Transcripts For CSPAN2 Amazing Stories Of The Space Age 20170403

Best recent overview of Mars Missions by washington post. And destination mission to the moon. For the History Channel and Discovery Communication including the widely praised apollo 11 assistant professor at the university of laverne and lecture with nasa johnson spacer in want to ill present stories of the stage that features plenty of his favorite tales from golden age of Space Exploration and welcoming fred. [applause] thank you very much. Normally i kind of dance around a bit while im performing these things but because theyre taping tonight and we have a weird microphone set up im going to stay with the podium so ill be going back to my professorring days at the university of laverne. Thank you for coming. I know it is rough getting here on a weeknight. I used to drive to ucla when i was 18 years old in 30 minutes from pasadena. And i thought that was irritating and last time i did that drive it was two and a half hours so i appreciate you going through what you went through. Let me go back to my, there we go. The space age has a long story behind it and i wont bore you but ive been writing about different parts of the space age and history in general for 13 years before that i spent about a decade working in television mostly in documentaries i worked on star trek for a while. But mostly on documentaries and i would constantly come across cool stories from the 40s, 50s, the 60s that i only heard little bits about sometimes it is just because they wrnght very commonly written about this was before the internet. So it was a long file card drawers used to pull out at the library. Other times it would be something in a magazine. Other times something that was class fid and only little bits of it that you could find but id see these and think i want to make a tv show about that. So i wrote up this show proposal called secrets of space which you need to have a reverb to do proper orally and got closed a couple of time us but didnt get it done. After working on that for a while i thought this would be more opinion to do as a book really because theres just so much stuff to tell and i like to talk a lot as youll soon find out. So i did as a book quote to pick it up. Third book together, and it came out about two months ago and it is selling briskly thank god. And because youre here i know it is beginning to continue selling tonight. So if i want to frame this by just setting up space age for us. I see a few faces out here thank god who remember the space age like yods. Not always the case. Sometimes i talk to people with 30s going what is this guy talking about . When men landed on mars is that what he means. So we remember both of us that United States had a Space Program that started in early 1960s we land on the moon in 1969 coming up on 50 years ago. And in between that, we have the mercury program. Gemini Program Space shuttle now space station and the private tears. Thats the Space Program that we had. Most of this book isnt about that. There are few chapters about Space Program that we grew up with and remember and note incidents like almost having is an engine accident plosion on lunar module after it landed which i didnt know about until six years ago. Most of this is about Space Programs designed in the 1950s and 1960s primarily bit militaries of the world who will had a slightly different vision of what they thought we ought to do. From the start with a brief piece just to reorient us to space age and a little bit of what might have been. There it is islands in the pacific where man is dedicated to just one cause, with a conquest of space. Our spaceship towards the firing site. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 r1 your cutoff altitude 62. 9 miles. So that was a clip from that other Space Program that they were talking to us about in the 1950s i thought the floating pencil was a nice touch from a disney show. In 1954, i think called tomorrowland. So our ideas about space were very different than they turned out to be. And there are a lot of good reasons for that. Principle among them was the fact that at this time this shortly after the end of world war ii we were sort of writing the top of this technological and soon age of the United States. But we had an enemy across the ocean and that was the ussr soviet, russia and theres a lot of concern about, about this standoff we had had since the end of world war ii and ceased allies quote unquote it was never that uncomfortable but we tried. So there are a number of alternatives to what nasa plans would become and starting in 1958 and most of them partially military in nature and whole idea in general terms space was the high ground. We have to get it first before the russians do. So depending on which branch of the military you talk to they have different plans and armys case it was this was high ground we go for high ground you have to go on top o of the mountains to shoot down bad guys so we have to take space. Federal government give us the money and well charge. The air force said no, no, we fly things we know how to use guidance system, wings all of that propulsion so we should be ones to go and air proposal slightly weaker case saying no we do support for month at a time and High Pressure and we know pressure is moving the wrong way but you get the general idea so we should go to space to all three branches of the merle formulated various plan and same thing going on in the soviet union. Where part of the army team up until the joined nasa formed in 1958 really didnt care which branch it was as long as he was with it. He was kind of militarily morally agnostic you might say. His favorite quote my favorite quote of his comes from early days as u2 rocket of germany but landed on the wrong planet he was a great engineer and incredible leader. And he was going to get no matter what. So just to finish setting up this era, end of world war ii name at least allies with the soviet union. Weve had Nuclear Weapons since 1945 we used them in anger twice at that point and japan, ussr new clear weapons since late 40s and in 1953 