Neil deGrasse Tyson and Andy Weir Break Down Project Hail Mary

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]So, I want to just compliment you on conceiving of aliens that are not just actors in a suit.

[00:00:07]>> Yeah.

[00:00:08]>> So, so therefore, you have the freedom for them to not be humanoid, which is one of the weakest points of all Hollywood aliens. Well, to be fair, Hollywood aliens are usually not in $200 million movies, right? And so, you've got to you've got to be >> what your movie cost? Yeah. Wow. $200 million?

[00:00:28]>> Actually closer to 250, but we got tax rebates from the UK for shooting there.

[00:00:31]Yeah.

[00:00:32]>> Wow. Nice. Yeah, we better make a lot of money on this.

[00:00:34]>> Well, that's why he's got an expensive Panama hat.

[00:00:36]>> That's why I've got this expensive Panama [laughter] Right.

[00:00:40]So, half of that budget went TO THIS HAT.

[00:00:42]>> [laughter] >> ALL RIGHT.

[00:00:43]>> [clears throat] >> But But yeah, um most of the time, you know, for if you're going to write a science fiction story and you want to tell it in a reasonable budget, like an episode of Star Trek or something like that, >> You get the rubber costume and you put it >> the Yeah, you get the forehead prosthetics. You have the alien be in the same environment. You're good. Um but yeah, with the luxury of being able to do whatever you want, we can have our alien require, you know, xenite barriers, you know, and stuff like that, and be completely non-humanoid. Tell me about the barriers, because your alien requires a different environment.

[00:01:16]>> 29 atmospheres of ammonia. 29 atmospheres.

[00:01:19]>> pressure and ammonia.

[00:01:20]>> And a lot of heat.

[00:01:21]>> Yeah, that's right. Hot, high pressure, and poisonous gases. Yep. So, Sounds a lot like Melania. I was going to say that.

[00:01:31]So, how do you After a lot of tacos.

[00:01:34][laughter] How that the boundary between the regular spaceship and the alien in the spaceship, what was that boundary? It was transparent.

[00:01:45]>> made of xenite, which is a material that is somehow one of the main components of it is xenon, a noble gas that doesn't normally react with things. What I wanted to It makes super headlights because Yes. So Ryland has no idea how that stuff works or how it's made.

[00:02:03]>> Oh, so so so it's a rocky it's a rocky It's it's a Iridian technology. Okay.

[00:02:07]>> And so what I wanted was I didn't want either either species to be like completely scientifically more advanced than the other. From the Iridians point of view we're kind of the advanced aliens because we have computers, we have better technology across the board.

[00:02:22]But Iridians have much better materials technology. So they're material scientists basically.

[00:02:26]>> Yeah, their material science is far better than ours.

[00:02:30]But our like they didn't understand relativity the Iridians didn't they didn't understand >> [laughter] >> We've only known it for about 120 years so don't get so high and mighty.

[00:02:41]>> [laughter] >> But so why was it important that they didn't know relativity?

[00:02:45]>> out flight before we figured out relativity okay so Why was it important that they did not know relativity as a storyteller? Because it gave me an excuse to if you calculate if you assume Newtonian physics which they did they calculated how much fuel they would need to get from their home star 40 Eridani to Tau Ceti and and and for a trip back it was supposed to be a round trip thing. And you calculate that fuel you get a certain number. The real amount of fuel you need to use is considerably less due to the time dilation and and the relativistic effects you have when you're going there. So he ended up with a whole bunch of excess fuel which enables him >> There I didn't catch that. There it is.

[00:03:25]>> Yeah. And so that's the evidence they didn't know relativity otherwise they would have done the proper calculation.

[00:03:30]>> Right. Right.

[00:03:31]>> And Rocky it's in the book but not in the movie Rocky says they were very confused. It's like okay we the the planet was you know the other star was closer than it should be so we slowed down but then it got further away what >> Oh so they're experiencing relativity not knowing what the hell's going on.

