Dude is the shit. Watched his interview on The Daily Show, and this is one entertaining, and knowledgeable guy. Nice to see a fresh face compared with all these other talking heads on cable news.
The Obama and asteroid reference was hilarious.
Did you see The Daily Show the following night? Jon Stewart described the gift bag they give to guests as including a candy bar, bottle of liquor and a Rubik’s Cube. He then said that Tyson sat there until he solved the puzzle.
I was commenting on this to a friend yesterday. Between his interview and John talking about the Rubik’s Cube, I’ve got nothing but admiration for the guy. He’s extremely quick, intelligent, and witty. And he’s a geek, for only a geek would solve a Rubik’s Cube in that situation.
I did. Thought that bit was great too. Good followup.
And he solved that troubling gravity problem they’d been having in the men’s room.
Fresh face? He’s probably been on the Daily Show more often than anybody but John McCain. 
Just as a hijack, Stewart mentioned that Tyson was being considered for the position of administrator of NASA. I hadn’t heard this before. If true, I think it’s a bad idea. It’s similar to giving the surgeon general position to Sanjay Gupta. Both men are well-known, articulate scientists, but I don’t know that they are good administrators. To the extent that both positions (surgeon general and NASA administrator) involve communicating with the public, they will be good for the job, but the Public Health Service (6,000+ employees) and NASA (thousands of employees and a multi-billion dollar budget) need capable managers.
True. Not exactly a fresh face. But one of the best all-around guests on The Daily Show. The guy is obviously VERY knowledgeable and has this rare gift of communicating science in an unpretentious way.
For whatever it’s worth, he’s been the director of the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan since '96. It’s hardly on the scale of NASA, but it’s not like he has no administrative experience.
I loved, loved, loved the hate mail from third graders. And then they skewered the hapless stupidity of the New Mexico legislative body. Wonderful.
He’s cute, too. I was at a party last night and TDS came up–the woman I was talking to said “that astrophysicist was hot!” Made me laugh–he is good looking, on top of everything else.
I actually know a few higher-ups in the space community who did not care for some of the decisions he made at the planetarium. So he’s not universally revered. Good interview though.
Is any higher up universally revered by those whom s/he leads/bosses/administrates?
Um, no. Don’t recall saying that. He just seemed rather revered in this thread.
He’s always seemed a tad “over slick” to me, but not too much.
On this TDS appearance he went full goofy*. Doing it for the larfs. Enjoyed it.
(*I’ll take Disney dogs for 200 Alex.)
True, I know he’s been around a while. “Fresh” in the sense that everybody on television today seems like a putz. It was a lively interview, and we don’t see much of that today. So it was nice.
Check out his books.
Really neat stuff written in a very accessible manner.
Appreciation threads are like that.
Nobody accused you of saying that either.
I find this absolutely hilarious. I watched the show and immediately googled him, I’ve had his page open since then. I told my girlfriend who has two young boys about him.
I even mentioned to my husband what a great guest he was. So often, the guests don’t really “get it.” Boy howdy did he get it. The third grader stuff killed me.
I’d also like to point out that if anyone gets to go on the Daily Show and NOT get it, and bore the ever loving tears out of everyone, an astrophysicst is probably in my top 5 list. In other words, I would have walked him to first, but instead, he certainly hit a home run. Administratively, I have no idea if he would be a good fit for NASA, but public relations wise? Hell, I’d donate. And yes, he was a handsome devil too.
I’m so getting the book on Pluto.
Not for nothing, but Gwen Ifan was awesome the prior night also.
Gwen Ifill.