western government arent happy about this. One bright point in this otherwise very scary standoff is that you still have to deliver u Nuclear Weapons by bomber at this point hay dont have missiles yet so you have to load them in the bay of your big lumbering plane or large jet or Fighter Bomber fly them all the way to russia and they have to fly theirs all the way over here and slow and shot down all kinds of interventions to take place but what if you can drop them on unsuspecting nation below that became a very scary thing so this was the era that i grew up i was born in 1956 and none of you probably remember this a brochure to survive a Nuclear Attack and in the reagan years byline burger who famously reminded us all if we dig a hole four feet deep and under the kitchen door and put 18 heaps of dirt on top of it you could last for three hours. It is not practical but i suppose it would wok. So this was the kind of thing that was going on when iftion a kids. We have turtle doing duck and cover drills and this when i was watching film strips was burt had had his shell all ive got is this shirt an that is not the same so burt and stuck of dynamite showing how to survive a Nuclear Attack and some of you may remember teachers convince us that a quarter inch would protect us from a 5,000 nuclear fireball. Part this doesnt show is past to Public Schools was all of the classrooms had these florida ceiling windows. So youre under your half inch there looking at this big huge sheet glass window thinking isnt that bomb just going to shutup. Get under the desk. So that was a little frightening. So that was the thats the setting if you will of the kind of stories were talking about so the first one of my favorites is the u. S. Army plan to put a bis on the moon this was called project horizon. And this was turned into the Eisenhower Administration in 195 it was a very short study i think it was four to six months was part of this. I dont think he was he was as inti patly evolved as he would have liked to have been because if you read this and i have read it a couple of time it is didnt show dangs to detail but the general idea was that we needed to build a base on the moon before the russians got there because you could do science. You could kind of hold that piece of real estate against invasion and oh, by the way were not going talk about it too much but put Nuclear Weapons there and aim them at earth two and a half three days to get there but that was certainly a consideration. Heres the moon base, this proposal was graphically challenged bear with me as god as illustrations get. Thats not me thank goodness. Still you can see here the general idea was they were going to dig these tremplegs trenches and have a lunar base on surface using number of large rockets the largest at time anyway so this was the u. S. Army. First flight would be in 1965. They were going to sends three men up in a rocket and when i say rocket they didnt have the saturn five yet this was 1958, 59 so smaller rocket are at the time. You had have to fly into orbit leave fuel up there. Fly another one up. Cross feed fuel and take off for the moon. Land directly none of this rendezvousing that apollo did like straight up to the moon. Do your thing. Come back. First three guys spend 90 days reckoning with the surface because we had near seen it through nying beaters than a telescope at this point so select the landing sight or assembly sight to the base. And then going to fly upwards of 100 to 130 cargo runs with rockets. 130 not the 16 that we flew with apollo but 130. Launching out in Little Island in central pacific. But could launch from Cape Canaveral but along the air force said no ship everything down to Christmas Island in the carolina islands and watch from there thats how they work. So big plan, big ideas. Theyre going to do cargo run and then send 9 once they decided where to put this and dumped module there they needed to send nine people up. Nine men, of course, the 1950s in the army. And they had 15 days to dig these trenches put together their block attack and crane and build moon tractor. Move everything over. Drop them in trenches shove them together. Seal them up. Connect wires, build kitchen, bathroom, build bunks, build office they have a Battle Center in there. Get their weapons situate and ready to go and then they start flying crews and rotation. So needless to say a little bit ambitious. The crew are between 12 and 20 soldiers and they were soldiers there was anything good about this besides just Blind Ambition it is that it would have been open ended program and we might still be there something we didnt get with the Apollo Program but best im saving the moon soldiers because you cant have a army moon base without soldiers these arent astronaut it is these are soldiers so the moon soldier in full combat getup during dier times. Which i think my favorite part these arent ice skates. These are large foot pads because we didnt know how much dust there was on the moon afraid he might step in a crater disappear up to his antenna so that wasnt too good and they have ways to deal with bodily functions heat radiator and then that was kind of all they marked up on there. Im not sure it was so incomplete but thats what had the soldier are of 1958, 59 is wearing needless to say that wasnt quite how he did it. But soldiers on the moon youre going to have weapons and they were concerned about using side arm and rifles for a couple of reasons. One was in the moon concerned if you were shooting 45 pistol which was what the army used then. In a vacuum metal might cease up to temperature or like metals rubbing up against each err no air the smoke might collect in front of the gun but favorite concern was if using a rieflt just the righting a with caliber of bullet you might fire and goes around the the room and hits you in the back of your helmet so thats very bad so decided rather thanking having something silly leak that lets have a Nuclear Bazooka a good weapon to use against invading red soldiers over the crater so davie rocket complete with instruction book on the rooght and warhead under a can kiloton they move about ten, 15 kiloton so you get the the general i had a big expolitician and they have a range of 2. 