[00:03:46]What is going on? Wow. So do you regret that that wasn't in the movie? No that you had to cut things out.

[00:03:52]>> Yeah, so what's what Okay, what cuz you don't have final edit control I presume cuz you're just the author. Well, I'm also a producer, so I had say. But were you executive producer? No, I know I was A REAL PRODUCER.

[00:04:06]WOW. SO, IS THERE A SCENE you felt should have been in the movie? Yeah, my only regret and Drew and I both fought for this. Drew made wrote the adaptation for it.

[00:04:15]>> I saw he's credited in for that. Uh-huh.

[00:04:17]Um Drew the full name? Drew Goddard.

[00:04:19]Drew Goddard?

[00:04:20]>> Drew Goddard wrote the adaptation, did a fantastic job and he and I both wanted this one scene and we just didn't have time for it cuz the run time was going so long. But there's a scene in the book where they nuke Antarctica.

[00:04:30]They basically Back on Earth, yeah. On Earth, they drop they set off a bunch of nuclear explosions in Antarctica to make an entire ice shelf fall into the ocean so that it will melt and release all the methane, which is greenhouse gases, so that Earth will retain more of the heat that it is getting from the sun.

[00:04:47]Because they are because they >> to dim the sun. They're dimming the sun.

[00:04:52]So, wow.

[00:04:54]>> So, they're like we need some global warming. Wow.

[00:04:58]And that's why >> [laughter] >> Are you doing Trump? Is that it?

[00:05:04]Let's see. And that's why It's a mix between Trump AND FAT ALBERT.

[00:05:11]MELANIA, I THINK THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR EAR. Is that it?

[00:05:13]>> [laughter] >> You're doing a pretty gravelly Trump, my friend.

[00:05:16]>> No, if you've listened to him now, that's how he talks.

[00:05:19]So, I'm not doing rally Trump. I'm doing the Trump that talks in front of the cameras and once you know once you know that's quite frankly So, that's something that was not in the film where we don't see Earth descending into Right, and that's also not in the book.

[00:05:39]We see in the beginnings of it in the book. There's issues they're starting to have problems and a lot of their problems are caused by the amelioration techniques they're pro-proactively doing. So, they knew can they're going to things are going [clears throat] to get worse, but then we're going to need that heat.

[00:05:53]>> Yeah. So, we have a we have a mouse problem. Well, let's get a bunch of hawks. And now we have a hawk problem.

[00:05:58]>> [laughter] >> Exactly. That that's the deal. All right, and [snorts] it was a stretch for me, Mhm. if I may.

[00:06:06]You and I are enemies now.

[00:06:08]>> [laughter] >> Go ahead.

[00:06:10]It was a stretch for me to as an academic >> Mhm. to completely embrace the idea that the entire world of biochemists is insufficient Uh. to handle this mission.

[00:06:29]And they need the one guy who has the expertise that no one else has, and he's a middle school a middle school chemistry teacher. Right. So, to be fair, he was a you know, a speculative xenobiologist. He has a PhD. He you know, astrobiologist. So, he'd done that, and then he'd left that field.

[00:06:48]He'd written papers and stuff.

[00:06:49]>> but he wrote the papers. The papers are out there, and other people are still active. And he's no longer active. So, why does he still become the guy?

[00:06:56]Because he's been part of the mission and the mission planning the whole time.

[00:07:01]So, he understands all the other aspects of the mission as well. He knows all about the Hail Mary itself. Oh.

[00:07:07]>> have time to train someone else up on all the other stuff.

[00:07:10]>> Oh.

[00:07:10]>> And he's as well trained as any of the other biologists >> in the in the way they needed to be.

[00:07:16]>> that they need him to be. Okay.

[00:07:17]>> Okay. All right, you got out That's what I'm going for.

[00:07:19]>> Does that work for you? He got out of [clears throat] that one.

[00:07:20]>> Okay, I got to wriggled out of that one.

[00:07:22]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.