December 14, 2013 9:52 am

Expect the Unexpected: The Season 4 Time Capsule (Part 1)

If there was a unifying theme to the episodes you chose for our Season 4 Time Capsule, it may be this: Expect the unexpected.

Not from the comedians. Everyone expects Sarah Silverman to come up with classic lines like “No Jews on Mars.”

But who could have predicted that, with both Eugene Mirman and John Oliver at Town Hall in NYC, the funniest man on stage would be Buzz Aldrin. And while everyone expected Buzz to talk about what it was like to be the second man to walk on the Moon, nobody expected him to talk about scuba diving, pole vaulting, and filing an expense report with NASA for his trip to the moon on Apollo 11… for $33.31.

Who would have thought that Dr. David Grinspoon, AKA Dr. FunkySpoon, a planetary scientist working with the Curiosity Rover, would admit that before Curiosity landed on Mars, “I wasn’t confident at all. I was shitting bricks.” Or that, “We don’t know how to look for life. We tried that once and we realized we didn’t know what we were doing.”

Equally surprising? Hearing Joe Rogan and Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing science literacy, physics, human evolution, biochemistry, genetic reward systems and DNA.

You’ll even hear Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Planetary Resources and founder of the X-Prize Foundation, admit that when it comes to extracting minerals from asteroids, “If you can’t have ownership, no one’s going to go out there and extract materials and the loser is humanity.” (Which leads Chuck Nice to call him “a real-life James Bond villain.”)

In fact, the only thing you can expect from the Season 4 Time Capsule is that, because you voted for them, you’re going to love every minute of this week’s episode.

And don’t think this week is the end. Given that Season 4 was our most listened to season ever, we couldn’t cram all your favorites into a single episode. In Part 2, we’ll bring you selections from the Cosmic Queries episodes you voted for – but you’ll have to wait until January 5th for those!

You can listen to the StarTalk Radio Season 4 Time Capsule (Part 1) this Sunday, December 15th at 7:00 PM ET on our website, iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!

–Jeffrey Simons