Welcome to Star Talk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

Star Talk begins right now. Welcome to Star Talk. I'm Neil the Grass Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist. On rare occasions,

I sit down to interview someone whose presence is so powerful, so entertaining, and so enlightening all at once.

And the conversation that comes out of that encounter is so inspiring that we have to depart from our usual studio format in exchange for some one-on-one time.

On just such an occasion, I sat down with former NASA astronaut, engineer, and physician, Dr. May Jemison.

And that interaction moved us all in Star Talk to break format for this particular episode.

So instead of our usual panel of in studio expert

guest and comedians and scientists, what follows

is my uninterrupted conversation with May from start to finish.

Dr. May, Jemison has been to space,

but that's not the only thing,

or even the most interesting thing about her.

From her early career as a medical doctor in Africa and Cambodia, to her space shuttle mission and now her newest project, 100-year

Starship, she has literally aimed for the stars.

We talked about all of this.

So in this first part of the conversation,

we get to know about May, the life that prepared her to dream bigger than most people will ever dare to dream.

So let's go to that conversation now.

So May, I feel like we go like way way back, but it's only just way back to the 90s, the early 90s. I first met you at a conference where we were advising the head of NASA on where NASA should go and you were there and it was like

wow this wow she didn't only go into space she's like has thought this through. So and you had a whole life after going into space.

I would say congratulations just from what you've assembled here.

Well it's really kind of interesting because so many times people think of of themselves and particularly people who are in the public light is having this single dimension and it's

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