mayors have a habit of not operating in the paradigm that our president does such a great job of thinking before he speaks. one case where we were in a fight, as mayors often are, with our local cable company. i kind of popped off and said, this isn't a necessity. you do not have to watch tv. so i said, turning the tv off. .

>> that could not have happened without the support and fly and the -- and of lavatory -- and of philanthropy of a lot of good people. young people cannot lose the fact of your power to change the world. because we are so great that corporate philanthropy and big boy after becoming we tend to think you have to be steve case or bill gates before you can make a difference. i grew up in a small family church in boston. we had to go to church three times a week. it was a country church that had all the bible phrases plastic in the wall. this was in austin.

one of my cousins whispered in my yeaear. he said that god did not have a committee. [laughter] young people, you have as much people. volunteer, be a big brother or big sister and teach for america and volunteering can help you transform somebody's life but help inform you in a good way for the rest of your life. >> he helped up bring up wendy copp so that is why he get that plug in. thank you. [laughter] what is the role of government in sparring civic involvement or service? >> we have a volunteer military. the government is in the business of encouraging people to volunteer to serve the nation.

we create incentives for that. i think it has to take into consideration the first priority of any government and that is to protect our nation. as i look at the opportunity for national service, i joined a number of people in the late 1980's in sponsoring one of the first national service act, the heart of it was how we conduct military recruit and why we engage broadly in civic service. this is so the concept of the first project we did in washington on a national service, we did 5 states, came out of the act we created, the point of light. it had a five-state demonstration. i have felt for a long time that government had a role. one of the principal ways we can deliver services in the country

but also create a tremendous opportunity for those who serve and create teamwork for those who are working together. it is no coincidence that the military i think is the best institution in terms of overcoming racial prejudice because you have people working together on real tasks. as i do national service, it is not just the people served or the committee search, that is important but it is also the tumor that goes into doing real things together. when you look at the challenges we face on the military side, and i dumping national service is here to just for the military, but one thing that should make us all to stop is the military today says that 70% of the american young people between the ages of 18 and 24, men and women, are not eligible for military service. that is either because of physical, mental, or moral reasons. that is a serious problem for the nation. that is a very serious problem

for the nation. >> does that include being gay, too? >> that is not a disqualification now. nevertheless, the big opportunity for national service in my view is for the national service effort to help build human capital in this country. that means physically, mentally, and morally. young people participating in these programs that are doing so much good around the country are also building physical and mental and moral character. the first time i saw a national service program in operation was in boston i got up at 5:30 in the morning and they were doing pt in the town square. they were during the physical side before they did the service side. i think it is a tremendous opportunity looking at a broadly. >> you remind us that military service was the first and still

for most forms of national service to our country. it is important to keep that in mind. what do we learn from the fact that it used to be your expected to do national service for your country in the military. now, it is not expected. some people do service and some don't, not just in the military but across the board. how do we reinstalled that notion that it is something you are supposed to do? >> i think this crowd is doing it. there are many people in this audience to do it every day. i watched our daughter, michelle, and the people who are with our in hands on atlanta and now points of light. i think it is being done now. on the military side, here is one example -- i was told this week in afghanistan that one of the things that is astounding is we have 68,000 troops in afghanistan that is a very tough

set of problems. for every military person, we have one contractor. there are 68,000 contractors. the debate is whether we have for -- we add 40,000 more troops and you will have to multiply that by two because of the way the military structure. we have very serious challenges in the manpower and womanpower area of the military. >> the first lady has said that national service should be part of what america is all about. how will you do that? it is on your shoulders and maybe two or three others? >> what you were describing and what senatorny nunn is talking about, that is out here. we see it all over the nation. you think about 20 years ago when president bush was first talking about points of light, we have gone to an additional 23 million people participated in

national service. this past year alone, there was a 200% increase in the number of americorps applications. half of americans believe that they can create change in their community. that is a sense of empowerment that brings people to the national service table. we also believe that building on that legacy has to provide a new way of doing business. as for citizens and the government working together with philanthropic and private sectors. for citizens, it is not just about hours of service. it is not just about that one day of service may be in one year. that is a wonderful place to start. it is also about impact. we have huge challenges in this country together, we can work to address those challenges grid people have to start to ship their thinking about why engaging in service over a

