 This week, TV audiences around the world zipped through the universe during the premiere episode of Cosmos, A Space Time Odyssey. The show, whose premiere was simulcast across 10 US networks and broadcast in more than 180 countries, is an ambitious continuation of Carl Sagan's 1980 classic. And it wouldn't have been possible without Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, a renowned astrophysicist, internet meme, and outspoken science advocate who has the daunting task of stepping into Sagan's shoes. Neil deGrasse Tyson, everyone's favorite astrophysicist, Twitter personality, and now host of Cosmos, A Space Time Odyssey. This is a huge potential audience that you're reaching here. What is the audience that you are hoping to reach out of that just sort of massive pool of potential viewers? I quote the executive producer and writer of the series, Ann Drehan, who wrote for the original Cosmos. It's anyone with a beating heart. And then I got me thinking, well, do zombies have beating hearts? Because I want to get them too. But everyone is the audience, because science is not the purview of a demographic. It's the purview of us all as human beings, as a species who are charged by ourselves with being tenders, people to tend to our civilization. Who else are you going to do it? Is somebody from the outside going to say, oh, fix that and kind of move this in? And let me give you some advice there. Thank you, goodbye. I'll go back to my planet. No, we are here, masters of our own destiny and masters of our own demise. And I noticed, you know, you touch on religion and you touch on faith. And it got me thinking, when you're reaching such a big audience, I mean, do you need to sort of adjust the way you navigate some of those waters, sort of the way you navigate, you know, faith and science in an episode like that? I mean, is that something that you've got into? Navigation implies that there are some landmines that we're avoiding. We are offering science, the world as science has come to reveal it. We are also describing stories of scientists of the past, thinkers, searchers of the past who have arrived at emergent truths. And we show the struggles they encountered upon sharing those truths with others. So the issue of that first episode, which featured Giordano Bruno, our hero of the story, he's, by the way, a monk. He's a monk, a Christian monk. And he dies a Christian monk. He's martyred for his ideas. His ideas were bigger than the ideas prevailing. The issue here is not religion or not religion, because he's religious and he was persecuted by the Inquisition. So it's not religion or non-religion, it's emergent truths about the universe versus dogma. And dogma can manifest in any number of ways. It can be political dogma, social cultural dogma, things your community doesn't want you to believe or accept as true, so you deny it in spite of it actually being true. So in that first episode, he, my favorite line from it is, as he's being attacked by people who are sure that Earth is in the center of the known universe and Earth is the object of God's creation, he's thinking that the stars in the night sky are just like the sun, and if they are, then they must also have planets. And if they have planets, then they might have life. And if they have life, then God is bigger than just God of the Earth, it's God of the universe. This is his idea. So do you want to call that anti-religion? I'm saying it's what happened, and we're presenting it, and it's an idea that was, where they attempted to suppress it, because it conflicted with dogma. Sure. Ended up being a pretty good idea. Really good idea. Yeah. I also noticed in the episode last night that there are these, so many elements that are so true to the original, things like the spaceship of the imagination or the cosmic calendar. Was it important to you when you were coming up with this 2014 edition, or reboot as it's been called, to honor that original? Well, so I think the word reboot showed up in a very early press release, but it's not, it's a continuation of the story. All the stories are new for all 13 episodes. We continue to use some of the potent storytelling tools that were developed in the original series. The cosmic calendar, but now brought into visual effects that are just stunning, as well as the spaceship of the imagination, which got some mixed reviews in its early incarnation. Why is he there? What's he doing? And we were ready to just not even go there until an idea was put forward for what the new spaceship of the imagination might look like. You got to admit, it's bad ass. I don't know if you've seen it. Yeah, I have seen it. It's just bad. It's a bad ass spaceship. But it's a ship that's not just through space. As you will see in later episodes, it goes through molecules and dew drops. It goes wherever we need to go to tell the story that we're telling, and it becomes a literal and a figurative vehicle to enable that storytelling. I mean, obviously you've done plenty of TV, radio, public appearances, etc. How was filming this different or unique or challenging for you? Everything. Everything about it. When you see in the award ceremonies where people are thanking the whole list, that list is a fraction of who really should be thanked. They're thanking the important people who will influence their later lives. But the gaffer and the sound design and the graphic design, it just goes on and on and on. So all of that was novel for me. And it's not something I do all the time. I mean, the next time I'd just rather stay home, let somebody else do it. Really? Yeah, because I was a lot of time away from home, and my kids are growing up, and I want to see them grow up, continue to see them grow up. So it's not like I had two years, yeah, I'm not doing anything else, just book me around the world and film this. No, it interrupted other things in life. So I don't regret having done it. But the reality of it is, it's not something I would do as a career. It's not, oh, I've got five other film projects. No, I'll go back to the lab. I'm ready. After I go to the Bahamas, then I'm going to the lab. Well earned, I think we can all say. What's next? What do you hope to investigate? Well, I hope, yeah, great question. I want to continue to write, which was put on hold for a book and contract and