Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Legacy Of Apollo Missions 20240713

Next, a look at the legacy of the Apollo Space Missions in the future of Space Exploration. The discussion was held at the National Academy of engineering. [applause] welcome, everyone, to the National Academy of engineerings for him on human spaceflight, apollo, 50 years on. Im going on stage today by six incredible individuals, each of whom helped shape the history and the future of human spaceflight. A little introduction about myself. My name is deeann. Much like many of our panelists today, i am an engineer. Unlike most of our panelists i have never been to space which gives you an idea of the impressiveness. I did grow up in brevard county, florida, Cape Canaveral and many of you launched into space, it has been an inspiration in my life and one of the reasons i chose to pursue engineering. I have gone on to have an atypical career. I am an endearing tv host nowadays and founder and ceo of future engineers. We have current talent launched with nasa where students can name the next mars rover. I dont know if you know but the curiosity rover was named by kindergarten student. We have a contest in november, if you have kids or grandkids that want to be part of space history i encouraged him to go online and submit their names. Speaking of space history, i am going to tell you about our panelists today and i want to let you know their placement on stage is not a coincidence. We have a chronology here from apollo on to thinking about going to mars. Right here on my left we have general tom stafford, former nasa astronaut with the gemini and Apollo Programs. Next we have captain bob crippen, shuttle astronauts, and doctor sandy magnus, a shuttle astronaut has been four months on the International Space station. After that, captain Chris Ferguson, former shuttle astronaut, now the boeing commercial astronaut which is quite exciting. After that, the vp of flight is build reliability at space x. He joined me in 2002 and hans and i share the title of never having been to space. But i want to caveat that with yes. Im hoping with all the work going on on the commercial side, all of us will have the opportunity to go to space one day. At the end we have Major General charlie bolden, former shuttle astronaut and former nasa administrator during the Obama Administration and oversaw the transition from the spatial program to a new era of Space Exploration where low earth orbit is being turned over to commercial entities and we are looking forward to new technologies going on to mars. The way it works today is we separate into three different segments. The first segment we give all our speakers time to share a bit about themselves and then we have a 30 minute q a and transition after the audience to start thinking about their questions and what you want to ask our panelists. We start on my left, general tom stafford. Are you ready . General tom stafford received his bachelors degree with honors in electrical and Mechanical Engineering from the Us Naval Academy and graduated first in his classes United States air force test pilot in 1959 and went on to become an american legend. In 1965 he piloted gemini 6, the first rendezvous in space. In 1966 he commanded gemini 9 demonstrating rendezvous used in the apollo lunar mentions. As commander of apollo 10 in 1969, he flew the first rendezvous around the moon and designated the first Lunar Landing site. He commanded the apollo Soyuz Mission which was the first historic meeting in space between us astronauts and soviet cosmonauts, ending the International Space race. And he holds the musk speed record. General stafford has been four types of spacecraft and more than 100 types of aircraft. He presided over the development of multiple aircraft, and distilled Aircraft Program and roadmap for the f22 raptor. Only about three weeks the time al shepherd flew until we go to the moon with shepherd at 50 minutes of flight. Other factors entered into that, the bay of pigs invasion and the analysis with the soviets would do on our free return trajectory around the moon. It was a real dynamic time. I used the knowledge i i gained for my good friends out shepherd and those people. Really enjoyed it. For those of you who were there, it was truly a lot of fun. It was great time to be there. As a look at apollo and gemini, we set the tools of course we didnt know what we didnt know. For example, on that first rendezvous and we happen to lose a computer, radar or the platform, and then later, the first spacewalk around the world that someone nearly got killed. I couldve been killed, too. Then you have to train better for that. Today theres a rule you train underwater before you go out and do a spacewalk. Also now they have virtual reality, so you trained that way. That came from gemini nine. Also gemini six when wally and i had her engine shutdown at g0 with the liftoff signal. We knew we had a dead mans turn. We learn you have to have, a system they cannot complete automatic but a override and all this, a a very complex thing to and you do it right. We also learned lessons life on apollo 13. Im sure youve all seen the movie, a lot of it, and that is a lesson like you look back in high school chemistry. You always pour acid into water. You do not pour water into acid because you will have some bad result. We learn from apollo 13, you dont mix liquid oxygen with compounds that have carbon in thin. Apollo 13 we had about five and a half pounds of carbon in the teflon wiring and 300 pounds of blocks. Youve all seen probably the pictures that blew that double wall steel out, take to pieces and also the core Service Module out. That was a series of things. Then i was involved in return to flight after the columbia accident, then a briefing with the admiral who chaired the accident board. It was whole series of things. He said he could use the word challenger, any word but columbia, the same lessons so theres a lot of rules you do not violate. Weve set these tools in place and they are all there. And so the main thing is dont screw up. [laughing] that was a great time to be there, but also as you mention i started this, all the stealth programs of the air force, if ive not had the experience of being in the soviet union, and then later having the first experimental with stealth airplane. I was commanding general there. I wouldve never started the roadmap of error for the f22 after fighter. A whole series of things. Just a great time to be there. Ill cut short a couple of seconds. Theres rules out there, tools out there, and you do not violate them. [laughing] the rules and tools, you do not violate them and do not screw up. Our next panels today, with captain bob crippen who was the pilot of the very first spaceflight in april 1981 and went on to command through other spatial omissions. During his 30 years in u. S. Navy he was an attack pilot answer is a test Pilot Instructor at Edwards Air Force base. In 1969 he was selected as the nasa astronaut and was on the support group for the skylab two, three and four mission, and on the apollo soyuz test project. He became director of spatial program at nasa headquarters and the director of Kennedy Space center. He entered the private sector as a Vice President at Lockheed Martin and served as president of the propulsion company. He earned his bachelors in aerospace airspace in gaos elected to the National Academy of engineering in 2012. Its my pleasure to introduce bob crippen. [applause] thank you, thank you, deanned morning. Im really pleased that they were able to pull together this panel of friends of mine. Its great to be up here, especially by former boss and friend, tom stafford it has he indicated he selected as one of his support crew for the apollo Soyuz Mission and took us over to russia, to star city and the soviet union. It was still the russia part. [laughing] even out to the launch site, which was how i think where the first foreigners to ever visit that. And then had the pleasure of talking, and the rest of the screw into the command module on is his lunch so we go back a long way, as indicated. Its also a pleasure to be appear with Sandra Magnus and Chris Ferguson who flew the last shuttle flight. One of my fondest memories, i just telling sandy was john young and i, my commander, and i got to do a photo op with them because we represented the bookends of the spatial program, if you will. I joined nasa right after apollo 11, 50 years ago, long time some older than dirt, too. I had come off a program that was highly classified, department of Defense Program called the laboratory, mold for short, highly classified. Just a few years ago filing declassified. Our job is to take highresolution photographs of the soviet union. But when the program was canceled they took seven of us off of that and transferred over to the nasa Astronaut Office. We didnt do any training, didnt go to a Selection Process with nasa. We just walked in the door and they put us to work. There were some similarities between the Skylab Program and what was being developed at nasa and m. O. L. That was my first assignment was to go follow, birddog what was going on with the development of skylab to make sure the crew interfaces were acceptable and i worked throughout the program and its flights would start off, dramatic but ended up being a great program. When it was concluded i was assigned to go start doing the same thing following the development of spatial which it just and announced. A lot of people think of the job of investment is mostly training, but most of my career with nasa was spent in doing Engineering Work following the development of the spacecraft. I would imagine that the current Astronaut Office is doing the same thing with the vehicles that are being developed today by lockheed, boeing, and spacex. There is a lot of Engineering Work that the astronauts are assigned to do. I was both surprised and honored when john young, our most experienced astronaut in the office at the time, selected me to be his crewmate for the first Space Shuttle flight. Great training with john and flying that mission, certainly one of the highlights of my life. As deanne indicated i went on to command three of the flights come and it turns out most of those flights were also engineering test flights to make sure the Space Shuttle would do what we had designed it to do. When looking back, im very proud of spatial program. Yes, we had to terrible accidents and i lost some very close friends, but when you look at the some of the 30 years that it was flying, early on in