Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Elon Musk plans to get humans to Mars in six years

Wednesday 28 September 2016 



SpaceX founder tells meeting of astronautical experts that his only purpose is to ‘make life interplanetary’, revealing plans for reusable ship to Mars.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has outlined his highly ambitious vision for manned missions to Mars, which he said could begin as soon as 2022 – three years sooner than his previous estimates.

However, the question of how such extravagantly expensive missions would be funded remains largely in the dark.

“What I really want to try to achieve here is to make Mars seem possible – like it’s something we can achieve in our lifetimes,” Musk told an audience in his keynote speech at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Tuesday.

He said there were “two fundamental paths” facing humanity today. “One is that we stay on Earth forever and then there will be an inevitable extinction event,” he said. “The alternative is to become a spacefaring civilization, and a multi-planetary species.”

In order to achieve this goal, Musk outlined a multi-stage launch and transport system, including a reusable booster – like the Falcon 9, which SpaceX has already successfully tested – only much larger. The booster, and the “interplanetary module” on top of it, would be nearly as long as two Boeing 747 aircraft. It could initially carry up to 100 passengers, he said.

The first ship to go to Mars, Musk said, would be named Heart of Gold as a tribute to the ship powered by an “infinite improbability drive” from Douglas Adams’ science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Similar modules, also launched using reusable boosters, would remain in Earth’s orbit to refuel the interplanetary craft to be able to use multiple trips, including to other parts of the solar system such as Enceladus, a moon of Saturn on which Nasa’s Cassini mission recently found evidence of a polar subsurface water ocean that could harbor life.

Musk also outlined a system by which fuel could be synthesized on Mars from water and carbon dioxide in order to fuel return journeys to Earth.

He estimated the current cost of sending someone to Mars at “around $10bn per person”, though it was not clear if he meant using existing rocket systems or on the initial flight of his proposed system. He said that there would be price improvements over time because of the reusability of the spacecraft, in-orbit refuelling and on-Mars propellant production that would reduce that cost by “orders of magnitude”.

But he made little attempt to solve the thorny problem of the initial cost of constructing the system. Suggesting possible revenue streams, Musk proposed two sources of cash – sending cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station and launching satellites – both already part of SpaceX’s business model.

He also listed three other sources of revenue that simply read “kickstarter”, “profit” and – intriguingly – “steal underpants”.

Asked at the talk about funding, however, Musk said: “The reason I am personally accruing assets is to fund this. I really have no other purpose than to make life interplanetary.”

Bill Nye, chief executive officer of the Planetary Society and host of the popular TV show Bill Nye the Science Guy, was in the audience and described the energy of the crowd as “extraordinary”.

“Watching the crowd go absolutely wild today tells me that the best is yet ahead for space exploration,” he told the Guardian, adding that Musk had presented “a very aggressive schedule that seemed feasible to the crowd”. 

“No matter what we send to Mars, I very much hope we conduct a thorough, careful search for life before we consider landing people and cargo. I believe the discovery of life or evidence of life would change the way we think about the cosmos and our place within it,” Nye added.

Nasa said in a statement that it welcomed Musk’s plans. “NASA applauds all those who want to take the next giant leap – and advance the journey to Mars. We are very pleased that the global community is working to meet the challenges of a sustainable human presence on Mars. This journey will require the best and the brightest minds from government and industry, and the fact that Mars is a major topic of discussion is very encouraging.”

Nasa says it has made “extraordinary progress” developing a plan for sustainable Mars exploration, building partnerships in both the public and private sectors.

Elon Musk’s latest plan is to dig underground tunnels to avoid traffic jams

Sunday, 18 Dec 2016



Elon Musk took to Twitter early this morning to sketch out a new plan to disrupt traffic on American roadways by digging tunnels underground to circumvent congestion.

Specifically, Musk wants to open The Boring Company, which he says will actually happen. In a series of four tweets, Musk didn't reveal exactly how he would do this without causing even more traffic, since that's what happens with construction projects.

More from Recode:
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The UN has decided to tackle the issue of killer robots in 2017

There's a chance Musk was just venting his frustration out loud on Twitter this morning. He's one of the only people where it's equally possible he's just making a corny joke or actually scheming an earth-moving infrastructure plan. But now that Musk joined Trump's advisory team, it's worth taking what he says seriously.

