Neil. He was one of our most esteemed members, passed away unexpectedly this summer. You were at the memorial service. I was at the Funeral Service in cincinnati. I missed the memorial service. Tell us what that was like at that service and what was Neil Armstrong like as a man and as an astronaut . The Funeral Service was in cincinnati, outside under a covered tent. Mostly family and astronauts and close family were there. We got to see a lot of the apollo era astronauts. Bob jacobs, the pr that represented nasa. It was more of a member is of neil from his sons and a couple close friends. The eulogies were mostly about his humility. That is what i remember most about neil. One of the most humble guys i ever met, most selfeffacing, never bragged. Never thought about looked at me, i am first on the moon. And it probably the most talented guy i knew as far as pilot skills go. You were if prior you were a Fighter Pilot. Right, and so was he, in korea. Then he got out of the navy. So he was an accomplished pilot when he came to nasa. I think if anybody should have been first on the moon, it was Neil Armstrong because he had the skill and the humility to carry that load. We talked last night at dinner. When you were flying at the lunar module down, commander is on one side and the other guy is on the other side. It makes it easier for one person to get out first. Talk about that. Whos gonna be first out . The lunar module pilot is on the right side as the face forward. The commander is on the left side. And you are standing. It takes a couple hours to get to take up to get suited up. And we get suited up and de pressurizing the module. The guy on the left has to get out first and you reach down and unlocked the door. It swings to the right tree so the guy on the right is trapped behind the door it swings to the right so the guy on the right is trapped behind the door. There was some discussion about that. Buzz said maybe we should swap places and nice to be out first but that cannot happen. On our flight, john said im not swapping with anybody. I would not either. It was four years ago that apollo 17 put the last footsteps on the moon. I remember them saying the put out a plum and reeled back a lemon. We were disappointed that they canceled the last 3 missions. We had space craft ready to go. 18, 19, maybe 20. But there were at least two more flights. But the political situation was changing. While john and i were on the moon, they announced the shuttle program. We had just saluted the flag. Mission control said Congress Just voted the funds for the Space Shuttle program. We were excited about that. We thought it was going to be a good program. But you did not know that was going to be the end of apollo . Yes, we did. They had already canceled last two missions. So we knew we were going to be the next to the last. When gene gets back, there was still a lot of activity. We have three Skylab Missions we were training for the and the russian mission. They use that the last of the command modules. They moth balled 3 saturn 5s. They decided to cancel the last ones and spend the money on Space Shuttle. For over 30 years, since 1981 2011, the shuttle was a tremendous program save for the two accidents with colombia and the challenger. It accomplished a lot. I thought that program was well worth it, what we spent. And we were building the space station which is now up there and can be if it is funded and utilized correctly, a great scientific base in space. But my disappointment is is now that the shuttle is over, we have no real mission. We have a spacecraft that is like apollo on steroids and that the nasa spacecraft. Then we have dragon, which is spacex, commercial, and a few others. The mix is changing. Nasa has been focused more on the unmanned. Mars rover. I was disappointed to see the consolation Program Canceled to see the Constellation Program cancelled. Part of it was resurrected. The orion part that lockheed is building. There is a debate among us old astronauts. Should we go to the moon . The debate is should we go to the moon and develop a moon base similar to what we have in antarctica, which i think is a good idea. And there you can develop systems as spacecraft that would be a Long Duration which you will need for mars but youre close enough so you have some help. Second and a half delay in speaking hello, houston from the moon. By the time they hear and speak back, it is 3 seconds. Mars, it is a different deal. What is it, and eight minute delay . I am not sure. It is a long delay. But buzz, he said lets go colonize the robot, one of the mars moons. I do not think i will be around when we finally get a mars mission. We have to develop radiation. The ion engines, the plasma engines, that will happen. We need to develop radiation. New things have to be sent into space. A lot of new things. The technology from that then goes out and stimulate the World Economy like apollo and early Space Programs stimulated the economy of the world. I got an iphone on my hip that has 2000 times the memory of an apollo computer. Can you imagine . The space station guys, they have texts, skype or something up there. And theyre all on their laptops. It boggles your mind what is going on there technologically. Today you could probably tweet what is going on on your flight. On your first and only flight, on the way back to earth, you got to do spacewalk. It was totally different. A different experience. As i described being on the moon, it contrasts the gray lunar surface with the blackness of space. People ask me what does the earth like from the moon . I said i cannot tell you because i landed in the center of the moon which took the earth directly overhead. In an apollo space suit, it is like being in a fishbowl. You move your head but the helmut does not move. So i did not get to see the earth very much from the moon. But in lunar orbit, you come around from the backside and there is the earth rise. We landed at a half moon. When you viewed the moon