Remember the late celebrated astrophysicist Carl Sagan? An interesting tie exists between science phenom Neil deGrasse Tyson and him besides both having hosted the popular "Cosmos" show begun by Sagan. It's that Tyson met Sagan as a teenager. In fact, Sagan personally invited Tyson to visit Cornell University to convince him to enroll there. Sagan met Tyson in his professor's office on a Saturday, gave him a campus tour, then gifted him one of his books with a foretelling inscription: "To Neil Tyson, future astrophysicist."
Hear this and more in a rebroadcast of WMUK's Earlene McMichael's interview with Tyson that originally aired on April 15 on the WestSouthwest news and public affairs show. He speaks May 22 at Miller Auditorium at Western Michigan University. Tyson is director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.
"To this day, if a student calls me and wants to talk or talk about a future, I will make time for them to the exclusion of all else that might be going on in my life. The president's on the phone? 'Barack, I'll get back to you. I got a student at the door,' " Tyson says. "So, I've had that level of mission statement burning within me ever since then."
Hear the shorter, aired interview here.
WestSouthwest is produced by WMUK, the public radio station licensed to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. It airs Mondays & Thursdays at 7:34 a.m., 9:34 a.m. & 4:20 p.m. You can subscribe to the WestSouthwest podcast through Apple iTunes and Google Music. There you can leave a rating and write a review.
