Bill Nye on the Remarkable Efficiency of SpaceX | Big Think
Bill Nye on the Remarkable Efficiency of SpaceX
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Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Bill Nye is a lot of things. He’s the world-famous Science Guy, for example. He’s also Executive Director of the Planetary Society and one of the nation’s most fervent bow tie aficionados.
And as you probably know, Bill Nye is a big fan of SpaceX.
There are plenty of reasons for this, not the least of which is how the private space transport company has significantly cut the cost of building and launching rockets. The key to doing so, as Bill explains, was in breaking from a NASA model that traded efficiency for resilience:
“When you build rocket engines in Alabama and you get the fuel from Utah and you test them in Mississippi and you then send them to Florida and control all that from Texas, with some drop testing done in Cleveland and all sorts of material science research done in California, some flight tests done in the desert in Arizona, when you do all that you just add cost.”
SpaceX, on the other hand, handles most of the above at its massive headquarters in Hawthorne, California, before transporting the product to a launch site, thus consolidating effort and trimming overhead. For Bill, the hope is that this and similar processes from other private companies will lower the cost of launching things (and people) into low Earth orbit. NASA is certainly on board:
“SpaceX has taken at least $500 million from NASA because NASA wants to develop this capability… These are commercial rockets and NASA has gone to great lengths to develop that business.”
What really excites Bill is this means relatively inexpensive space travel could soon be on the horizon. He compares the appeal of space to the exhilaration one feels when skydiving:
“Everybody’s dream is to be able to fly… I can see how people get hooked on that. And I think space exploration would be the same deal.”
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@bigthink
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
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@Mucho-Taco
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
He hopes for being able to see earth from space when it gets cheaper. Elon just preformed IFT-5 and yet Bill's X feed issilent 🦗 😒
@cliftonsehunelo9209
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
The only magical thing about NASA is they are good entertainers. You can't close NASA because there is no other excuse to steal tax payers money, nobody has ever been to the moon. The van Helen belt is impenetrable. The glass like ceiling is indestructible. Even Neil Armstrong confessed it because his soul couldn't be at peace with all the lies NASA caused him to be part of. However you continue with more lies by saying you've made contact with mars and puppeteer people's minds with cgi images and cartoon videos.
All you are good at is making rocket fireworks, lies and sci-fi movies to entertain citizens.
@ragnar704
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Hey Bill, when you did your shout out to the free market libertarians and informed them that SpaceX "took" $500M from NASA, you forgot one little detail: NASA took that same money from the free market in the form of taxation.
@eddievargas-o2c
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
No! You sir need to stop talking.
@eddievargas-o2c
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Mechanical engineering degree to show you scientific logic of space!
@shannonjaensch3705
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
When you compartmentalise things….It takes the ownership of Legal repocussion responsibility off of the main business and makes it easier to conceal the fakery.
@tylerlupercio256
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Nice Saturn Pin….
@demo9855
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
ITS LITERALLY CALLED PLANET FOR A REASON BECAUSE ITS A PLANE FIELD AND THERES A NET!!!! PLA-NET
@roland20002000
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
He missed the big point there. Elon Musk worked out how to get the rocket back to earth and land it in one piece so it could be reused. That is how he got space flights down to one tenth of the price that NASA was launching rockets. Which is a big shout for all the free market libertarian guys.
@Emanfullpower
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
nobody went to the moon guys
@vanillagorilla4547
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
The smartest minds in the world are dumb ass shit
@dewdropin2010
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
What rocket did NASA build
@gauravmukherjee2678
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
who is seeing this video in 2022 for first time.. ? , how was it made in 2014 .. 😶😶
@Jeffreylogan74
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Bill is the tool bag of all tool bags. A joke of a scientist. His only achievement being his ability to show his stupid face on tv without killing himself afterwards from the shame. Good job Bill!
@bigdawg9162
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
“I’ve applied 4 times” ahhahahhahahhaha
@bikeman1948
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Kennedy was murdered by his own government
Wake up bill
@Infinite0396
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Guy believes masks and lockdowns are good “Science” and you all still trust him
@MustangKepler
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Call ISRO they will build cheapest spaceflight for you.
@randmayfield5695
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
I've jumped out of a plane and it is indeed fun.
@SwitchSquadGaming
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
This is the same guy that said "the earth is a closed system. We cannot leave the earth. There's no place to go"
@jeep250es5
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
This is all theater, always has been
@amanvijayjindal5742
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
I liked the fact that NASA IS "sarkaari" of America.. a slow and costly (, but delivering unit from global parity)
However, it's strictly CONTROLLED.
@scrapeyhawkins5299
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Hey Bill, aren't you a Engineer?
@chucho2047
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Wasn’t we not able to leave the EARTH ? Now he supports and says that they went to the moon 🌚🌚🌚🌚🌚😮💨
@edwinsalinas2366
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
“The Earth is a closed system. There’s no place to go.”
@TDMMoreThanAMovement
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Wait… "couldn't not, not go"?
@MrApru1
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Bill Nye is a friggin turd.
@HalNordmann
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
IMHO, the reason why NASA seems to innovate so little and is so slow is not because they can waste money – it is beacuse they can't. With their funding, they can barely sustain their current programs, even less trying something new. Innovation, optimization? Too risky, can't afford it. SpaceX can blow up rockets in the name of science, NASA has to beg for every bit of funding. It sounds absurd not being able to afford cost-optimization, and it is.
@TheJacklwilliams
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
THIS IS MY FAVORITE. One, I'm a huge Bill Nye fan and whenever he's showed up anywhere, on screen, in print, ANYTHING. I stop and listen. Truly a defining man of our time. The fact that he brought up skydiving, killed me. I've jumped 125 times so far, and yeah, SpaceX, right there, same thing. Bill alway's has a pragmatic approach, scientific in nature of course given his field but he always doles it out with passion and humor and a sense of humanity. Bill Nye, yeah, this dudes like the Mr. Rogers of Science. How could you not be a fan? His points on NASA and SpaceX dead on and he did it without trash talking anyone. The man has class as well as all of the above. THANKS FOR THIS!
@philswift9431
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY
@shlb3692
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
But he said before that the earth is a closed system, we can not leave the earth, and there is no where to go!!!!
@leahloveslola
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
There is no space the world is an enclosed flat surface and this is a hoax
@georgew.5639
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
What this guy is irrelevant. He’s no scientist. He’s an editorialist.
@jesseibarra5038
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
Too bad the earth is flat .
@vulture4117
January 13, 2026 at 9:07 am
"As soon as Kennedy was shot, we couldn't not, not go." So we couldn't go?
Comments are closed.