sustained period of time. at the same time, the government has to think about a new way of doing business, as well. that means that we recognize that we have a responsibility but we also cannot do everything. some of the best ideas for confronting these big challenges are not being bought up in washington. i know this is a shock. they are being driven from the grassroots, from communities all over the country. one of the things that we did this past year, an idea that has been bubbling over time, in the serve america act is to include a social innovation fund. the idea was that the government can join with the private sector in the philanthropic sector to provide capital to help those organizations that have proven that they can be effective and they need to scale. the need to either provide additional services or to move across the state or around the

country. we were talking about teach for america. but about that many years ago before it started to move all over the country. by doing that, we have social entrepreneurs were coming up with ideas and their communities and getting us the support they need from the private sector and from the government to scale up because we know that the solutions they bring to the table are effected. i said yesterday and this is the last leg i will say, yesterday, we were in new orleans and went to a place called cafe reconcile and that is where you have dropped training, life skills being taught, we are talking about individuals who have some of the toughest stories will ever hear but they see a new way "-- wait for themselves. they are working with faith- based organizations. they are being hired out of the training program they are in to work in the hospitality sector which is coming back and starting to try again in new orleans. those are the kind of programs

we see all across the nation that with more help, they can provide some of the solutions to our biggest challenges. >> you talk about the kennedy service act which was a great first bill passed in the obama administration. that provides a great opportunity for new types of service corps. do you see that as something the administration wants to pursue as new corps that people can go in and join? if you want to be a doctor for america or the engineer, you can go in these service corps. >> the service america act provides the bone structure to skeleton that way. we have several board members from the corporation for national service here. we have niki gorin who is the

ceo and also the nominee to be the new ceo for the corporation and together, we will work for -- we will work with them to try and move to scale up, to go from 75,000 to over 200,000. that is a way we can harness all this energy for national service and also to move into the areas you describe whether we are working with veterans or in the area of health care or in the area of education, energy, and so on. we need to address these big challenges facing our nation. >>jean, how can the government help? >> she is describing a megaphone and a spotlight. we have had 20 years of learning so how do we look out across the landscape and find out who has been smart and who has been affected and where is the impact.

i think we need to move from service being a nice, important thing to do to being a strategic weapon to address the challenges here and across the globe. the government can play a critical role not only in the major spotlight but in helping to play leveraging role and an infrastructure role. as i look at service today and look at it in the future, i am really optimistic. i see more demand than we actually have capacity for in the field. when you talk to nonprofit organizations and many leaders here have been in the field, they will tell you the same time. what we really need are smart tools, smart learning, infrastructure wrapped around it so we can take these boots on the ground with those who are serving and the many americans who want to serve and find smart ways to match what we call the supply and demand. we have talent across the nation in terms of those who want to serve. i think we need to do a better job of fighting mechanisms and

pointing the way for words of the talent and what they bring, the resources they bring can be used in a place where there is that demand. i think government05= has a reay important role in infrastructure and in americorps, for instance, is believed that a leveraged 1.2 million volunteers. every time you hear about them, you hear that they spawned an unbelievable number of citizens in action behind them. there's a leveraging. and infrastructure point and a megaphone and a spotlight. that is an important role but i do not want to say that these are roles that certain people should apply. it is all of the above. this has to be cross sector, all citizens in this together. if we are going to achieve the vision we share for the future. >>jean made a good point, mr.

tietmeyer, there is an enormous pent-up demand to be of service and go into service. , mr mayor. there are 40,000 applicants but we can only take 4000 of them buried in new orleans, when the storm hit, people were calling me and saying they wanted to come down and the church wants to come down but we could not channel capacity. how can the mayor or the federal government say that our role is to help channel that capacity of people who want to be of service? >>melody has spoken clearly and eloquently about what the federal government is doing. when i was mayor, i do not try to -- i did not try to recreate the will. we had a volunteer center and we wanted to channel people and

one-stop shop. always do what you love first. if you love kids, go help with kids. if you love housing, help with housing. you are talking about a great partnership. it is helpful to give you practical examples. lízit is a wonderful testament t more people may think of jimmy carter as the man who helped found habitat for humanity then think of jimmy carter is a president. you want to talk about a community, like changing tool, it is the incredible partnership of mayors all around the country apart during with different organizations to go in and transform neighborhoods. government can do common-sense things. one of the smartest things i did as mayor, maybe the only smart thing, i put a moratorium on immoral laws. if you pull americans and as "our top problems are, never

