Varying Definitions of “Awesome” | StarTalk
So, what do you, you're impressed that food can come out of a machine? Hot, hot food! You press a button, you just… It's like a real vending machine that you would get chips from. But instead, it's like all these burgers, and they taste disgusting. But the novelty value, it's truly awesome! You just press. But it's hard, may, may, may… You have to see one of these to truly…
May Emily and I study the birth, life, and death of the universe, and I ask you a question about awe. And you tell me a machine that heats a nasty hamburger leaves you in a state of awe? Honestly, you talk about stupid! You should see me standing in front of one of those machines. First of all, it's like this: the choice! You can get cheeseburger, regular hamburger, pickle, no pickles, all these things. Then you just put in, you just put in your… They're so cheap as well! A dollar, and then you just press the button, and whichever one… Often they just get jammed at the end. But you keep going, and eventually, you'll get a kind of a flattened burger out of a machine. You don't have to talk to anyone. No one needs to know you're eating a burger. You can go for a second lunch afterward.
Okay, I’m a little older than you, but when I was growing up, yeah, people were awed by the fact that we walked on the moon. Yeah, no, that, yeah, that’s so…I heard that spectacular, but I mean, but no, there’s no butt in that! Back on the ground… No, back in the ground! You're… It's not a vending machine! We need to do it again. That's the thing, is that we live through this. Are you post Apollo? Pre Apollo, post Apollo? Post Apollo! Post Apollo, that's… and that’s a thing! We have… Why should we believe it, frankly? Do it again! That's what I want to… Do it again! I want to look at the moon while people are walking on the moon! People! Not just… Not just white dudes, but people! Send them up there!
One of my favorite things right now to do—and you need technology to do this—is to know when the space station is going overhead. You can get like an app on your phone, "Where’s the space station?" or you can, you know, NASA websites. Yeah, it's amazing! You see a little, you know, it's hard… You sit there… Be clear, it’s not when the space station is overhead; it's when it's overhead and visible! Visible! So it's got to be overhead during twilight where you are in darkness. But it is high up enough so that it is still receiving sunlight, reflecting it down to you. Yeah, and it's for different places on Earth.
So, I did this the other day, and we watched it. You know, first, you're sitting there, and you're like, “Oh, I feel kind of like an idiot”—like I'm on my front stoop, you know, like staring there waiting for… you know, something… Santa Claus or something like that. But then you see it! It's a really bright thing, and it starts to move. And you're like, “There are people up there right now having coffee!” It's amazing! And this one in particular, it was maybe 10:30 at night or so, and it went away. It went, like, it went high up above, and then it was bright, and then it was just… was gone. I thought about it. Yeah, I was like, “That was sunset!” I was just waving it at astronauts on the space station as they were experiencing sunset! It was so… and we could do this! That's what… that’s what I'm talking about!
Okay, okay, but burgers are pretty good too. In fairness, do we—here? B, you should have asked Emily first!