E167: Nuclear Rockets, AI Agents & Science Hype | RealClear Science’s Ross Pomeroy

Steven Ross Pomeroy, Chief Editor of RealClearScience, joins the podcast to discuss NASA’s abandoned nuclear propulsion programs, the future of AI and white-collar work, the rise of “scienceploitation,” and how information overload is reshaping human cognition.

GUEST BIO:
Steven Ross Pomeroy is a science writer and Chief Editor of RealClearScience. He writes frequently for Big Think, covering space exploration, neuroscience, AI, and science communication.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• NASA’s nuclear propulsion program (1960s–1970s)
• Why nuclear rockets were abandoned
• Differences between chemical, nuclear thermal, and nuclear electric propulsion
• Using the Moon as a launch hub
• Moon-landing skepticism & conspiracy thinking
• The future of space mining
• AI adoption trends & hidden usage
• Agentic AI vs chatbots
• Job displacement: white-collar vulnerability
• Higher ed, skills, and career advice
• “Scienceploitation” and how marketing hijacks scientific language
• Immune-system myths & quantum woo
• Information overload and Google/AI-driven forgetting
• Critical thinking in the AI era
• The myth of speed reading
• How vocabulary and deep engagement improve comprehension

MAIN POINTS:

• NASA had functional nuclear-rocket tech in the 1960s, but political priorities, budget cuts, and waning public interest ended the program.
• Nuclear thermal rockets are ~2x as efficient as chemical rockets; nuclear electric propulsion could unlock deep-space exploration and mining.
• Space mining is technologically plausible, but its economic impact (like crashing gold prices) creates new problems.
• AI adoption is much higher than official numbers—many workers use it quietly and off the books.
• Companies see low ROI today because they’re using simple chatbots, not advanced “agentic” systems that can take multi-step actions.
• White-collar jobs — not blue collar — are being automated first.
• Scienceploitation hijacks scientific buzzwords (“quantum,” “immune-boosting,” “natural”) to sell products with no evidence.
• We process 74 GB of information per day, roughly a lifetime’s worth for a well-educated person 500 years ago.
• Speed reading works only by sacrificing retention; the real way to read faster is to build vocabulary and deep attention.
• Skepticism, not cynicism, is the core skill we need in the AI-mediated media environment.

TOP 3 QUOTES:

• “It would’ve been harder to fake the moon landing than to actually land on the moon.”
• “Companies aren’t getting ROI from AI because they’re only using chatbots. The real returns come from agentic AI — and that wave is just beginning.”
• “We now process 74 gigabytes of information a day. Five hundred years ago, that was a lifetime’s worth for a highly educated person.”

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