And the serial entrepreneur did update his Twitter bio to read, "Tesla, SpaceX, Tunnels (yes, tunnels) & OpenAI."

As an advisor to Trump, Musk may have more pull to see this through. Trump said he plans to invest big — $1 trillion — to rebuild American infrastructure and reshape American roads, specifically by attracting private investment.

Musk is no stranger to tackling big problems with innovative workarounds, and he certainly knows a lot about transportation.

But Musk is already fairly busy. He's working to one day colonize Mars, hence Space X, his interplanetary transportation company. He's deeply concerned with climate change, which is one of the reasons he makes electric cars with Tesla and solar installations with SolarCity. Artificial intelligence could one day outsmart humanity and lead to the ultimate destruction of all humans, so last year he started a nonprofit called OpenAI to help find solutions to keep AI working for, and not against us.

Before joining Trump's advisory team, the Tesla CEO said Trump "doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States."

Elon Musk teases huge upgrades for Tesla’s Supercharger network

December 25th, 2016



One of the smartest things Tesla did to help boost sales of the Model S was to rollout an all encompassing Supercharger network which enabled Tesla owners to recharge their vehicles for free during long drives. This move from Tesla was nothing short of brilliant as it addressed previously valid concerns that the Model S wasn’t an ideal car for road trips and perhaps even for long commutes.

Over the past few years, Tesla has continued to expand the footprint of its Supercharger network and today there are already more than 769 Supercharger stations strategically located across most of the United States and other locations across the globe. Now seeing as how Tesla has never been a company known for resting on its laurels, word emerged over the weekend that the company has ambitious plans to dramatically improve the Supercharger experience.

Responding to a tweet about upcoming Supercharger enhancements, Tesla CEO Elon Musk not only touched on the company’s plans to eventually incorporate solar arrays at Supercharger stations, he also teased that the third-generation version of Tesla Supercharger technology will be a huge leap forward.

When asked about the power of Tesla’s next-gen Supercharger technology, Musk coyly hinted that even 350 kW would be akin to a “children’s toy.” As a point of reference, most Supercharger stations have a capacity of 120 kW.

Incidentally, because the number of Tesla owners has skyrocketed in recent years, Supercharging stations have increasingly become more and more crowded. As a result, Tesla just last month announced that Tesla vehicles purchased in 2017 will receive 1,000 miles worth of Supercharger credits. Following that, Tesla owners will have to pay for Supercharger access, albeit a relatively small fee. For what it’s worth, Tesla said that it will still cost “less than the price of filling up a comparable gas car.”

Sunday, August 28, 2016

"Invest In NASA, Invest In U.S. Economy" Neil deGrasse Tyson says

MAR 13, 2012


Neil deGrasse Tyson is an accomplished astrophysicist and popular author whose latest book, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, lays out the case for continuing to advance the space frontier. Tyson is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, as well as an astrophysics research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He served on the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry in 2001 and the President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy in 2004, and is known for his passionate advocacy for space exploration.

Last week I had the chance to talk with Tyson about why he thinks space exploration is a necessary economic driver, and why funding NASA is an investment the U.S. government can’t ignore.

You’ve noted that NASA’s budget isn’t as much an expenditure as an investment.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: I think many people don’t think of it that way, but that’s certainly how I see it. And how the history of that money has revealed itself in our economy.

And the return on the investment comes in the form of innovation and technological advancement?

That’s correct. Not only innovations that come directly from solving the challenges of advancing a space frontier, but also the culture and society that arises from being a participant in that frontier. In other words, yes, of course you have to innovate to discover something tomorrow that you didn’t know today – some new idea has to arise, some new solution to a problem. Some new material has to be invented. Of course. That would go on, with direct reference to space achievements.

In fact, NASA puts out a book called Spin Offs, which is a complete discussion of all the fundamental patents and discoveries that became commercial products in the year preceding. But I would argue that that’s not even the greatest value of NASA. It’s the shift in attitude that it brings upon our culture, where people then see and feel the role that innovations in science and technology play in their lives. They embrace that as a part of the identity of our culture itself.