from the earth when we were there, you would see a half moon growing towards full. I watched the earth gets smaller and smaller because of was going towards the new phase. As we come around, it took a couple of days but you could see it changing in shape. It was a blue and white marble sitting out there in the blackness of space. On the way home, on the eva, you are in 0 gravity. Mattingly was the first out and then i came outside. My job was ticket my job was to make sure he was not getting in trouble so i monitored his movements and stuff. This is a space walk . He is way back down at the end of the service module, retrieving some experience. Experiments. As i floated out, i got up over the hatch and 180,000 miles away was the earth. It was a thin sliver of blue and white. That was all you could see. Then i rolled around and up here, about 50,000 miles away, was this enormous full moon. It was overwhelming. It was just huge. Everywhere else to look except for the sun, it was black. There is no night in space. The sun shines all the time so you never see any stars out there. So unlike star wars and whatever Science Fiction movies, not true. Ufos mitchell is very outspoken. He believes in ufos. Your own opinion . Did you ever see anything out there that you could not understand and do you believe there is other intelligent life in the universe of the mankind . On the ufos, in my career, i have never seen anything. That does not mean they are not real. But in apollo, i dont remember anybody telling any stories of seeing anything. Ed mithcell got a Scientific Organization which is basically trying to scientifically prove the existence of god. So its a lot of paranormal stuff. But the existence the i do not know if there are ufos or not. As far as life goes, i do not know whether there is or isnt. Depends on the point of view you take. My personal opinion, it is probably not but i am the only in the Astronaut Office that has that opinion. That is just an opinion. My opinion changed over the years when i got back from the moon. I told my wife if i ever get picked up by a ufo, dont expect me to come home. She did not like that. [laughter] but i dont know. If there is, i hope we find it soon. I know you are a devout christian now. Your wife was first to go that way. So obviously you do believe in god. Can you talk about, did that happen as a result of your travel in space . When did it happen and why . It was not a results of my space flat. I had grown up into a christian home and i believed in god. But it was only a sunday relationship. It was not something i recall a personal relationship where you pray regularly and saw god where you saught gods will and direction. Women got back from the moon, it when we gopt back from the moon, it was the ultimate experience but i did not feel close to god on the moon. I was not searching for god. I did not think i needed god anymore than i had. Yet i was faithful in a church attendance. We took our kids. But my personal life was falling apart. This was after you got back in the 70s . Yeah. Dottie was she had gone from depression to suicidal thoughts. Some people have come to our church and shared their love of jesus. She said ive tried everything but got so she said i will try god. After the weekend, she said god, if you are real, i will give you my life. And i watched her change over the next few months from sadness to joy. I was there that we can but i wish changing careers. I was leaving nasa. You took note. It was just for her. 2 1 2 years later, i was at a time where i saw such a transformation in her in such a love that i said this has to be real. So i made the same decision and watched my personal life be anchored and i began to build our relationship on christian values, christian principles. That is where we have been for the last 35 years. How many many frequent flier miles you have got all these places . Last year, i got 265, 000 miles on delta and 3. 3 million miles on delta. That should be worth a free flight. We flew charlie in here coach and he upgraded with his miles. Actually, i am a diamond. So they give it an upgrade if they have a seat. Anyway, my son flies for delta so i try to support them. My youngest son is a Fighter Pilot and flies for the texas air guard. He is a delta pilot. He tried to be an astornaut in his 20s but he could never get to a test pilot school. So i told him if you want to fly the shuttle, you got to get this test pilot school. What do you remember when the challenger exploded just after takeoff . What was your reaction . I was in malaysia on a trip. I grew up in the south carolina. I got this phone call from an editor of the state paper in columbia, south carolina, and said would you comment on the accident. I said what accident . He said 12 hours ago, the challenger lifted off and blew up 78 seconds after lift off. We were in a remote section of malaysia. So we did not have any radio or daily newspaper. He told me about this and i was stunned. I met some of the a guy from my home state, ron mcnair, who was killed. And we were close friends. To have seen such success with shuttle and then have this disaster, i was stunned speechless. It was a very sad time. I made some statements to the newspaper but that was that. You were not going to go back up and fly again. I asked some astronauts whether that affected them. If Richard Branson said i will give you a flight, would you take it . And what would you be looking for . Sir richard has the virgin galactic. It is a rocket powered airplane that carries a pilot and four passengers up to 400,000 feet and you have 5 minutes of 0 gravity and you come back down again. I think hes going to have success. You are on the list. I have a friend on the list. If i had that ride, i met him a couple years ago and volunteered to go. But we had a conference on his island in the caribbean. Anyway, he did not offer me a free ride, so. [laughter] it is a little pricey. But a lot of people think it is worth the price. I think it