Transcripts For CSPAN Washington This Week 20140518 : vimars

CSPAN Washington This Week May 18, 2014

I will not argue that point. There are a thousand different ways to do what we want to do. I was taught as a second lieutenant, make a decision because if you do not, the troops will not follow you anywhere and they will leave you at the starting line. We made a decision, some people in this room do not like it, but we are on our way and you can either go with us or figure out how to start all over again. Everybody knows what happens when you start all over again. We are farther down this road than we have been in a long, long, long time. If you do not want to admit that, i cannot help you. If you stop and think about it, we never had a commercial capability to get anything to space way we are doing today. We are also close to having commercial capability to get crews to space and nasa is finally freed up to work with all of you to do exploration, which is everybody which is what everybody in this auditorium came here to talk about it. Get over it. To be blunt. This is the path we have chosen. Help us get it right. Way. N tweak it along the if you do not start down a road, and figure out, we took a wrong turn, how do you ever get to the destination . I cannot tweak constant ideas with nothing. We have hardware under construction. We can do this. But i need your help. [inaudible] i would like to put a bug in your ear. There is an example of gravity that could operate on the space station, which has been sitting in the wings for a decade. Have yourself or your minions reexamined the gravity bio satellite . It was a joint task between georgia tech and m. I. T. It can be flown on small boosters. It is a centrifuge filled with female mice. Is that important . It is for the statistics. It can be parked outside the space station. Park it outside the space station. What was the question . Thats was a statement. Have you considered it . It. Did not know about is it automatically crazy to imagine more money . We have spent less in terms of gdp on physical science and theren a factor of is no reason why we should not redress that grievance, although it is an uphill battle. We are going for the biggest money we think we can logically go for right now. I think it is unrealistic to assume that this congress and any future congress is going to jump to four percent of gdp. [inaudible] one percent, we may get to one percent. One percent would be like a gold mine. Modest increase but we have to be able to demonstrate that we can do what we said we can do. Commercial cargo was a first step. People said it could not be done. We have to get a commercial crew and we have to demonstrate we can do it and we can do anything. We will fly over i and in the fall. In the really orion fall. That is really important. Thank you very much. Cspans newest book, a collection of interviews with the nations best storytellers. Inwe are sitting here today the city designed by frenchman. The french engineer and architect. The great symbolic work of sculpture, the gateway to the country, the statue of liberty given from france by a french sculptor. Countless rivers and towns and universities all over the country with french names. We do not pronounce them the way but the influence of france on this country is far greater than most americans appreciate. Read the interview with David Mccullough along with other noted storytellers. Published by Public Affairs books and available at your favorite booksellers. For over 35 years, cspan brings Public Affairs the vents from washington directly to you, putting you in the rim and congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences. Gaveltogavelte coverage of the u. S. House. Created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch us an hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. Now from George Washington university for him on mars exploration. His includes officials from nasa who specialize in space technology. This is 50 minutes. Not think it is impossible but we have to work on many of these things that we talk about. Landing will be a challenge. It, apolloto look at 13, with the event that it had 84 hours, we had to keep the crew alive for 84 hours, we have lifesupport systems they have to work four months, possibly over a year. We have to take the steps to be able to get out and place. That will take some time to get a reliable system in place. That is about the size of the minicooper car. There needs to be something bigger than that. There are challenges we have. It will take some time to get those capabilities ready. How many breakthroughs do you need . Sure there are breakthroughs. I think we can build on what we know now today and expand it. Havesupport, we lifesupport on station and it works pretty well. We need to push you to where it is more reliable, does not require so much maintenance. We need to look at the ability to do repair. I do not consider those big breakthroughs, but we have to get comfortable that this technology is at the maturity level that you are ready to go use it. That is the way i look at the challenges. Allows us to do that. The proving ground, that is the key. We have to take systems and turn them into longer durations. We need the time and capability to go do that. I think we have to make sure that every piece of technology is extensible to mars. That is the judge of the technology we are working on. Doesnt really extend to mars . Does it really extend to mars . I want to be putting systems together that we can use for morris. Ars. Or m the basic architecture you will use to transport cargo to mars. We are looking on missions built on using that as the key piece. Orion an sos, we know where they are going. We do the next lifesupport station, it will not the alive support station it will not station. Fesupport we will take the systems to space and see how they work. What do you see as you is the problems, what hardest problem . Radiation exposure . Need someon exposure understanding. There is not much we can do with Background Radiation unless we put some kind of magnetic shielding in their. We went to the institute of medicine. We