He is a great american, great patriot, he has served nasa for 42 years. We love him. It is also true that we are moving to a new era in human spaceflight. Where the administration is interested in going fast, we are interested in doing things a different way. We believe it is important to have new leadership. It was entirely my decision. At the end of the day, we need to be very clear that nasa is committed to cost and schedule. Safety is the highest priority, but we are committed to cost and schedule. I thought it was important to make this change at this time. A quick follow on that. You are coming at a time when we are about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of apollo 11. About to fly crews from american soil for the first time. As you mentioned, the Artemis Program of returning to the moon. You reassigned ahead of human exploration. I was curious if you could give us some insight. 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. We love it. It gives us an opportunity to talk about what is next. The Artemis Program, where we go back to the moon sustainably with our eyes on mars, all of that is important. The objective is 2024. We need to move out quickly on all of our decisions. Not waste time, but move quickly. Nasa is moving into that era rapidly. Jeff you have the person who will replace him in an acting manner. You have mentioned youre looking for a permanent replacement. What will be the priority going in and what decisions will they have to make . Jim they will put together a team at the top. The head of that mission directorate. Then there is the Exploration Systems Development director. That person is responsible for the largest rocket ever built that will take our astronauts to the moon. And the orion crew capsule that our astronauts will fly in. 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 and a landing system to get our astronauts to the surface. We will have a new person at the head of that as well. We are looking at three total individuals decreed that top team at the human exploration and missions directorate. We will be looking for them to look at the program and come up with their own baseline schedules and costs and ultimately have them execute 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 initial additional requests to congress. What is your strategy . You have said many times the challenges are not just technical. They are political. To will you sell this particularly democrats on the hill to get the funding you need . Is the challenge political. , not largely parochial necessarily parts and. When we talk about the budget, the president said we need to go to the moon faster. We need to go to the moon within five years with technology that can ultimately be used for a mission to mars. That is the goal. Not only did he say to go faster but he gave us an amendment to the budget request that allows us to achieve that. In 2020 we received 1. 6 billion that did not come out of nasa. It doesnt come out of the budget cap. We have 1. 6 billion additional specific to nasa. That enables us in the year 2020 to do what is necessary to build the lender so we can land on the surface of the moon in 2024. That being said, as you can imagine any Development Program , like a moon lander follows the traditional path of a Development Program which starts low and gets high. It is a bell curve. It goes up and back down. In that bell curve, you can imagine 2021 will be a little higher. We have not put specific numbers on it. Range, 20n a billion to over the course of to buildon five years a sustainable lunar architecture 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 and increases access to the moon for a lot of people. If they want to invest their own money we welcome that. I can tell you today it is very realistic that it can come in under 20 billion. When i gave that original range, i was thinking nasa is doing that alone. 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 . What happens as it is likely that we star 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. As you are aware the president , and Vice President are not keen on waiting around. They want to go faster. How do we get there earlier . We have put together a plan at nasa. We said we could land in 2024 but it will require an additional budget. We will need an amendment. They are putting the money where their mouth is. That is 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 commerce justice science appropriations bill, which funds nasa. The idea that we will roll out a budget request the week they are marking it up and they will incorporate it is not realistic. A lot of people read that as they are not supportive. It is not true. I have talked to people on both sides of the aisle 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. If we can get the 1. 6 billion in the senate bill, 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 do worry we will end up in a cr and we have to look 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 spaceflight, cspan just conducted a poll. One of the questions we asked about priorities, on the top of that list from our respondents saying changes to the earths environment. On the bottom of that list is exploration, including the moon and mars. What do think about those results . Jim we believe studying the earth is a priority. It always has been and always will be. Right now, within the budget cap we are spending as much money as , we ever have on earth science. We are studying the earth and every part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Bipartisan, we are committed to studying the earth. It is also true that in my view americans are committed to Space Exploration. I saw your poll and some of those numbers. I would also say here we are, 50 years after apollo celebrating the 50th anniversary. By the way, during the apollo program, it was not a popular program. Ultimately, when it was achieved , that monumental 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 of apollo. Her name is artemis. She happens to be the goddess of the moon. This time we are going with a , highly diverse qualified , Astronaut Corps that includes women. We send them under a Program Named after apollos twin sister. The story, in my view is , absolutely beautiful. The polling numbers indicate that Space Exploration is a necessity. Overwhelmingly people believe Space Exploration it says necessary. 77 say yes. What is Space Exploration . It is going to the moon, going to mars, and going to beyond. Going beyond. I think it is important to note that 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. I want to talk for a when you second. Talk about the way we communicate, some people will probably be watching this on directv. Maybe internet, broadband. I come from rural oklahoma. A lot of parts of rural oklahoma, you dont have television if you dont have television from space. You do not have internet if you do not have internet broadband from space. These communication capabilities were born from this agency called nasa that gets less than one half of 1 of the federal budget. It is not just communication. Navigation, Gps Technology developed by nasa. The way we produce food, the way we produce energy, national security, banking, predict weather, understand how the earth is changing 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 . What you will see is that overwhelmingly people believe that investing in Space Exploration is critical to our country. I really believe that. 