September 27, 2014 2:47 pm

This Sunday – More Cosmic Queries with Bill Nye, Astro Mike Massimino and Eugene Mirman

May 17, 2009 photo of Astronaut Mike Massimino repairing the Hubble Space Telescope on Space Shuttle mission STS-125.

Astro Mike Massimino, shown here on STS-125 repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, is back with guest host Bill Nye and comic co-host Eugene Mirman to answer fan questions about funding space exploration. Credit: NASA.

Of all the guest hosts we’ve had on StarTalk Radio, Bill Nye has got to be “the king of the forest.” He’s the only guest host who has appeared with two comic co-hosts: Chuck Nice and Eugene Mirman, and he’s guest hosted more than any one else.

In this week’s episode, Bill is again back in studio with Eugene, to answer your Cosmic Queries about funding space exploration.

The two are once again joined by another frequent guest, former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who is now a full-time professor of “Introduction to Human Space Flight” back at his alma mater Columbia University here in NYC. (To be accurate, Mike was at Columbia for his undergraduate degree. He got 4 additional degrees from M.I.T.: two master’s, in mechanical engineering and technology and policy, and a doctorate in mechanical engineering.)

You couldn’t ask for a better team to tackle why it’s important to fund planetary science and NASA. Bill is CEO of the Planetary Society, the world’s largest and most influential public space organization founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, among others.

Mike is the veteran of two Space Shuttle missions to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, and his perspectives on the importance of those missions is unique.

And of course, Eugene is our most experienced comic co-host, with not only more episodes under his belt than any other co-host, but also the co-host of every StarTalk Live! we’ve ever done. (By the way, there’s another StarTalk Live! coming up next week, on Friday Oct. 3, as the kick-off event for NY Comic Con’s Super Week. Announced guests include NY Times bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, and former Daily Show correspondent comedian Wyatt Cenac. Tickets are still available here.)

There’s one other player on this week’s team that must be mentioned: you, our fans. No, not in the cheering from the stands sort of way, but in a much more important way.

This Sunday’s episode is a Cosmic Queries episode, which means Bill and Mike are answering questions selected by Eugene and our producers from those our fans have submitted. (The show’s already been recorded, so please, don’t submit questions now for this Sunday!)

Also, if you’re interested, we grabbed a bunch of “Behind the Scenes” videos from this episode (too many to list here, although not the full episode) and you can find them on our YouTube channel.

Join us for Cosmic Queries: Funding Space Exploration with Bill, Mike and Eugene this Sunday night, September 28, at 7:00 PM ET on our website and iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher and TuneIn.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!

–Jeffrey Simons

 

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