You get people innovating even if they’re not directly related to the space program, because we have an innovation culture. I assert that that was the culture that prevailed in the 1960s and into the early 1970s. Once you have an innovation culture, even those who are not scientists or engineers – poets, actors, journalists – they, as communities, embrace the meaning of what it is to be scientifically literate. They embrace the concept of an innovation culture. They vote in ways that promote it. They don’t fight science and they don’t fight technology. They recognize how fundamental those activities are to the identity of the nation, but more importantly to the economic health of the nation. Because these are the engines of the economy.

You can look at the 1960s, the peak of space exploration, and I think many people would characterize that period as the peak of the attitude that you’re talking about. So why is there this disconnect now? Why do people think of space exploration as an academic pursuit?

Because they don’t think of it the same way. They just don’t. I think I understand why – I didn’t do the tests on this, but it’s plausibly correct that we live in an era where we think of the solutions to problems by applying money directly to that problem.

For example, we need more scientists; let’s improve our science teachers. OK, we’re done there. We need more jobs; let’s create more factories so we have more jobs. We want more innovation; there are companies that do innovation, let’s fund those more.

The idea is that somehow these are all separate problems and we go over and just fix them one by one. But in fact, by my read of history, by my read of human behavior, by my read of government funding streams, these efforts amount to no more than Band-Aids on sores that have opened up in our society caused by a much deeper absence – the absence of an innovation culture.

So when you say “NASA creates jobs,” people think it’s because tax money buys the jobs that NASA pays directly for. The direct A-to-B thinking again. It takes more than a few steps of reasoning to see how NASA influences a culture and how that culture innovates, creates the economies of tomorrow, stabilizes and then grows your economy. That’s a multi-step exercise that certainly economists understand easily. To writers for Forbes, it’s self-evident. But everybody else, apparently not.

When you put money directly to a problem, it makes a good headline. It makes a good campaign slogan. You get to claim that you’ve engaged in these activities within an election cycle. But certain investments take longer than an election cycle. Those that take longer than an election cycle tend to be susceptible to people wanting to redirect them to immediate problems that they see sitting right in front of them.

This manifests itself even at the highest levels. The America COMPETES Act emerged from Congress – and the President signed a version of it – the President extols the value of NASA, back in that era, as the engine of economic innovation, of scientific and technological innovation leading to a booming economy. He says this. And then says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Given that we’re in the doldrums now, we’re going to re-invest in our science and technology.” And he talks about increasing the budget for the National Science Foundation and for the Department of Energy Science, which is the physics labs, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a little-known agency of the government that is very important. NASA is barely mentioned. Actually, he tops up NASA for one year, gives a 5% increase to NASA for one year, and then takes it back a year later.

Meanwhile, NASA formed the substance of the rhetoric that led to the speech that announced this plan. The America COMPETES Act put those same three agencies on a doubling path for their budget, and NASA went unmentioned. So there seems to be a disconnect.

People say, “We need more basic science? Let’s fund basic science research agencies like the National Science Foundation.” But who’s going to do that research? Doesn’t somebody have to be motivated to do it in the first place? Doesn’t there have to be some dream that people have, and reach for and feel compelled to participate in?

It goes back to the quote that I’ve heard you mention a couple of times – if you want to get people to build a boat, don’t drum up wood and supplies, teach them to yearn for the open sea.

I always corrupt the quote, but that’s the sense of it. [“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”] Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Who himself was an aviator and the author of The Little Prince, by the way. But he understood that when you long for the open sea, then the details of boat building all resolve themselves. Your dreams take care of that. It becomes self-motivated; you don’t even have to be taught it. You figure it out yourself, and in the process you innovate another way to do it, as well.

So you advocate doubling NASA’s budget.

From .5% of the federal budget, I say double it. That would give NASA enough money to do everything everyone has wanted NASA to do over all these years and enable us to go back to the moon and on to Mars in a bold and audacious way. Where it’s visible and advancements are being made weekly if not daily. And everyone says, “Oh, we’re going to Mars. We need biologists for that, because we might find life. We need aerospace engineers.”

And all of a sudden, all of the great science and engineering frontiers are aglow with the need to have the best students that are currently in the educational pipeline. That need will echo its way on down through to elementary school.

What’s the likelihood of such a budget increase happening? Does it take a foreign threat to make that happen?

