and like aljazeera america on facebook for more stories, more access, more conversations. so you don't just stay on top of the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. >> i'm ali velshi. "on target" tonight, the cost of free speech. like i.t. or not there are limits to how you can safely express yourself in today's world. plus, race to the moon. private entrepreneurs picking up where nasa's apollo program left off. for americans tree speech is sacrosanct and it's guaranteed under the law in most countries in the west. but that doesn't marine that deposits don't enact elements on

elements of free expression even here in the united states. this country for instance puts limits on speech considered obscene. it bans child pornography. it prevents some nations to deny the holocaust. there are public debates over the very meaning of free expression. about self-censorship, political correctness and hate speech. but the severe limits that are put on free speech in much of the rest of the world go way beyond semantics. there are still far too many places where a citizen can land in prison for doing nothing more than questioning authority. countries like china have rejected calls from america and others expressing free speech, to perpetuate western imperialism. saudi arabia is more blunt. any protest against the government of any kind whether online or on the street can be

construed as sai sedition whicha capital offense. such is the case of ali al nimmer. he was 17 years old, arrested during a demonstration, sustain years old, a saudi court convicted him, and upheld his death sentence by public beheading and crucifixion. ali's father has appealed to the king for a pardon for his son. but when saudi's permanent representative to the united nations came on this show, i challenged his assertion that despite his case, the united states and saudi arabia share many values. have a listen. >> as you know, death sentences in saudi arabia have to go through multiple stages. the last one of which is the personal approval of the king. and that process is not yet

completed. >> so i guess when you started whether i said that saudi arabia and america don't share values in some cases that would be one of them. in the united states nobody gets executed for protesting. >> well, in saudi arabia nobody gets executed for protesting either. so where is the lacking of sharing of values? we both share values of human rights human dignity, freedom of individuals and so on. >> but you have to be committed of a capital offense to be executed. very violent crime or kill somebody. >> same in saudi arabia. i'm not going to discuss any particular case and what this person may or may not have done but values also the same. you do not get killed in saudi arabia for just expressing your opinion. >> let's talk about expressing your opinion. raif badawi, he was sentenced to a thousand lashes for insulting political leaders. that's an opinion. >> he's not being executed for it. >> he's getting a thousand lashes and ten years in jail. and the ambassador highlights

another point about free speech in many muslim countries. it is forbidden to insult organized religion. obviously free speech can imply different things in different countries. but when a danish cartoon satirized muhammed, it ignited a debate over the limits of free speech. there are some who say that free speech should have very few limits placed on it. fleming rose is one of them. he's an editor of the newspaper that published the cartoons. how one cartoon ignited a global debate on the future of free speech. i interviewed fleming rose for third rail. take a listen to this segment. >> it didn't change laws in denmark which are very liberal on free speech anyway. >> i think in fact we were in

for this clash somehow, sooner or later. and if you look at the cartoon crisis, i think it has promoted cross-cultural, cross-religious dialogue in denmark. the koran was a best seller in den mark. denmark. even though we had court cases we were stain to court by muslim leaders and one of the muslim leaders of the community, said i thought this was a criminal offense in denmark i have to acknowledge that is not the case. >> but to my point you didn't change any laws. didn't those 200 people have a right not to be murdered? >> if you take the people who were killed, the vast majority of those people were killed in nigeria and they were christians and muslims had been killing one another before the cartoon crises and continued killing one another after the cartoon crisis.

so i think the number of victims were quite limited. but if you look at the places where people were killed there is an interesting thing. all the victims, the death victims were places where you do not have freedom of expression. >> i hear you. it's important to understand -- assemble it was in countries where you did not have the right to publish those car teens. >> i understand you, would that change your mind because fleming rose published a book? i hear you, where the world is as tolerant as you are but the idea where you can promote this in a world that doesn't have that freedom of speech, now we're subjecting those countries to death. >> no we're not. what makes people different from animals is that we do have a -- we have a consciousness, we can reason, so there is no inevitable you know automatic reaction to whatever speech may come forward.

>> i hear you. let's look at some of the worst examples. let's look at people in this world who certainly don't take an approach of freedom of speech or freedom of the practice of religion. let's take i.s.i.l. for an example. what's the end game here? do you think if you do enough interviews and write enough books one day i.s.i.l. is going to sit there and say wow we've been wrong all along? in the end it is somebody who will find it unacceptable and will kill someone as a result. what does victory look to you? >> those cartoons were published in a danish contell and for a european audience. one of the things i learned throughout this crisis and debate is that we're living in a globalized world, information travels due to digital technology and we have migration. so our sizes are growing more and more diverse. because of this global you know public space, we have a struggle going on about the limits.