the program we did some Important Department of Defense Missions that i think contributed significantly to us winning the cold war. The shuttle made it possible to fly payloads like the Hubble Space Telescope any of the Great Observatories that have revolutionized our knowledge of the universe. And it also made possible the building of the International Space station, which is an engineering marvel that is still up to doing its job. In summary, i think the spatial program is something well look back on fondly. It would be a long time before ever see a vehicle thats thats anywhere near as capable of that. And i was sorely disappointed when, in 2011, the program was terminated. Im anxious to have the star liner and the dragon topsails are going to correct the problem person, so thank you. [applause] are right. For our next speaker we have dr. Dr. Sandy magnus was selected to nasa Astronaut Corps in 1996 and is float on four Shuttle Missions including the final shuttle flight in 2011. She flew to deny space station november station november 2008 where she spent for a half months on board the iss and Flight Engineer and science officer. Follow her sign a station to serve as national at nasa headquarters. During the time it nasa dr. Magnus worked with the International Committee including with europe, japan, brazil and in russia. Dr. Magnus is now the Deputy Director for engineering within the office of the secretary of Defense Research engine engineering. Prior to working at nasa dr. Magnus was a stealth engineer at what Donna Douglas picture to bachelors in physics and masters in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University science and technology and a phd from georgia tech. Help me in welcoming dr. Sandy magnus. [applause] so want to take mom to talk about the space station because i think thats why im on the panel. Thank you for the invitation. Let me start up a sink theres a big difference is minute unit im still between intellectual knowledge and experimental knowledge, between book learning and going into lab and actually touching something and thats when you really understand things when you have that with the knowledge. Thats one of the biggest changes that happens with astronauts when we find space with shortterm or longterm is we experience that environment and we experience the planet a different way. When you fly on space station its interesting, you adapt into the environment at a completely different level than when you just up there sort of as a tourist for ten, 11 or 12 days flight. I didnt realize it was happening until the crew came to pick me up in march with i saw them float across the hatch and you looked awkward and so unsure of their motions and just very gingerly moving their bodies as they moved through the spacecraft time not to touch things. I said let me take you back. Let me take you back to the Service Module and show you how to use the treadmill. I just took up because i knew immediately what hand rail, would off that handrail come that handrail and go straight through the pma and hit the one bag and he knew exactly how is going to translate through. Newton law drives to work willn you live in space. I took off and he catches up with me venture hes like, you really move fast. I was a maze, really i didnt realize it. Thats when i realized i adopted adapted to a whole new level. Its interesting because when you experience that, he realized it was normal for me to get up every morning and float through my day and talk to people around the world in Different Countries about all the amazing sites and things we were doing. It was normal to have the earth out the window, to the extent that after maybe a month or so i almost took it for granted, i took it for granted looking at t the window. There was an earth floating by me below and the beauty of it and how amazing that really was. We had this ability to adapt that i think is really important. But when youre up there experiencing it, changes your perspective. Let me share one of the greatest perspective changes that i had, that was the perspective about gravity. Abby but on the stages been space has experienced this but to me it was incredibly amazing as we were reentering and slowing down of falling back into earth come to experience gravity for the first time as an external force. It was weird and it made no sense and i was appalled at how horrible it was. And to have that shift, everyone in this room understands gravity intellectually because were all scientists and engineers. You know the equations and we can describe it and quantify it, but thats not the same thing as understand it instinctively and internally because you have experienced it. The fact when you hold your arms out like this and theres, think of all the little diagrams you done in physics we get the vertical forces and horizontal forces, and all that stuff. Theres a vector acting on your arm that youre using the energy of your muscles to basically fight against. Its just weird to experience that. It makes you look at the work and a whole different way. This is the power sending humans into space. We have these expenses, chips are view of the world and we set thinking about questions that we should be asking that we dont think about asking because we take for granted the environment are already living in. It opens up our minds to new ways of looking at the universe. It makes us think just a little bit differently, its just that little shift in perspective and so thats what so powerful that sending people into space and what so powerful that having people in space for a long time and doing the experiments we do up there. Maybe not all those experience are cutting edge, but but i guarantee that has a continue to put people up there with different skill sets, as we continue to put different kinds of experiments up there, we are going to learn more from the questions we learn to ask then necessary the answers were getting from those experiments because were just at the beginning of wondering out of norms of the north with establishing on the planet to open our minds to new ways of thinking and you questions to ask. Thats really what is the power sending humans into space and Human Space Program and am excited about where we are now because we are at the point will be given more people into space to have these perception shifts based on their experience based and will think up some really a basic questions to ask in the next decade. I will stop there and i will look forward to your questions. [applause] are right and on to our next speaker. Next we have captain Chris Ferguson. Captain Chris Ferguson is boeings first commercial test pilot astronaut and you will be among the first to go to space aboard boeing 100 starledger. He led the government of the state Spacecraft Mission said and crew interfaces working handinhand with nasa. He was a leader in the development and testing for the spacecraft launch and grant system. He is a retired u. S. Navy captain and former nasa astronaut, having piloted Space Shuttle atlantis, commanded Space Shuttle endeavor and commanded the final Shuttle Mission sts 135. He served as deputy chief of a nasa Astronaut Office and the spacecraft to mitigate or for multiple Space Shuttle missions. He holds a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from drexel and a masters in aeronautical engineering on the naval postgraduate school. Its my honor to introduce captain ferguson. [applause] i always love listening to sandy magnus stores. All what id like to do is maybe talk about the future. Crip mentioned the Shuttle Program ended in 2011 with that immediate replacement to get back to lowearth orbit. Weve been working diligently over the course of the last eight years, 2014 specifically was when the big contract was late return americans to lowearth orbit aboard commercial space graphic towards a bit of an expedition what exactly is a commercial spacecraft. What really is happening here is nasa will begin purchasing services. It will begin purchasing services to the astronauts from the service of the earth up to the International Space station and return them safely after six months. The benefit is it allows nasa to focus or express Missions Beyond lowearth orbit and turning the role of transporting people and cargo to lowearth orbit over to commercial companies and he comes at a great value to the taxpayers. We are on the cusp after some delays of returning americans to space and a think youll see that it cannot end is probably late this year, early next year after an absence of about eight years. Im very excited to show you this. This next chart will look a little bit like the nfls red zone if your family with that but it was my way of avoiding the two chart limit. This 11 first, a brief description of what our vehicle looks like. The left hand side you see the spacecraft which is a vehicle that will take astronauts up and down, has a very apollo like appearance. It will carry up to five astronauts up to the station, stay there for six months and return safely and remain on board as a lifeboat should we ever need it. The Service Module will be jettisoned just after the deorbit burn and the crew model will be recovered and one of our five west coast landing sites. It would be a landlady. We will launch on an atlas v rocket, very proven technology, about 80 flights to the credit since the early 2000s and were looking forward to all of the modifications of all them, 41 which was printed on crude launch facility and the two vehicles will recall launch vehicles are sitting and waiting for the paper to show up which will happen very shortly. I mention the nfl sunday ticket. Or the red zone. You have an opportunity from left to right top to bottom, we are in the process of training the very first crew. I will be the boeing represented, we will love nasa astronauts on with us. We will provide you get all of our flight support from the Mission Operations from a team in houston comprised of a lot of the Mission Controllers that serviced the very tail end of the Space Shuttle program so we will leverage a lot of the capability that nasa had as a function of safely operate the Space Shuttle for 30 years. We are going to launch aboard an atlas v rocket. Cape canaveral facility and we will land at again one of our five west coast landing spots. The object is to adopt the space station within 24 hours. The First Missions may be longer so we can complete all of our test objectives. Then we remain there up to six months. Once we get a goal from the ground the weather and the conditions, the landing facility are