There are a couple of drivers for this. Yes, war would be a driver; that’s what got us to the moon in the first place. Those that didn’t understand that somehow thought that “Oh, we’re on the moon by 1969, we’ll be on Mars by 1980.” That’s delusional. That means they didn’t understand why we went to the moon in the first place.

We didn’t go to the moon to explore or because it was in our DNA or because we’re Americans. We went because we were at war and we felt a threat. It was a kill-the-commie threat. In response to that threat we go to the moon. We find out that Russia’s not going to the moon – we’re done. Mars was never in anybody’s sights.

Of course, if China says it wants to put military bases on the moon or on Mars, we’re back. We’d be on Mars in two years if that were the case, no doubt about it. But no one wants war to be the driver for these things.

Fortunately, there’s another handy driver that has manifested itself throughout the history of cultures. The urge to want to gain wealth. That is almost as potent a driver as the urge to maintain your security. And that is how I view NASA going forward – as an investment in our economy.

By the way, in the 1960s we benefited from the economic influence of NASA and the cultural shift that it brought upon us. We benefited from that, but the motivation was war. So there was a cost, a heavy cost, of gaining that benefit – the cost of war and then the cost of NASA.

If we do it for economic reasons, then it’s just the cost of NASA. We don’t need the tandem investment in the cost of war. So the return on that investment – if you look at the total holistic picture – would be vastly greater than any return that could have happened in the 1960s.

I think people seem to overlook the idea of putting a dollar in and getting way more than a dollar back.

Way more. Of course, it’s hard to just run a calculation on that. If you did, it would be making a lot of assumptions en route to get to some dollar figure. A lot of this appeal, then, is simply to convey the sum of fundamental truths: That NASA innovates when it advances a frontier, and that innovations in science and technology are the engines of tomorrow’s economy.

When you innovate, you create new industries that then boost your economy. And when you create new industries and that becomes part of your culture, your jobs can’t go overseas because no one else has figured out how to do it yet.

When you stop innovating, as we have, then you stop thinking about tomorrow, because there’s no lure of having to wonder how you might invent a tomorrow that you just dreamt up, because people stop dreaming. When you do that – when you stop dreaming and you stop innovating – then you’re basically coasting. When you’re coasting, you eventually slow down and stop.

While that happens, other nations rise up, pass you by. And then we cry foul because they’re paying their employees less in their factories or we worry about trade tariffs. All of a sudden the conversation shifts from, “Here, you can have these jobs, because we don’t want them anyway, we’ve got these other jobs that we’ve just innovated,” to “Give us back our jobs, we need any jobs we can get.”

This is the line of reasoning. It takes a few steps. It might even take longer than an elevator ride to convey.

Imagine that. I think it would be interesting to for people to hear some examples of products that came from NASA developments. I know you mentioned LASIK as an example of one.

LASIK pre-dates the space program, but it was dangerous, error-prone and expensive. These are your eyes we’re talking about here! What NASA enabled in that procedure is for it to be done with precision, accurately and inexpensively. Now, hardly anyone doesn’t know someone who has had the procedure.

That was enabled by algorithms and tactics and techniques to dock the space shuttle with the space station. They wanted to do that accurately and reliably, without any damage to the surrounding hardware . There it is; directly applied to the LASIK surgery that people get today.

Also, the motivation to miniaturize electronics in the first place. That was driven by NASA because electronics back then were very heavy. Your grandparents had a radio that was a piece of furniture in their living room. Nobody at that time was saying, “Gee, I want to one day carry this in my pocket.” That just wasn’t a thought that anybody had. It was the living room radio.

The urge to miniaturize was motivated by NASA’s need to shave weight off of the payloads. Because every extra ounce you have to take, you pay a huge cost in fuel. Right now it’s like $10,000/pound to get something to low-Earth orbit. Once that movement got started, it became its own economically-driven enterprise. It doesn’t need to reference space today. But somebody got it started. Today that’s a $150 billion/year industry. The entire cost of going to the moon was about $100 billion.

Here’s an industry that thrives on the miniaturization of its components. It might have still happened, but it certainly wouldn’t have happened when it did. It certainly wouldn’t have happened as early as it did.

That’s fascinating.