another one half written and another one that's an idea. And I like writing because I'm at home and I can do that. We're in my office. I want to reinvigorate my research program. As a scientist, that's what fuels my energy to even communicate in the first place. So I don't want to ever lose track of that. So I'm happy to just recede for a couple of years, let somebody else, let the press go to other people. And at the end of that, for the viewer, for the audience, what's the call to action here? Yes, there are people, not in this audience, but this audience, would be in the category of people who know they like science. We got that. Then the people who don't know that they like science. I don't think they're watching Verge, okay, because they don't even know that that's something interesting to do. Cosmos will fan a flame that might have just gone dormant within them. I'm pretty sure of that. But then there's the third category of person, the people who know they don't like science. What are they doing? What are they saying? You know, that's not a problem unless that's how you feel and you're in power. Then that's dangerous, because in this 21st century, science matters in a big way. And the people who know they don't like science or cherry pick science to resonate with their philosophies, they are, I think they just don't know what science is. I don't think they learned what science is and say, okay, I'm going to reject that. I think they never knew it. So I'm not here to beat them over the head for feeling the way they do. I'm here to show them something that they might not have ever learned. What science is, how it works, why it works, and what it means for a scientific truth to emerge from the efforts of observations and experiment. And at that point, I think it's harder to turn around and say, while you're on your mobile, on your smartphone, listening to the car GPS tell you to turn left, say, I don't like science. I don't need science. It's like, what? So it's an awakening. And after that, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I'm not going to tell you where to live. I'm not going to tell you anything. But however you decide what your life will be, I think there is no rational argument for you to defend that you want to be less informed about it rather than more. The cosmos is a way for you to become more informed about the role of science in all of our lives. And do you worry that that role has been diminished? I guess I'm talking about it on a federal level. You just mentioned people in power. And I know you've talked before about a need to fund NASA to a greater extent, for example. Do you worry that we're maybe missing out on breakthroughs or new technologies or new scientific truths? Completely. Oh, yeah. And one of the many good things about science, although bad for us here in America, is science crosses borders. No one has exclusive rights to make a discovery. So if America fades, just watch other countries rise up for having done so, for having not done so, for investing in science and technology that they came to recognize and understand are the seeds of the engines of tomorrow's economies. So if we don't, China will rise up, India, Russia, Singapore. Somebody's going to come up and take that slack. So as a scientist, I don't really care. Well, if somebody does it. But as an American, I grew up in an era where we led the world in everything. Everything. It was essentially everything. Everything that actually shaped the 20th century. We invented computers. We invented the assembly line. We invented, look at the things that are all around us now and what role Americans play. We invented television. We invented radio. There were some Italians who thought about radio waves, but radio as a communication, as a means of entertainment. So much of that shaped the century. And I don't want to be on the sidelines for the 21st century. I want to be there. And what about kids? I think this is obviously a show that will appeal to them if they're allowed to stay up and watch it. What should they be taking from this? What do you, not should, what do you hope they take from this? No, kids are already scientists. I think they'll enjoy it. They'll enjoy the visual effects. They'll enjoy the storytelling. We're a storytelling species. We like telling stories and listening to stories. They're already there. I don't have to worry about them. I worry about the adults. And adults outnumber children five to one. Once you are informed by how and why science works, you will recognize that that'll be the center of so many issues that come up, challenges that face our culture, our civilization going forward, on energy and transportation and health, security. And these go beyond just, oh, I can't wait until the next app comes out for my smartphone. These are bigger issues that require major attention and investments. Without it, we'll just, we might as well just move back to the cave. Yeah. That's where we'll end up. And you haven't taken a sip of your... I took, I did take one sip. Of your decoy wine. I did take... See how purple it is? It's what it looks like when it's in barrel. And so would you say that this is a... I would put it away and open it in eight years or so. Eight years. We're eight years too soon. Maybe five. I'll give you five. Five years. I can't wait that long. So what you do is you buy wine and then put it in the closet. And then five years later, you can pull out a five-year-old bottle every time you buy a brand new bottle. I don't know if I have that kind of patience. Yeah. It takes... You have to think about tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. I'm not quite there yet in my life or in my wine collection. So I mean, what kind of wine would you suggest that somebody drink, say, next Sunday when they're sitting down to watch Cosmos? Oh. Oh. Well, actually I have a great quote from Galileo, if I may. Paraphrase. And I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have the exact words. And he would have said it more poetically, but I'll give it my best shot. The sun holds all the planets in their appointed orbits, yet can ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the world to do. Ooh. So on that note, cheers. Congratulations. To Galileo and all those who have wondered about how to turn sunlight into gold.