December 14, 2017 9:25 pm

Friday, Bill Nye and Chuck Nice Expand Your Mind

This week on StarTalk Radio the hosting seat belongs to Bill Nye. Joined in studio by comic co-host Chuck Nice, he answers fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on an eclectic batch of questions on the topic of mind expansion – and yes, that includes questions on LSD and marijuana.

The questions aren’t all drug-related. Bill and Chuck discuss how finding life on Mars would impact humanity, if physics can explain why time seems to move more quickly when we get older, and the impact of zero gravity on humans.

However, the subject of drugs does come up throughout the show. We discuss the merit and impact of marijuana legalization, and Chuck shares some personal experiences with pot.

You’ll also hear Bill explain how viewing Saturn through a telescope with your own eyes can be a great way to expand your personal cosmic perspective. I can relate to this in a similar way. Although a bit different from seeing something in person, the first time I saw Al Reinert’s 1989 documentary For All Mankind, I had a similar experience.

The documentary covers NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon and showcases footage from over 6 million feet of archival film – Al Reinert watched all the footage taken throughout the missions and chose the best. The documentary charts the Apollo missions not as separate explorations but as one great endeavor, often showing footage never before seen. The documentary does not use narration and instead uses voiceovers from astronauts who made the journey. There are very few documentaries that capture the sheer fragility and bold adventure of space exploration like For All Mankind. Looking back on my first time watching that documentary, I remember feeling a great sense of vulnerability and awe – an expansion of my cosmic perspective.

Want to expand your own cosmic perspective? Please join us tomorrow night for Cosmic Queries: Altered States, with Bill Nye at 7pm ET right here on our website, as well as on our channels on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. If you’re an All-Access subscriber, you can watch or listen to this episode ad-free at 7pm, too. And remember that you can also listen to next week’s StarTalk Radio episode one week early exclusively on TuneIn, at tunein.com/startalk.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Ian Mullen