you could also put it the other way. i mean should we in denmark bring our laws in accordance with saudi arabia? because they don't like what is being published in the danish newspaper? you have this debate going on. and i think -- you know i do not intend to convince i.s.i.s. that that is a good thing to publish cartoons of the prophet plumed. bu muhammed. but i think there may be muslims within muslim communities, individuals, the most important individual in the world is the individual who would like to practice their faith in a different way, who don't feel threatened by cartoons. >> i'm sure you're right. >> by women, who would like too make their impressions, would in gay individual, in communities

where it's considered a deviant lifestyle, so on so forth. we protect the right of the individual and not the group. >> let me ask you this. your prescription in europe, you're fairly critical of europe in your book. when someone says something offensive you're saying perhaps we should be sent to insensitivity training. are you saying that to be provocative or do you really think we should be better at being insensitive to one another? >> there is a sense of irony in that comment but it's a way of saying that people too easily take offense. and it's being very -- you know, you can exercise social control by playing the offense card. if you say i'm very offended by what you say, that's not tolerance. >> is my right to be offended as it is your right to say what you want to say, are our rights equal? >> absolutely. you have the right to be offended in the sense this is my experience. but you don't have the right to

shut other people's speech down by playing the offense card. you can counter it by more speech and say i think you're stupid, i think it's offensive what you're saying i don't like it but you're not trying to ban it or use violence to shut it down. that's what tolerance is in a liberal democracy. that's fleming rose, he's the foreign editor of the danish paper, and pulitzer prize nominee. least my guess, you can watch this sunday at 6:30 eastern. you can catch the rest of the interview with the saudi intor. right here on al jazeera america. racing to the moon, five decades since that one small step for man is a brand-new space race on the way. come along for the ride, right after this. it left. >> now old-school methods meet

cutting-edge science... >> we've returned this iconic mammal to illinois. >> with a much bigger long-term benefit. >> grasslands have a critical role in climate change. >> it's exciting. >> techknow's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> this is what innovation looks like. >> can affect and surprise us. >> i feel like we're making an impact. >> awesome! >> techknow - where technology meets humanity.

>> this is an extraordinary time in history. the u.s. government is essentially handing the reins to private companies to explore and exploit the moon. several companies are racing to develop landers and rovers to do just that and why not? some say a trip to the moon isn't more complicated than

planning an extended mission to antarctica. planning is extreme, competition is swift and the market is brand spanking new. the x prize is a foundation that incentivize competition where the world most needs innovation. ♪ ♪ >> who knew the world needed a commercial space industry? a new way to clean oil spills. quickly from the world's oceans. or a hand held medical triquarter like the one on star trek that will diagnose a patient at the wave of a hand. x prize has created incentivized competition to get the world's biggest thinkers working on ideas that will change the world. but where no market currently exists. now, x prize already sparked the commercial space industry with the ansari x prize and now its

google lunar x prize is gearing up to make history. the israeli company space il announced it secured a spot in 2019 to send its rover to the moon. american company moon express is also competing and has also signed a launch contract although it needs to be verified through x prize. the competition to the moon is on. jake ward has more. >> moon express and astrobonic are competitors in a very small emerging market. a market that doesn't even know yet that it needs the moon. >> we see the moon as the 8th continent of the world. we want to open that up. >> you believe a hunks of the moon you can hold in your hands could be worth $1 billion. >> unmanned spacecraft that could take cargo to the moon

like fedex. >> thing like rovers, science programs, once we land on the surface of the moon, we are the local utility that carry power to pay loads that come with us. >> smaller about the size of a coffee table and holds about 80 pounds. >> the design of our vehicle our little spacecraft, here it is right here, it's, notice it's like a little flying saucer. there is a payload deck. the energy of our spacecraft is like a hot rod in space. it can get all the way to the moons of mars. >> to build infrastructure on the moon, commercial space stations, mines for precious metal, spacecraft even deeper into space. >> the moon is a stepping-stone to bigger and better things, mainly mars. that's the big objective of

humanity right now. we need to start with the moon. it's in our backyard. >> nasa says both companies will be part of their program. goal of one day contracting them to take cargo to the moon. similar to deals it already has with space x and orbital science, to take cargo to the space station. >> frontier challenges like going to mars but we think and recognize it's very important to continue our economic expansion to the lunar spas as well, that's why we're helping companies to be able to do what nasa once did. >> the ultimate goal is to create a competitive market but the 40 million google lunar x prize, send back hd images in real time. astrobotic and moon express are competing along with 16 other companies around the club.

astrobotic is proposing setting up a car for mars. >> this is red rover, our entrant into the google x prize race. >> planning the branding they're selling advertising space on their rover and on their lander. >> it will be full of different low goes and different opportunities for companies to have their messaging and branding and social experiences happen on the surface of the moon. >> it's competition for sport and for business. both companies will also be carrying paying customer pay loads to the moob. moon. moon express will transfer a telescope and astrobotic will bring a sports drink. >> bacari sweat, to serve as a time capsule for the kids of japan to put their dreams in.