clear, we will undock and in a short time, less than six hours to recovery we will land in the western United States and recover and ideally our primary site will be the white sands Test Facility. Some of your familiar with it. We have two landing areas, when the north and one in the south. We have another in the town called willcox arizona which is not too far from the Mexican Border in essentially the middle of nowhere which is what we really like. The dugway proving ground and the Edwards Air Force base in california. Next up is the big moment for us. Its what we call our test, conducted the white sand Test Facility, i took a staple level of to the launchpad in very near future and youll see this test if all goes well with the final preparations in november which to us is a a very big step in solving up to our uncrew tesla. We will fly which will document International Space station part of putting a crew on board in the near future. Again thats a little summary. I do afford to your questions but this is what the future spaceflight holds. Thank you. [applause] hey, now for next speaker. Hans koenigsmann is Vice President of the built in flight reliability met space x where he leads the companies poured into the process development team, oversee the launch with this process during launch and assesses and resolve launch risk. Hes built up the Avionics Software and guided navigation and control department at spacex and develop the launch readiness process. He was chief architect of large chief engineer for the last three falcon one missions and most of the falcon nine flights his expense includes development of suborbital and orbital watchers as well as tablet projects both at his previous work in germany and in california. He has a phd in Aerospace Engineering and production from university of brennan and a masters in Aerospace Engineering from the Technical University of berlin. Its my honor to introduce hans. [applause] thank you. Its an honor to be understand and to realize that my flight time is about less than your spacetime. So obviously ive got to work against that year with more slides i guess. Im going to shoot a quick video of the demo on mission that was the nation that was the dragon spacecraft docking unmanned and completely autonomous. Its in preparation to the manned flight later this year. Im actually going to stop this year. This is falcon nine and will recall lt 39 were all the shuttles and apollo launch from. This is mission control, two a different rooms. Mission control and hawthorne. Inside to see the earth and ripley. Thats the view on the spacecraft. Second stage, and the first stage returned in lands there. Dragon separation, and then the phase in begin thinking closer to the space station. Little earth is the Gravity Center for us. This is the actual thing. This is one of my favorite phases. Little earth state of there. To be patched up again and to be brought back. The nose will close for the reentry. The shoots the ploy deploy. And this is the recovery boat, two of them. One thing, after toms talk yesterday i had to add to this. Spacex and nasa, nasa and spacex got an any for the webcast. We do a webcast for every launch. It became pretty popular and its exciting. Its just an event and the whole thing is very popular so obviously we own and any for that. The rest of the pictures, this is dragon and you can see on the top i should get a laser. There is a dragon capsule in different stages basically. Down here this is the final integration. This chart is mostly of lots of cabling going to other places basically. On the side you see all of it of propulsion. These are propellant takes in these devices over your other thrusters that basically move the spacecraft in case of problem. Thats one of the things that is different in dragon than any of the spacecraft. The integrated system allows you to use those propellers. If you dont use them for escape you can still use them for new moon maneuvering in orbit, compared to a tower that has a rocket you then throw away. Also heavy had into trading. This is emergency training. I think this is a fire drill down there. I wanted to add a picture of the reminds me of other things we do. We had 76 launches of falcon nine and falcon heavy. Space x start a business in 20022 so did this relatively quickly. The main thing is these launches the majority of those from within the last three or four years, Pretty Amazing how fast we wrap up and how many launches we do currently. This one in particular is the landing of we invented the parallel landing operation, and landing the boosters and reusing them is an incredibly advantage is what a flight over and over again, if you want to do this quickly because allows you to just put another second stage on. Were starting to reuse extending our reusability and it allows you to gain so much experience and much shorter time and approving a spacecraft ace of what you get back and what you see and you can analyze it. So with that i just want to point out we will sorry. We will perform the mission as soon as possible. We have the hardware coming to the cape ready soon. And thats pretty much what i have. I encouraged you to make it quick. Are you done . I think i am. I think i interrupted you. [applause] amazing. Last but definitely we have Major General charles bolden, jr. He was nasa administrator from 20092017 overseeing the transition from the spatial system to new era of exploration. He is the president and ceo of the bouldin consulting group. During his 34 year career. During his 34 year career with the marine corps he worked in nasas Astronaut Office. He piloted the Space Shuttle columbia and discovery including the mission in 1990 that the plug the Hubble Space Telescope. The command Space Shuttles atlantis, and discovery. At nasa mr. He oversaw the shift towards commercial isi recently quit Space Technology mission director. His tenure at nasa has seen the lens of march rover, the nation in passing knowledge of jupiter and an increase of earth observation satellites. He earned his bachelors of science in electrical sites and u. S. Naval academy and his masters in system management from university of southern california. Join me in welcoming charlie bolden. [applause] thanks very much. Thanks a lot. Im tail and charlie so this is a digester i do want to call out a couple of people who really played a Critical Role in my development but also in the time you spent at the massive ministry. I mentioned doctor bobby brown yesterday left to go back up at the sky and when i think who is the mastermind behind the most everything we do in human spaceflight in the last 20 years. Thats a guy named bill gersten margaret i dont know whether you still here or not, if you are did he leave . [applause] okay. One of the things i learned a long, long, long time ago when it came to Naval Academy and then i can when it became a marine in which a basic school, that i said listen to the gunny, those that you observed will understand what im saying. Listen to the gunny or listen to the chief which means youre very smart people who happen not to be officers. Their staff ncos and if you listen to them they will not steer you wrong. Im not trying to say bill gersten meyer was a Gunnery Sergeant parchin but in my mind, in my time as a nasa administrator that was my gunny and my chief and so i thank you for everything you did. Real quickly talk about some things. I got an opportune to work with everybody on the stage at one time or another and hans reminded me we worked together on one of the satellites that he worked when he was still in bremen and is one of the final extremist we had on my last Space Shuttle mission sts 60 6n 1994 and we almost didnt get the launch. Turned out to be incredible because we were able to get it off. Some of you, crip reminded me of hamilton the broadway sugar sh. How many of you have seen hamilton likes okey, if you havent you want to go see. Its awesome for one thing but there is this musical reprise and when everybody talks about what impact hamilton had on him or that on hamilton. You get to aaron burr and embracing and aaron burr says, and im the damn fool that shot him. As crip said im the damn fool that ended the Shuttle Program in 2011 when i was the nasa administrator and i was also at the cape went crip and his crew landed and i was in tears because id spin my entire nasa career, i had over 30 years so i knew what a tremendous thing in the information but its really time to make the transition and i agree with crip. The crime was we did not have replacement available so we could go fly a can. Hopefully we will make, not make the mistake as we transition to lunar orbit and then on to mars. Another thing, crip mention what the shuttle brought us and i will continue to emphasize this. Shuttle will go down in history, its legacy will be its introduction to adversity and inclusion to nasa. The ability of people to fly who could not fly, that would be the legacy of shuttle. Things to look for that are happening now with these two guys, spacex and boeing. We never tested the escape system on the launchpad at kennedy until after we had the challenger accident. We should have done that. They have now done that. You have people who work on the pad every single day and they depend on a wait to get off. These are the workers, not the astronauts but the workers they need a way to get off the pad every day something really bad happens. We had an opportunity to use once and we didnt because we didnt have confidence in the escape system. These guys have already taken care of getting rid of that so those are some things that happen. Selection and training of astronauts, because sab said, the big think about where we are today is we will allow people, some of you sitting in this room, you may not think so, but you may have an opportunity to go to space if only for 20 minutes. That will change your perspective on this planet and so if you get an opportunity, find a rich friend, get them to foot the bill for you but you need to do that. And in the last thing i will say because a lot of you are involving academics, get your students to understand they dont have to be astronauts or scientist. They dont have to be engineers. We need people today you think about food and think about drugs and medication. Theres no supply ship coming every 30 days or every three weeks. We are going to have to stuff that will sustain for years at a time so lots of things people can do. I look forward to taking your questions and helping you understand how you help kids get interested in taking apart this thing, the