There are many more examples. Space in general gave us GPS – that’s not specifically NASA, but it’s investments in space. There’s grooved pavements on the turns of roads – that’s low-tech, but greatly improves traction. Something no one had thought of until somebody really cared about the space shuttle landing on a runway. The space shuttle is not engine controlled as it lands, so they wanted to maximize traction and get that as secure as possible. They grooved the pavement, and there you have it: You have traction even under slippery conditions.

You have scratch-resistant lenses. And intracochlear implants, which are implants in the ear that enable completely deaf people to hear again because it stimulates the nerve endings that would have connected to the ear drum. That was a NASA invention.

Water filters. A NASA invention. You can say, “I need a way to filter water for my refrigerator.” I don’t know what a person would come up with, but nobody did. If you say instead, “There is a supply of water on a space station and it is the only supply of water we will ever have. I need a way to filter it.” That’s a cool problem to solve. Not just “Well you could get it out of your tap.”

We’re talking about how grand the problem is that is presented in front of smart and motivated people, people who want to make a difference in the world. Now we all have filtered water in our refrigerator. That’s all NASA.

By the way, that is not the best reason to fund NASA. I’m saying they happen to be reasons that also exist.

When the asteroid comes and it has our name on it? That’s a good reason right there. “Let’s deflect it.” “Oh no, we can’t because we’re under-invested in our space abilities.” That would be embarrassing if we went extinct from that.

Like you said, those aren’t the best reasons. But I think some people need those sorts of reasons.

They need the tangibility of it. This percolates across society as a motivation to do something cool and really interesting.


It really comes down to return on investment. It’s the greatest stoker of our economy that I know of and that I’ve seen in operation. Other than war; war does it too, but you’re also spending a lot more. You get great returns, but only at very great expense. With NASA, you get very great returns at a very small expense. And nobody dies unless, in fact, they are dying in an effort to expand a frontier, which is one of the noblest ways to go. Statues are built to such people. And there are those among us who embrace the risk, knowing that the reward is worth that risk.

Boosting NASA's Budget Will Help The Economy: Neil deGrasse Tyson

April 17, 2012


Reinvigorating space exploration in the United States will require not only boosting NASA's budget but also getting the public to understand how pushing the boundaries of the space frontier benefits the country's innovation, culture and economy, said renowned astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York and an outspoken space advocate, delivered the opening address this morning (April 17) here at the 28th National Space Symposium.

"Space is a $300 billion industry worldwide," Tyson said. "NASA is a tiny percent of that. [But] that little bit is what inspires dreams."

He spoke about how space has influenced culture — ranging from how the fins on early rockets inspired fins on automobiles in the 1950s, to how the Apollo 8 mission's iconic picture taken in 1968 of Earth rising above the horizon of the moon led to a greater appreciation for our planet and the need to protect it. Yet, many people outside the space community see itas a special interest group, Tyson said.

"Innovation drives economy," he said. "It's especially been true since the Industrial Revolution."

Tyson advocated doubling NASA's budget — which President Barack Obama set at $17.7 billion in his 2013 federal budget request — and then laid out a different approach to space exploration that he called somewhat "unorthodox." Rather than focusing on one destination at a time, Tyson promoted building a core fleet of launch vehicles that can be customized for a variety of missions and for a range of purposes.

"We're kind of doing that now, but let's do that as the focus," Tyson said. "One configuration will get you to the moon. Another will get you to a Lagrangian point. Another will get you to Mars."

Having an available suite of launch vehicles will open up access to space for a wider range of purposes, which will, in turn, benefit the country's economy and innovation.

Tyson compared it with the country's system of interstates, which helped connect cities across the country and made travel more efficient.

"When Eisenhower came back from Europe after he saw the [German] autobahn, and how it survived heavy climactic variation and troop maneuvers, he said, 'I want some of that in my country,'" Tyson explained. "So he gets everyone to agree to build the interstate system. Did he say, 'you know, I just want to build it from New York to L.A., because that's where you should go?' No. The interstate system connects everybody in whatever way you want. That's how you grow a system."

Furthermore, this type of capability can be used for a myriad of purposes, including military endeavors, science missions, commercial expeditions and space tourism.