will it be that we don't have enough regulations. i asked people what we are doing that drives them crazy. what are we doing that stands in the way of helping people? sometimes, government and some of our rules and regulations can stand in the way to people helping one another. we want to take inventory. my father used to say if you're not going to use your shovel, get out of the way. one of the things that jean said and it is a powerful organizing tool and it is easier to put people together with information. combining those are things and being more rigorous in our outrage and not being afraid to listen to our customers. we have the resources but so often, you have a passion, you are on the ground, you know

first hand what the challenges are, if we can be humble enough to allow our resources to help you with your mission, we can do great things. >> between the innovation fund and when she was at kugel.org, -- google.org, there was so much talk about the new social networking tools and if we had had those in new orleans and we could have scale that up, it would have been perfect. to do to bring technology to bear? >> we see that as an enormous toll to be used to drive this entire generation for it. -- agenda forward. we have seen tremendous results. people all over the country are focusing on health care and community renewal and education.

that is going back to the big challenges. we use technology to drive that movement and to help drive that work. if you think about facebook and you think about myspace and you'd think about twitter and all the different tools that people have, we were able to bring that to bear, to bring the private sector along with us and support us so that people would be able to connect and think about the kind of service and ways they wanted to engage. it was not only to come together because there were different entities posting different service projects that were available but for people who think about [unintelligible] this is something i see my neighborhood. here is a way to connect and go forward. those tools are providing -- they are feeling -- >> did you appreciate the campaign's use of those tools? >> absolutely, studying the

campaign and even if you step back from the politics, if you study the campaign and the youth of special -- use of special not working tools, it goes back to something earlier, people were feeling empowered. this is a way for us to connect and about how we want to engage. that has been enormously helpful to us and something we have got to the white house -- we have brought to the white house. >> senator, you talked a moment ago and it ties into this, with the military having some of the contractors and other things that have to be part, over the years, people have thought about how they can serve in a post- conflict situation and be part of a sort of peace corps but more a reconstruction corps. if we had had engineers and electricians to go into iraq --

could we do such a thing? >> i think it is one of the biggest problems we have. whether it is 80 or of denniston or iraq, we do not have the capability outside the military to help in restoring a nation or restoring a country. that is why the military is under such a strain today. that is because they are having to do everything. we need teams of lawyers. we need teams of people skilled in farming. we need teams of people skilled in health. we need teams of people who really can go in and help build villages and help teach people basic principles of voting and government. >> that is a really good call for service. all of us in this room should appreciate it. if we stay here any longer, we

will block the president of the united states and others. i want to thank is wonderful panel for being here. [applause] there are many other people who have donated national service, thank you very much. [applause] >> coming up on c-span, nasa astronauts discuss the legacy of the apollo 11 moon mission queen elizabeth delivers her annual christmas message. we will talk to the director of moonbeam, a documentary about apollo 11 and our interview about u.s. military deployments around the world.

on "washington journal" tomorrow, we will talk with a political science professor and have a look at the obama family christmas vacation in hawaii. "washington journal" begins at 7:00 a.m., eastern every day on c-span. >> there is less than one month left to enter the 2010 studentscam contest. $50,000 in prizes for middle and high school students. create a five-eight minute video on one of our country's greatest strengths or talent is. it must incorporate the cspan program and showed varying points of view. enter before midnight, january 23 winning entries will be shown on c-span. go to studentcar reformation. >> commemorating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, a group of apollo astronauts

gathered to share their thoughts about the historic day. they also discussed the legacy of the nasa apollo program and the future of space exploration among the astronauts is buzz aldrin, the member of the first 1969 lunar landing mission and a second man to walk on the bavarian this is one hour and 10 minutes. -- the second man to walk on the moon. this is one hour and 10 minutes. >> this is commemorating reported anniversary of when man first step on the madrid we take a look back at the extraordinary mission. today's discussion will include questions from young people who will call into the broadcast from science centers and museums across the country. [unintelligible] i encourage you to stop by and

take a look at the extraordinary film at the conclusion of this program. there is a long history apart during special invest. -- special interviews. putting this program together, we work with many members of the nasa staff. the nasa dedicated staff are here today. it is my pleasure to introduce our monitor, dick clooney. -- nick clooney.

