Welcome to StarTalk.

Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide.

StarTalk begins right now.

Welcome to StarTalk Radio.

I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.

For our show today, I'm going to break form out a bit.

Normally, there is a professional stand-up comedian right to my side, serving as my co-host.

And we banter in chat about the science topic of the day, reacting to interview clips

that I've slotted into the show of special guests that I've collected over the previous

days.

In this particular case, I want to present to you straight through an exclusive one-on-one

conversation that I had with actress Nichelle Nichols.

That name is no stranger to the geek set among you out there, but for the rest who need

a little bit of extra info, she is the legendary icon who played Lieutenant Uhuru in the original

Star Trek television series.

That series was created, as many of you know, by Gene Roddenberry, and it was groundbreaking

on many fronts.

For me, the most important feature of that show was that the deck of the Starship Enterprise

was international.

Lieutenant Uhuru herself represented, again, this is the future, the United States of Africa.

Not only was she there, but there was representation from Asia, from Europe, from the Americas,

and even planet Vulcan, of course, in the guise of Spock.

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