Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)

The intention of this project is to stress the importance of advancing the space frontier and is focused on igniting scientific curiosity in the general public.

I give immense credit to The Sagan Series for providing the inspiration for this video.

MUSIC:

Credits

Thank you to user florentgermain for the French subtitles

[StarTalk]

Don't stop dreaming - keep looking up!

[mathieufick]

"How much would you pay for the universe?" - Neil Degrasse Tyson

[Tallacus]

I wish there were more people like Neil deGrasse Tyson

[RobbieKhan]

Thankfully one saving grace is that the younger generation who are growing up seeing videos like this and listening to people like NDT will have the knowledge and access to information like no generation before them and will hopefully make a difference for generations after them.

[nexioseptimus]

"NASA got founded on the fear factor of Sputnik"

People need to remember this history. Too many think that NASA was founded because we had The Right Stuff and were uncontrollably awesome; that we did these things, as JFK said, not because they were easy, but because they were hard.

But the reality is that while we were kicking back congratulating ourselves after WWII, and putting some of the Smart Germans we had acquired as a result of that war to work building The Bomb, Russia had taken the Smart Germans they had acquired and told them to instruct a new generation of Smart Russians. And when those Russians put Sputnik in orbit, we were terrified: were they spying on us? Preparing to drop the bomb on us? (They were doing neither of those things with Sputnik; they were just exploring the newest final frontier.) Eisenhower created NASA on the spot, but we were unprepared in the skills we needed to create the future... we lacked the Smart Americans needed to counter the Smart Russians.

But a few years later the Russians put Yuri Gagarin in space, and (after we changed out of our freshly-soiled shorts) even JFK - a staunch opponent of 'wasteful' space programs - decided we needed to do the only thing the Russians *hadn't* done yet, and put someone on the moon. There was a lot of flag-waving and a surge of national pride, but the real reason we went to the moon was not simply that we were awesome, but that it would be a propaganda coup in the Cold War.

One thing this new commitment to going to space resulted in was a change in our education system. People who started school in the 60s probably recall - likely with a PTSD-induced tremor - learning 'New Math', a grade-school curriculum of set theory, modular math, matrix math, Boolean logic, and non-base-10 math, modeled after the college-level math the Smart Germans were teaching in their effort to make the kind of Smart Russians who could, e.g. put Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin in orbit.

The other result was that people who were slightly older, who had already finished grade-school, and who had an interest in science but were not yet old enough and cynical enough to see JFK's speech for the propaganda it was, heard the call and stepped up to the plate to become the scientists and engineers and, eventually, astronauts that we would need in our glorious new space-faring future. Those people got their university degrees in aeronautics and math and engineering, then showed up to build the space program that would take us to the stars at the exact moment that our politicians turned into bureaucrats and the Cold War died down.

If our space-faring efforts had been based on how intelligent, dedicated, and awesome these people were, we would have colonized Mars by now. But those efforts were actually driven by propaganda and fear, without which we had nothing. Once we were more afraid of stock market crashes than we were of the Russians, nobody cared about space anymore. And the Smart Americans, the people who had heard the call and done the work to become the builders of the future, realized that the dream that had inspired them was just a dream. Most of them have been lurching around in a fugue state ever since... Robert Zubrin, the co-creator of Mars Direct and the creator (and President) of the Mars Society, is basically the poster child for these people, who discovered too late that the focus and idealism that JFK demanded were no longer needed, and had never really been about getting us to the stars. Our goal as a nation was never to go that high; all we really wanted was to get higher than the Russians, so we could resume kicking back and congratulating ourselves on how awesome we were.

[midu]

I love this guy... I watch this video pretty frequently for inspiration...

[jamesyboy]

"HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY FOR THE UNIVERSE" if you asked anyone that they would say "ANYTHING", that's how much we are "not" in control.

[jonsp]

This man deserves to be a worldwide hero.He thinks for everyone.

[DarkTheFailure]

military budget in 1 year: 700 billion
NASA budget in all of history: 650 billion

[DannyWilliamH]

Fuckin tears stream down my face when I watch this and hear him speak about this topic. I'm never sure if it's because I'm in awe or because I'm angry. A bit of both I guess....

[integralsrulz]

I’m tired of saying this but I have to say it again! The NASA budget is 4/10′s of one penny on a tax dollar. If I held up a tax dollar and I cut horizontally into it 4/10′s of 1% of its width, it doesn’t even get you into the ink! SO I WILL NOT ACCEPT A STATEMENT THAT SAYS “WE CAN”T AFFORD IT!”

Gave me goosebumps

[ThePowerfulPanda]

This is immediately one of my favorite videos on youtube.

[MrJwood]

When I first watched this video I didn’t have much hope for the near future of nasa. Now spacex has really stepped up and given us something to dream about. Years ago I was inspired by videos like this and always wanted to contribute to a grand space endeavor and I am now currently working on designing struts for the interior of Starship. Even though it is a small simple part to play, I will always be proud of that and remember it for the rest of my life. Dreams can come true.

[EagleLogic]

As an engineering student I find so much inspiration in this video

[Dave_AI]

Every month or two, I find myself coming back to this inspiring video. Thank you. 

[RYk]

He's like a hundred percent right. The older I become, the more frustrated I am since all the great dreams we had are now abandoned and left to die while all the bad habits I thought we'd overcome already are slowly pouring back into daily life now. We once reached for the stars, now we won't take our view away from the ground anymore.

[Chearn]

I haven't watched this since last year, but even now, it gives me goosebumps. This is such an important topic and if we ignore it we disregard thousands of years of powerful human thought and ingenuity. We must press onward.

[epicbenstudios]

I've been looking for this video for two years now, and it feels so good to see it again.

[joshuachambers]

I've listened to this so many times, I can recite this whole speech from memory on the spot in front of my class.

[ndenicol]

"When you advance frontiers, heroes are made!"  We need more heroes like this...