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Joe Rogan Experience #2506 - Michelle Thaller

Michelle Thaller, PhD, is an astrophysicist, award-winning science communicator, and retired NASA executive who worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA Headquarters. Her work has appeared in documentaries, podcasts, and television programs on The Science Channel, History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, NPR, and many other platforms. https://www.youtube.com/@mlthaller https://www.drmichellethaller.com

Michelle Thallerguest
May 28, 20262h 37mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. SP

    Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat rock music] I like that.

  2. MT

    Absolutely.

  3. SP

    It's also, there's some things that are so awesome, it's like, "That's fucking awesome." [laughs]

  4. MT

    How, how, I, I was, I was trying to talk about black holes to some high school students just, seriously, earlier this week, and I was, I kept saying, you know, "What the f-," you know?

  5. SP

    [laughs]

  6. MT

    So I, I got nothing to pitch, but I, I, uh, um, I, the Shorewood Men's Club, I was giving a talk there. The Shorewood Wisconsin is where I live. The Men's Club invited me to give a talk about astronomy last week, and when I mentioned I was coming to the show, they just freaked out. And so the only thing I have is my Shorewood Men's Club, uh, uh, uh, water bottle.

  7. SP

    Well, shout out to the Shorewood Men's Club.

  8. MT

    [laughs]

  9. SP

    That's awesome. That's so cool that you give those speeches. I love your YouTube talks. They're fantastic.

  10. MT

    Well, thank you. Wow.

  11. SP

    I have watched probably every one you've ever done. I've, I've watched at least... I mean, how many have you done? I've done-

  12. MT

    A lot

  13. SP

    ... I've watched at least, like, 10 of them.

  14. MT

    Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, pretty much what I did, at, at NASA I did a lot of sort of the science spokesperson stuff. And so, so most of that was, you know, I, I, the, I, I'm more on the NASA videos. I hosted, like, launch events. I haven't done much privately on, on YouTube. I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about starting some stuff on YouTube.

  15. SP

    Oh, you should.

  16. MT

    I'll, I'll... Yeah. I, I, I'll work on that.

  17. SP

    Please.

  18. MT

    Okay.

  19. SP

    100%.

  20. MT

    [laughs] Thank you.

  21. SP

    100%. You've said so many things that made me just go, "What?"

  22. MT

    Ah.

  23. SP

    Like, here's a big one that you said. You were talking about if the size of Earth, if the Earth was the dot of an I in a book, in regular print-

  24. MT

    Yes

  25. SP

    ... that the Milky Way galaxy would be as large as the Earth itself.

  26. MT

    Actually a little bigger.

  27. SP

    [mimics explosion]

  28. MT

    Yeah. So I mean, the, the thing is, this is an interesting thing-

  29. SP

    Wow

  30. MT

    ... about science communication. You say that i- if the, if the Sun were the size of a dot of an I, and you gotta remember, you can fit a million Earths inside the Sun, right? This is a huge thing. So if that's the size of a dot of an I in, on text, then the galaxy would be the size of the Earth. That's when people's eyes get big and people respond to it.

Episode duration: 2:37:31

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