Neil deGrasse Tyson and Audience

Neil deGrasse Tyson's love of science and space becomes obvious from reading and watching these two pieces. While both of these pieces cover similar topics, The Astronaut Session is catered to the average audience. In this video there were non-professionals, specifically comedians, who ask questions and played the role of the casual average listener.  This radio program has a large audience who generally watch it to be entertained and learn a thing or two. At the beginning of the video, Tyson says the goal of StarTalk Radio is to “bring the universe down to Earth”, which further speaks to the target audience of casual viewers with little background knowledge on the topic. Throughout the video, they talked about previous manned space missions.  After all of this Tyson brings up the future of space exploration, and this is where he touches on the main points of his other piece, The Case for Space. This is where we find what these two pieces have in common, which is concern for America’s role in space exploration. In both Tyson points out America’s true driving force behind NASA funding and exploration was extrinsic motivation by competing with other countries.  When Tyson speaks about this in the video, he only does so briefly.  In The Case for Space, Tyson expands on this point for a more professional audience.  The goal of this piece is not to entertain, as with the other piece, but to inform.  Tyson speaks about the politics of space, Presidential promises, and the benefits of space exploration to Americans on Earth, all things that were not in such depth in the video.  Here he includes facts and statistics, all of which are appropriate for the professional academic audience.  Tyson adapts perfectly to each of the target audiences of these pieces, both achieving a similar goal.  To open the audience’s eyes to why America is motivated to explore space, and how that will affect space travel looking into the future.