Bill Nye did not imply that humans can’t go to space. This quote is out of context.

Did Bill Nye "The Science Guy" prove that space exploration is impossible? A quote he said in 2015 has resurfaced on social media and been linked to conspiracy theories questioning whether the International Space Station exists. 

A July 25 Instagram video showed Nye saying, "Now one thing I really want your generation to embrace is that the Earth is a closed system. We cannot leave the Earth. There’s no place to go."

It was followed by an excerpt of comments made during an April 4, 2023, meeting of the Brevard County Commission, during which an Orlando, Florida, resident asked the commission to investigate NASA, claiming the agency used "Hollywood techniques" to fake footage of astronauts in space.

Text in the video read, "It’s about to go down yall. Once this reaches the mass it’s over." 

The post’s caption also read: "As he said it’s a CLOSED system. Ppl know that they lie to us all the time. They just pick n choose what to believe."

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Nye did not imply that humans cannot go to space. The quote was lifted from a 2015 video in which Nye answered two questions from a Columbia University student. 

The student asked about the downside of shooting trash into space and why it isn’t being done if it would clear up space on Earth and reduce pollution. Nye answered, "Why we don’t throw trash into space? Because it’s too expensive." 

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Nye said, "Lifting a ton of material into space takes an extraordinary amount of rocket fuel."

He then said the quote cited in the Instagram post about Earth being a "closed system" but added, "There’s no place to throw your trash."

On multiple occasions, Nye has expressed skepticism about settling outside of Earth, saying, "We can’t live anywhere else in the solar system" and people won’t "settle on Mars."

But Nye has acknowledged discoveries made through space exploration. In 2020, he told Space.com, "It's the exploration of space that led to these profound, profound improvements for quality of life for so many of us."

We rate the claim that Bill Nye’s saying "the Earth is a closed system" suggested that space exploration is impossible False.