[music] please welcome a in welcoming nick clooney. [applause] >> what a great day. what an exciting time the museum is excited to partner with nasa to present a panel discussion today commemorating the 40th anniversary of the apollo 11 mission and exploring the future of space exploration. i am pleased to be joined by science centers across the country. we will have questions from them, some of them as young as eight years old. they will be tough questions, you can count on it.

buwell as those in our studio audience to prepare questions and be part of the program as well. we will show you this brief film. i think it is only two minutes longer permit it shows the centerpiece of the of that which is the reason we are here celebrating today. take a look. [music] 4t>> i believe that this nationo should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the mon and returning him safely to the earth. >> t -15 seconds, guidons is internal, 12, 11, 10, 9 -- ignition sequence started, six

-- [rocket sounds] >> how far out are we now? >> stand by, i will give you the exact figure. you are now 177,000 miles out. >> the eagle has landed. >> roger, tranquility, we copy you on the ground. you have a got -- you about a

bunch of guys about to turn blue. thanks a lot. >> we are getting a picture of the tv. there is a great deal of contrast and currently is upside down. we can make at a fair amount of detail. we can see you coming down the ladder now. it is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. [music] [music] [applause]

>> ok -- let's take a look at our panelists. let me introduce to you buzz aldrin. [applause] charles m. duke, jr.. [applause] lori levinnnon,m deputy directof the products they center. [applause] and a mission specialist on atlantis. he was the lead space walker recently during the hubble space telescope repair mission [applause] i wanted to let you know that these youngsters will be talking to us.

they will be talking from science centers all over the country from boston, new york, california, chicago, and the denver museum of nature and science and the st. louis science center. let's talk to our panelists. we will begin with you, bus. zz. you might have to leave us before the end of the program. is it a late lunch? [laughter] >> it 1600 pennsylvania ave. [applause] >> he would leave us? a couple of months ago, you said you thought we would need to inspire through more than we do are doing now. you thought the way to do that with -- is with the mission to

mars. you used the term "to homestead maersk." >> it will not happen within a decade. it will not require breaking the bank right now. we can maybe save some money by realigning what we are doing and make a gradual course. we have lot of experience on the moon and and we had been planning on going to amrs. we can take that experience and communicated, helped work with the international nations. will they come together? i don't know. we have an umbrella organization that is over the international space station. we need to start there and in china, india, south korea, the other space nations into the

space stations. based on that, we have an international lunar economic development authority corp., what ever it is. the u.s. says we will help you people all you want because your nation's enter international groups want to land on the moon. we do, too, but we will ride with you in your rockets and spacecraft because we will take our resources that we put into the international space station to the tune of $100 billion. we'll take our resources and establish a pathway that may take a little more than two decades. it is a pathway that will achieve more things than dedicating a return to the moon right away. >> that's a pretty aggressive plan? >> yes, it is, but there is no reason why at the international

space station we cannot put a test model of the long duration and life-support equipment that we have been developing all this time. at the same time, we can develop an exploration module that will accompany o'brien on short missions. -- a companyorion -- a company orion -- accompnay orion on short missions. you have to have the equipment that will support these people with a redundancy that does not require you credit altogether 41 launch. you can model this sort of thing after a mars habitat. we are looking at those vehicles and looking at those soon to begin to be able to plan outward movement. >> thursday night, -- friday

night in dayton, ohio, you told us something we did not know before. this was on the moon, you and neil armstrong were the first ones to step on to the moon, and you told us there were other firsts. can you tell us what you told them? [laughter] >> i felt my first assignment on the moon. it was to get down to the bottom and jumped back up again. i had done a great job space walking on jim and i 12. -- gemini 12. i jumped back up and missed. we did the next time. we used a clothesline to send a

camera down. this is so we could take pictures. that is not what you're talking about, is it? we had great confidence on the inside the space suit plumbing. we had great confidence in the backpack. we had a mini-spacecraft on our back to give us water and air. we had emergency oxygen -- >> that is not what i am talking about [laughter] >> we have great confidence in the interior plumbing very we had indeed it all out so we could throw it out on the service later on. there was plenty of capacity in the ucd, urine collection device. i knew when i got to the bottom

of the lattedder that would be y to walk around the moon. maybe we were nervous but what i'd do is talk about things that are human. i talk about how people are worried about what they're trying to do. they are now worried that they are alert as to what they're trying to do. the magnificent of humanity, mankind coming down from the trees or wherever we came from and then doing all the things necessary to get steam --

