Neil deGrasse Tyson

I first learned of Neil deGrasse Tyson when Nicole emailed me with an adamant request that I (her favorite space nerd) should be sure to watch a recent interview on the Daily Show with this guy who was "really excited about space". He's an astrophysicist with the Museum of Natural History and he NEEDS to the next NASA director. Soon enough I will go into a detailed discussion here about why NASA's main problem is that they have a terrible (or no) PR department and are the most misunderstood of all federal agencies. But for now, I'll just say that last night, while the policy nerd council was gathering to watch our leader speak (intelligently!), I got into the most recent of a long line of friendly debates about NASA.

During these periodic debates, I defend NASA funding and argue for its value as an organization of research and exploration. Neil deGrasse Tyson would be good for NASA, not only because he's an astrophysicist, but because he's awesome. And exciting. With an air of badass. Rocket scientists aren't exciting or badass. Unless they're in the movies. And even then, the rocket scientists aren't badass enough so Bruce Willis and his band of merry men of oil drillers have to save the planet. So anyway, here's a clip of Neil DGT talking about doomsday. Go to hulu to watch The Daily Show interview, because it's definitely worth it. And there will be more space talk coming up, since I'm going to watch Gene Krantz speak tomorrow. Google him.