5 to 3 miles so wasnt accurate but talking Nuclear Explosion that doesnt matter. So they set this up. Set trigger down behind rocks and hope they dont get swept up in the nuclear blast. Mow if youre going to deploy they did send to europe during 1960s and reused them but basically this was a large backpack device. If youre going to have these you have to test them so a test in sunny day in nevada bang, of course, the thrill physicist with dark sunglasses watching this get radiated with 8 million equivalent of their yearly xrays. So we knew that it worked. That was good. The other weapon they wanted to have on the moon was the lunar clay mother they repurpose which was widely used in the u. S. Up through well at least through vietnam. And youve got to love anybody ever in the military . Okay. Its good to have instructions on somethings front towards enemy is my favorite just so you dont get it backward which is important when you think about it. So this is filled to plastic explosives 700 soft metal bulbs in it bads enough on earth to get hit by one of these things you can see from here quit a blast radius but on the moon of course you dont have to kill anybody but tie up two or three guys dragging them off the surface so this was really kind of an ideal moon weapon if youre into that kind of thing. Tested they did a test vacuum with it. It worked very well. Unfortunately they didnt anywhere to take it. But as if that wasnt enough a few years later, after this project have been shelved it was turned into Eisenhower Administration in 59 and my understanding although it is not written down quite as such was took office and gave them youve got to be kidding me kind of looks he was a big fan of civilian Space Program and wanted to see despite his background or possibly because of his background in world war ii he didnt want to see it extended to spies and wisely he said were going to have civilian base ram. But that didnt stop rock island armory arsenal. I get them mixed up. Who put out this study in 1965, i never did find the name of the person who wrote it. But called meandering of a weapon orr oriented mind applying it to problem of a vacuum not brain to a vacuum this was a study complete with a couple of well dressed lunar soldiers here and flying tank or something over o there. About what kind of side arms you might want to use on the moon because recoil could be a problem as we discussed but a buck example there were six of them. I took my favorite two. This is pelt or dars down here, it is roughly the power of a 22 pistol for anybody who ever had one of those or very, very powerful pellet gun. I dont know why it has heat on here no reason to have them but it looks cool and proposing moon weapon in 1960s why not make it look cool so this was the thin stabilized microgun by compressed air or springs my personal favorite is the sausage gun which has 19 little holes here. And it can be used interchangeable with either rocket profelled pellet or rocket propelled bullets that spin as they go. Spin stabilize, and the convenient pen clip so you can put it in the flight suit going to talk peace terms with russian commander you can whip out your sausage gun and negotiations very quickly. So this was the as i said these are two of six the other one got progressively weirder but idea was if youre going to have a moon base you have to have your special moon weapon. Thankfully these were never done. Just to close on project horizon, these things always have come with a price tag right if youre going to propose Something Like this you have to have some generally maybe kind of realistic idea of what it is going to cost. Now we know project iowa poll lea because a matter of history, eleven flights plus test cost between o 20 and 24 billion depending how you slice it in the money of that time. Project horizon was going to have 150 fights plus with the development and the base down in the in the carolina islands, and a fully running Permanent Moon bis so ports for 6 billion because afterall how hard can it be . So they underbid a little bit and government contract so those things tend to inflate a little bit. But 150 flights would have been a challenge and probably a nonstarter as we know we didnt have war in space but Apollo Program in my vote was a better decision. So scenario number two, which is just only doing two of the chapters 22 of them and rockets. Now up until now including elon musk and buck nears who were doing the new space projects, all rockets lead by chemical reaction. Big, powerful great they have limits, they weigh a lot so the kind of power they have and they can only get so much up in orbit at one time. Millions you ask elon musk who just keeps thinking hell make them bigger and bigger which we may do but theres a limit. How could you bypass that. Whats a goods way to do that . Again were talking 1950s here Nuclear Power is all of the rage looking at it from everything from power plants to airports to military ship and submarine and they have the knew to fuel it once every ten years, would have been a shame if something went wrong in the neighborhood. But anyway. So with the 40s and 50s, they sold us on rockets like these. Some are chemical powers some are nuclear very cool looking. What they have in common is that theyre big, they have a lot of cabin space for the crew. And passengers cargo and tiny engine and not a lot of room leftover for nuclear or chemical fuel which is how we want to do it if were going to fly to space a lot but some of you may recognize this from destination moon one of our favorite movies but this was what rockets were supposed to look like and theyed us this, a nice big bridge where everybody can walk arranged, chat, do their thing and mini skirts can hand a clipboard to captain which he sign and not at them meaningfully all of this type of they think and star trek dont get hung up on gravity but in universe we didnt get this kind of spaceship but more like this. Apollo capsule imagine sitting in there for two weeks