>> until now this is what moon exploration looked like. a bit of golf, not sports drinks. but commercial space means just that. it's going to become commercial. >> there is jim mcdevitt and i. >> when you start seeing a really creative, innovative lander on the moon and you have a close-up on it and there's budweiser or that' nascar or soe other advertising symbol, there's a bit of ambiguity into the game. >> but he says sponsors are money and private money is the key to developing commercial space and all that comes with its. >> innovation is the secret to the future. that is what will enable my grand kids to look up on the moon and see lights and

settlements and cities, who knows. >> that was jake ward reporting. astrobotics needs that cargo money to pay the multimillion dollar price tag of launching a rover to the moon. well the smartphone in your hand the flat screen tv you're watching me on right now. coming up, you'll hear from the man who saw it all coming, decades earlier.

>> that's what i want to hear.

>> lenleonardo da vinci has been gone a long time. as i speak to you there's someone who is trying to develop ingestible knowledge, a pill you can swallow that lets you know everything you need to know about the french revolution, so says nicholas negroponti who has been spouting this for decades. except most of what he says is

true. >> it's clear that everything that could be digital would be digital. so when you transmit digital signals they lend themselves to doing things that they previously couldn't. for example over the air became a much more controllable, you could make cells, you could do things that previously were not possible. and the tv set, and the cables that came into our homes at that time, were fixed, they were using real estate in the sense that there was an it couldn't move. so why would a tv set use anything but a cable? and why would phones, so it was so certain that it was going to happen. >> you had fla naysayers, cliffd said, soon you'll buy books over the internet.

sure this was 1995. >> i got pleasure over that kind of criticism because i knew they were i don' wrong. and it was kind of, let's wait and see. i remember when we did early work on color displays. we built, very early in my career, color displays that were driven by computer memory which is the way actually all displays are now, it's the way your laptop worked. and at the time, people said it was arrogant. only a rich institution was able to buy what was a quarter of a million dollars worth of memory, to prove a point that that's the way you should do it. believing, which happens to be true, that that quarter of a million dollars would drop to $10, it would make that kind of plummet. >> what were the things you expected to be happening in the world of technology and design today that haven't yet happened? >> well, i wrote about it 20

years ago in being digital. i wrote about speech being a very dominant interface which it really hasn't. it's only happened in the last year or two. i thought holography would have been a medium. >> what i happen to like partially because i eat a lot is this idea of ingesting information. what do you mean by this? >> what i mean by it is, and let me jump to the end and then work back toward it. is you should be able to swallow a pill and know english or swallow a pill and know about the french revolution. and the reason i say that, crazy as it sounds, is that the best way, and i think the word best is appropriate, to get close to the neurons in the brain is

really through the blood cells, through the bloodstream. that if you can put nanorobots in the bloodstream they can basically visit every part of your brain, every part that a blood cell goes to. deposit things, take away things. so if you need ohave some plumbing done that's one thing. but if you need information deposited, is that plausible? and if it is, does french live somewhere? do things live in certain places? and if they do, then you actually could get it through bloodstream which means you could ingest it. >> you made a switch, 15 years ago, maybe i'm off i may be off by a few years. but you decided that you wanted to use all of this knowledge you had and leverage the relationships you've had to now take technology and design and solve a global problem. the problem of education of

children. and so you started this idea of one laptop per child. an affordable laptop that can be deployed all around the world, easily without the infrastructure that you would consider needing computers. >> so i said okay what is the gating problem? what is holding back kids being connected and very large numbers, and having the kind of exooutdincomputing devices i tht five, six, seven, eight-year-olds should have? the one i thought was not going to be solved by normal market forces was the laptop. this thing was getting bloated and fatter and fatter and it wasn't really being you know more responsive to somebody using it. but what this managed to do because the prices were going down for hardware and they were going down modestly for software. but because they were using more of each, it was oconstant. ia constant.

somebody said lap.toss would cost $1,000. >> they might be better than the one before. >> exactly. >> but we weren't seeing prices drop. >> so i said let's make a $100 laptop. that was sois so implausible but suddenly those people who didn't know me knew mit, couldn't imagine i'd done off my rocker to say a 100 laptop. they could ridicule it a little bit but it was sort of plausible. >> uh-huh. >> and that $100 laptop idea led to the organization, one laptop per child. so far it has distributed 3 million laptops all over the world. you can see my entire interviewer at 6:00 p.m. on

"talk to al jazeera." that's our show for today. i'm ali velshi, thank you for joining us . >> campus shootings. two more students killed at american colleges on the same day president obama consoles families of victims of last week's campus murders in oregon. >> words aren't going to bring your loved ones back. >> changing course. the u.s. abandons the idea of training syrian rebels. >> i wasn't satisfied with the early efforts in that regard. >> where the u.s. will f