said, could we push those limits a little bit . Is it acceptable to change those limits . Could we change those . They gave us some considerations to talk about that. Are looking at the requirements we have and are they realistic requirements or is todays medical environment allow us to do some things differently . The restrictions themselves may be to restrictive . Yes. And we have basic guidelines from the institute of medicine. Solves a lot of problems if you change the rules like that. Is, we are not looking at a single solution or breakthrough. We are looking at all aspects of the problem to figure out a solution that gets us to where we want. , it is atalk about iss proving ground. It sounds good. The budget, it is a problem. Does it give you more than it takes . I believe it does. It forces you to make decisions right up front. We could test on the ground. With that we had the greatest Carbon Dioxide removal system in the world. We find out orbit, that all of the dust clouds everything up. On the water system, the tubing is permeable to Carbon Dioxide. Carbon dioxide goes into the water system and creates a nutrient rich environment for bacteria. We tested on the ground and we saw none of those problems. Station can give you that chance to really dry run and test the equipment on orbit. You do not use station as an ancillary piece. You pick pieces that are absolutely necessary. Some things are better for us than on the ground. You make a smart decision about what you want to go do. Looking to make a station or some capability like that . You would be spending considerable resources to get a platform to operate. Do not forget the transportation angle. The station provides a Research Platform that already has propulsion. Technology ande try to leverage what else is out there. Another piece on station is what we will do with our crew members next year in 2015. See anything that looks problematic beyond six months, but even though it is only one data point, it it still is one data point. We looked at it before. The russians have flown many years, several yearlong missions, but it is time we look at it with the tools we have today to see if there is anything in the human system that changes over the sixmonth. Sixmonth period. It to important is simulate a mars mission and how close do you have to make it to a real mission to be of value . You build in a communication delay . You block the windows . That andtalked about we do some things now. We are doing a lot of procedures that are autonomous. The crews do the operation without any ground involvement. I was geared towards the mars environment where the time delay does not allow the ground team to interact with the crew. Weve talked about taking away the windows and communication time. I bet the astronauts love that. Go to mars, theyre willing to put up with all of these stressors. Just to do it for fun as a test mission, they are not so keen about that. That is an interesting human dynamic already. How many marathons do you have to run before you are really ready to go do a marathon . Are you good enough running 10 miles or 18 miles . Mars is to not do so much that you reduce all of the risk to zero. To reduce the risk to a low enough level that we are ready to give this a shot we have a reasonable chance of pulling this off. Challenges, i did not see the psychological issues. The mars 500 experience and what they have done, they have tried to delve into this. We have some good studies on the behavioral aspect. The dimension is really different. If you look at our crew is on station, they spent time looking at the home planet and taking pictures. There is a real tie looking back at the earth. That is a different psychological push. That is important, too, in the way we talk about this. We talk about moving humans into deep space. We talk about expiration exploration. I think about coming back. We need to Start Talking about it in terms of pioneering. That really starts changing the dynamic. The investment in mars is so much that we do not want to do this as a onetime mission. We want the infrastructure and think about this as moving into the solar system. That is the part about building capabilities. I always think about history,. Eing a history major frankly, somebody going to mars will have more contact with earth or the homeport than some of those do you use those historical parallels as you inform your decisions . We ought to discuss the difference when you do terrestrial voyages, you still have oxygen to breathe. You still have water. You can bring some food. You can grow plants. When we start becoming mars ready or earth independent, that is a different dimension. You really have to carry it with you or you have to have enough assurance that you can use the Carbon Dioxide environment of mars to generate oxygen. Can you get water out of the martian environment . Terrestrial exploration was little different because it was not quite the level of what we are doing here. We are putting a human in the environment that the human cannot live in on its own. Ability of that by the way, feel free to come to the microphone with questions. How much of that ability to live off the martian land do we have to prove before we put people on the surface . A number of studies that show that if you can institute resources, get your water, oxygen, fuel. Massally becomes a problem. How much can you rely on when you get there . If we are going to rely on a system, you wanted to be there ahead of time. He wanted to be reliable and to be able to store the oxygen. That would be the most prudent step. We are not there yet, but we are taking a first step. Advanced missions, multiple landings, autonomous vehicles. Advantage one advantage, we could send some Scout Missions ahead of time. The environment is so harsh and so extreme. When you put those scout vehicles there, they ought to be generating resources. Constrained environment, we have to make sure everything we do is accessible to the next stop. If were going to build oxygen, i want to build enough that could be used forward. Picture, paint that and you have done a nice job pulling together a lot of these