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 Space Shuttle retired in 2011. We have had a bit of a gap. What is the status of that program . We have seen boeing had problems with its spacecraft. Spacex had its capsule blow up. What is the 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 flight complete this year. I do not know at this point. I am 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 human exploration operation. That is because we have challenges with cost and schedule. We are committed to commercial crew. We need to launch american astronauts from american rockets on american soil and 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 to the International Space station without nasa owning all of the hardware. Which has been the tradition. Instead, we are buying a service from a commercial industry. Nasa could be one customer of many customers to drive down costs and increase access. We could have numerous providers that are competing against each other on cost and innovation. Again driving down cost and , increasing access. That is the goal. That is why commercial crew is so important. We are using commercial capabilities to advance the American Space agenda. We are doing it to the International Space station at first. Eventually, we want to have commercial habitation be available as well. Nasa is helping commercial industry get there. Eventually we want to take the , commercial capability to the moon. This we have these commercial partners. Sometimes they have struggled. Nasa is embedded with them. We are part of the investigation. You mentioned the spacex castle e that blew up. We are part of that investigation. Certainly, i believe it is possible we could get those missions launched this year. We are working towards that. If you talk to our commercial crew providers 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. We are going to take care of them. Jim bridenstine joining us for this conversation. Jeff to follow up on that. Spacex had a successful test flight to the station in march, they had a testing accident in april. There has been a lot of criticism about the lack of openness into that investigation. What is nasa doing to address those concerns . Criticism largely comes from me as well. This is a new era in human spaceflight. Nasa is a customer. We are in fact a partner at the same time. We are working sidebyside with this commercial capability that eventually we will have customers that are not nasa. Said, in this anomaly, this blowup of a capsule, there was no communication from the commercial partner for a period of time. That cant happen again. I have been very clear about that. I talked to the ceo. I said americans are investing in this with your 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 to the public as soon as possible. This was an uncrewed test. Remember, this is why we test. We make these discoveries before we fly with humans. This is an important thing to remember. This is a test. Test, to find out what went wrong and make adjustments. That is what nasa has always done. That is what we expect our commercial partners to do. When there was 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. Christian the way our astronauts get to the space station today are on russian rockets. That is the way it has been since the shuttle went away. If there are continued delays, in this commercial crew program, are you concerned we wont have enough seats on those russian rockets to continue u. S. Presence on the station . At what do you have to go out point and buy more seats . Jim we have additional seats uzght now on russian soy rockets 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. That is significant technical technological achievement. It is a very significant diplomatic achievement given the geopolitics terrestrially. It is absolutely true that this partnership is important. If commercial crew is not ready, we will have to buy additional seats. I am not suggesting that is going to be necessary, but we will be working 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. A critical capability to commercialize low earth orbit. The International Space station is the tool we are using to commercialize space. We want to make sure we do not lose access to it. That is a high priority. Jeff one of the key elements of the Exploration Program is suffering a number of delays. In march, you 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 if not how will you address the criticism to that proposal . Jim the sls rocket is the first of its kind. It is the biggest rocket ever built in Human History. It is the most powerful rocket ever built. Taller than the statue of liberty. There are a lot of things that go into this that are first. As we go through the development we find new things we need to , fix or correct. That being said, yes there have , been flips. We are committed to cost and schedule. We are making changes with personnel at the top of the human explorations and mission directorate. We have already had this discussion. In order to make sure we have realistic schedules and we are sticking to the realistic schedules and costs. That being said 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. As far as the green run past, which you brought 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. We are going to ultimately let them make the determination. I would suspect we should not not do the green run. The green run is a critical test, but how much of the green run do we need to do . 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. There have been some cost estimates come about 50 million a ride plus 35,000 a night. Im curious, since you announced that have you gotten any interest . Have you had any people say they want to do this . 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. Heres the thing 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. As you have identified 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, i think it 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. And then build those capabilities and technologies for an eventual mission to mars. 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 taking over is a loaded word. When nasa partners will commercial industry we are , involved in the process. It is not a takeover. It is a partnership. Commercial industry, as far as human spaceflight could not go , forward without nasa. That is an important part point to make. Spaceflight taken over by commercial industry directv, internet broadband are all commercial capability. Imaging for google maps. All of these things are commercially done. They used to be done by the government. You can call it a commercial takeover or you can call it an offset to government costs for doing things that have become routine. We support that at nasa. 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 when america does absolutely stunning achievements, it gets celebrated for years to come. When we celebrate the 50th anniversary of apollo this year, this month, the whole world is watching all of this programming with us, celebrate with us. This shape the perceptions of people all over the world towards the United States of america in a positive way so that young people could grow up with a perception different than what they would hear in their home countries with the geopolitics involves these days. 