Learn English Neil deGrasse Tyson Inspirational Speech with Big Subtitles
thank you for that warm introduction but
it requires a couple of clarifications
I’d like to offer that that asteroid
with my name on it before I agreed to
accept that distinction I verified it
was not headed towards Earth because
that would that would be rough right
there
that story Tyson takes out North America
also that People magazine distinction
sexiest astrophysicist alive first
you have to consider the category all
right I don’t not something you get
big-headed about I don’t think indeed my
wife is a graduate of Rice University
and somehow of all the things that she
remembers most what I seem to hear most
about it was Baker beer bike right is
that if that still happens now back when
she was there the official drinking age
in Texas was still 14 so I don’t know
[Laughter]
now why am I asked to deliver this
commencement address I think it’s
because of my association my long
association as sort of a follower and
advisor of NASA and it was announced
that this is the hundredth anniversary
the closing of the hundredth year of the
founding of the school it’s also the
closing of the 50th year of the famous
speech given by President Kennedy in
rice stadium to an audience of audience
of 35,000 people titled we choose to go
to the moon speech that very phrase
appears in the speech and it is followed
by the phrase not because it’s easy but
because it’s hard that speech was
delivered here on the campus of Rice
University that was delivered a year
after President Kennedy announced that
maybe the moon
something we should do someplace we
should go to that was the first
announced in Congress
May 25th 1961 we were spooked into him
saying that six weeks before that speech
the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin
into orbit as I tweeted about a year ago
Yuri Gagarin was the fifth mammal to
achieve this feat after a dog a chimp a
few mice and a hamster but the point
there is in that speech that’s where he
uttered the phrase we will put a man on
a moon return him safely to earth before
the decade is out that’s kind of all he
said about the moon in that speech the
whole plan got laid out the in rice
stadium a year later so you can say oh
we had charisma and will and political
motivation back then until you look at
the beginning of that speech he gave to
Congress three paragraphs both two or
three paragraphs before he says we’ll go
to the moon he says the events of recent
weeks Yuri Gagarin going into orbit if
those are any indication of the impact
of this adventure on the minds of men
everywhere then we need to show the pack
show the world the path to freedom over
the path to tyranny it was a battle cry
against communism people were spooked
NASA got founded a year after Sputnik
was launched motivated by a cold war
climate so what happens
Kent President Kennedy gives us let’s go
to the moon speech in rice stadium a
year later rice donates the land that is
Johnson Space Center that is the seat of
the astronaut program of NASA Rice
University was there at the beginning of
this epic adventure to the moon
now I’ve studied this what drives people
to do things
I’ve looked throughout all of time all
of human time and I found only three
drivers that get people to do things in
a big way one of them is war that’s
obvious to any political analyst war
makes you spend money like it’s a
flowing river even when you don’t have
money you spend the money like it’s a
flowing river war one of the great
motivators of human conduct a next
motivator is money so the first is I
don’t want to die the next one is I
don’t want to die poor all right
two great motivators in the history of
human cultures there’s a third motivator
much less revealed in the world today
and that’s the praise of royalty and
deity that’s what gets you the pyramids
in Egypt and the the church building a
cathedral building of Europe today you
don’t find gods and and Kings driving
major investments so we’re left with
just sort of war and money that’s kind
of what’s going on here but we haven’t
been honest with ourselves about that if
you go to Kennedy Space Center in
Florida there is that section of his
speech we’ll go to the moon before the
decade is out and it’s tense chills up
your spine because he galvanized an
entire nation but what’s missing on the
granite wall behind where this is
chiseled in is the other part of the
speech where he introduces the war
driver
no one ever spent big money just to
explore no no one has ever done that I
wish they did but they don’t so we went
to the moon on a war driver but that’s
conveniently left out in the granite
wall behind Kennedy they could have put
it in and they could have summarized you
kill the commies go to the moon right
that’s what they could have said but
they didn’t that part got cleansed from
our memory so cleansed from our memory
that 20 years after we landed on the
moon
George Herbert Walker Bush wants to give
a similar kind of rabble rousing speech
that Kennedy did July 20th 1989 he goes
to the steps of the Air and Space Museum
in Washington an auspicious day
commemorating the moon landing an
auspicious moment and he puts a lot of
the same language in his speech
reflecting on Columbus voyages and all
the which was driven by money by the way
all the great explorers of the past
saying it’s our time it’s time to go to
Mars
time to go to Mars it got costed out at
five hundred billion dollars it was DOA
in Congress at five hundred billion
dollars but wait a minute that was going
to be spent to over about 30 years you
divide 500 billion by 30 that’s about 16
billion dollars a year that’s NASA’s
annual budget you could have just made
that the trip to Mars but people got
spooked by the money y-you know what
else happened in 1989 peace broke out in
Europe that’s what happened in 1989 the
war driver evaporated no we didn’t go to
Mars no and people are saying oh we lost