now they never did it that long but u two weeks in gemini two guys and smaller so you have two astronauts sitting in gemini capsule two weeks shoulders touching with about this much clearance between helmet and hatch and cant open it because vacuum out there so no thank you. So what we want is a bigger more robust environment that can go places faster. And carry more stuff thats the whole point of having big rockets so we could have had this neil son by the way if we had done this which is project horizon excuse me project ryan. This was also late 1950s general company in san diego was looking at some old studies done before and said hey, you know we have a lot of Nuclear Bombs sitting around this country. We can do those. And one of the engineers said no, bomb think about it. It is time to go off they give a little bit of a push. Right well by gosh they do. So they define a number of version of spacecraft one of the larger ones the interplanetary strergs from small, medium, large, mega large to inner stellar this look like a 50 caliber bullet you see right there. Thats the orind spacecraft are with proportion to the statue of liberty so you can get an idea of the size. 170 feet tall that weighed 22 Million Pounds at launch. Decide destroyer and this weighs 6. 5 million but had 4,000 times which is cool and carry 70 to 100 people. As far as you want to go bairvegly until you run out atoc bomb basically a one shot extradition anywhere in the so or particular system is worth going and it is studied it was studied up recently as a couple of years ago and as of yet no engineers have found a reason that it couldnt work. There would be challenging. But all of the numbers everything seems to add up to say it would be possible. So these these were atomic bombs and shock absorbers and that bank transmitted directly into so, of course, you have shock absorber here, Pressure Plates and that plate where they are bang a foot away from the bomb of it. That scale apollo astronaut so gives you an idea of the size of this thing that would have been sensational. Freeman was a part of this study. My paste quote of his is mars by 16 1965, saturn by 1970 he wasnt kidding he was dead serious about this. It would have probably been about the same cost which from the Apollo Program so what do you suppose the problem was listening from the atomic bomb is nonstart sore it was a Great Program with a really sound engineering logic behind it. But taking off from the ground using Nuclear Weapons is not necessarily the best way to go. Dyson calculated it would have added is to the fallout in the atmosphere girch how much Nuclear Testing was going on at that time host of us one time or another at a certain age. And he said there probably would be one or two deaths on average in the public which sounds kind of bad until you realize that 36,400 were dying every year and buick and whatever other large american monomonstrosities they were driving so price isnt too high morally it is a little shifty so this was also a nonstarter which was a shame because it could have been really neat. Preferably gone nuclear and they did test to make sure the idea would work but i thought i would show a little bit that have that was called the putt put the three feet across just setting off as it goes up but it shows that it works. If you have these things based at the right time, a nice solid plate down at the bottom to prevent the astronaut from getting cooked this thing actually can function. So what had stopped it . Well nuclear test band treaty signed in 1963 that was kind of rained on their parade outer space treaty saying you cant weapon nice space and nobody can own anything and so forth and not weaponing was a part because it was nuclear, and then earth day came along we got environmental awareness, and people said do you really think it is a good idea even if you get the stuff a great idea to launch great big wads into space when rockets blow up sometimes that stuff may come back down . Truth of the matter is weve launched on at least three Mars Missions a couple of despace missions all of the iowa apollo has Power Supplies so done it a bunch of times. Russians more than we have so far one or two have come back and sitting down at the bottom of the ocean not bothering anybody. It is not a good thing but probably not as dangerous as we thought not talking about anything of the scale of orind. So had we done that and things gone bad it would have been a very bad day so other scenario that i cover in the booing is idea of using the gemini spacecraft a thought to beat apollo there. To try to keep apollo Assembly Line open after that program shut down in 1972 there were ideas very seriously consider or flying loop with crews of three or more around venice or mars or both in the same flight that would have taken two years. But again, you do the math it all works out. The question is who qowld want to . Radiation is kind of a concern too. So vaughn design is inflatable space station back in 1953 thats that big ring shaped one in the beginning looks like steel but actually a big bicycle tire in space, and would have worked. There was concern to contractors on the project voiced about, you know, some astronaut exuberant and go flying arpgd like a balloon let go in a room. Probably wouldnt have. But it was a valid concern i suppose. And space station and more and going into what were heading into. Nasa retired in Space Shuttle in 2011 and we have a wonderful space station that goes overhead every 90 minutes but not a way to get our people up there and paid for most of it which is a problem and buying rides from russians on the spacecraft which ironically was originally designed to beat us to the moon and we were trying apollo. Didnt succeed at that but been a very successful spacecraft since then when we retire are this shuttle i think a seat on about 38 million in now 85. And it is not like the fuel nays gotten more expensive but what is remarkable there. So theres a lot of people not happy about this so nasa among other things is building the space launch system also known as sls or in some circle the launch