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 tehran. The officialr was hardline newspaper of the Islamic Revolutionary guard corps. They dont write nice things about the United States. In this case they showed a stunning achievement by nasa. The eighth time in Human History that we have landed on mars. Children and young people in this country were able to see a great story about nasa and our International Partners. That being said, we need to think about the future. What are the stunning achievements that we can do that ultimately people will be celebrating 50 years afterwards . I talked to the president a few short weeks ago. He said very clearly i know you have to go to the moon to get to mars, but talk about mars. Mars is that generational achievement that will capture the imagination of the American People. He is absolutely right. We are going to continue talking about why we go to the moon. It is the proving ground for the mission to mars. The challenge with apollo is that it ended. It was not sustainable because the costs were too high. When we go to the moon we are driving commercial opportunities into it. We are driving reusability into the architecture. We are learning from apollo what not to do. All to be reusable. We need it we need to drive down the cost and keep our eyes on the horizon goal. The goal is not the moon, it is mars. In the last year, we have discovered complex organic compounds on the surface of mars. The Building Blocks for life exist. Liquid water, 12 kilometers under the surface of mars. Liquid water on earth anywhere it is, there is life. Im not saying there is life on mars. The probability just went up. The methane cycles are commensurate with the seasons. Probability of life just went up. When we think about these generational discoveries, the generational achievements, earth discovering life on a world that is not earth would be a generational achievement. We are focused on mars. One of the challenges of apollo it ended because it was not costeffective effective. It was not reusable. There were no commercial partners. The moon is a proving ground. How do we live and work on another world sustainably . Mars is the destination. The nasa administrator our guest on newsmakers, Jim Bridenstine here to have a conversation about space policy. Thanks for joining us. We will be right back. Christian davenport over and over again the administrator talked about the goals for the moon. What is the reality for meeting this achievement . Christian the technical challenges of getting to the moon and then the political one. Nasa was on its way working towards getting there by 2028 and out of the blue the Vice President moves that up by four years and says we will get there by 2024. That is the mandate. He made it very clear to nasa and the administrator people will be held accountable if they are not able to do this. We just saw this with the dismissal of the head of human exploration. Getting there by 2024 is going to be very difficult, not just to sell that program to democrats, and we did talk about that. There were a lot of people upset by the removal who were not totally sold on this program, what it entails, how much money it is going to cost. You are seeing the administrator spend a fair amount of time on the hill talking to lawmakers to do that. In addition to the political problems, they have some serious technical issues. The rocket has a host of problems. That is one of the reasons he was ousted. The rocket is not ready. It is unclear on the testing regime they are going to put it through. There are a lot of challenges that remain. Jeff we oftentimes focus on the technical ones. The issues with the spacecraft and other systems. You have to sell this. Especially when you start setting challenging goals. To ining 20 billion 30 billion additional money over that span. Selling that to a skeptical congress. Especially in the house with the democratic leadership not bought into why the rush . Why go so quickly . Why does it have to be done by 2024 . You run into some challenges. On the other hand, if you start to see technical success that could play a political success. There is the potential for a virtual cycle to set up at some point. The question is will it set up in such a way that allows for a 2024 landing. Christian the white house is all in on this. So many administrations put space on the back burner. With the Vice President in particular they are laser , focused on this program. They want it to be done in 2024. They want it as part of their legacy. They see it as an image of not Just National pride, but the Vice President has this in a race against other superpowers particularly china. , that is a blessing but also a curse because democrats will see that as a Trump Program and maybe that is a reason to be against it. Christian davenport covers space and defense industries. Jeff is with space views, he is the senior writer. Thanks for joining us on newsmakers. Democratic president ial candidates are campaigning throughout New Hampshire this weekend. Cspan has live Coverage Today at 1 15 eastern from New Hampshire with california senator kamala harris. Watch live coverage of democratic president ial candidates from New Hampshire on cspan. Watch any time at cspan. Org and listen with the free cspan radio app. Tonight on q a, former new York City Police deputy talks about his book, once a cough. I was in a family of five girls and myself. I is ironic that in my book have a picture of me in the fifthgrade sitting indian style in the front. I am holding my feet because i have holes in the bottom of my shoes. I had cardboard in them so my socks would not get wet. I had a rough upbringing. I got involved in the streets and met some friends and they were selling drugs. It was the thing to do. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Tonight at 9 00 eastern on argues that msnbc President Trump is damaging american democracy in her new book, the man who sold america. She is interviewed by an author and journalist. I am surprised that people elected on the sheer scream of the majority. What about health care . Rain in this president so he will not take my health care. That is the message of the 2018 election. Rain in this president so he will not take my rights away as a woman. Brain in this president so he will stop the horrors of the in this president so he will stop the horrors at the border. At 10 00 eastern, former defense secretary flex on his career. Reflects on his career. We have to stick up for ourselves. China is a communist dictatorship. When they come to the business scene, they bring a combination of political, military, and economic tools that societies like ours do not possess. Book tv is on cspan two every weekend. A threejudge panel of the d. C. Circuit court of appeals heard oral argument in trump v. Mazars, which concerns the congressional subpoena for President Trumps Business Financial records. House oversight and Reform Committee chair congressman Elijah Cummings of maryland issued the subpoena in april. This is about two hours and 10 minutes. Case number 195142, donald j. Trump et al. Appellants