matter what they do. [applause] now is when it gets fun. Not that it was an incredibly fun over the were going to do something q a. Id like to start our discussion today really by celebrating history. Were talking apollo 50 years on and when you think about the Apollo Program, at its time it was on the cutting edge. But from human perspective, really taught us how as humans to have the capacity to explore and find you. I would love for each of you to share just one aspect of apollo, whether it is a person or a moment that inspired you or influenced you in your work in space. Or in life. Im going to start, why dont we start here, because i think you started as an aston astronaut in 1969, bob, i think at some countless inspirations to share. Well, i was inspired, actually the original mercury seven people were part of my inspiration, and then tom here. But as i said, i joined the program while apollo was in progress, but it was the people in it that really inspired me to try to emulate them. Sandy, how about you . When the apollo 11 landed on the moon, i dont remember much of it, sorry, but i will say that what you really inspiring about the Apollo Program is again you go back to perception. Now all of a sudden we put people on the move and it really, really inspired the whole world about, hey, wow come if we can do that and maybe theres something i i can do in space, too. So for those of you who live in the d. C. Area m on october 21 here in d. C. At the Convention Center is the International Astronomical congress which brings together the whole global space command. What we are sobering this year is the impact of apollo and figures on to see whats happened in the space industry. In the last 50 years. Its going to be an incredible display of not only what the United States has accomplished and continued to aim for but the what the rest of the world has engaged in. The theme of the conference is power of the past, promise of the future. I think that Pivotal Moment when men stepped on the moon and really inspired the whole planet to where we are today, and the trajectory of where were going tomorrow. So it continues to infect and i think that will be true for the next 50 years as well. For those of you who are in d. C. I invite you to come to the congress and see whats going on globally in space. Its pretty impressive. I was eight, and i do remember watching it on a black and White Television in my parents basement. It obviously stuck with me. I sort of went on and still, my mother stayed peaceful sketches i would make of the lunar module. I was a pretty created eightyearold. But fastforward, i read a book called digital apollo. I dont know if anyone here has read that book but it was not asked about astronaut or about people. It was a story about how we did it on a technical level. How did we get to the moon . We invented docking system that no one really knew would work but how did we do this . How did people position themselves to land on the moon . It was just an amazing, how does it has to stand . If you look at, what if you want to see . When does he turn from going backwards to going forwards . Amazing discussions about how we really did it. That served as a bit of a motivational force for how we design a new spacecraft . To have to etch the glass suppliers can see the ricin . What does the docking system need to do . What does it need to function the way does next it help us. We lay on a lot of the apollo legacy just inches on our capsule and spacecraft. I was six so i i was between the two of you. I was nearsighted and then the wrong country. [laughing] im incredibly thankful for having a chance actually to work on the next generation, and i felt a little bit, apollo is an incredible inspiration from what is a everybody working space x but part of what we do also is to recreate that, to have this boldness of building a device and filling it up with propellants and putting fire and going to the moon thats an incredible thought, really hard to explain to people who are not engineers or not scientist or havent seen that. So to me that was one of the key drivers. I want to do that, too. You know, very thankful to elon musk to have an opportunity to do that and hopeful, hopeful we will see mars the next decade face again and have a chance to stay longer and stay may be permanently. That would be great. Im not consent concerned ie or six because i wasnt. I was in my last in the throes of my last two months as a student naval aviator. I was in meridian mississippi going through flight training, getting me to go back to pensacola to go aboard the boat. I had no interest in space whatsoever. I admired the original seven. We were sitting watching Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrin this into the service of the moon and i was mesmerized by that still no interest whatsoever and it took a person to really get me interested in Space Program and that was the late great doctor Ronald Mcnair who personally inspired me and embarrassed me into submitting my application for the Asthma Program because he reminded me of something my mom and data dad at all the tie going up in south carolina, that you can do anything you want to do if you want to work and put your mind to it and i had forgotten that and ron asked him as beef is going to play for the program, told and not on your life and you look at me strange as some of you yesterday and he said why not . I said they would never pick me. He said that the dumbest thing i ever heard. [laughing] how do you know if you dont ask . I was challenged and they did but i was inspired by apollo up to become a part of the program and to think i was most inspired them eight years as almost eight years of the nasa administrator when it learned people of no clue about rocket ships and sometimes dont know which end is up play and importantly Critical Role in the very future, and whether or not exist, the reason we were not ready to go into human spaceflight from the u. S. Right after we phased out of shuttle was because we could not convince the congress that a commercial Spaceflight Program was the way to go for the u. S. The reason that we went to the moon was because we had a president surrounded by people like george. Tom talked about some of them yesterday, the people who refused to say we cant do the spirit we dont know how, is what they said, but we will find a way. So apollo inspired me to work that way with people who make decisions, to help them understand why. Social media has changed the game, pro and con, but follow the example of spacex and the way they utilize social media, nas has gotten into the game of informing people. When i talked yesterday about it, its not either or. It is and. Government and industry, government and other governors have to work together. I learned that was my inspiration from apollo was signed out there a lot of people who dont have a clue and could care less but theyre the ones who are going to help you do it. , do you want to share . Of four of the four nations , again, the most impression is that changes as far as your views when you flew to the moon. Only 24 of us who flew to the moon. 12 of the left around. Thats unique when youre out there, its about the size of an orange. The experiences you go through, like gemini nine, from that we develop training underwater. Theres a great movie out, i recommend it to you, and and iw that it was made in russia about my good friend alexi from apollo sledges. It had the premier of the kremlin. Was there and alexi and about 6000 people. Later when i i was over there y group on the iss Advisory Task force, they had a special joint force in the museum. It shows that movie. I think apollo 13 probably the most realistic of of the space movies use in the United States, but this movie called space walker, you can get from amazon. Its got english subtitles, probably one of the best movies, the most realistic ive ever seen. It is unbelievable. I recommend it to all of you. Its about a two hour movie and, but something you will never forget. I told crip this at dinner last night. I didnt have time to go into it yesterday, but on that second stage burn, the third stage when i was on the trans lunar injection, step 11,000 feet per second, we got up around 32,000 feet, its hard to vibrate. The frequency was the same but the amplitude was building. I told john young, this feels like a flutter but there is no aerodynamic forces on this thing. Kept getting more and more and more and more. It got so bad, vibration to i remember about 34, 35,000 feet i could not read the instrument panel. I thought the thing was going to blow apart. He was the abort handle, turn it 45 to the left and that would shut the engineer. I knew i would be gone a day and half at least, and so thats way of test pilots as commissioner pai said if it blows, it blows. [laughing] so finally shut down. Picked up 11,000 plus feet per second, 36,600 feet per second. We were within tenths on our computer. I said what the hell was that thing . I couldnt believe it. And so john turned around and said hey, guys can look at this. Theres a stabilizing bar to stabilize the couches to the spacecraft. The last thing before they close the hatches, disconnect the stabilizing bar. They locked it down. Well, guess what . He didnt disconnected. Furthermore, i told back at mission control, said, weve got this vibration. I said its really something. They called us back and said that looks like where the problem with the tank pressurization. About a week later i got a call from the doctor himself with his german accent he says, tom, we owe you an apology. [laughing] i said, whats that . He says, you remember i vibration you had at the end of the burn . Remember that . I said remember . Hell, ill never forget it. [laughing] he said, the tank rationalization valve was set to close to the vent valve and they got into a harmonization sequence and that fed them into the engine. We were on this stabilizing bar so we were on the cantilever so we really shaking all the pieces out there. So we fix that one really easy. We may double sure when they closed the hatch the stabilizing bar, to make people, and they set a wide variance between the tank pressurization and valve, and no other problems. Amazing. Im also impressed your memory is like a trap. He is quoting speeds. So impressive. Onto the next question. I really want to look towards the future of space travel or human spaceflight. I know on the rising wave so much excitement. We got the commercial crew program. We got space tourism. Youve got artemis to quit going to the moon and using