Man, one giant leap for mankind. 45 years ago this year, and american walked on them and and inspired not just our nation, but the world. For me, it has been an inspiration in my life. I still have the ritual newspaper. Going into space is a big deal. The moon is literally walking on the moon. Congratulations to the entire apollo 11 crew for your daring, historic, spent 45 years ago. Accomplishment 45 years ago. Host buzz aldrin will be our guest on sundays washington journal. Did you have the opportunity to meet buzz aldrin . On many occasions. Every time he was in front of a camera, he was extreme the skittish. He is a generally shy and introverted person and generally felt that the limelight that shined upon him was not shared in a way he was like with the people who got him to the moon. He is a true believer in the team effort that got him there, which i understand. Honoren to be given the to give him an honor at the air and space museum a few years ago, right around the time of one of the anniversaries. I was the mc and was giving him the award. I had the chance to give to have dinner, my wife and i with he and his wife. It was delightful. We talked about everything but the moon. Kids, grandkids, everything you could think of in a conversation. I felt like Neil Armstrong was my friend after this. Not long after that, i went to the very same location with a in tow to intel get him to talk about one of the anniversaries. Him, heminute i saw literally ran away from him from me. It was a different experience. I finally got him when he was coming out of the white house later that same day. I buttonholed him and buzz and mike collins at the white house and was able to interview him. But the truth is, Neil Armstrong was an engineers engineer, and a test pilot test pilot. An engineers engineer, and a test pilots test pilot. He was never comfortable accepting accolades that came to him. Host why was he selected . Guest maybe because of that. Every says he was a civilian at the time with navy roots, which would appeal to the president , president kennedy. But the fact he was a civilian and not a member of the military at the time, maybe. But the truth is, when you look at how all of those missions stacked up, it was a crapshoot as to which one will be the first one to actually land on the moon. Some of that was just purely. You have a sequence of event was just her luck. You have a sequence of events and missions got shuffled around and apollo eight went around the room around the moon instead of testing the module. This is the crew that got to be the one. He was just shy about it. I think you could make the art event that it would have been nicer to have someone more comfortable sharing the story with the public. Because that person, like it or not, and in some cases i think he did not like it, had a public world to share it. Role to share it. I dont know that he was able, or comfortable, telling the story to future generations, as, lets say, jean stern and might have been if he had been the first. Host we are talking to miles obrien, formally with cnn. He is in air and space reporter. Our phone lines are open. From the state of georgia, thanks for waiting. Good morning. Thank you, cspan. Miles, i have watched you for years. Our rim has just been superb. Justr Space Program has been superb. But what im wondering, is there some slack in a . Are there any laws preventing them from going out and mining asteroids . No. T in a word, and there are businesses and enterprises thinking along those lines. Its still pretty tough to make a Business Case for launching a rocket to go to an asteroid and bring those resources back right now relative to the cost of finding a place to mine them here. We still have a problem with chemical rocketry and the cost of giving getting out of the gravity well of earth. Until we solve the problem, until we come up with new Propulsion Systems or elevator concept, whatever you may choose to get us off the surface and into low earth herbal low earth orbit at least, the expense of getting there, it makes it very difficult to ontify the resources present an asteroid. Having said that, as time goes on and you look at the commercial space sector and you look at what people like elon musk are doing to try to change the equation, i think this will change it. I think the cost of getting into space will dropped radically. It needs to drop by an order of magnitude at least. Resources on our planet will become more precious. Over time, this will happen. Is from laura. I would rather my Tax Dollars Fund missions to mars rather than missions to iraq. As we look back, the 21 hours we were on the moon, 45 years ago this month. Dave, good morning. Caller good morning. In july, 1969, my mom my father were to receive as an expatriate working for an american company. We were living in the philippines at the time. Thathings i remember about , first of all, the time zone difference meant that we were events takingthe place during the day, which i believe on the east coast it was in the middle of the night. I rememberer thing is that because the satellite feed was so expensive, there were stories that several of the tv stations locally had to band together to pay for the feed that was coming from the united for the transmission of what we saw on the tv. Host thank you. Guest that brings out an important point of what i was saying in the beginning, that this was truly a global thing. Everybody in the world who could get to a tv was watching it, not just americans. Lesson, whichs a in the current time with the International Space station we are learning what again. The space station, taking aside any of the scientific or extortion endeavor, the space station. He is an opportunity for 16 plus theons to Work Together space station is an opportunity for 16 plus nations to Work Together on a giant operation and a court made a task. That is unprecedented. Space offers us an opportunity to bring us together as human beings. The space issue has proven that. The mission to mars will prove that. And the moon landing, despite the fact that it was about cold war rivalries, showed us in that time that it could be done. Veteranknow you are a of