Risk Is Our Business - Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk in Antarctica

Today I rewatched the StarTalk episode they filmed aboard our Antarctica voyage, the one titled Risk is our Business. It hit me again how surreal it was to have that moment happen on our ship, in the middle of nowhere, with the Drake Passage behind us and a wall of ice ahead. Just the sea and three minds who’ve seen things most of us can’t even imagine.

It was Shatner, Scott Kelly, and Neil deGrasse Tyson sitting together, unpacking the weight of human risk, not in the abstract, but as a choice. A necessity, even. Shatner talked about mortality like someone who’s met it and come back with a story. Neil pushed the boundaries of what it means to be brave in the name of science. And Scott? He grounded it all with the voice of someone who’s literally orbited Earth and lived the math behind risk.

It reminded me why we do what we do: to make space for the questions that don’t get asked on land.