And jeff faust, a Senior Writer for space nudes space news. Thank you. Thank you. On wednesday, you announced you were resigning a couple of Key Administration officials including bill garza meyer, the longtime associate administrator. Why make that change and why do so now . We just reassigned you announced that you were of key ing a couple administration officials. Why make that change and why do so now . We just reassigned him to a role inside of nasa. Great great american, a that t and its also true were moving to a new era with American Space flight and i important to s have new leadership at the top human explorations directorate. But s entirely my decision we need toof the day be clear that were committed to cost and schedule, safety is a but were committed to and i just edule, thought it was important to make this change at this time. A quick follow on that. Coming at a time when we are about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of apollo 11. As you mentioned, the program of returning to the moon. You reassigned ahead of human exploration. Why was that done at this moment . Jim we are landing on the south pole of the moon with the next man and the first woman in 2024. We dont have a lot of time to waste. If we are going to have new leadership it needs to happen now. A lot of things need to go right. The schedule matters. The schedule matters not just what happened 50 years ago we are proud of. It gives us an opportunity to talk about what is next. Where we go back to the moon sustainably with our eyes on mars. The objective is 2024. We need to move out quickly on all of our decisions. Jeff you have the person who will replace him in an acting manner. What will be the permanent replacements priorities and what decisions will they have to make . Jim they will put together a team at the top. The head of that mission director. It is the exploration systems development. That person is responsible for the largest rocket ever built that will take our astronauts to the moon. Then, we are working towards having a separate division called moon to mars. Which includes the gateway, a small habitat in orbit around the moon at a landing system to get our astronauts to the surface. We will have a new person at the head of that as well. Looking at three total individuals. We will be looking for them to look at the program and come up with their own baseline schedules and costs. Ultimately have them executed according to those baseline costs and schedules so we can get the next man and first woman to the south pole of the moon. In the year 2024. Christian could we talk for a minute about cost of the Artemis Program . We have seen some fluctuating numbers. I know you have gotten additional requests. What is your strategy . You have said the proud and just arent just technical, they are political. How will you see this to get the funding you need . Jim it is largely parochial, the challenge. Not necessarily partisan. When we talk about the budget, the president said we need to go to the pastor. Within five years that is the goal. Not only did he say to go faster but he allowed us to a quicker. In 2020 we received 1. 6 billion that doesnt come out of nasa, it doesnt come out of the budget cap. It is 1. 6 billion additional to nasa. In the year 2020 it allows us to do it as necessary to build the lander so we can land on the surface of the moon in 2024. Any Development Program like a moon lander follows the traditional path of a Development Program which starts low and gets high. In that bell curve you could imagine 2021 will be a little higher. 2022 a little bit higher. We have not put specific numbers on it. I have given a range, 20 billion dollars 30 billion over the course of five years on top of our existing budget. The reality is what we are learning is that there are other people that want to contribute. International partners and commercial partners that want to put their own skin into the game. They want to invest their own money. Why . They want customers that are not nasa. If they can have customers that are not nasa it drives down our cost. Access to the moon for a lot of people. If they want to invest their own money we welcome that. Today, it is , very realistic that it can come in under 20 billion. If nasa does it with International Partners and commercial partners we could drive down the cost. Jeff the house has passed an appropriations bill that doesnt include that 1. 6 billion, what is your strategy for getting that funding . That appens as is likely we start the 2020 fiscal year on a continuing resolution . Jim given the traditional budget we put together a plan to get to the moon by 2028. The president and Vice President are not keen on waiting around. They want to go faster. What can we do . We get there earlier . How do we get there earlier . We said we could land in 2024 but it will require an additional budget. Well need an amendment. They are putting the money where their mouth is. Thats a very important distinction. It is also true that the week that the Budget Amendment came out was the week the house appropriators were marking up the bill that funds nasa. The idea that we will roll out a budget request and they will incorporate it is not realistic. A lot of people read that as they are not supporting. It is not true. I talked to people on both sides that are in fact very supportive. The challenge is they did not have the time. The whole process goes through the house initially. The senate has to pass the bill. The senate has to pass the bill. If we can get the 1. 