disparate elements in a way that provides a cohesive narrative, and i hope that plays well on capitol hill. What is interesting, we all think of success in space as apollo. The deadline and a commitment, it cold war. We perceive that the way to go to space. This is a little bit more building interstate system. There is a sense of, lets build some infrastructure and does not have the same headline capability that the space race had. It offers sustainability. This is a nuanced story. How can we convey that story to people who are less dialed into what nasa is doing right now . Or is that my job . That is your job. [laughter] it is all of our jobs. We need to look at what we are doing today and describe it in a way that makes sense. Spacex. Flew up on we have grown old bunch of lance before. This is the first time we have grown plants for the crew to eat. This is not for a science experiment. This is food for the crew to augment their diet. This is the beginning of starting to push us off of the earth into space. It is a small thing, but we ought to be talking about it. Pizza,ou could plant a they would be really happy. [inaudible] [laughter] you really did hit the nail on the head. I get the excitement, too. Butnt to create a mission, i do not know if we have the luxury to do that right now with budgets and forecasts. We have to take successes and the steps along the way, whether it is growing plants, solar sos,e propulsion, orion, we will be moving the needle forward. We will have to paint it in the right context with as few powerpoint charts as we can. You did have three charts, but one of those charts was five charts in one. You get the sense that if you talk about it long enough, they be it could become a reality. Maybe it could become a reality. We do have the fundamental issue of dollars and cents. If you jive it with what the money is right now, when do we get to mars . Night, ity said last will be 2030 years, but we have been saying that for 2030 years. Visionwe reconcile that with the congress and the American People have put on the table for nasa . , wehe way i lay it out same budget at the level were at today. It will not work. The current level has a one percent increase and it will need more than that. We need to show the congress and folks, if we get the additional funding, here are the advances we can make. We are not just doing a demonstration. This is into the mars capability puzzle this way and if we make that, we can continue to break the paradigm. We also need to look very hard at what we can do internationally. Our International Partners are very interested. Likewise, the private sector. , but cans capability we start extending or expanding that into the exploration domain . The other thing that is a little different is used to the missionectives directors working together. Doing,hnology we are along with the Broader Community, working together to get technology feeding into those missions. This is the down and dirty of it, we are trying to work with other partners and other Government Agencies on the Tech Knowledge he pieces that will feed into it. We can work on the technology pieces and leverage other investments. It is going to be hard. We arelooks good when working together, but to do that, you are giving up control. I will be doing more than the director would want to do on mars. I would like to have more capability than a Science Mission needs, but if we do two separate missions, the cost of that is some larger number. If we could integrate those , we are dancing human space we are advancing human space flight into the solar system, that is how we win. We looked at away holistically we can work together. The challenge is big enough, it will not be solved by any Mission Director by itself. It has to be the whole of the agency and the International Community pulling together. I would think getting to mars would be easier than getting the nasa directors to work together. [laughter] i am not going there. Brodie, it International Space university. ,hroughout my time in nasa occasional wildcards that help you along, but sometimes present additional challenges. One thing im thinking about is the confusion and her offer of significant private resources from some individuals with very deep pockets. We have had the very real commercial cargo and hopefully that will continue with a commercial crew. How do you see do you see any major contributions from individuals, companies, whatever, that will get that synergistic principle . Again, we need to look we see a lot of folks working on engine technology. Spacex has just signed an agreement to look at methane engine work. Jeff bezos has been looking at some engine work. That has been the domain of the government to work on some of these new engine capabilities, some of that is being picked up by the private sector with her money with private sector money. The system that takes Carbon Dioxide the Carbon Dioxide removal system and a combined with hydrogen to generate oxygen and it makes more water and creates methane. Instead of buying that as a system, we did not pay for any the development, we agreed to pay for the one generated water generated by the device. We will pay you 10,000 per pound. If you do not generate any water, you do not get any pay. They were able to do all of the development for that system and has been working very well. Are there other models like that we can leverage off to the private sector . We have to continue to look at that. Do not always assume that it has to be the government. We see an interest in the commercial spacecraft industry. Tammy leverage that interest . Can we leverage that interest . We think we can. It has incredible benefits for Government Agencies that we will not speak about here. What is the right mix on that . That are certain things will never be a Business Case for. There are some commonalities. Hard to sell that to another auto maker, right . I dont envision another space station beyond the space station we have today. I see it pibbing up the next generation stace space station in lower orbit. I see our space station today as a chan

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