system and this is a saturn five rocket that would do probably many things that the saturn five would do. Back to the moon with it if we launch a number them we can assemble a spacecraft to go to mars. Theres uses for it. Problem so far has been that it is very slow to build and really expensive and billions of dollars a year. Now if youre nasa with space krft, so forth this is an example of how u it might look in one of lunar configuration ad things going along until elon musk says hey, 2002 im starting Rocket Company. I want to fly your cargo and you want to hire me ill do it for a tenth of the cost they said, basically thats nice kid get out of the tent let us know what youre ready. Well much to the surprise of a lot of fuss that follow this trade he did that. And now hes flying rockets regularly large payloads and getting ready to fly restaurants probably later this year, early next year. In tests of his new spacecraft are this is his dragon two capsule now just going back one step, sos flown one test flight not with that rocket but with a the can sewel and worked out fine. And worked out fine. But next flight isnt until 2018 thats another unman test flight and then ply to crew in 021 now we went from 15 minutes of time in space to land on the moon in eight and a half years. But it has taken us this long just to test this rocket. Theres a lot less money at stake is nasa has a tenth of the budget they used to have back in the 60s. So goods reasons for that. But it is just too long so in comes Trump Administration theres some suggestion and maybe things could be set up so theyre studying havent committed to but studyings putting o strawngts on that thing for maid in flight and sending loop around the moon which is a cool idea unless youre poem have that to go so it is scary so they announce that and six days later elon musk with with news in nasa that is great and by the way meant to tell you ill be flying rocket heavy next yore and once ive tested that once or twice ill let passengers go on my spacecraft on loop around the moon six months before yours does so that was an interesting moment. Surprised a lot of us. Falcon nine, what is revolutionary and of amazon is doing this as well is that they come back. So first stage most way to orbit. Second stage continues. Sphis stage comes become and if you have had a chance had to watch this one launch in a couple of hours. It flies back to either the launch sight or to a barge out in the evening pacific or atlantic oceaning which theyre using autonomist and nobody joy sticking this and talking to spacex talk to rocket and it comes down usually landing perfectly refurbishing them and getting ready to refly so a major change because youre talking ab huge reduction in cost. This is pal con heavy and big one going up in probably about a year six monthses to a year. Basically three falcon nine put together all three of them will sprit and fly become as i was describing. Finally the pitch in september in mexico at a conference is in planetary transport system, this is his idea for a huge solar system class rocket that cruz saturnish he says so kind of like orind thats it next to saturn five so you get an idea of the scope thats the passenger vehicle which he thinks could carry maybe 70, 80 people. This is basically extended to colonize mars and whole reason he got into Space Business was buzz he wants to send humanity to mars and have this carbon identity earth 2. 0 back up environment there. But when we wreck this planet well be able to live on that one. It has a long way to go. And a very nice place but interesting idea jeff is of the same amazon with a Rocket Company and he wants to colonize space and not sure about mars thats a general idea and just for scale heres an restaurant up on the tail end of the rocket so it is beg. So if you ever want to go in space and youre like me and break into a cold sweat when they take a while to open when you reach your floor this is like no woidz with the old guy. All right so before we end ive got a space age quiz and ive got three copies of book to give away. And i know theres a couple of ringers in here so you shouldnt weigh in but for you self i cans you know who im talking about david. For you civilians who was the third man to step on the moon . Conrad wow. Give the man a hand. Most people dont get that one. Okay. I probably made these too easy now ill be completely embarrassed. All right. Who was the first quell to fly in space . [inaudible conversations] did it with the accent most say sally ride female cosmonaut in 1963 was it in valentina whats that . Okay question number three, with last one what was elon musk most compared to . You know yep iron captain crunch did you . Ai is very good, sir. [laughter] boy that was quick. So that concludes if you would like a copy of the book hear and happy to sign anything in there as long as it is savory, and welcome to the new space age. Were here. Thank you very much. [applause] before i turn it back to you a q and a and gentleman in the red shirt to stand up here. David. I special section here david lets give him a round of applause here. [applause] he goes through all of the my books because hes a nice guy and i shouldnt bill for this and keeps me from making embarrassing mistakes and francis old martin do the same thing but i wanted to give a shoutout to everybody and francis is wherever you are stand up to take a bow, and now ill take questions. [inaudible conversations] what is our governments plan for landing on mars . Wow well the plan as it has been put forth which has been called journey to mars for i guess since we canceled consolation program in 2009, is an overarching plan to work our way to mars with humans some time by 2036. And what ive given you is about as much details are out there that really nailed down. There is a larger plan it is interesting now actually because i interviewed the senior nasa official thats in charge of that part of the program charge of human space flight, couple of months ago and said whats our plan to get to master . And he said well, he gave me a very long answer a good apes to the incremental to build our capability on earth, build the rocket get a crew in it, retire the space station because it is very expensive to operate get stations insist lunar space the area around moon and get experience there, and then make that big step off to mars in 203 an one thing that was profound which is he said you know we design life support systems experimental hardware, we kept it on earth for a year all a of the time question get it up to space station and two weeks it goes ka plunk so you have to figure out whats wrong and get it fixed thats why we have a space station partly. So theres a good point there. On the other happened youve got guys like elon musk saying thats not the way to do it but build a large rocket and get in it and go. Well hes got a point too theres a lot of problems were still figuring out how to deal with radiation much worse than we thought out there. The effect of it are worse than we thought and effect of weightlessness is more than we thought and interviewed for a book im working on flight surgery in space center week ago he said after 50 years of space were still finding stuff that it does to people thats not good. Thereaten eyeball an may cook neuron this your brain and lead to dementia symptom and it may bring cardiovascular issues into the picture. So it is just going it take more time to figure it out but send robots out there or take human brains to put them in a led spear and machine this would be easier. But if youre going to send people theres a lot to do so thats a non answer to your question im afraid. But contends by 25 and nasa says 2036 and well see you there. Anybody else . Corporation of the International Space station and county this and corporate on parking the way . Question is can we have more cooperation in this ongoing human Space Exploration . Thats another one of those answers that tends to get stretched out. The simple answer is, yes we proved we can do it with the space station it wasnt with easy. The initial batch of corporations with japan and european powers, European Space Administration Russia was brought in as story of a political move when soviet union el if apart. They have a bunch of hardware for their next mirror to space station and said to include on ours thats essentially what happened but it did provide a good model for International Corporation and hasnt been easy or a smooth road but it worked. The problem were having right now is that major partners out there are European Space agency which a great wonderful smart people wonderful engineers, they dont have very much money. The Russian Space agency that again lots of experience and orbit lots to experience with life with life support and large rockets. But really struggling financially in most of the programs at the moment need to pay them to do if. Of course, partner and choice could be china. Theyve flown in orbit and launched two small space station and launched a third and be bigger theyre getting great gun and landing on man probe in the monoand sending them to mars soon and astronauts to the moon they think in the 2020s but we have a set of laws designed to prevent property from being transferred to what we consider hogs tile powers depending how you read it is almost everybody other than hawaii and it is really frustrating so theres a lot of limitation on what you can do internationally because of those regulations so theres a lot of people in nasa that are trying to pirg out how to work past this. It will probably be some form of trilateral agreement instead of bilateral to work with other partners to mac it come together a little bit better. So answer is yes, thats had the best way to go. One im leaving out is national pride. Chinese have a certain interest in doing this themselves even though theyre doing it these 50 years after we in the soviet union did. Theres a matter of this great pride other moving quickly through the step ises that takes to get up in space and if you listen to a lot of people in congress, we have some of that ourselves still. You know we kind of like to do our big sos moon rocket back to the moon out to mars all by ourselves is that realistic probably not in this economic environment. So yeah International Cooperation be a smart way to go. [inaudible conversations] okay. I read in Science Fiction number by author clark that came out in the 70s and i remember he was discussing alternative ways of getting from the surface of the planet into space and mentioned that putt putt bomb idea that it would work, what they did in the futuristic novel is they have it like an elevator up in space and ran down a cable and that solved problem. Apparently convinced that was realistic any talk about alternative to it having to be a rocket . They are hot topic studied to death if you take studies between nasa and university and the group like some of the ones i belong to you can climb those up into orbit and forget about building elevator at all. But basic idea you have a tether attached to ground and that goes out to the mass in space proper distance, so it is staying in one place over the ground and then you run a little cab or car up and down this tether, the biggest problem besides skill and expense is when you make that out of. Until they really get nanoening to the point where you can get something Strong Enough and light enough to go out 25,000 miles which is u. S. Synchronous it is a probing but like orind clark said theres no reason that it cant work its just how do we get it to work and who is going to pay for it . And honestly i said welcome to the second space age. I dont think we had be having second space age a lot of people doajt think we would if it wasnt for elon musk and internet based billionaires who have come along and said you know what, im going to do this because i want to. Basos has no services but build rocket engines for a Third Company in Arch Alliance by the way elon musk big competitor for military flights. But take prntionzs to space but so far it has been 90 of his money, his money because he wants to make rockets. Hes wanted to since he was a kids. Musk guess a lot of money from nasa because he has space station resupply contracts, so hes got some help. But really it is the drive of these people and money theyre willing to put up musk has spent 115 million of his own money and last four launches didnt work and couple since then havent worked so it has its a big step. By the way announced today that he is going to put astronauts in his new rocket the new shepherd next year. So were getting there. Political will for this space race driven by personal stories about the astronauts as well as who is first man on the moon all of that kind of stuff so a lot of it is note of their bravery you know, all of the incidents that happened along the way. Now, i had a career with cbs and i met buzz ailed written in course of the broadcast, and to me that was always most interesting thing i never met ralph. But my question for you is do you think that sort of notarity is important to drive any future Space Exploration and if it is still about the individuals anymore . Boy thats a really good question. I dont know but i think were seeing it is certainly a big part of it. It is interesting because youre working in journalism cbs news if youre in the News Business now trying to cover space working in nasa is like it has always been you ask questions they give you an answer at some point. Spacex you ask questions may not hear anything and get an answer it will answer part of your question. Usually trying to get stuff out of blue origin jeffs company is trying to get news release out of north korea it is tough. I should mac an exception we have the new space age the president of the company gave me an interview a couple of weeks and he was gracious and open it was great but most journalist like we dont know whats going on there. We get these little bit when they want to do it but i think those guys in particular have really put personal face on this but interesting because theyre entrepreneurs not the heros that are up into space. So does anybody know name of the pilots who have done virgin flight tests . I dont remember them. But theyre dashing young men and white scarves right are im sure well mow the names of, you know, the names of the first couple of people that go up into the space capsule fairly soon. Or the first guy on mars or the people that are going to loop the moon is a lot of conjecture who have paid undisclosed sum a large , quote, large percentage of undisclosed sum to go to the moon in 2018 on this virgin flight of a private company outside of earth orbit and conjecture and jims name kols up a comes up titanic and poppig his head into a video selfie every 20 seconds. Investors have been mentioned as possibilities somebody else said saudi princes but whoever they have theyll be the name on the coin for a while. So i like to know what happens if you know theres valuable Natural Resource on the moon that human beings could, you know, that are worth mining for human beings . E yes, it depends on how you find value if you look at asteroids theres two classes of things to mine from asteroids. Water, is one big thing, and theres plenty of water on asteroids and on the moon and a lots of water on mars and reason water is valuable we got lots of it on earth. But every time we want to large a gallon of it up in to space it cost 36,000. Which is ridiculous too much money. So you want to find it out there because with water youve got rocket fuel. Youve got breathable oxygen and dribble quarter so all kinds of reasons that water is valuable when you find it out will. In terms of stuff to bring back to earth for value theres aloom aluminum and rish in carbon, of course, and platinum things like that on asteroids one entrepreneur i talked to who i cant name that has a plan rather than mining it in orbit which he thinks is ridiculous but land them in australia. I said well theres some concern for people and say weve got it half worked out. Quoit a plan. The problem is you bring down that much platinum in one big chunk and the state Mining Company will tell you look at all of the money were going to make but then you talk to investors they say to look at the market and how quickly because it is like taking peer beers saying let your diamonds out and values drop to a fifth or a tenth. So yeah theres a lot out there that is worth having, were probably going to have to go after it robotically because it is not going to be easy or economically feasible for a while to have people out there in boots doing it. But even which which probably bt least two Major Companies tear plan resources working on first age of asteroid location in mining. Well yeah. So theyll be using robots for quite some time they dont have concrete plans for human mining yet. But robots can do an awful lot of it so personal first step but i think the most of the value is what you find out there that you use out there because with 3d printers you can now precinct Metal Structures i saw one a beautiful component made out of metal with a 3d precincter things up in spies and melt a chunk of asteroid feed it in there and printed a rocket. So it sounds nutty but it is toable. Is there anything that astronaut on the moon saw that they want to know is george in here somewhere in i felt im having a coast to coast moment. I dont know. Ive interviewed a bunch of those guys david met almost all of them, and that is never come up i did do a radio show it was a midnight wdn chicago who said i want to talk to your author about them moon pigeons buzz aldrin saw on the moon and not telling us that stuff but keeping secret and youre part of that conspiracy, blah blah and i thought he was a nut so i said well, thank you your question, you know if you think that theres creature ares out there thats fine. He was also one of the guy who is thought we never went. I said, go to museum. Look at the a rocket and a thousands and thousands of feet of film. Photograph, transcript all of the technology, talk to those guys theyre very special people and then tell me you think weve never done it it is the best conspiracy youve ever seen if not. The end of this answer is after i made fun of mr. Moon pigeon question i was talking to buzz aldrin some months later talk about twice a year which im very fortunate to do. I dont talk much he does because hes smarter than i am. Did you ever see anything about moon pigeons . He said yeah, it was the milar top half took off, the stage all of that ila shielding qowtd try away in little piece and so he said, oh, those look like moon pigeons so there were moon but not what they thought. So successfully evaded answering your question is i dont know but i dont think so. Take a second to go back to your question about the the personalities doing this i met a lot of guys struck by how if you have asked any of them when they got selected to be an astronaut when they were young military pilots, what are odds that, you know, if you ask them at that age what are odds that you will lose your life in the pursuit of what youre doing versus you sitting at a table signing autographs when youre 80 years old for rod, and say where do i get buried because thats going to happen but ladder is impossible seminar all of them familiar with along live and odds very good that people who flew had lots of lives in test flight, combat. Same seekers get weeded out. And there was a i mean, detected among guys that kind of reluctance to really are stand in the spotlight knowing that you were in there. You have to be in there. America, america loves its celebrities you are doing it but it was a duty and call it being in the barrel. If you know what being in the barrel means obscene definition of what it is look to be famous. You went become as fast as you could and Something Like spotlight a little too much that kind of made tension at nasa. [inaudible conversations] very reserve and whereas [inaudible conversations] very reserve, whereas chuck probably most interesting person i ever met and really out there. You know in terms of his personality so i think it was a wide range of people who were willing to stick it out. But pilot afterall. Interesting because you were talking about some of the people weve met and you meet somebody like Gordon Cooper still with us, and he was, you know, kind of a Big Personality guy. Then you meet al bean fourth map on the moon back to earth and we cannily said you know with what that was great. I want to paint and he became a fine artist a wonderful with artist thats what hes been doing ever since and hes a shy, quiet i dont know if i call him reserve but a very gentle soul. A gentleman in the classic task. And you know within the to the moon it was very exciting happy to talk about it if youre at one of these events and you want to go become to paint because thats what hes been doing 48 years. Got back so it does take all kinds. I think we have two more back there. Thats it. Thats a tough act to follow. Talking about strawngts. Strawngts but you were talking about printers in spies and bringing asteroids down and id love to see that show coming from outer space and australia that would be fantastic but what about manufacturing in space and zero gravity and and you know in a complete vacuum out there do you know anything about that. Talk about that . That seems to me better than bringing things that crash back into the earth. To be clear what i was talking about bringing stuff back thats for rare, precious metal. As far as things to make up there that makes sense. They sent a 3d precincter up to the space station called made in space. Much tougher than you think buzz a enclosure and nasa certification and a melting classic cant make toxics gas so they tested that. What they havent yet tested precincting with metal which is the big one because you can only do so much with that and plastic and things to do with it and printed simple tool and pieces, but metal is kind of the holy grail of all of this so that has yet to be figured out. They dont seem to be the rob. I know that tested them in a vacuum on surface of the planet but i dont think they tested precincted in vacuum up there yet. So that would be that would be the next step. But really no other way with foundry trying to do Injection Molding and that is tough and precincting makes an awful lot of sense once you can get it going. [laughter]. Popular support for a Space Program. That is a good question but i think it is complicated because it wasnt meritocracy. There was a lot of dealing going on from some of the companies that dont publish their prices. There is a lot of politics as you know. There is a reason they enter and the other places where they are so it was a lot more complicat complicated. I agree there was a lot of merit and they did an awful lot of wonderful things. They were spending 5 of the budget and now the how they areg one tenth of that. As far as the people buying the righride in the next few years i think theres going to be a lot of cardassians in space metaphorically speaking. They have to fit in the capsule. [laughter] when you look at somebody like this and theres a lot of other names in the area that are less famous because they have and spend that kind of money or they are not raising other peoples money but if you meet them they are so driven and consume by this. Anybody that has spent time at the centers, those folks are exhausted by all of the changing that goes on in the plans. They study it, if changes are Something Else but the level of passion i see and the brilliance and the drive and the love for what they do is astonishing. So i think space 2. 0, by the way that is the name of my next book, i think it is going to be a really amazing thing, and there will be some stubs that go on for sure. But depending how you look at it, this was a bit of a stunned. We were in a race to prove that we had a Better Society in terms of technology and the government and so forth. Did we really have to go to the moon . Know we were pretty sure we could do it before the bad guys did and that was one of the reasons, so i think we will be okay. [applause] booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. Twitter. Com mac booktv or post a comment on our Facebook Page [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] welcome. It is my pleasure tonight to introduce tom. Hes written a book abt