that as a stepping stone to going to mars and some people want to retire there one day. Theres so much excitement so ii would love for each of you to share what youre looking forward to most about the future space expiration and what do you think the Critical Technologies are that will get us there . Are the things from apollo that still resonates today . The Critical Technology now is what we call, you know, we have to figure out how to land. Talking landed on mars, so thats something weve got to figure out. Again if i go back to a space x is and has done, we had talked to them about flying a dragon to mars in landing because it would give us data about a propulsive landing, retrograde landing on mars. Again, working with the private sector and the experiments they are doing that keeps nasa from having to do that allows him to go on and develop the exploration part of the program. The other thing is the human body. We know quite a bit more that we have ever known before thanks to a lot of the expectation going on the station today. Longterm survival on mars, i think we will be okay, but its just sort of like like a commel you see on television. I think well be okay. Okay is probably not good enough when we talk about this so would probably need to figure out exactly how were going to keep the crusade in the radiation at five of mars. Im a big fan of going underground and using the martian soil as a safeguard so humans lived underground. Spacex was built with the background of making the human species multiplanetary, which means both earth and mars for now. Obviously the big technical problem going to mars is money. There are some technical problems, too. I mean [laughing] money plays into that, too. Spaceflight is superexpensive and so one obvious reusability. Currently the design for ten times, we will start fourth time with an excellent actually the dragon has been used three times. It can be used up to five times. All these things help because you dont have to build something again. You have to expect it, refurbish it but ideally you want to keep that really, really low, keep it as low as possible like an airplane basically so that you expected, its fine but you schedule regular maintenance on boosters and others. We recently recovered a fairing on the second stage and saved from the water falling into the water which is super useful and then we will refurbish that. We are working part by part. Starship while i was to use the second stage again and it really becomes the cost of fuel and the cost of some Maintenance Operations basically, and thats where we need to go. Thats the technical side. We need on the other side help in terms of payloads, we need resources, people that use the service and thats basically where everybody can pitch in and help us. Obviously if you have this capability somebody needs to use it and thats super important, too. I think thats primarily it. Mars, reusability, not to mention of course reliability and safety. You reuse stuff, you can make its safer because you see the boost to coming back. You see possibly leaks. You get more data. We use video cameras all over the place. We just pulled up and look at them. So that helps you. Reliability, safety. I think the biggest asset we have right now that will enable us to get to mars in the not too far distant futures for 240 kilometers that way, its the International Space station, the place where learning to live and work for long durations. How do we purify water . Had we get to recycling 95, 98 of our water . How do we remove co2 from the air . How do we add oxygen . How to make this work in a system that must function for the duration of time that takes to get to mars and back . We are perfecting the systems on the International Space station today. I think where to look beyond 2020 with the current end of isis life is and as the question, what are the users . Who will build the replacement for the place to test and develop longterm assurance that the systems will, in fact, work on the day that we eventually do leave lowearth orbit for the martian surface . I look at this two different ways. Number one, theres breath of access which were trying to great in lowearth orbit, and the biggest barrier is really the cost of getting people and things up there which are Industry Partners are working on to try and come reusability is a key clearly to try to lower large cost but frequent of launch. If you go to the cases of the user, you want to be able to be sure you can get access frequently based on whatever the pace of your Business Model requires. So those are two dynamics to point out. We will see what we get to with the current plan. With respect to going for the gun think that was orbit, the key radiation question, we have a lot of questions. We need to understand the answers and manage the problem because radiation is not going to go away. That is sort of i think what we have to do there. Recycling is important but i would say its beyond just greedy and 100 closed close lifesupport system. Its also everything else. Think about the logistics train we might have to establish to support people on mars. Its ridiculous to imagine how you manage that. We have to forget how to recycle everything we take into space, how we can use the materials on the planetary bodies upon which we place humans, and theres a lot of work that has to be done in that area. And oh, by the way, that kind of work will eventually come back and benefit earth because we are finite resources here on our plan a mistake out to recycle a little bit more here, too. So some dual use technology that we could be working on that will benefit both you and push got lower orbit orbit and our planet. Well, i do firmly believe that humans will visit mars someday. Before we do that, not only learning to live off the planet on the iss, but we need to learn to live on another planetary body, and were lucky enough to have the moon just a few days away as opposed to months going to mars. It is a great test ground for learning now to live off this earth that were all lucky enough to do. There are many questions to be answered, radiation being the significant one, and we ought to take advantage of that, the trips that we didnt make to the moon were all little camping trips, somebody else, they were short duration kind of things. To live there is a totally different problem, and we need to solve that. People have things to sell, always want to sell you small boosters and put them together. Does it work. Weve been through it many times. Radiation, absolutely. Weve got to have a way to protect for radiation. Thats one of the big risks and assuming that your Systems Engineering is good and your systems have enough reliability to get you out there. Perhaps a Nuclear Thermal Rocket for mars, you dont need it for the moon. As far as upper stage propulsion. And the, oh, again, the two things youve got to recycle is water and oxygen. You know, for example. If i had 300,000 pounds, and 100,000 pounds on them, so, i had really, 4. 8 how do you do that . Well, all i had was 4. 8 and then gli. What i had was 1. 6 . Now the human being uses about 2. 2 pounds depending on your weight of oxygen. 50 to 75 pounds of mass for every day you breathe unless he recycle. Youre going to have 6 and a half pounds of water a day. And thats going to take that much more. So youve got to recycle that. And so, theres a lot to be done. And one other thing. This kind of sticks in my craw, we hear the word commercial, i was on the backup for the first gemini flight and apollo and everything nasa bought was from commercial entities. It was all commercial, execept we had requirements, but the contract is a good team, but the word commercial means nasa steps out of the way. I kind of disagree because nasa did everything on gemini, apollo and the shuttle was all done by commercial people, none by nasa, zero. So i wanted to bring that up. [laughter]. [applause] prior to this, i did a bunch of research that didnt include in your bio at some point the Guidance System that you did hand calculations in space because the Guidance System failed now you can understand how he could do that, hes a human calculator, i love it. And so we have a time here and only let a couple people answer before we go to the audience. The space industry is highly competitive, as we know. It has a history of being competitive, but its also highly collaborative. The scope of what were trying to achieve requires us to really collaborate. Now you know, in the commercial era, still highly competitive and highly collaborative. How does that balance . I guess, give me some insight on that delicate balance and why we need both . Id love to start with sandy because i know you did a lot of work with International Agencies during your time at nasa. Yeah, it is a delicate balance and i think its a good dynamic because theres a pushpull amongst the different entities. The competition is good because it makes everybody keep innovating and the collaboration is good because we learn from each other. Its quite risky and dynamic and the harsh environment to try to operate in. So keeping that balance where the learning happens across the community, but theres enough competition and poking at each other to spur people to do better, is really awesome and i think it all works at the end of the day because in my experience, working with people around the world and in the Space Program, what i have found is that everybody is really, really passionate about the mission of flying in space, whether thats machines or people or both. And because everybody buys into that and feels that and is passionate about that, we can conquer all kinds of issues that might otherwise create fractionization and just complete dysfunctionalty. I mean, we still have some, but in general, the whole Community Pulls together because they believe in that passionate thing. And one thing in the Space Program going back to collaboration and cooperation, it shows you that program, what we can do as human beings if we really want to accomplish something difficult, its the most complex, highly Technological Program ever conceived and executed by people, and it involved numerous Different Countries with different agendas, different languages, the english system and the metric system and thats a mess, too, but political situations, but this, this project, this multidecade project worked because everybody engaged in it at the end of the day believed in it and had their passion towards it and theres no reason why we cant solve any problem thats facing us as a global population if we take