>> he will not tell you what he said. >> rockets, spacecraft, and exploring the surface of the month. >> i will tell you what he said. >> i peed in my pants. [laughter] 1 allen sheppard saddam that rocket, he did not have a ucd. he was floating on water for a while before his 50 minutes of the plight. >> that is great. he said that neil was the first one to walk on the month but -- [laughter] >> he disputed that fact for it he had 20 minutes to set another level. [laughter] >> charles, apollo 16 -- there were problems, bring us up-to-

date. remind us what went on. >> apollo 16, like all the other apollo flights had problems. we had six landings there but it thought it was a piece of cake. it was really difficult. not only are you coming into an area where no one has ever led the but you have never seen it in detail before. the photographs we had were 15- meter resolution. there are many big craters second put you in trouble at 30 feet across or 10 feet across. we were coming in and seeing all these craters. we had to pick a landing spot. before that, we were on the backside of the moon with mattingly and he had to changes or but in the command module and that was a major ignition change.

as he tested this out before the ignition, it was rattling the spacecraft to pieces and he said he cannot burn. if your heart can sink in zero gravity to the bottom of your boots, hours sank. that is an abort. you come to hundred 50,000 miles and train two years and 8 miles down and you're under lending soared and they are about to tell you to stop. you can imagine how disappointed we were pretty teamwork that we exhibited to get them to land and apollo 13 back safely and all the other problems came into focus and up to speed and six hours later they said we were go for landing. down we went and from then on it was fantastic our hearts went from here to hear when we heard

that they were going to give us the next time around >> your there for a long time? >> we were there for 71 hours and 14 minutes. nasa put us in for a vote records day. -- portis in for the record stay. another mission stayed about 75 hours. they did it for spite. we want a just two hours more base told us to get back in. >> what do you see as the future of man in space? >> i would like to see a sense -- back into deep space. we have a big investment in the international space station and we need to use that. there is a lot of waste and we can get a return on that investment. going back into deep space builds the human spirit of exploration.

buzz aldrin and i disagree about whether we should go to the moon and i agree it should be international. a return to the moon would be an opportunity to develop some of these systems that we will have for a mars stay. he wants to do it with iss which is not a bad idea. whichever way we do it, it would be a stepping stone out into the distance. i hope that i am around to see those first of prince -- goes first footprints on mars. i hope we will develop that as a capital expenditure from our country and i think we will have a great return on our investment. >> thank you. i hope i am around to see it, too.

before we get you, laurie, we have a question for buzz aldrin. he might be getting out of your centre this is from the museum of science in boston. this is coming from an 8-year- old from kohl has it, massachusetts. >> my name is markets. i am 8 years old. i would like to be on mars one day as an engineer or scientist. what hobbies are good for astronauts? >> when why -- when i was an mit, i did not live far from you. you need patience. you need to communicate with other people. you need to have, i think, something that separates you

from others. you will have an evaluation of considerable wedding out of other people who are trying to do the same thing. you say you want to go to mars? >> yes. >> how long do think you'll stay when you get there? >> i don't know. maybe a few days parade >> how long? that is a normal answer. there was someone at an event that said that his son was -- want to go to mars. he said he would stay a couple of days. i said it may take the better part of a year to get there so why would you want to say a couple of days? why would we want to invest all the money to send you there and bring you back?