our drive we lost our will no it’s the
same will we’ve ever had we just weren’t
threatened it’s a sobering thought but I
had there’s a solution in there I think
there’s a solution how about the money
driver do you realize in the 1960s the
GDP per capita of the United States rose
35% across that decade and it hasn’t
risen that high since in fact in the
twin in the decade of this century
it rose zero percent between 2000 and
2010 had been dropping ever since of
course there’s a lot of complex analysis
related to that but all I’m saying is
one could say that going into space
inspires people you can remove the war
driver and say it’ll boost
economy not just spin-offs you always
have spin offer who doesn’t love a good
spin off but it inspires people to
innovate headlines we’re going to the
moon we’re going to Mars we’re looking
for water we’re looking for fuel we want
to deflect an asteroid these headlines
hit the press and you convert you you
you shape a nation into one that becomes
an innovation nation that’s what was
going on in the 60s everybody was
thinking about the future that was the
bloodiest decade on American soil
since the Civil War a hundred years
earlier civil rights movement campus
unrest a hundred servicemen dying a week
in a cult and a hot war in Southeast
Asia we were in the middle of the Cold
War 1968 the bloodiest year in that
decade - assassinations Apollo 8 an
unheralded mission hardly ever hear of
Apollo 8 the first mission to leave
Earth and go someplace other than orbit
it went to the moon didn’t land but it
went to the moon December 1968 it
orbited the moon came around the
backside they held up a camera and there
was earth rising over the lunar surface
that to this day is the most recognized
photograph of anything at any time of
any object earth rise and there was
earth not as we had ever seen it it was
in display as nature would have you
absorb what it is there was earth
not with colour-coded countries there
was earth with oceans land clouds
do you realize no representation of
Earth before that included clouds no one
thought to think that maybe that miss
fear is part of Earth no one drew that
before so what happens here’s something
interesting over the next four years
1969 70 71 72 73 five years the
following happens on earth the
Environmental Protection Agency is
founded a comprehensive Clean Air Act a
comprehensive Clean Water Act is passed
earth day is founded the organization
Doctors Without Borders is founded where
did they get that phrase without borders
where did that come from
did anyone before that photo think of
earth as a place without borders no what
else happened DDT was banned the
catalytic converter was introduced
leaded gas was removed from the
environment all of this happened in
those five years while we were still at
war something changed about us after the
publication of that photo it was a
cultural response to our presence in
space
it affected commerce it affected how we
treated earth it attract it affected our
outlook it had us thinking about a
future as never before the World’s Fair
in New York City was all about the
future all about the future the World’s
Fair didn’t create that decade the
decade created that World’s Fair and so
you know what happens you go to the moon
you look back and it’s a whole new
perspective a cosmic perspective we went
to the moon to explore it but in fact we
discovered earth for the first time
that takes vision by the way the first
president of Rice University was an
astrophysicist look it up what a private
enterprise they’re there they’re gonna
help out but not gonna lead this you
know why they can’t lead it because
space is expensive it’s dangerous and it
has unquantified risks you put all three
of those under one umbrella it cannot
establish a capital market valuation of
that exercise private enterprise comes
later governments need to do that first
to find out where the trade winds are
map the coastlines of space then private
enterprise comes in that’s how it always
happened that’s how it happened with
Columbus the first Europeans to the new
world were not the Dutch East India
Trading Company ships it was Columbus
funded by Spain in a vision that the
nation had of exploration all of you
will graduate in some kind of major
today a major but you know what your
major is you can boast to what you know
in your major but at the end of the day
it’s actually a stovepipe you you know a
lot about this thing that sits in a
stovepipe but I just described to you
the Apollo program that involved
mathematician scientist engineers
artists artists captured what this
voyage was and the pages of of Life
magazine in Colliers magazine artists
engineers lawyers yes there are lawyers
in there too
it was an entire participation of a
culture an interplay of politics science
technology and who and what we were as a
nation so your diploma is really not a
ticket to show off what you know you
know what it really is it’s permission
to admit to yourself how much you still
have yet to learn and you know it’s
still left to learn all the things that
come together when great things happen
in a nation when great things happen in
a world as I said the science the art
the geopolitics all of that matters all
nothing happens without some touching of
all of those branches of culture there
is no solution to a problem that does
not embrace all that we have created as
a species so I can tell you the original
seeds of the space program were planted
right here on this campus and I can tell
you that in the years since we landed on
the moon America has lost its
exploratory compass but I know the
talent that is seated here because I
have conversations with my wife
I know who’s in front of me right now
I know what legacy means I know what
happened here 50 years ago I know all of
this and I can tell you that now is the
time for you the class of 2013 to lead
the nation as Rice graduates once again
thank you all for your time
[Applause]