the same attitude, but thats why this is a competition and the collaboration works so powerfulfully in the Space Program because of this passion and this total commitment to achieving the end goal. And who wants to take this one . Ditto. Ditto . [laughter] how do you take this one . I dont know, i feel like when you actually theres a level of competition, thats good and a level of cooperation on the launch pad, that everybody roots for the mission, it doesnt matter which company. And same thing when things go wrong, everybody feels terrible when things go wrong. And at the end of the day, people that go up in space are passionate about space and they want their company to succeed of course, but theres an overarching level that people want things to go well and safe and reliable that in many cases is more important. And thats in many cases. And dollars quickly at a high level. If you look at what it costs to develop the shuttle, it was between 30 and 40 billion in 2010 dollars give or take depends what you look at and the Shuttle Program was about 3 billion per year about four to five flights per year depending upon the year, but if you just look at sort of the way the commercial crew program is evolving, for the cost of operating the Space Shuttle program for two years, a little over that, youre getting two different providers that are contracted to do a full development, two test flights and six Service Flights back and forth to the International Space station. So just looking at it, dollar value. It will turn out to be a very good value for the american taxpayer when we execute. Where does it get repaid . I think the intent is in Exploration Technology to get us to the moon and then to mars. Lets invest in low earth orbit, commercial capability to get cargo back and forth from there, and soon to be humans back and forth from there and allow nasa to go beyond low earth orbit with that taxpayer investment. Now were going to transition out to the audience for questions and while we do have mics set up we have someone thats going to walk around. So if you have a question you dont need to scoot your way out to the aisle, raise your hand and someone will come meet you with a microphone. My name, jd horn. With the materials engineering of nae. My question is about space force. The space a new Military Branch was created last year so we are going to have Additional Branch for the armed services. With your real world experiencing space, your perspective so very valuable to make sure the new branch would operate to its maximum efficiency and deliver the best of value. So id just like to see the panel to share some of your views and also maybe specific suggestions so the space force would be operated accordingly. The question is, your views of space force . Yes. Okay. Or suggestions as wellments would you like to take that, tom . Yeah, ill take it. Okay. Well, the way the force has been evolved over the years, starting with army and somebody invented a boat for the navy and went on for years and who invented the boat, the wheel and then the air. I think the first shot ever fired was an italian two place flyer across the English Channel in 1910 and some fight in the balkans. Air then became a domain. The force projection. And so all youre doing in this case, youre going higher and youre going faster. And to think that its know the going to be is to be, i think, a little naive. And we know already in open literature what the chinese are doing with hypersonic glide vehicles. And thats out in space. So and also want to take that . No . We have internal views on space force up here. Next question. Im dan baker from university of colorado. Im a practitioner of space weather and many of you on the panel have mentioned space radiation as a concern. I guess my question is, how important is it to you in your mind for the future to have forecasts of what the space environment is going to be and to have adequate warning to help, lets say, prepare for the more transient kind of space radiation effects . I think its important for astronauts, but not nearly as important as it is for us on the planet. You know, space weather today, speaking to the choir here, it is how we have we anticipate problems to communications, you know. Weve been very fortunate in that weve not had a major space weather occurrence thats knocked out Satellite Communications and the like, but that is a possibility, so i think long before we need to worry about whats the risk to a crew member flying in space, weve got to continually have an ongoing improving technologically developing space weather capability just to protect us here on the planet. I think some of the ideas na have been floated on protecting astronauts from space radiation and i understand there are some advancements being made in polymers, but one of the most Practical Applications ive seen is essentially create, you know, the infect, built around a spacecraft which is extremely power intensive. This is a problem that were going to have to solve and im while i would strongly advocate the prediction of such events, i dont know how good were going to get were good for three years. For your threeyear trip to mars youll be fine. Ultimately youll have to beat the problem back. I mean, from my perspective, i watched the space weather every time when we launch as much as i look at the other weather. Its the same, the same. It has a different effect in that sense that you care about life on board and the electronics rather than wind in the upper atmosphere, but its a factor that goes into the whole picture and whole environment. Well take the next question. Right here. Yes, from a commercial perspective what is the end goal . Where do you see this program in, say, 25 years or 50 years . Whats your vision . And this could be honest or hans, or chris or sandy, anyone in the panel. Good question, actually. The we were probably on from contracts and frankly, one of the discussion of commercial or not, i found that one of the biggest discriminators here, whether you are actually somebody build that to me and this is the amount of money you get and youre on your own, yeah. Mostly. Its not quite like that, you get some support obviously and we work as a team, but at the end of the day the money is finite that you get for something and thats a model i can see helping the cost keeping control because we are very cost conscious. And its not billable hours like you have in other, you know, professions. So because thats basecle the cost, the billable hour and it just goes up and as the incentive is not there to keep it low cost. So i see this as a currently we keep these contracts in that way and then it becomes more of a service and forgot who said it, i think it was you, it could be like a service that you book it like you book a ticket basically. You have a certain amount of money to bring stuff from the ground to the moon and whatever it is basically and some amount of money that goes to mars. But fundamentally, costs must come down dramatically in the next 25 years in order to make this work, in order to make the whole economic of it closed. Otherwise it might be too expensive. So if i may. Yeah, so in a perfect world, 25 or 50 years from now, probably closer to 50 than 25, to the point, the cost of launch will have come down, so people like you guys, who are very creative and have a very good expertise in certain areas, have an opportunity to go have these perception shifts that i mentioned earlier and then the creative juices flow and you think of things you can do in low earth orbit. Things you can take advantage of with microgravity and business ideas. What were missing now is that piece. We have a lot of capabilities that are going to be coming online, but we havent figured out yet how to develop the markets or how to develop the use cases for the broader private enterprise, not using the word commercial, but the broader private enterprise. And so getting the access for people to get up there and have good ideas figuring out what are the platforms beyond the space station and what other kinds of adventures we can create. 25 to 50 years from now im hoping we started to solve that problem and you see some of that wedge of activity becoming sort of normal. Im the eternal optimist, however, comma, this is one thing that bothers me because we all talk about 25, 50 years from now. We dont have that long. The International Space station is a machine and all of you in this room are engineers and most of you, im neither, but ive been around you long enough to know that machines break. We have probably four to eight years, i think, of life left on the International Space station. Money is not going to help that. You know, we dont have a way to get enough pieces and parts there to refurbish and make it new. Something has to step into its place as crip as with the Space Shuttle, with the space station we have nowhere to go. Somebody has got to come up with a Business Case who helps people understand theres value going into low earth orbit and having a pharmaceutical laboratory. Low earth Materials Laboratory because weve demonstrated that on the International Space station for 19 years, thats what the space stations purpose was to demonstrate to people in business that this is an incredible, incredibly potential money making venture. Nobodys bought that case yet and until somebody buys that case and makes the investment, im going to put a platform up there. I thought bob bigelow was going to do it to be honest. Bigelow has had the beam on the International Space station for four, five years and its not stepped off yet. So am i being critical . You bet i am. Because nasa spent a lot of money, to allow the private sector to use this Test Facility so they could step off and go make money. You dont make money if youre not willing to take a risk and hanging around the inconsistently space station is risky in one respect, but its not a Business Risk because youre having room and board and transportation frequently provided by the government. The government doesnt have enough money for all of you conservatives here who believe in the free market, youve got an opportunity. Jump off the International Space station and build the low earth orbit infrastructure that we have got to have if were going to successfully send humans back to the moon and on to mars. Enough from me. [applaus [applause] can i just put a yeah. To finish, to bring the point home. You know, boeing and spacex at no small cost to the taxpayers are developing two new capabilities to get back and forth to low earth orbit. We have one