's happening to your stomach

and you tongue and your eyes?

We are-we are all living

under the ultimate oppressor,

which is gravity.

It actually physically,

we accept it like,

because we have nothing

to compare it to,

but physically,

it is like this actual,

physical weight

trying to drive you

under its heel into the dirt.

The-the instant that

the engines shut off

and you can float from

your seat, you all...

Everybody laughs.

Is this what you did, you

float, is that what you do?

Yeah, you burst out

laughing 'cause...

No kidding!

If it happened

right now you would

just start laughing.

You'd love it.

You-you can

tumble and fly,

it is instantaneous magic.

It's just magic!

Your music and your pictures,

which are so well known,

tell me what that does

for you and brings to us.

Sometimes you go to the

window of a spaceship

and you say,

"I'm not gonna take a picture.

I just wanna look at the world,"

and you're seeing something,

but it's goin' by at

five miles a second.

You can't keep up,

you can't cognitively

or emotionally keep up

with the huge variety

of geology and history,

and human culture and

I found every time my hand

would grab one of the

cameras and go in,

'cause I wanted to be

able to see it later.

I didn't wanna miss it,

'cause I couldn't soak

it up fast enough

and so I would take

pictures and then,

now, three years later,

I can flick through them and go,

- wow, look what I saw...

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look what it was underneath me.

Just like exploration

on a spaceship,

music is an amazing

human adventure,

and something that

needs to be shared.

It shouldn't be

kept to yourself.

And so, music, to me,

is almost a way to explain

your life to yourself.

'Till next time.

As this fictional captain

I piloted a spaceship.

But in reality, if you had

that, uh, kind of spaceship,

at warp speed, you

could go anywhere,

within your lifetime you could

go anywhere in the universe...

I think, as a central precept,

I would be looking for life,

but think of what you

discover along the way.

Think of all the other

questions you'd answer.

Think of how you

would wanna have

Stephen Hawking on your crew...

So it's a voyage of discovery.

Just as-as the ultimate

voyage of discovery.

That'd be interesting.

When you stand in

eastern Canada,

and the sun sets and

and the blackness of uh,

of the night envelops you,

and you're looking

up into the skies,

what are you thinking,

what are you seeing?

What's really special

for me, Bill, is

there are little moving

points of light up there,

especially in Canada where

the sun can take a long time

to set because of the

northern latitude,

and those little satellites,

those little specks

of human creativity,

go silently like little

human stars across the sky.

And if it's-if it's a

lucky night for me,

uh, I get to watch the

Space Station go over.

Imagine if you

actually were Kirk

and you'd lived out

that whole career,

and you had settled back to

the place you loved the most,

and you walked out on

a dock and looked up

and watched some young

captain flying your ship,

you could see the

point of light,

and you know that point of light

so exquisitely and completely.

You know every valve in

it and you understood it

and you studied it,

and you know what life

on that ship is like,

you know what it feels like,

smells like,

what it sounds like,

what the camaraderie's like.

It was almost an

extension of yourself,

but now you're just this

person standing on a dock,

trying to connect that

little point of light

with everything, uh,

that you are.

Just one moment Katie

and I will answer

that question for ya.

I stand on the axis

where dreams intersect reality.

I've always wondered

what it takes

to understand the

nature of the universe,

to know it confidently

like the crew

on board

The Starship Enterprise.

If we can literally

look up into the sky

and see the past,

see within 400,000

years of The Big Bang,

I'm comforted that time

might not be the

aggressor we perceive.

I see a shooting star,

and in some ways,

I'm not yet born.

For as long as Star Trek

has been around

the esteemed environmentalist

and broadcaster,

David Suzuki,

whose years on Earth

almost match my own,

has been focusing his message

on preserving and

protecting our planet.

His wisdom is shared by North

America's First Nations,

whose intricate totem

poles rise up to the sky

as symbols of myths and legends,

reflecting their kinship

with Mother Earth.

Hello, brother!

- Hello, brother.

- How ya doing?

Look at how firm

and strong you are!

You're pretty firm yourself!

Well, I ride horses,

what do you do?

Jesus, you should feel his arms!

I walk around like this

for people to feel my arms.

I'm older than you.

I bet that's the first person

who's said that to you.

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