6 billion in the senate bill, when its in conference, that is when we can come together and say here is what we need for the moon program in a bipartisan way and pass a bill that allows us to achieve the objective. The process has only just begun. Im confident it can be achieved. I worry we will end up in a cr and we have to look at how nasa can move forward. At this point we are working the process the way the u. S. Government works to achieve it and we are confident we can put together the pieces. Christian to the larger issue of human space life. One of the questions we asked about priorities, on the top of that list saying changes to the earths environment. On the bottom of that list is exploration. What do think about those results . How does that square with what nasas mission is . Jim we believe studying the earth is a priority. We are spending as much money as we have on earth science. Bipartisan, we are committed to studying the earth. It is also true that in my view americans are very committed to Space Exploration. I saw your poll and some of those numbers. Here we are, 50 years after apollo celebrating the 50th anniversary. By the way, it was not a popular program. Ultimately, when it was achieved that monumental stunning achievement was not only popular when it was complete but it is popular 50 years after. People love apollo. We have a new Program Named after the twin sister, her name is artemis. She happens to be the goddess of the moon. This time when we go to the moon, we are going with a highly qualified Astronaut Corps that includes women. We can send women under a Program Named after apollos twin sister. It is absolutely beautiful. The polling numbers indicate that Space Exploration is a necessity. Overwhelmingly people believe in Space Exploration, 77 say yes. What is Space Exploration . Going to the moon, going to mars, and going to beyond. Americans support Space Exploration in general. I think it is also important to note that this unique capability that we have built and that we are continuing to build has resulted in Economic Opportunity not just for the United States but the entire world. When you talk about the way we communicate, some people will probably be watching this. On directv. Maybe internet, broadband. Im from oklahoma. A lot of oklahoma is rural. You dont have television if you dont have television from space. You dont have internet. These communication capabilities were born from this agency called nasa that gets less than one half of 1 of the federal budget. The way we produce food, the way we produce energy, disaster relief, national security, banking, predict weather, all of these things born from this agency. It gets less than one half of 1 of the federal budget. If you communicate to the American People all of these benefits that they receive every day from the apollo program, if you communicate that and say how important is this to you . Overwhelmingly people believe that investing in Space Exploration is critical to our country. Christian in terms of exploration, we are talking a lot about the moon but we could see within a matter of months or a year the first human flying from u. S. Soil on americanmade rockets to space since the shuttle retired in 2011. Weve had a bit of a gap there. What is the status of that program . Boeing had problems with its spacecraft, spacex had its capsule blow up. Status of that investigation and do you think we will have a flight this year . Jim i dont want to comment on whether or not we will get that complete this year. This stly dont know at point. Im being honest. I have always said we are going to launch this year. You obviously already covered the fact that we are having changes at the top of the human exploration operation. That is because we have challenges with cost and schedule. We are committed to commercial crews. We to make it a go. We need to launch american astronauts from american soil. We need to do it as soon as possible. I will also tell you that we had two very dissimilar rockets and two very dissimilar capsules with two commercial crew providers. What does that mean . I want the American People to know, what that means is we are launching to low earth orbit the International Space station without nasa owning all of the hardware. Instead, we are buying a service. From a commercial industry, so nasa could be one customer of many customers to drive down costs and increase access. We can have numerous providers that are competing against each other on cost and innovation. Driving down cost and increasing access. That is the goal. That is why commercial crew is so important. Using commercial capabilities to advance americas space agenda. We are doing it to the lower orbit, International Space station at first. Eventually want to have commercial be available as well. Nasa is helping commercial industry get there. We want to take the commercial capability to the moon. We have these commercial partners. Sometimes they have struggles. Nasa is embedded with them. We are part of the investigation. The Spacex Castle that blew up, we are part of that investigation. Rapidly to make these Space Missions a reality. Certainly, i believe it is possible we could get those missions launched this year. Fact, were working towards that. They will say that we can do that. As a nasa administrator i want to make sure that before i go forward with what the launch date will be that we know for sure that these vehicles will be safe. That is what we are intending to do, 100 . Our astronauts are the highest priority. Our newsmakers program, Jim Bridenstine joining us for this conversation. Jeff to follow up on that. Had a successful test flight to the station in march, an accident in april. There has been a lot of criticism about the lack of openness. What is nasa doing to address those concerns . Jim that criticism largely comes from me as well. This is a new era in spaceflight. Nasa is a customer. We are in fact a partner at the same time. We are working sidebyside with commercial capability that eventually will have customers that are not nasa. Anomaly, there was no communication from the commercial partner for a period time. That cant happen again. I talked to the ceo. Americans are investing in this commercial