Learning from Legends
OK, not directly an aviation story, but a touching example of how one can selflessly influence the future.
In case this is totally outside your area of familiarity, the guy talking is Neil deGrasse Tyson, perhaps today’s most well known, and successful, explainer of “big science” (my quote), and considered by many to be the evangelical heir of Carl Sagan. And Carl Sagan is, well, Carl Sagan.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most entertaining, enthusiastic, and totally engaging science geeks of all time. Thanks for sharing a great clip. Much appreciated.
Probably the only significant “celebrity” experience I’ve ever had (other than meeting you, Jack, as well as Dave and Jeb at Sun-n-Fun last spring) was running into Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Dallas airport about a year ago. Thinking that celebrities such as he must be so tired of being acknowledged in public, I still felt compelled to express my appreciation. So I walked up to where he sat, waiting for a flight, and told him only that I knew who he was and just wanted to say I appreciated his work. He smiled and said, “Thanks. Just trying to keep it real,” which, I suppose, is a way of graciously acknowledging my own rather pointless acknowledgement. People like Neil…and Jack and Dave and Jeb, for that matter…don’t do what they do FOR us. They do it because they love it, and we get to reap the rewards of their enthusiasm.