the air and space museum. As we look at some of these iconic catchers from 45 years ago, it is so amazing. You look at that and say, they were in their . Guest i know. That lunar module, of course, if you ever get to one of the displays in houston or huntsville that shows the way those rockets were assembled is amazing. But that tiny little bug, that course,dule, which of is not designed to fly full gravity, or for that matter in the atmosphere we live in, looked so frail. Frankly, if they had pushed too hard with their feet, they could have kicked a hole right through the skin. And that frail little craft, that ugly little bug, if you will, which really is a beautiful thing, was an amazing interesting an amazing instrument. That it got think the crew back and fired up every time, it is really wonderful that we had six missions and not a hitch. Host bill in alabama, good morning to you, sir. Caller i would like to make a imment before i mention who am, or was. I agree with mr. Obrien that mr. Boland is probably a little mr. Bolden is probably a little too optimistic about going to mars by the 20 30s. We have i have is that our priorities on social issues, as opposed to things of adventure. Am bill would i was in houston. Assigned to the lunar surface operations of the time of apollo 11. As a matter of fact, i prepared the first apollo 11 lunar surface operations plans. To developpportunity the equipment and train the crew , train apollo 11, armstrong and aldrin, for what they did when they got on the moon. Host im glad you called in. We would love to have your firsthand account. Let me ask you a question first. Is there a sense of urgency like that today to explore the universe . Caller no, there is not. I know there are a few dedicated people to it, but i do not believe that today. Thank you. Host stay on the line. Dont hang up. We will go to miles obrien, first. Guest i do agree with bill. Heres the thing. The sequence of events that gave , they are not going to happen again, and frankly we do not want that to happen again. Of thet want the middle cold war and mutually assured instructions. Mutually assured distraction. We do not want that. The idea that we would base a cold war rivalry that would get us to mars, date certain, i dont think we should wish for that. The way we did the mood landing in that context, which was a sprint to beat the russians and we did, there was never a good articulation of what is next. Americans were like, why are we continuing to go . Why do we need to spend this money . Vietnamt the end of the war, and inflation. Have is a different approach to it now. Which is what nasa is trying to talk about, a more incremental and sustainable approach. The problem with incremental and sustainable is you are less likely to get those huge point headlines in the new york times. How do you keep people interested in something that is incremental . It is like keeping people on the edge of their seats for the construction of a highway system. We have to make people understand that we are not going to reinvent apollo. That is not going to happen again. We need a Space Program that matches the desire to be spacefaring on a permanent basis. It is hard to come up with a bold type programs to match that kind of approach, and frankly the bold programs are kind of just the opposite of that. Back towant to come you, bill. Thank you very much. It is exciting to hear from people who were involved firsthand. I assume you are in houston at mission when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. What was your reaction . In an adjoining room off the main command area. I was stored of i was sort of standing by the government constructions. They were well trained. Said inially just modicum what they were doing. Host your thoughts . What was going through your head . But it it was my job, was only after that when i realized when the mission was completed that i was more or less elated in what had been a comp was. Host thank you very much caller caller for phoning in. My pleasure host thank you very much for calling in. Caller my pleasure. Host joseph is joining us from california. Good morning. Caller thank you for letting me talk. If we dont go to the moon and start developing bases on the moon, china will beat us in the race to mars. Bet i thought we would living and working on mars by now for resources. Caller we all did. Docking atclippers this base station, supersonic transport, all the things we thought in this technological era of hubris that was the 60s came to a crashing halt in the 1970s. It has been a disappointment to those of us who saw that vision and saw what it meant to those of us on the planet. That is this expression all of the billions that were spent on apollo and gemini and mercury before it, the money was not stacked into bags and shipped into space, it was shipped here. An infrastructure of technology and acadre of engineers prowess in aerospace that we still hold in this country today. It is difficult. It is a subtle sell. They think why dont we just spend the x here . We do. Organizesmething that our efforts and crystallizes our thoughts and inspires young people. That is a very important point. We do not make a lot of engineers in this country before, and space has proven time and again to capture the imaginations of young people and bring people into the fold, into these technical fields that are difficult and important. Host strong and Michael Collins laced a few things on the moon, including an american flag, a 1 mission,the apollo messages from 71 world leaders, and a small gold pin shaped like an olive branch. Caller thank you for having me on here. I was just married whenever we television, and we were happy to see our Space Program progressing so well. My wife and i had moved into our home that we had saved up to get. We were pleased that our technology had developed this far. But today we live in a different time period, and i see us spending our money in another direction. Inneed to keep it here democracy countries and not spend it out in space. Host frank, thanks for the call. That is the point you made a moment ago. Guest there is no place to spend money in space. We are spending