company. We want to make sure we get clarity early. We decided together that following a new procedure if Something Like this were to happen within a couple hours we will do a press conference. We will give as much information out to the public as soon as possible. This was an uncrewed test. We make these discoveries before we fly with humans. This is an important thing to remember. This is why we test. Find out what went wrong and make adjustments. And we move forward. That is what nasa has always done. That is what we expect our commercial partners to do. It is an anomaly, if it was nasa, we would have immediately done a press conference and gotten the information out there. Commercial crew partners dont always see at the same way. We are making sure we are in sync on how we communicate going forward. Christian the way our astronauts get to the space station today are on russian rockets. The s what its been since shuttle went away. If there are continued delays, are you concerned we wont have enough seats on those russian rockets to continue u. S. Presence on the station . Point do you have to go out and buy more seats . Jim we have additional seats and this partnership is important. It goes back. We have been living and working with russians on the International Space station for almost 20 years. Hat is a significant achievement. It is absolutely true that this partnership is important. If the crew is not ready we will have to buy additional with our partners to make sure that we do not lose access to the International Space station. It is a critical capability for our country. Critical capability to commercialized lower orbit. The International Space station is the tool we are using to commercialize space. We want to make sure we dont lose access to it. Absolutely, it is a high priority for us. Jeff one of the key elements of is the space launch program. It suffered a number of delays. In march he suggested that nasa might skip a key test called the green run. Have you made the decision about whether to use the green run and what is your response to the criticism . Jim the sls rocket is the first of its kind. It is the biggest rocket ever built. It is the most powerful rocket ever built. The statue of liberty. There are a lot of things that go into this that are firsts. In development we find new things we need to fix or correct. There have been difficulties. We are committed to cost and schedule. We are making changes with personnel. We have already had this discussion. In order to make sure we have realistic schedules, and we are sticking to the realistic schedules. It is critical that we use that rocket because it is the only capability that can take humans all the way to the moon. We are making sure we are making the right adjustments. You brought it up, we have made no decisions. We are changing personnel at the top of human exploration. I want to make sure we get the top people in place and let them look at the program. We are talking about very professional people who have been doing it for a long time. Ultimately let them make the determination. What tests need to be done . I would suspect we should not not do the green run. It is a critical test. Ow much of a green run do we need to do is the question. The key is this, we want to make sure our astronauts are safe. Number two, we are committed to cost and schedule. Christian you came out not too long ago with the plan to fly to the International Space station, ordinary citizens. Be able to go up there. Cost estimates. Million a ride plus 35,000 per night. Im curious, since you announced that have you gotten any interest . Jim we have had interest long before we announced it. The answer is yes, there are people who want to go to space. There are people willing to pay. Nasa is not selling those seats. Remember, we are developing commercial crew to take people to the International Space station. Our goal is to be one customer of many customers to drive down our cost. There are people who want to go that are not nasa, they can offset our cost. Those seats will be sold by commercial providers and of course we are making available the International Space station for those same participants. Those same commercial astronauts. The answer is yes, there is interest. Yes, we will be successful that we will offset the costs. We need resources to go to the moon sustainably. In other words, to stay. Of course, with the first woman by 2024 under the Artemis Program. Build those capabilities and technologies. Our poll asked people if it should be taken over by private industry. Low on that list people are responding with that, does that surprise you . Jim the word taking over is a loaded word. When nasa partners, we are involved in the process. It is a partnership. It could not go forward without nasa. Spaceflight taken over by commercial industry, again, directv, internet broadband are all commercial capability imaging. Google maps. All of these things are commercially done. They used to be done by the government. You can call it a commercial or you can call it an offset to government cost that do things becoming routine. We have time for one more question. Jeff for celebrating the 50th anniversary of apollo, we are talking about going to the moon. What lessons can we take from apollo and what things do we have to do differently . Jim that is a wonderful question and there is a lot. What we know is this, celebrating the 50th anniversary of apollo, we know when there is an achievement, it gets celebrated for years to come. The whole world is watching all of this programming with us, celebrating with us. This shapes the perception towards the United States of america in a positive way. Could grow up with a perception different than what they would hear in their home country. One example i like to talk about is when we landed on mars back in november of last year. It was in a newspaper in