will be commercial success. But my advice, do not unstrap. The view out the window as the most spectacular part of the whole thing. You will see the view will be incredible. So forsake the weightlessness for the view. Maybe split it up. Those passengers are going to be having so much fun, if everybody floats around, to get those its like hurding cats to get them back in their seats. [laughter] youre the chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship foundation. I asked Neil Armstrong what the American Dream is today. He said to me it seems nothing more than sitting back and being entertained. That was a harsh statement by Great American hero. You are mentoring and helping out with young people. Tell us what you think about the state of youth today and science and what does the Scholarship Foundation do . I think we are in some trouble as far as young people, motivating them for science, engineering, technology, and math. So many of our students are not being motivated. Part of the Astronaut Scholarship foundation is to keep us number one in science and technology. We are not there now. We are in the middle. I just got an honorary doctorate degree from clemson last december and a ph. D. s were given their degrees first street i think there were 28 people that got computer degrees and 18 of them were asian or chinese. If we can motivate them to stay, thats a good deal. But i dont know how the immigration stuff works. The idea of the Scholarship Foundation is we give 28 10,000 scholarships away each year to a group of schools that we have affiliation with. The school picks their top two candidates in engineering, bioscience, computers. They are juniors and seniors in their respective universities. They send them to us and we have a committee headed by a shuttle astronaut. Our committee picks one of the two and we give them the 10,000 scholarship. It has had a tremendous effect on the universities and the graduates who have received are scholarships are now seeing the importance of that in their careers so they are contributing into our funds. The president s commission made a statement if we do not change, we will lose our leadership in technology. Kathy sullivan told me the average level of Science Education in this country is 6th grade. This club has the same goals to motivate young people, that interest them in science and math. The engineering disciplines. It is important for our country. You do not build an iphone without some talent in computer sciences. It is important for our country. You do not build an iphone without some talent in computer sciences. We have enjoyed the benefits of it. We need to keep motivating the kids. Hopefully our economy will expand said that once they get these degrees, they will have opportunities to apply it in a commercial venture. How long have you been a member and why did you enjoy and the Explorers Club . I joined in the early 1980s. A man in houston said you need to join the Explorers Club and i had known about it for a long time. I just never got around to it. It is an organization of explorers and people who are going out and exploring. And then applying what they learned in the varies fields. Theres some a great and famous people that were following in the footsteps of. I thought this im going to explore and i want to be a member of this club. I send my dues in every year and i support it. So its a pleasure being here and having an opportunity to speak first time ive ever been in this Historic Building and to have the opportunity to be here is really special so i thank the club for inviting me. We thank you for being here. We have one more question then were going to watch your footage and open it up for the audience. Youve been asked every question in the world, what is a question that you wished you were asked more often but you dont get asked . Thats a tough one. The question that you wish someone would ask you more often. Youre used to the same old what did the moon feel like . Occasionally i get the, why did we go to the moon . What benefit was it . Why did we spend so much money on the moon . That doesnt come often, but people need to know it was a god investment. Good business good investment. Godod investment. Business schools have done studies on apollo and it was and good investment. Put i simply, over a glass of wine or something, when someone asks me that question, why did we spend so much money on the moon . We did not spend a dime on the moon it was the United States of america and we had 400,000 people ployed. Look at what youre enjoying from the technology that has spread the whole economy and the economy of the world. And we won the cold war. We did. That was a big part of it getting to the moon first, for whatever reason, after that the cold war changed. So we did get a lot out of it. That is a great question. I would like to let charlie talk a the real deal. Then were going to have questions from you guys. Ok. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] this is a 15minute video that i put together. It is excerpts from a d. V. D. I did, called moon walker. I produced it about 20 years ago or so. What youre going to see is apollo 15 from liftoff to splashdown. This version is silent so i will narrate it for you. Were getting our little mac queued up back there. You will see the liftoff, that was the biggest rocket ever launched. It took us all the Apollo Moon Missions were on the satellite 5. Saturn 5. It is 360 feet tall and weighed six and half Million Pounds. The engines, there were five at the bottom they were produced and seven and half million thrusts. The fuel was liquid, very cold. As the vehicle lifted off the vibration was intense and were shaking off a couple of tons of ice. So those big chunks of white stuff is ice falling off the exterior of the vehicle. Were in the top, of course. The little spike you see at the top was the launch escape system. So if we had a problem with the vehicle we could ignite that rocket and it would jerk us off t