January 16, 2016 6:34 pm

Breaking News: Guests Announced for StarTalk Live! at SF Sketchfest 2016

On January 22, StarTalk Live may be returning to Sketchfest in San Francisco, but we’ve got our sights set on something a bit further from home: Mars!

And we’ve enlisted two of the best tour guides we could ever hope for the evening’s journey to the Red Planet: Dr. Jim Green, NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director, and Andy Weir, author of the best selling book and 2016 Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, The Martian.

Commanding the mission is CEO of the Planetary Society and regular StarTalk Live guest host, Bill Nye. His comedic co-pilot is, of course, Eugene Mirman, but Eugene is keeping his fellow comedy crew members a surprise until launch. UPDATE: Comedian Maeve Higgins will be joining the crew for our mission to Mars!

Tickets are still available for the show, which will be at the Nourse Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. Doors to the lobby open at 6:30 pm, seating begins at 7:00, and the show starts at 7:30 pm. There is no age restriction.

Get your tickets here.

 

One More Thing – And It Involves Winning Free Prizes!

The StarTalk Social Media team will be live tweeting during the show. This year, like last year, our live tweeters will be Heather Archuletta, who normally tweets @Pillownaut and runs the Pillow Astronaut blog, and Stephanie Evans, who tweets @StephEvz43 and runs the STEMulus channel on YouTube.

Heather and Steph are very excited about this year’s show, and right now, Heather is running a promotion over on her blog. You can win a free “2016 The Year In Space” Calendar published in cooperation with The Planetary Society, and featuring an introduction by their CEO and our guest host, Bill Nye. You can get the details about the promotion here.

Plus, Heather and Steph will pick one tweeter who live tweets during the show, using the hashtag #startalklive, to receive a copy of The Martian autographed by author and guest Andy Weir.

It’s going to be an out-of-this-world night of science and comedy. Our SF Sketchfest shows are always great (this is our third year at SF Sketchfest), and some of us stuck here on the East Coast are green with envy about missing our sojourn to the red planet – so if you do make it to the show, please tweet about it so at least we can enjoy it vicariously through your eyes and ears.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons