Destination mission to the moon. And for the channel and Discovery Communications and including the widely praised modern marvels. An assistant professor and a lecturer with Johnson Space center. And tonights stories of the space age which features 20 of his favorites from the golden age of Space Exploration. Join me in welcoming him. [applause] thank you very much, normally i kind of dance around a little bit while i perform these things. Because theyre taping tonight, and we have a weird microphone ill stay with the podium and go back to my professoring days at the university of laverne. Thank you for coming here, i know its rough getting here and i use today drive to ucla when i was 18 years old and 30 minutes and it was irritating and i knew that it was two and a half hours. I appreciate you going back to what you went through. The space age has a long story behind it and i wont bore you with the whole thing, but ive been writing about different parts of the space age and Space Science and history in general for 13 years. Before that i spent about a decade working in television, mostly documentaries, star trek for a while, but mostly on documentaries and i would constantly come across cool stories from the 40s, the 50s. The 60s, that i only heard little bits about. Sometimes its just cause they werent commonly written about, this is before the internet, and long file card drawers we use today pull out at the library. Other times something in a m magazine and other times classified. And i want to make a tv show about that. So i wrote up a show proposal called secrets of space, you need to have a reverb to do properly and that got close a couple of times, but didnt quite get it done. After working on that for a while. This would be more fun 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 the book and they were kind enough to pick it up, our third book together. And it came out a few months ago and its selling briskly, thank god. And because youre here it will sell on tonight. And i see a few faces, thank god, who remember the space age as i do. And sometimes i talk to those in their 20s and 30s, what is he talking about . When men landed on mars . We remember, most of us, that we had a Space Program in the 1960s and landed on the moon in 1969 coming up on 50 years a ago. And thats the Space Program we had. Most of this book isnt about that. There are a few chapters about the Space Program that we grew up with and remember, a little known incident like almost having an engine explosion on the lunar module on apollo 11 that i didnt know about until six years ago. Most of this, the programs were designed in the 1950s, 1960s primarily of the militaries of the world who had a slightly different vision of what we ought to do. Ill start with a piece to reorient us to the space age and a little bit of what might have been. There it is, a small atoll of coral island in the pacific, man is dedicated to one cause, the conquest of space. Our spaceship moves ponderously toward the firing site. Minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Out to xr1, your cutoff altitude 63. 9 miles. So that was a little clip from that other Space Program 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. Our ideas of space were different than they turned out to be. There are a lot of good reasons for that, principal among them, at this time, it was shortly after the end of world 2, we were sort of riding the technological and economic gain in the united states, but we had an enemy across the ocean and that was the u. S. S. R, soviet russia. And there was a lot of concern about this standoff wed had since the end of world war ii and we ceased being allies, quote, unquote. It was never that comfortable, but we tried. So there are a number of alternatives to what nasas plans were in 1958 and they were formed. Most were partly military in nature. The whole idea was in general terms, space was the high ground and we have to get it first before the russians do. Depending on which branch of the military they talk to, they had different plans. In the army ace case, this is the high ground, we always go for the high grounds and shoot down the bad guys and we should take space and federal government give us the money and well charge the hill. The air force says, no, no, we fly things and we know how to use joy sticks and Navigation Systems and wings and all of that, propulsion. We should be the ones to go. The navy came along with their proposal slightly weaker case, no, no, we do submarines, life support for months and high pressure, and pressure going the wrong way, you get the idea. We should go to space. All three of the branches of the military formulated various plans and the same thing going on in the soviet union. And we were up there until nas sass was formed in 1958 and didnt care which branch it was as long as he was with it. He was kind of militarily and morally agnostic, you might say. His favorite quote or my favorite quote of his comes from the early days as the v2 rockets in germany, the rocket performed perfectly and landed on the wrong country. And he was a great leader and was going to get to where he wanted no matter what. To finish setting up the era. World war ii were in name at least allies with the soviet union and weve had Nuclear Weapons since 1945 and used them two in anger. And they had a Hydrogen Bomb by 1953. The western was unhappy about that. The other bright point in the scary standoff you still have to deliver Nuclear Weapons by bomber. They dont have missiles yet. You have to put them in the payload pay of your propeller plane or later jet, and russia has to fly theirs here, slow, ponderous, slow, they can be shot down, there are interventions that could take place. What if you drop them from space on an unsuspecting nation below . That became the scary thing. This is the era when i grew up. I was born in 1956 and some of you probably remember this, this is a workplace brochure how to survive Nuclear Attacks, which was interestingly brought back up by casper weinberger, if we dig a hole four foot inches deep and under the door, and you could survive for a few hours. This is the kind of things. We had the duck and cover drills, the issue i had with this, when i was watching film strips, bert had a shell. All ive got is a shirt and its not going to be the same. So bert and his quarter stick of dynamite telling us how to survive a Nuclear Attack and of course, some of you may remember drop drills. Tried to convince us that a quarter inch of for for micha was going to protect us from a nuclear blast. Youre under half inch of formica looking at a huge sheet glass window thinking isnt that bomb just going to shut up, get under the desk. 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 base on the moon. This is called project horizon and this was turned into the eisenhauer administration in 1958. It was a very short study, i think four to six months and von braun was part of this. I dont think he was as intimately involved as he would have liked to have been because if you read this, and ive read it a couple of times, it doesnt show the attention 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 by the way, were not going to talk about it too much. You could put Nuclear Weapons there, and aim them at earth. And it would take two or three days to get there. This proposal is graphicically challenged bear with me, thats as good as illustrations get. Thats not me, thanks goodnessment they were going to dig the trenches and fly in containers to the surface, using numbers of rockets. The largest one they had at the time. This is the u. S. Army, the first flight would be in 1965, they would send three men up in a rocket and when i say rocket, they didnt have the saturn 5 yet. This is 195859. Were talking about von brauns smaller rockets at the time and youd have to fly one up there, the fuel up there, and fuel, take off for the moon and none of the orbit stuff, like the bugs bunny cartoon, straight up to the moon, do your thing and come back. The first three guys were going to be up there reconnoitering the surface, wed never seen it except by telephone scope. They would assemble the base and then wed have cargo runs, with 130, not the 16 that we flew with apollo, but 130 launching out of a Little Island out of central pacific. They could launch from cape canaveral. This is the army and canaveral belonged to the air force. And they said, no, well watch and ship from there. Thats how things worked. Big plans to do cargo runs and once they decided where to put this and dumped the modules there, theyd send mine people up. Nine men of course, this is 1950s and the army and they had 15 days to dig these trenches, put together their block attack on the crane, build the moon tractor, seal them up, build the bathrooms, burnings, office, they had a Battle Center ready and flying rotations and needless to say it was ambitious. The crew would have been between 12 and 20 soldiers, and they were soldiers. If theres anything good about this, besides just blind ambition, its that it would have been an openended program. And we might still be there. Which is something we didnt get in the Apollo Program, but the best part im saving for last is the moon soldiers. Because you cant have an army moon base without soldiers, right . These arent just astronauts, these are soldiers, here is a moon soldier in the full combat getup for being on the lunar surface for entire times, i think my favorite part, these arent ice skates, these are large foot pads because we didnt know how much dust was on the moon and he might step in a crater up to his antenna. And there were areas to deal with bodily functions and im not sure why it was incomplete. Thats what the moon soldier was wearing. Thats not how we did it. If youve got to have soldiers on the moon, there would be weapons. They were concerned about side arms and rifles for a couple of reasons. One was in the vacuum of the moon they were concerned if you were shooting lets say. 45 pistol. In a vacuum the metals might seize up and rubbing against each other, because there was no air, the smoke might collect in front of the gun and my favorite concern was using a rifle at just the right angle at the right caliber of bullet, you might miss the bad guy and the bullets comes around the room and hit you in the back of the helmet. Rather than Something Like that, lets have a nuclear bah so bazooka. And had a warhead and this is kilotons and you get the big ideas. A big position. It wasnt accurate, but when youre talking nuclear explosions, accuracy doesnt matter. Two guys would set this up, hit the trigger duck behind the rocks and hope they didnt get swept up in the nuclear blast. Now if youre going to deploy these, they did send these to europe during 1960s and reduced them. Basically its a large backpack device. If youre going to have these you have to test them. Here is a test on a sunny day in nevada, bang, and of course, the thrilled physicists, watching with sunglasses, getting eradiated with like xrays. The other weapon they wanted to have on the noon was the lunar claymore which they repurchased for lunar use. Widely used in the u. S. Many at least through vietnam and youve got to love this. Anybody ever in the military . Okay. Its good to have instructions on things, front towards enemy is my favorite. So you dont get it backwards, which is important when you think about it. Its filled with plastic explosives, 700 soft metal balls in it. Its bad enough on earth to get hit by one of these things and you can see from try to put here, quite a blast radius, on the moon you dont have to kill anybody, youll puncture the surface and tie up two or three guys dragging them off the surface. And if youre into moon weapons. They did a test in a vacuum with it, it worked well, unfortunately they didnt have anywhere to take it, but as if that wasnt enough. A few years later, after this project had been sheffield and turn in to the Eisenhower Administration in 59 and my understanding, although its not written down quite as such was he looked at it and took off his glasses and gave them one of the youve got to be kidding looks. He was a fan of the civilian Space Program. He didnt want to see because of his background or probably because of his background in world war ii, he didnt want to see war expanded to space. He didnt say that, he said were going to have a civilian Space Program. That didnt stop rock island armory arsenal. Mixed up. I never did find the name of the person who wrotes it, reand dering of a weapon oriented mind applying to the moon. And i assume hes applying this problem to the vacuum, and not his brain to the vacuum. These are well dressed lunar soldiers here and a tank over there, what kind of side arms you might want to use on the moon. Recoil could be problem as we discussed. Here is a buck rogers example. There were six, i took my favorite two. This fires either pellets or darts down here, and its roughly the power of a. 22 pistol for anybody who had one of those and i dont know why there are heat fins on here, it looks cool and if youre proposing moon weapons, why not make it look cool. So this is the spin stabilized hch gun. My favorite is the sausage gun, 19 little holes here and it can be used inchangebly with rocket propelled pellets or rocket p propelled bullets that spin. Spin as they go and put it in a clip and if youre going to talk peace terms with the russian commander, you can whip that out and negotiations end quickly. So this was, as i said, these are two of section. The others go the progressively weirder, but the idea was if youre going to have a moon base, youve got to have a special moon weapon. Thankfully these were never done. To close on project horizon, these things always have to come with a price tag, right . If youre going to propose Something Like that, you have to have some generally, maybe kind of realistic idea what its going to costment we know project apollo because its a matter of history. 11 flights plus tests between 20 and 24 billion dollars no matter how you slice it in the money of that time. Project horizon it would have 155 plus with a base in the Caroline Islands and an a fully running moon base for 6 billion, after all how hard can it be. I think they underbid a little bit, but this is a government contract so those things tend to inflate. 150 flights would have been a challenge on anybodys budget. That was probably a nonstarter and we didnt have war in space, we had the Apollo Program which in my book was a much better decision. Scenario number two, im only two of my chapters tonight. Theres 22 of them was atomic rockets. Now, up till now, and including elon musk and jeff bezos and the buccaneers doing the new space projects, all rockets that leave the earth by chemical reaction. Theyre big, powerful, great, they have limits, they weigh a lot for the power they have and only get so much in orbit at one time, unless you ask elon musk who thinks hell make them bigger and bigger which he may do, but this is a limit. How could you bypass that . Again in the 1950s, Nuclear Power is the rage. We were looking at it for everything from power plants to airplanes, to military ships and submarines, four designed a car called the nucleon, it had an fission in the trunk. Only fueled every ten years. And would have been bad if something was wrong. They have big, cabin space for the crew, passengers and cargo and tiny engines and not a lot of room left for nuclear fuel for chemical fuel. Which is what we want to do, if we go to the moon. Some of you may recognize this, this is from destination moon. This is what rockets were supposed to look i can like, and they promised us this, a nice big bridge where everybody could come over and there would be maiden wearing short skirts and dont get hung up on gravity. We didnt get that space shift. We got this, the apollo cap tulle. Imagine sitting in there for two weeks. They never did it, but they did in gemini, much smaller. Two astronauts sitting in gemini two weeks shoulders touching and this much clearance between the helmet and the hatch and cant hope it because of the vacuum out there, no thank you. What we want is a bigger, more robust environment that can get places faster and carry more stuff. Thats the point of having big rockets. We would have had this, thats leslie nielsen, by the way, if we had done this, which is project horizon excuse me project orion. This is also late 1950s, general atomics, a company out of san diego was looking at old studies done a few years before pan sa pan and said, hey, you know, we have a lot of Nuclear Bombs sitting around the country and use those for propulsion. En he said surely you mean a Nuclear Reactor . No, bombs, each time they go up, they give a little bit of a push. By gosh they do. So they designed a number of versions of spacecraft. This is the one of the largest ones, they come from small, medium, large, interextra st intrastellar. And then then has the proportions of the statue of liberty. 170 feet tall and weighs 22 Million Pounds at launch. Saturn 5 is the size of a destroyer, 7 p. 5 million excuse me 6. 5 million, this ways more, but 4,000 times the thus of the saturn 5. It could carry 70 to 100 people as far as you want to go until you run out of atomic bombs. Basically its a oneshot expedition to anywhere. It was still studied as recently as a couple of years ago and as of yet, no engineers have found a reason that did couldnt work. It would be challenging but all the numbers and everything seems to add up to say that it would be possible. So, the crew quarters is here. These are all atomic bombs. These are shock absorbers because you dont want an atomic bomb going off down here and that bang being transmitted directly into you, you have the shock absorbers here, a pressure plate and the atomic bomb would go off. And just for scale, thats an apollo astronaut and thats the size of this thing. It would have been sensational. Freeman dice is part of this study. 1965, by 1970, he wasnt kidding. He was dead serious about this. It would have probably been the same cost or cheaper than the Apollo Program. What do you suppose the problem was . Well, lifting off from earth with atomic bomb is kind of a nonstarter now, isnt it . So, it was a Great Program with a really sound engineering logic find it, but, taking off from the ground using Nuclear Weapons is not necessarily the best way to go. Dyson calculated it would have only added about 1 to the fallout in the atmosphere given how much Nuclear Testing was going on sat. Most of us beat breathed some of it one time or another at a certain age. And he said one or two deaths on launch in the public. That sounds bad until you realize 36,400 people were dying every year in their corvairs and buicks and other american monstrosities they were driving at the time. In terms of raw numbers, the price isnt too high. Morally its a little shifty so this was a nonstarter, which is a shame, it could have been neat. Police officerbly if they have launched with chemical rockets and gotten into orbit. They test with explosives to see if it worked. I thought id show that. Its a putt, putt, three feet across and setting off tnt as it goes up. It shows it works. If youve got them based at the right time with a solid plate down at the bottom to prevent the astronauts from getting cooked. This thing can turning. What stopped it . The Nuclear Test Ban treaty was signed. And then you cant weaponize spaes and so forth. The not weaponing many things was a downer for project orion because it was nuclear. And earth day came along, we got environmental awareness, even if you get it up there with regular rockets and not polluting the atmosphere, do you think its a good idea to launch plutonium into space when rockets blow up and the stuff comes down . The truth of the matter weve launched plutonium and at least three Mars Missions and a couple of Space Missions and all the apollos, except 11 it plutonium supplies. The russians have done it so far more than we have and only one or two have come back and sitting in the bomb to of the ocean not bothering anybody. Its not a good they think, but not talking the scale of orion, had we done that and things gone bad, it would have been a bad day. And some other areas, using gemini spacecraft to land on the moon. They thought they could beat apollo there. To try to keep the apollo Assembly Lines after that program shut down in 1972, there were ideas very seriously injured about flying loops with crews of three or more around venus or mars or both in the same flight that would have taken two years. Again, if you do the math. It works out and the question is, who would want to . Radiation is kind of a turn, too. Von braun designed an inflatable station in 1953, the ringshaped one i had in the beginning. It looks like steel, but its a big bicycle tire in space and would have worked. There were some concerns, the contractors voiced, if some astronaut gets overexuberant and bounces off the side and this thing is going like a balloon let go in a room. Probably wouldnt have, but its a valid concern and armed space stations and a lot more. So whats coming up . Im going to end on what were headed into. Nasa, as you know, retired the Space Shuttle in 2011. We still have a wonderful space station that goes everhead every 90 minutes, but since 2011 we havent had a way to get our people up there, even though we paid for most of it. Which is a problem. Weve been buying rides from the soyuz spacecraft originally designed to beat us to the moon. Its been successful since then. We retired the shuttle, the seat was 38 million and its now 85. Its not like the fuel has gotten more expensive, its just what the market will bear. 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 circles Senate Launch System they like to call it, and this is a saturn 5 class rocket that would do probably many things that the saturn 5 would do. We can go back to the moon with it, if we launch a number of them, we can assembly a spacecraft that could go to mars. Its slow to build and expensive, billions a year. If youre nasa, thats something youre used to. How youve been doing business for a long time with aerospace contractors. This is an example how it might look in one of the lunar c configuratio configurations. And its going along, until elon musk and says i want to fly your cargo, and they said basically nice, kid, get out of the tent. Let us know when youre ready. Much to the surprise of many who follow this, hes flying large payloads and getting ready to fly astronauts probably later this year or later next year, in tests of his new spacecraft. This is his dragon 2 capsule. Going back one step. Nasa with the sls. They flew a test capsule. It workout out fine. The next flight is 2018, unmanned flight and fly with a crew in 2021. We went from 15 minutes of time in space to landing on the moon in about eight and a half years. But its taken us this long to test this rocket. Theres a lot less money at stake. Nasa has only about 1 10 of the budget they had in the 60s. Theres good reasons for that, but its just too long. In comes the trump administration, there are some suggestions that maybe things could be sped up. Studying, havent committed to, studied putting astronauts on the thing for the maiden flight and around the moon. Its the cool idea unless youre the people that have to go, then its scary. They announced that a couple of weeks ago. Six days later, ear comes elon musk on the news, nasa thats great. I meant to tell you im going to fly by falcon heavy rocket next year and once ive tested it once or twice, ill let a couple of paying passengers go on a loop around the moon six months before yours does. Thats an interesting moment and surprised a lot of us. Thats falcon 9. And what revolutionary is elon musk and jeff bezos, amazon, they come back. If youve had a chance to watch. It flies back to either the launch or a barge in the heavying atlantic or pacific, depending which site theyre using. Its autonomous. No one directing this. And the rocket is talking to the barge, and talking to the rocket and coming down usually landing perfectly and hes refurbishing and getting ready to fly them soon. This is a major change, talking a huge cost. And falcon heavy big one, going in six months to a year, basically three falcon nines together all three will separate as fly back as i was describing. Finally, he pitched in september at gauadalajarguadala idea for a solar system class rockets that could carry crews up saturnish, its sort of like orion. Thats it next to the saturn five. Thats the passenger vehicle that he thinks could carry 70, 80 peoplement and this is basically for his plan to colonize mars. The reason he got in the space business, he wants people on mars and the carbon environment up there, when we completely wreck this planet, we can go to that one. Its a long way to go, its not a nice place, but jeff bezos is the same ilk, he wants to colonize deep space, know the sure about mars. And here is an astronaut on the tail end of the rocket, its big. If you want to go to space, or if youre like me, the elevators doors take too long to open. This is the rocket. Ive got a space age quiz and three copies of the books to give away. And i know there are a couple of ringers in here, you probably shunned weigh in. You know who im talking about. For you civilians, who is the third man to step on the moon. Conrad. Wow give the man a hand . [applause] most people dont get that one. Okay. I probably made these too easy now im going to be completely embarrassed. All right, who was the first woman to fly in space. He did it with the accent. Who was that and most people say sally ride. She was a female cosmonaut in 1963, was it . Val value valenti valentina. And question number three, last one, what media hero is elon musk most often compared to . Yeah, ironman. Captain crunch did you say . Very good, sir . [applause] boy, that was quick. So, that concludes. If you would like to copy of the book, theyre here and im happy to sign and write anything in there as long as its savory and welcome to the new space age, were here. Thank you very much. Before i turn it back to you. Were going to do a q a. Before inform i turn it back to you, the man in the red shirt stand up, david, a moment. And this is david, a special round of applause here. He goes through all of my books because hes a nice guy and i dont pay him anything for it, i probably shouldnt say that, because you could probably bill for that and keeps me from making mistakes and Francis Martin does the same. And stand up and take a bow, now ill take a questions. What is our governments plan for landing on mars . What is our governments plan for landing on mars . Well, the plan, as its been put forth, which has been called the journey to mars for, i guess, since we canceled the constellation program, so that would be 2009, is an overarching plan to eventually work our way to mars with humans sometime by 2036 and what ive given you is about as much detail as there is out there thats really nailed down. There is a larger plan. Its interesting you asked this now because i interviewed the senior nasa official thats in charge of that part of the program, charge in human space flight a couple of months ago, that, so whats our plan to get to mars . He said, well, and he gave me a very long answer and its a good answer, its incremental to build our capability on earth. Build the sls rocket, get crews in it, retire the space station because its very expensive to operate, get stations in lunar space, the area around the moon, get experience there and then make that big step off to mars in 2030. He did say one thing which i thought was profound. He said, you know, we design life support systems, experimental hardware, we test it on earth for a year all the time we get it up to the space station and in two weeks it goes kabunk and figure out how to get it fixed and thats why we have a space station partly. Thats a good point. On the other hand elon musk says thats not the way to do it, build a big rocket, fill it with chemicals and get up and go. Hes got a point, too, a lot of problems, were trying to figure out how to deal with radiation which is much worse than we thought out there. The effects are worse than we thought. The effects of weightlessness worse than we thought. Im working on a book and a the Johnson Space center after 50 years in space, were finding sufficient that does stuff thats not good. It flattens the eyeball, and it may cook neurons in the brain and dementialike symptoms and cardiovascul cardiovascular. Well have to figure it out. If he would send robots out there and or brains in a lead sphere. If you if youre going to send people, thats a nonanswer to your question, but musk contends to do it by 2025 if we can. Nasa says 2036. The chinese say 2040. Well see you there. Anybody else . The cooperation from the no thanks, the cooperation of the International Space station and continue that, and cooperate on the way . Right, the 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 could do it with the space station. It wasnt easy. The initial batch of cooperation with japan and european powers and European Space administration, russia was brought in as sort of a political move when the soviet union fell apart. They had a bunch of hardware for their next mir 2 space station and we said bring it to the party and well include it on ours and thats essentially what happened, but provided a good model for international cooperation. And the people who are wonderful, smart engineers, dont have much money. The Russian Space agency, lots of experience in orbit and with life support and large rockets, but really struggling financially in most of their programs are shelved at the moment. The partner of choice would be china. Theyve been in orbit. Theyll launch a station that will be bigger. Theyre landing on manned probes to the moon and sending them to mars soon and send astronauts to the moon they think in the 2020s, but we have things itar, a set of laws designed to prevent intellectual property from being transferred to what we consider to be hostile powers which depending how you read itar, almost everybody other than hawaii and its really frustrating. So theres a lot of limitations on what you can do internationally because of those regulations. So, theres a lot of people in nasa trying to figure out how to work past this. It will probably be some sorm of try lateral agreements instead of bilateral. And youll have partners and make it come together. Yes, thats probably the best way to go. The other thing is national pride. The chinese have a certain interest in doing this themselves even though theyre doing it 50 years after we and the soviet union did. There is pride moving quick i into space and if you listen to a lot of people in congress, weech some of that ourselves, still. Now . We kind of like to do our big sls moon rocket, back to the moon. They iran a cable and that solve problems. He was apparently convinced that was realistic. Can you talk about that alternative to it having to be a rocket . Space elevators are a hot topic. They are studied to that and if you took all the studies done between nasa and the universities and private groups, like some of the ones i belong to, you can fly those into orbit and forget about building the elevator at all. You have a tether attached to the ground and it goes out to eight mass in space and the proper distance, it stayed in one place on the ground, and then you run a little tab or car up and down the tether. The biggest problem besides expenses is what you mail make that tether out of. Until they get nanotechnology to the point where you can get something Strong Enough and light enough to go out 25000 miles, its kind of a problem. Again, its one of those things like orion, theres no reason that it cant work its just how do we get it to work and who will pay for it. Honestly, i said welcome to the second spaceage. I dont think we be having the second spaceage, a lot of people dont agree what, if we did have eli missed must, the internet based billionaires with that weve come a long and i will do this because i want to. Hes got a contract probably built in rocket engines for a third company, united launch alliance, elon musk is a big competitor. He says hes going to take passengers into space at some point. So far, its just spent 90 of his money, his money, his money. He wants to make rockets. Must get a lot of money from nassau because he has these reef light contracts. Got some help. The drive of these people and the money theyre willing to put up, elon mosque has spent about 115 million of his own money. Thats a lot. The first for lunch didnt work. Theyve had a couple since then that didnt work. Its a brave step. By the way, they announced today that he is going to put astronauts in his new rocket, the new shepherd, next year. So, were getting there. A lot of the government funding and political will for the space race was driven by personal stories about the astronauts. A lot of it is the notoriety of the individuals who go in their bravery and all the incidents that happened along the way. Now, i had a career with cps and i was lucky enough to meet chuck yeager, john glenn and buzz aldrin in the course of some of the broadcast. To me that was the most interesting. My question for you is do you think thats sort of notoriety is important to drive any future Space Exploration . If its still about the eventual , anymore . Thats a good question. I dont know but i think were seen that certainly is a big part of it. Its interesting, your work in journalism . You back if youre in the News Business and youre trying to cover space, working at nassau is like working like nassau, you ask questions and they give you questions at some point. You may not hear anything for a while but you get the answer and it will answer part of your question and you try to get stuff out of the. [inaudible] is like getting a news release out of north korea, its very tough. I should make an exception. I contacted them for my new book that im writing and the president of the company gave me an interview and a couple of weeks and he was gracious and open, it was great. But if you ask most journalists, we they will say they dont know whats going on there. We get little bits when they want to. Those guys, immature, have put a personal face on this. But there because the owner, operator, entrepreneur, not the heroes going up into space. Does anybody know the names of the pilots have done the Virgin Galactic flight . I dont remember them. But there dashing young men in white scarves. Im sure well know the names of the first couple people who go up into space capsule fairly soon or the first guy on mars or the people that will loop the moon. Lot of conjecture about who the heck these two people art that have paid an undisclosed sum, quote large percentage of an undisclosed sum, to go to the moon in 2018 on this virgin flight with private company out of earth orbit. Theres been conjecture, jim camerons name comes up a lot. Hes the one who did that the titanic documentaries. Some of the investors in space x have been mentioned as a possibility, somebody said saudi princes, but we have no idea. Whoever they are filby the name on the coin for a while. Good evening. Id like to know would you happen to know if theres any valuable Natural Resources on the moon that human beings, that are worth mining . It depends on how you define value. If you look at asteroids, for instance, theres two classes of things that you want to mine from asteroids. Water is one big thing and theres plenty of water and asteroids on the moon. And the reason water is valuable , we have lots of it on earth but every time we want to launch a gallon of into space it cost 36000, which is ridiculous too much money. You want to find it out there because with water you have rocket fuel, breathable oxygen, all kinds of reasons that water is valuable when you find it out there in terms of stuff you can bring back to earth for value, theres aluminum on the moon, glass, asteroids are rich in carbon, of course. There are lots of rare metals in the asteroids like platinum and things like that. Theres one entrepreneur that i talk to but i cant name him that has a plan rather than mining it in orbit, will orbit them and landed in australia. There will be some concerns of australia, the middle of australia is pretty empty. The problem is you bring that platinum down in one big chunk in the space Mining Companies will tell you, look at all the money will make but if you talk to investors, filthy the market youll depress very quickly because its like taking the debeers and all the values dropped to a tenth of the diamonds. Theres a lot out there worth having but will have to go after it robotically because its not going to be easy or economically feasible to have evil out there in boots doing it. Eventually, both. As you know, theres at least two major companies, planetary resources both funded by deep pockets that are working on the first stages of asteroid locations serving and mining. Well, yeah. Theyll be using robots for quite some time. They dont have concrete plans for human mining, yet. Robots can do an awful lot of it thats certainly the first step. Again, most of the value is what you find that you can use out there because with 3d printers you can now print metal structures. I saw one at gpo yesterday, beautiful little component that was made out of metal powder. It sounds nutty but its doable. Is there anything that are astronauts on the moon thought that nasa doesnt want us to know about . [laughter] is george in here . I dont know. Ive interviewed a bunch of those guys, david has met almost all of them and that never come up. I did do a radio show, midnight on chicago show where someone called up and said yeah, i want to talk to your author about them moon pigeons, buzz aldrin saw on the moon because theyre not telling the stuff and nassau is keeping the secrets and your part of the conspiracy. I thought he was a nut. I said, thank you for your questions, if you think theres preachers out there, thats fine he was also the guise of thought that we never went. Go look at the rocks, go to the museums, go look at the thousands and thousands of films and photographs, the transcripts , all the technology, talk to those guys. Theyre very special people and then tell me you think we never did. If thats true, if the best conspiracy ive ever seen. At the end of the answer is after i made fun of mr. Moon pigeon question, i was talking to buzz aldrin some months later and im very fortunate to you, i dont talk, he talks smarter than i am, did you ever see anything about moon pigeons. He said, yeah. I said what . It was the mylar, lunar modular top hat went off all that mylar shielding around the lower states would fly away in little pieces. He said those look like moon pigeons. As it turned out, there were moon pigeon but they werent with i thought. He successfully evaded the question and i dont know, but i dont think so. Go back to your question if i can, about the personalities doing this. Ive met a lot of the guys and im often struck if you had asked any of them when they got selected to be an astronaut, young military pilots, what are the odds . If you asked them at that age, what are the 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 reverent friends like me its like where do i get very . The latter is an impossible scenario. All of them were very aware of the odds were very good that the people who flew, new people that they had lost their lives in test or combat. I believe i detected among all the guys a reluctance to really stand in the spotlight knowing that you are in there and had to be on there and this is america and america loves its celebrities, but it was a duty. They talked about it being, in the barrel. Its completely obscene definition of what its like to be famous. You went back to your job as fast as you could. If someone like the spotlight too much, and made tension at nasa. I found john glenn to be very reserved whereas chuck yeager was the most interesting person ive ever met. He was really out there in terms of his personality. I think it was a wide range of people who were willing to stick their neck out. [inaudible] its interesting because youre talking about some of the people we met. You meet someone like Gordon Cooper and he was kind of a Big Personality guy and you meet like al bean was the fourth man on the moon who came back to earth and very quickly said, you know what, that was great but i want to paint and he became a fine artist. Is a wonderful artist and thats hes been doing ever since. He is a shy, quiet, i dont know if i call him reserved but a gentleman in the classic cast. He went to the moon and it was very exciting and if youre at one of these events, go back and paint because thats what hes been doing for 48 years. It does take all kinds. We had two more back there. Thats a tough act to follow. You are talking about printers in space and bringing asteroids down and id love to see that so about them coming from outer space and hitting australia. Debbie fantastic. What about manufacturing in space . Zero gravity, and a complete vacuum out there. Do you know anything about that . It seems to me that it be better than crashing them into the earth. Just to be clear, when i talked about bringing stuff back thats for rare earth metals, precious metals. As far as things you want to make up there, that makes all kind of sense. They sent a 3d printer up to the space station, made in space, the company and its much tougher to do with anything. You have a sealed enclosure and has to have all these nasa policies. They havent yet tested printing with metal this will be the big one because you can only do so much with polymers and plastic. There are things you can do with it, simple tools and pieces metal is the holy grail of all of this. That has yet to be figured out. [inaudible] doesnt seem to be the problem. They tested them in a vacuum on the surface of a planet but i dont believe they tested printing in a vacuum up there yet. So, that would be the next set. Theres really no other way. You dont want to have foundries and youre trying to do Injection Molding and so forth and that is going to be tough in 0g. Printing makes a lot of sense. [inaudible] [laughter] thats another machine. Is that a transmitter . I think they made wrenches, couple statues and tchotchkes and some useful parts but mainly it was an experiment. I think we had one more back there. To get back to some of your earlier points. Space age one, if we can call that, was the a meritocracy, best and the brightest married to large quantities of the right stuff or the right dusky if you are over the pond. [laughter] but spaceage to is looking like nothing more of rich jerks buying a ride up. What do you think that will due to Popular Support for Space Program . Thats a good question. I think its more complicated. I think while spaceage one was a meritocracy, theres smoke from dealing going on, you still see that with some companies in the Large Business they dont publish their price businesses like eli mr. Does. Theres a reason the Johnson Space center is an texas and kennedy is in florida. Theres a lot of complicated than merit. I agree that there was a lot of merit in what they did in the best and brightest in a lot of wonderful things. It was also really expensive. We spent 5 of the federal budget to get to the moon in 196. As far as the people buying the rise in the next two years, yeah , there will be a lot of cardassians in space metaphorically speaking and im not thrilled about that. You have to fit in the capsule but is another story. [laughter] when you look at somebody like eli mosque and theres a lot of other names that are less famous because they havent spent that kind of money but these guys if you beat them, they are so driven and so consumed by this the for anybody whos spent time up at the nasa feel center, those folks are exhausted by all the flipflopping that goes on with the plans. They study it, they spend money on it, its canceled or changed but the level of passion i see there in the brilliance and the drive and the love for what they do is astonishing. So, space 2. 0 by the way that the name of my next book, it will be an amazing thing and there will be some stunts that go on for sure depending on how you look at it, space 1. 0 was a bit of a stunt. We were in a race to prove that we have a Better Society in terms of technology and society and government and so forth. Did we really have to go to the moon . No. But we decided to do it because were pretty sure we could do it before the bad guys did. That was one of the big reasons. I think well be okay. Lets give him a round of applause. [applause]