"Whatever the needs or urges — be they geopolitical, military, economic — space becomes that frontier," Tyson said. "Not only do you innovate, these innovations make headlines. Those headlines work their way down the educational pipeline. Everybody in school knows about it. You don't have to set up a program to convince people that being an engineer is cool. They'll know it just by the cultural presence of those activities. You do that, and it'll jump-start our dreams."

Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Left Is Just as Guilty of Anti-Science as Right

June 6, 2016


There’s a popular notion that liberals are science-minded, while conservatives are the major perpetrators of anti-science rhetoric. But astrophysicist and science personality Neil DeGrasse Tyson says the left is deluding itself.

Tyson appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher last week and said that both parties are hotbeds of scientific idiocy—it’s just compartmentalized into different issues. The context of this debate being that Maher himself is the embodiment of liberal anti-science ideas.

“Don’t be all high and mighty there,” Tyson said to Maher, interrupting Maher’s anti-Repbulican screed. “Because there is certain aspects of science denial that are squarely in the liberal left.”

“I know one, but I don’t want to get into it,” Maher replied, subtly denoting vaccine skepticism.

Tyson lists the anti-vaccine movement, alternative medicine and opposition to genetically modified organisms as examples of left wing  anti-science. Most of these movements were kickstarted by leftist new agers in California, causing serious public health repercussions to the country.

Whooping cough is at epidemic levels in California, babies have died from parents treating their child’s curable illnesses with herbal remedies, and the proliferation of genetically modified golden rice has been stymied by activists.

Maher was less receptive to Tyson’s argument, which is not surprising, as he is guilty of many of the left’s anti-science dumbassery. Maher is a long-time vaccine skeptic, an avid anti-flu shotter, and has made repeated claims about the debunked notion of toxins building up in the body. During the H1N1 swine flu epidemic Bill Maher declared himself immune to the flu because of his superior lifestyle. He even tried to convince David Letterman to replace his medication with alternative medicine not long after Dave survived a heart attack and bypass surgery.

Maher even fawned over Charlie Sheen’s quack doctor, who supposedly treated Sheen’s AIDS with herbal remedies, and did not question the doctor on any of his bogus claims.

Tyson’s critique of the left hit a little too close to home for Maher and his perpetual worldview of “left good, right bad.” Maher and his long history of anti-science on-air advocacy definitely needs a healthy shot of reality.

Neil deGrasse Tyson says this is what you should invest in 'if you don't want to die poor'

May 28, 2016


Our country is in the science doldrums, Neil deGrasse Tyson said at a press conference on Thursday.

The doldrums, he explained, are a region on the earth’s surface where air doesn’t move horizontally.

“It either goes directly down, directly upward, or doesn’t move at all,” he said. “If you accidentally sail into that zone and all you have is wind power, you die there.”

So it’s safe to say that the doldrums are a pretty bad place to be. And considering that many people, including Tyson, consider innovations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to be intertwined with the economic health of the nation, we might want to get out of the science doldrums — fast.

“Everything we know about science and technology tells us that they are the engines of future economies,” Tyson told Business Insider. “They are the seeds of tomorrow’s growth of wealth. I’m not going to twist your arm to get you to like science, but I don’t have to twist arm to make you like money. If you don’t want to die poor you should invest in STEM.”

So how do we get out of these science doldrums?

By focusing on education and getting the nation’s young, bright minds interested in science.

And we’re not just talking about the kind of science you get out of high-school textbooks. Tyson stressed the importance of informal education — school trips to museums, research projects, and participating in competitions.

Research in education has shown that school trips taken in elementary school are remembered long into adulthood, Tyson said, adding that he still remembers a trip he took in second grade to the post office.

“These are the seeds planted within children,” he said. “And those seeds gain taproots.”

The press conference, held at the American Museum of Natural History, announced biotech company Regeneron as the new $100 million sponsor for the "Nobel Prize of high-school science competitions" — the Science Talent Search (STS).

One of the founders of Regeneron, and an alumna of the STS, just happened to be Tyson’s friend and classmate at the Bronx High School of Science.

Although Tyson himself never entered the competition, he said that being surrounded by classmates who participated and won was a point of pride for him. These kids, he said, became heroes in their hometown, just like football quarterbacks or the center for a basketball team.

“The fact that you can do that with kids interested in science is an important first step to reinvigorate the country,” Tyson said. “To turn a sleepy country into an innovation nation.”