The return of Cosmos, National Geographic Channel and Fox continue the legacy of the iconic Carl Sagan series with Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey hosted by the cel

SINGAPORE — In 1980, televiewers set out on a journey through space and time via the late Carl Sagan’s landmark science series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which got broadcast in over 60 countries and watched by more than 750 million people worldwide.

Three decades after, the saga of the Cosmos continues as National Geographic Channel and Fox combine forces to bring about Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a 13-episode documentary series with “science superstar” Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson as the worthy successor to Sagan.

Also on board is the team behind the first series led by Sagan’s wife Ann Druyan (who also co-wrote the original Cosmos) plus more: Executive producers Brannon Braga of Star Trek fame and writer/director/actor Seth MacFarlane (yes, a seemingly odd collaborator on the series, but it appears that the Family Guy creator is a hardcore science geek as well).

The STAR had a sneak preview of the opening episode during the Asian press launch at the Art Science Museum in Singapore, one of the stopovers of an ongoing world tour, attended by Dr. Tyson and Druyan. The sequel promises an exploration of the universe in a grander, more cinematic and farther-reaching scale with upgraded versions of the “celebrated elements” of the original series, like the Cosmic Calendar and The Ship of Imagination captained by Dr. Tyson. 

According to Druyan, they really hope to “awaken” that sense of awe and wonder among the new generation of viewers (and inspire future Carl Sagans and Dr. Niel Tysons), the same way its predecessor captivated the curious minds of its time via the stunning storytelling that accompanied the exploration of the stars, the planets and the universe. 

It must have been written in the stars that Dr. Neil has been chosen as the face of the Cosmos reboot. As a teenager, Dr. Tyson met the “popular science luminary” who immediately took an interest in the future astrophysicist after reading his college entrance essay that indicated he wanted to be a scientist. “I already knew what kind of scientist I wanted to be, but that day with Carl, I learned the kind of man I wanted to become,” later wrote Dr. Tyson, who was once voted by Time as 100 most influential people in the world and by People as the Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive.

Like Sagan in his time, Dr. Tyson, who has 19 honorary degrees, has been touted as the best science communicator to date, having no trouble “simplifying” heavy and heady scientific stuff to regular folks.

To date, Dr. Tyson has authored 10 books, including the New York Times bestsellers Death by Black Hole and Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. He’s also a favorite guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He also hosts a widely-followed radio show and podcast titled Startalk. He is the first scientist to attract the most following in the social media sphere, and when The STAR sat in a roundtable with Dr. Tyson at the Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey press junket, it wasn’t diffcult to see why.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

How do you feel about being tagged “celebrity scientist” and “sexiest astrophysicist”? 

“I’m astonished by it. I’m astonished that a scientist could have that level of celebrity. That’s hopeful for me, for society, whether or not, it’s me. It’s a test, can a scientist have the popularity of other people who would be that popular but are not scientists, that are popular all the time like actors, musicians? So, in my Twitter feed, this week it rose to 1.7M followers. Every morning, I wake up, ‘A scientist has 1.7M followers,’ so I’d say to myself it must mean that there’s an inner curiosity that people have because for the number to be that large, that is bigger than just the geeks (laughs). You can’t get that with just the science geeks. There has to be other folks in there, too. And so that gave me so much hope, so much expectation, that a project such as Cosmos will reach out of the science ghettos, and touch the public.

“So, I’m enchanted by this fact, not personally, but I’m also happy to report that in many of the cases, I get stopped by a stranger in the street, ‘Aren’t you…?’ I would say, that half the time, after I say yes, that they’d go, ‘Can you tell us more about black holes, about the edge of the universe?...’ I’m just feeding them. I’m not their destination, their destination is the actual universe, and that’s a beautiful feeling for an educator. I don’t want to be the object of their (interest)… With the sexiest thing, that’s on the road for all of this, maybe people have these emotions for science but they never thought of how to express them before so it manifests in some other kind of way. But I think it bodes well for society.”

How do you think the series will capture the imagination of the digital-smartphone generation (with the attention span as fleeting as the per-minute tweets, Facebook posts, etc.)? 

“Some people blame social media for people not having any other ambitions. They just focus on their devices all-day long and never look up. The urge is to blame social media but I look up to it differently. You shouldn’t blame the social media, you should blame the absence of other forces that are strong enough to take their attention. And I’d like to believe that Cosmos might be one of those forces where they’re thinking about space, all kinds of spaces, and one of these spaces we entered is the dew drop so that’s not the rest of the universe, that’s a different aspect of the same universe.

“The visual splendor, the storytelling, the fact that it’s 13 episodes, I’d like to think that people can take their dreams from who did they just friend on Facebook to what is before us in our future and how we can make a difference in that future and empowered and enlightened by the methods and tools of science, and yes technology. So, yes, we surely be talked about in social media but I’d like to think it has an uplifting force for people to think big.” 

Why is it important to study astronomy? Why should it be given importance in the educational curriculum?

“When I went to school many, many moons ago, there was no astronomy at all. We didn’t learn about stars, the galaxies, the moon or the night sky; I think the educators of the day (felt) that learning about earth was more important. Now, of course, earth is very important but I do feel strongly that if you think of Earth as only a place you live in rather than a planet among many, or orbiting a star among many, in a galaxy among many, you are deprived of a cosmic perspective that can completely shape your life and outlook and how you value life, other humans, nature, future and the species. So, I think it’s a mistake to leave out the discussion about what the rest of the universe is.”

It seems that there’s no talk on science without touching on religion. Do you think science and spirituality can be compatible?

“The conflict, if you really look closely, comes about not simply because someone is religious. The conflict comes about when you use your religious text to try to understand the physical world where things don’t end up matching. There are many people, enlightened religious people who recognize that they don’t match and therefore don’t use their religious text as science textbook.

“Galileo, I think was the first to recognize this, and he’s credited with this very clever saying, The Bible tells you how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go, so he was the first to say, wait a minute, there’s a difference here. Enlightened religious people, even the modern-day Catholic church…they recognize evolution is real, they recognize the age of the universe, so it doesn’t stop people from still believing in their Savior specifically.

“But what people may find is that when you’re exposed to the universe as revealed by methods and tools that were hard-earned in our cultures and societies, thinking scientifically doesn’t appear to be a natural thing, I think that’s why it took so long to develop what it is to make an experiment, test the observation, we’ve been doing that for 400 years or so, given the time humans have been around, that’s yesterday.

“Religion has been around very much longer so it’s hard to presume everyone will just say, oh let’s all just do science. There’s an intersection of the two where, if you see the wonder of the universe, that can be spiritually fulfilling.”

You met Carl Sagan as a teenager. Did he give you any advice?

“No, he didn’t give me specific advice in the way you might think. Instead, he was influential by example and in some ways that can be more potent. The fact that he wrote to me unsolicited (after) the Admissions Office at Cornell University where he was a professor shared with him my application to college. My application has already established my interest in the universe and they wanted his  reaction to that application. His reaction was to send me letter. That is an advice unto itself. It says that if you were that famous and that significant on the scientific landscape, there’s a very deep sense of humanity in you; a very deep sense of torch-passing that you possess to even conduct yourself in that way.

“And then he met me on campus and gave me a tour and spent all this time with me, whom he has never met. And then drove me back to the bus station and wrote his phone number. That in a way is advice on how to be a human being. That advice is taken with me ever since.”

(Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey will premiere simultaneously on National Geographic Channel and FOX on March 12 at 10 p.m.)