Skip to content

Hank Talks to NASA About the Space Shuttle

2011-07-11 · Hank, Charles Bolden, Robert D. Braun, Mike Massimino, Lori Garver · watch on YouTube · Science & nature · news analysis

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

Hank likens the end of the Space Shuttle program to the end of Seinfeld, relays NASA officials on Soyuz launches, commercial crew vehicles and deep-space goals, and argues that human space exploration is a generations-long endeavour that may be his generation's great legacy.

What is said

00:00:00 — Asked how he feels about the end of the shuttle, Hank compares it to the end of Seinfeld; what is the next 30 Rock? He introduces his NASA interviews

  • ★★★ Asked how he feels about the end of crewed space exploration with the final shuttle launch, Hank compares it to Seinfeld ending: maybe the best program of its time. (playful) (hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ In the description Hank says he grew up in Orlando regularly watching the shuttle take off, and it had a huge effect on him. — 00:00:00 · Orlando, Florida
  • ★★ Hank says that as newer sitcoms replaced Seinfeld, the shuttle's time is done; the question is what replaces it ('what is our 30 Rock'). (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says he got to ask questions via video of people at NASA, including administrator Charlie Bolden. — 00:00:29 · NASA

00:00:58 — NASA officials answer: Soyuz from Baikonur, US commercial vehicles in a race, deep space next, faster rockets; Mike Massimino at VidCon

  • ★★ A NASA voice (apparently Bolden) says astronauts will reach the space station as almost entirely since the Columbia accident: on Soyuz from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. — 00:00:58
  • ★ Hank calls relying on Soyuz not ideal and asks what comes next, given Soyuz will be used for the foreseeable future. (hedged) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Bobby Braun says a whole host of American vehicles, being designed now by competing US companies, will carry American crews; he cannot say which will fly. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ A NASA voice (apparently Braun) says NASA will turn its attention to deep space, places not visited before, while low orbit remains a fantastic laboratory. — 00:01:57 · NASA
  • ★★ Mike Massimino says the first thing he wants is faster rockets with more powerful engines to get beyond low orbit and further into the solar system. — 00:02:26
  • ★ Hank notes, playfully stressing the coincidence, that Massimino is speaking at VidCon about social media and outer space. (playful) (hedged) — 00:02:26 · VidCon

00:02:55 — Hank on why exploration excites him: built for Earth but built to explore, a generations-long legacy; Lori Garver's final word

  • ★★★ Hank struggles to explain his excitement: humans, created by and built for Earth, are just poking their noses out of the pond, drawn out by an instinct for awesome. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank says solar-system exploration is measured in decades or generations, not fiscal quarters, and is not done just for us, which he finds beautiful. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank says the science needed is massive, but we undertake it because, though built for Earth, we were also built to explore. — 00:03:24 > «We're a slave to the awesome.»
  • ★★★ Hank says NASA's crewed exploration program might become one of his generation's most significant legacies for humankind. (hedged) — 00:03:24 · NASA
  • ★ Lori Garver gives the final word: NASA is excited about the future and is all about increasing the awesome. (playful) — 00:03:24 · NASA

Threads in this video

BR2_a113c0902b