it on technology, on development, on sustaining and engineering and scientific enterprise. That is a worthy goal for any nation. Host one of our tweets this morning nasa tot is time for step out of the way and let private business developed a business there. Muskis why you see elon suborbital to get people interested in the notion. There are businesses that can develop it, but it is something that you can get money and investors for. Coming up with a Business Plan to go to mars, that is not quite there yet. That is the promise of government. That is exactly where nasa should be right now, and that is the longterm goal of any space agency, to think about doing things that the private sector cannot. The answer is both. It depends on what goal you are talking about. Host hopefully this will be a fun question because you have been passionate about space exploration. If you could go back in time and be part of any mission, which one would you want to be on . Guest that is a really good question. The first moon landing would have been wonderful. But for my money, the most audacious of the Apollo Missions was apollo 8. At that time, that was a late decision to go to the moon. The lunar module was too heavy, not ready to be tested. That was supposed to be a test mission for the lunar module, and instead that became apollo 9. Late in the game they said why cant we just try going to the moon . No one had ever done that before, hit that translator button. Nslunar that was a really gutsy mission, and i dont know that in todays context it would have happened. This was a different time, a different place, with the imperative of getting it done in a certain time periods that mission in many respects is what laid the groundwork for apollo 11. It was a pivotal mission. Talking about nasas 40th anniversary. And the 40th anniversary, president obama paying tribute to the crewmembers of apollo 11. Very rarely do i have such an extraordinary privilege as i have today, to welcome three iconic figures, genuine american eroes strong, Michael Collins, and me. Aldrin here with it is just wonderful. I think that all of us recall the moment in which mankind finally was untethered from this planet and was able to explore the stars, the moment in which we had one of our own step on the moon and leave that imprint, that is there to this day. Heroism,ause of the pressure,nder the grace with which these three gentlemen operated, also the entire nasa family that was able to, at great risk oftentimes and danger, was somehow not justift our sights around United States but around the world. Host that was the president five years ago at the 40th anniversary. Do you think Neil Armstrong was happy to be there . Guest Neil Armstrong was always uncomfortable in those settings. Always. He was not a public person. I was telling you that story about the night i gave him the award. Most of the apollo astronauts when they are in the public context, they give a boilerplate speech, 21 b kind of thing. He put together what amounted to a scholarly engineering white paper which he shared with the crowd. Brilliant, insightful. He had spent a great deal of time about it. It was clear he did not want to be there talking about the moon. He wanted to talk about the future. I think he was always uncomfortable in public talking about what happened on the moon. He always wanted to talk about what is next for space. Host i want to share this one tweet miles obrien, you were right, it was a daring thing. A good morning. Caller good morning. What a blast from the past. I was living on the naval station in iceland. My dad was in the air force. Host so it had to be the middle of the night when we landed, correct . Tv. Er well, we got asrts we got to watch it during the day. It was a long time ago. Host i did not mean to interrupt. Go ahead with your point. Caller i have heard rumors, but some people say, they question whether we actually made it to the moon. The only thing that ever gets me thinking about this is 45 years later, how come we dont have colonies and there are no starbucks on the moon . [laughter] host that would be a good reason, just because of starbucks. The reason we dont have starbucks is because there are not enough bucks for the stars. I dont want to spend a lot of time on this except to say, if it was done in a back lot of hollywood, i cannot imagine that secret being held this long. Number two, why would we have gone back . We went back six more times. One was an aborted effort. But we landed five more times. Why would we have done that . Tore are a million reasons rebuke all this strange skepticism that has cropped up. If you do your homework and look at the claims point i point, it is sown from whole cloth. Horseace shuttle was a designed by committee. What happened was nasa wanted to go to mars. At that time, the thinking was an idea of aes of space station where you would assemble mars craft and a truck to go back and forth to the space station, a3tiered approach. The nixonlo, administration went to nasa and said we are not going to mars. Space station or Space Shuttle you pick it. Ultimately, the Space Shuttle prevailed. Part of why the Space Shuttle did not succeed as it should have is it was a partnership with the pentagon on the Space Shuttle to design a craft that could deliver spy satellites to , payloads. It was bigger than he needed to be, had a certain cross range capability that was required for the military. On it went. They piled on a lot of specifications which were irrelevant to nasas goal of exploration, so in the end it created a craft that had some fundamental flaws, including no escape system. It was a very dangerous craft that was limited in capability for nasas goals, try to do a number of things for the pentagon and ultimately failed in that regard. I think we learned about technology, how you define a program, especially the specifications. It kept us in lower orbit much longer than nasa would have liked. Host lets go to ed joining us in greenbelt, maryland. Caller cspan, how are you doing . Bowman i know he is not there right now. It was about five years ago. I am an independent research , a phd in physical sciences and i have training in