customer right now and thats the International Space station. We need other markets to evolve. Weve had nine years. The first time weve done this in 40 years since we developed the Space Shuttle. Without a destination in 2028 or a commercial market to build, will we be ready to retire the capability to get back and forth with humans . I sure hope not. You want to just say well, yesterday i mentioned how fast the Apollo Program was turned on. It was done in about three weeks. And also, in the same way, the Space Exploration president bu bush, sr. Started was turned off just as fast by William Jefferson clinton when he became president. Off, boom. And the same thing happened with the Obama Administration, it wasnt within three weeks, but it was turned off the Constellation Program was turned off. Now, i dont know who is going to win the election next november, a year from now, but that can be turned off real fast, what we have there. So i cant forecast who is going to be the chief executive in the next two or three cycles, but that can go on, it can go off. Thats the big risk. All right. Next question. Weve got [inaudible] questions, but ill try to limit it to hans. Im glad you can see well now. What about the competition Jeff Bezos Company versus spacex. Where is he . Hes got also their company have their rockets planned they took off from, thats quite amazing, but is that serious competition to spacex . I would definitely say. I mean bezos yeah, he can pay for it, also. I mean, they are competition, theyre building great vehicles and, however, we are ahead of the game right now. Thats one big step that rocket needs to do, thats go through orbit. And that is in some cases has been proven to be harder than people thought and ive learned that myself, its hard to get to orbit. So we have that advantage right now, but in this competition, and we feel like it gives us an edge because were pushed, we push to work on lowering the cost and becoming the best competit competitor among other competitors. Next question. Hello, my name is tom Johns University of wisconsin, and i thank the academy for the sessions. Id like to ask about the future commercialization in space and striking the right balance between speed and safety. Weve seen during the session and the incredible advances that are being made, driven by competition in terms of advances, very rapidly in terms of the technology, arguably not fast enough, but on the other end this last year has brought us some insight into what can happen when speed can lead to screwups with regard to basic laws of Aerospace Engineering and in terms of redundancy. And so, finding the right balance between those two is always a challenge. Im curious what the panelists might comment about whats going on, what the future holds, the role of nasa on advocacy and in terms of, dare i use the word regulation or providing that safeguard against a kind of disaster that would be incredible blow for the whole industry if it happens at a critical moment . Thank you. I think the heart of that question, how do you balance speed and safety. Okay. Ill start. Okay. You know, you need to have both and safety speed does not speed does not mean you dont operate safely. Safety has safety is a mindset as much as its anything and hans and i were talking a little about this at breakfast this morning. The safety mindset says we may be two seconds from launch and i dont feel well and i say stop. You know, thats the critical part is having people who have the ethical background to say, this is not right, the shortcuts were taking are not right and you go back and look at the program that you have in place and adjust it as necessary. The government doing it, nasa doing it doesnt mean because we generally take longer, that doesnt mean were any more safe than the private sector. You know . Going slow doesnt guarantee youre going to be safe either. It gives you more time to do stupid stuff. [laughter] its a delicate balance, a mindset. I visited with a school recently and one of the pleas from undergraduates we need to be talk a ethin ethics course f engineers because one of these days im going to have to make a life and death decision and that needs to be ethically grounded and so there are a lot of things that dont have anything to do with math and science and engineering, that weve got to make sure that the young people of today understand. There is right and wrong. There is what is ethical and whats not ethical, and theres a good book to read how theage chaer occurred, the underlying title is, i forget. Thats what happens at my age. [laughter] when we allow things to go on that we know are not right, we infuse that attitude or that culture in our young people. So we as engineers and scientists have got to teach them how to think ethically and how to make the right decision, even if it means the program is slowed for a while. Because nothing will end a program like rushing to the end and having is blow up on you. Thats done. He is that it. People get over being years late and dollars over. People dont frequently get over having we have never recovered from losing two shuttles. I think all of us who have been on spacecraft will say that. You dont recover from that, its always a scar you carry with it. Chris im sorry, if i may. The other thing to really think about as to speed is just complacency, right . You get you get into this mode where it becomes normal operations and you forget to question things because things are normalized. So its not really a speed thing, its a matter of staying always alert and thinking about what youre doing and questioning and listening to the system and making sure that you can have an environment where people can bring up questions because thats really where youre going to create the right safety environment, whether youre moving fast or slow. Its all about avoiding that complacency and thats hard, right . Because i talked about earlier how adaptive we are as human beings. If you look at the accidents, it was all about complacency and we werent questioning as carefully as we should have been doing. Let me amplify what charlie said. Theres another way of saying it by going fast and slow. The worst thing you can do is have an all time failure. [laughter] youve got it. And chris, youre going to be on board, you know, one of the first test flights. Whats your thoughts about speed versus safety . [laughter] maybe i cant hear your last line. So i dont think that speed and safety are synonymous. Ive had the unique opportunity to watch every phase of our vehicles design from the engineering to the piece parts come together. Does it make me a foremost expert . No, but makes me an interested watcher. Weve got a set of requirements, hans, i think youll agree its bathed in the mistakes that nasa has made in space Flight Operations in the past. Weve had help from nasa. Sometimes too much. But any help in the right area is a good thing. So i think that this is a very appropriate transition between a governmentrun and managed program over to a commercially run and managed program with just enough of the past sort of steeped in. And boeing, you know, or its Legacy Companies has been involved in every Flight Program since the beginning and enormous with the shuttle. So a lot of that mentality and mindset is there. I think ultimately having folks on the floor and watching it come together. Ive had the unique opportunity to do that, really builds a lot of confidence. Next question i just want to add my motto is only the paranoid survive. So, youve got to have the right amount of paranoia, if that means something to launch and explaining to your customer why youve stopped that for like three days, so be it. Thats more important to get things right than to get them done on time. Question, yes. So ive heard so much about the cost and complexity of getting things from the earth to low earth orbit as being one of the barriers. The concept both in Science Fiction and in some of the serious aeronautical journals is the space elevator. Is anybody still thinking about the concept of the space elevator . I can tell you when i was executive director that we have a very Passionate Community inside the arrerospace industry that a very enthusiastic about the space elevator and its still out there as a concept. Technically i think theres road blocks and the strength of the cable and the nanoparticles and weave together some cables of these kinds of materials that are super strong and can handle the tensions, i dont know the details, but i know theres a very Passionate Community out there. Material sciences, very serious material science problem, but we solve things like that. Yeah. Next question over here. Andy jackson, section ten. I dont want to be a downer on this because everybody is talking about human space flight, but humans are very fragile and when i hear the colonel talk about so many pound of this and when we look at Artificial Intelligence and robotic design, would it be better to construct a community on mars which is based on robots, but not on people, but people control the robots so you have the experience. It seems a huge amount of the cost of getting us to mars is the fragile beings and radiation there. Is there a way to create an alternative community on mars without sending people there first, they can go there later. Youve got curiosity, soon youll have mars 2020 with an experiment called moxie. Theyll be Automated System doing things that people we hope will do later like extract oxygen from the Carbon Dioxide atmosphere and weve been doing that for 50 years. You know, im not a geologist, but i have geology friends who tell me if we had put one geology on the surface of mars for as long as curiosity has been there we probably would have explored the planet by now and i dont say that as a trivial its not a joke, but theres this innate curiosity that humans have that we are not able yet to teach a robot. Artificial intelligence and all of these things they will be here one of these days, i think. An example, Hubble Telescope when it had an abberation and we were know the going to send the shuttle up to get hubble, the National Academy put together at the insistence of senator koskie, by the way, put together a team of people to decide how to save hubble. Thats the title of it, saving hubble. And even human space flight people weve got to find a robotic capability to do this. The technology wasnt there at the time. If we had that happen to hubble today im confident we could put together a Robotic Mission to do repairs to hubble that have been done to date. Thats because we have the humans up there experimenting and know how to automate. Youve got r2, robots roaming around, spheres. Were trying to offload the human from being mundane things and its now time to send humans to mars trying to pull together what the robots have been doing for 50 years, i think. Look at it as a toolbox. Humans have certain skills and comes with pros and cons. And just like in your toolbox in your garage, you need a mix, depending the mission and what you try to accomplish. They come with expensive infrastructure and fragility and limitations. So you design the mission pick the tools for the Mission Based on what your goals and objectives are. Thats always going to be the case its never going to be a either or. Its going to be im a big fan of mars, Everybody Knows that. Im pa fan of robots in place. Before we put a foot of man on mars, put the robots there to bureau and build the infrastructure for any soldier, marine, airmen or anybody who go to strange place, when they get there, they dont build it, and kellogg, and taking robots and they go into an air conditioned space where they can go do stuff. Youve still got to dig a fox hole when you get into the remote parts, but we can use robots to build a habitat and thats a business that we can be working on right now. It might be slightly apples and oranges, but to follow charlie, curiosity on mars, three and a half years to cover the same distance that gene sern and jacks smith did in three days and brought back 245 pounds of rocks and materials. So, again, it puts a unique it costs more, too, for sirna. A bit controversial, you talk about competition and collaboration. It seems that one of the big elephants in space might be china. Im interested in your response in addressing the relationship in terms of space and china. Why does everybody look at me . [laughter] im the guy that say what you will about president obama and the in 2010 we thought we would have another shuttle or what you call it and it got shut down by the congress. A lot of you recognize because your intellectual partners are chinese. Everybodys weve got problem with everybody. You know, what makes us able to work with cosmos on the International Space station is mission focus, deciding what were going to do to make the world a better place. When i was named to command my last Space Shuttle mission, george abbey said i want you to go to houston and fly another mission. What is it . I thought it was to repair hubble. He said no, not on your life. I want you to go back and command the First Mission carrying a russian cosmonaut. I said forget it, ive trained all my life to kill them and them kill me and i dont want to fly with any russian. Now that youve said that, calm down, two guys are in town, go have dinner with them and let me know what you think in the morning and i met sergei and vladimir who are my two friends to this day 20some odd years later. What we talked about had nothing to do with technology. We talked about our kids and what we wanted to do for the future and we became mission focused on figuring out how we could get our two teams together and successfully work on that mission and it became shuttle mir and now the International Space station. So i think that tom will tell you the same thing about alexei and the exact same thing. I graduated from the Naval Academy, went in the air force because the korean war was going on and had the first winged airplane. I wanted to shoot down migs and and ended up on an apollo soyuz and realized not all russians were communists. Alexei is one of my friends. And in fact, his granddaughter is named after my daughter and a different son is named after alexei. And the whole thing were really working good together and told to go along with george abney, we have to work with the russians because we need a crew escape vehicle and the soyuz was there. And i didnt know years later id be adopting two orphan russian boys. Next question. Megan smith from a proud member hello, charlie. Proud member of section ten. Two quick things, charlie, i loved what you said about ethics and i wondered whether we might think about a hippocratic oath like that ring that the canadian engineers get from the brits that fell down when they graduate. My question is with this Incredible Group maybe to lift some Hidden Figures story. There are so many people, of course, apollo and Space Mission was born at the same time as massive civil rights work was going on for race equality, gender equality, lbgtq, so many people, and at the time there was a lot of discrimination in choosing who got to go and do different things, but still people snuck in and find their way to participate in these teams and i thought maybe the panel could lift some of those stories today for us, one or two ideas and the one i would share is betty skelton, first known as land speed records, flight speed records, mercury 7 used to call 7 1 2. And she embedded with them for a look magazine, like Time Magazine story and did every single test and met with the russians and did these things. Theres beautiful pictures from the 1961 article, should the woman with first in space for should a girl, back then, sorry, girl be back in space. The spacesuit tonight fit her either and still dont. Sharing those stories, women of all races, men of color, lbgtq, reflect on during the space race that maybe less people know you would share and we as an academy can do to make sure those stories are more known . Thank you. I cant share had a Hidden Figures kind of story, but a story that perhaps addresses through the root of what youre asking about. I was in middle school when i first dreamed of being an astronaut and i had no idea how i was going to do it, no idea in it was possible, but something that i really decided, it was just who i was. And when i in 1978 when i entered high school there was an article on the front page of my hometown newspaper in southern small town in Southern Illinois and across the front page was flashed women accepted into the nasa Astronaut Corps and had a picture of all the women in that 1978 class. And when i saw that newspaper article and that picture, that was a huge i started crying quite frankly because at that moment i realized that the dream that i had was possible, that there was a path, that there were people like me that i could totally identify with, doing the thing that i always dreamed of doing. And over the years i have sort of synthesized that moment into the power of role models. And how important it is everyone in this room is a role model for some kiconstituency. Im not talking gender necessarily or race, your hometown, the high school you went to, the community you live in, nieces and nephews, kids never listen to their parents, nieces and nephews, somebody someone youre a role model for, and to your point. What could the nae do, this group of people in the nae is an Incredible Group of people very talented and successful and i would encourage you to get out there and be a role model and encourage team about your passion in stem and thats really what it takes to create more and more people engaging in our fields. But do not underestimate the power of role models. Ill just stop there. Another Hidden Figures story . Ill bring up one point, i have three daughters and i became convinced early in my career that women could do whatever they wanted to. And i had the pleasure of having sally ride on my crew on this ts7 and she lived up to everything i expected of her and went on to help inspire other young girls to get involved in stem kind of projects. 35 years ago today Kathy Sullivan and sally ride were on my crew on 41g and we had we were going to prove that kathy was quite capable of doing a space walk because a lot of men doubted a woman could. She went out and did the job superbly and proved that. And subsequently, were had all kinds of women do space walks and somebody brought up yesterday, we may have two women go out together on the International Space station very soon. Im sure tom and bob and charlie could not imagine, you know, in the 60s and 70s, flying tactical airplanes with a woman on their wing, aircraft. And women in combat aviation and Tactical Aviation came about when i was a fleet aviator and it was it was a bit of a rocky start, but before too long, we didnt think twice about it. Now on my crew we have nicole mann who is a colonel in the marine corps, a boeing f18 hornet pilot and shes absolutely awesome and its just amazing how quickly things have come about and opportunities in aviation and engineering. You know, we had lead flight directors, two of them, who were women. Lead space walkers who were women and its just like i said, the metamorphosis has been incredible. I know no one here is speaking directly about artem artemis, we cant neglect that. As a woman and a mother of a fouryearold daughter and a oneyearold son we are going to have a woman step foot on the moon. Its phenomenal. So it is time for us to begin wrapping up unless someone at nae gives me permission to go further. Okay. It is time for us to begin wrapping up. Id actually were going to be quick, but each of you one sentence just to give a close. One sentence. There you go, tom, go first. Work hard. [laughter]. [applause] all right, bob. Dont screw up. [laughter] be a good role model for those around you. [applause] the next 12 months is going to be pivotal for human space flight. [applause] im going to repeat you, dont screw up. [laughter] thats a nice version. What you have in the time that you have in the place that you are. [applause] very good, thank you. You know, and ill close just by saying, i had the opportunity many years ago to have dinner with gene sirna the last person to walk on the moon and he said its all thanks to american ingenuity. And my heart swelled. Its not just people in space, its the community, and the spags nation inspired our nation, our world, its competitive, collaborative. Its inspired adults and kids and i cannot wait until the next generation and current generation and scientists and engineers and astronauts innovate next in space over the next 50 years. So, thank you so much for all of you being here and all of your wonderful questions. Thank you so much to our panelists. Its been extreme [applaus [applause] a look at our live Coverage Today here on cspan2. At 12 45 eastern, a discussion on russia, ukraine relations and the role of the west. A former assistant secretary of state in the george w. Bush administration will participate. Later today irish ambassador to the u. 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