you will not get all of much science or return. nobody will build a 50-person spacecraft to send the first people to the service of mars. there are critical number of people who need to be there to do the things to make a sustaining group. it is bigger than 6 per it is maybe 50 or 60. you know how long it takes to accumulate 60 people? every 26 months, you can send another mission to mars, it takes at least 23 years to accumulate enough people. we need to rethink a good beit - are we really ready to venture out that far and what does it really take? i think we are ready to think about that but we have a pathway that can branch off to asteroid. if somebody discovers something really important on the moon, it

might justify the investment and habitation for people of a nation that by that time will have stayed on the moon 50 years ago. from kittyhawk to tranquillity base is 66 years. let's go 66 years into the future. that is 2035. we don't want to kick up dust back on a moon. i think we'll be doing some real man to man talking about how long you might want to stay. you might want to spend the rest of your life on mars or until we come up with warp drive so we can bring you back in a couple of days. >> thank you and we appreciate the question. i want to talk to laurel for a moment.

this proposed manned mission going back to the moon. is this back to the future? our wheat using the kabbalah technology? >> it looks similar to apollo er. we will be sending at least four people back to the moon. they will be writing separately from the capitol and will rendezvous in orbit and go to the madrid with an unmatched or better that is in orbit around the mon, we are taking pictures of perspective landing sites. they only have very poor resolution images when they went there with apollo. we'll make an incredible amount omaopp of the moon. there might be things we can do -- used to live off the land and get there. >> we have much better maps of the mars then we do of the moon.

>> that's true. we will change that. our maps of the moon will be as good or better. >> this is from the american museum of natural history in new york. this is for charles -- >> having spent over 20 hours out of the lunar module, what do you think is the possibility that people can live on the moon? >> i missed that. >> what do you think is the possibility of living on the moon? what kind of support would be needed to do that for extended periods of time. ? >> oh hopefully, we will establish a base. we would want to establish a base like we have been an article. -- like we have in antarctica. i think we can develop

technologies that we can use to extract oxygen, hydrogen from the rocks and utilize the resources there eventually to help us to inhabit this area of the moment for a considerable time. . i think that is what science wants to do. there is a lot to learn about the lunar surface. maybe it is not such a bad idea to look for that. >> bank you so much -- bank you so much -- thank you so much. i want to talk to john gunsfled who gave us part of petitions many years ago. you practice for all eventualities and try to repair the hubble telescope.

no matter what you rehearse for, what surprises did you find that scared to as much as it scared us? >> our team on sts 125 atlantis train for 2.5 years and the training was the nuts and bolts of putting things in and out of the hubble but the training was about when things don't go well. we trained in hundreds of different scenarios. we had 116 tools that we developed it just for this mission. we got out the door with the first space walk and went to the first major task which was to replace the wide field camera and to remove the old camera we only have one big ball to turn and it did not turn. we put all the force we could on.

it. there was a good risk that the bolt could break and that would be the end of the camera. a little extra elbow grease and another tool and we got it. this was the highest priority science mission and the first thing we did and the first bolt did not turn and my heart was in my boots. even though we were weightless. [laughter] before we do this game-ending event, let's think about every alternative. we did and we found a way to get around it. >> this question is coming from the museum of science and industry in chicago. do we have a moderator? >> yes, we do. >> this is for john. >> my name is sasha blakely and i am 13 years old. what do you think is the next technological breakthrough that

is essential for extensive space travel to the moon or mars? >> i think there are so many challenges that we have to overcome to be able to develop a colony to live on the moon. using resources that you find. every time explore is go out exploring the earth, they have had to utilize resources they find when they get there. utilizing those resources on the moon to generate oxygen and to breed and going to mars to be able to develop rocket fuel that will allow us to come back, those are some big examples. being able to build live support in a contained environment such as a module you would live in and be able to recycle everything and keep it clean so that you are breathing clean air. those technologies we have not refined yet but we can do it for

short periods of time and space shuttle. we are learning how to do it for longer periods of time on the international space station. as we enter this conversation, we talked about the urine collection device. we take joran on the international space station and purifying it. i have an example here. [laughter] the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station drink that water made from urine. we can i go to mars and a parade of days until we have a new form of propulsion. if we want to explore out there in the cosmos, we will need a pigeon-powered drive. we have technology that a successful but it needs investment and time and creative

young engineers and scientists. >> thank you very much for the question. i want to get back to the question of water in the solar system. is there empirical evidence that there is water in the solar system? >> yes, and i am dragging some of it right here. i spent most of my science career hitting up samples from planets like mars. we know there is water on mars. the moon is a big mystery. water is a critical if you want to think about life on other worlds. places like mars where it could be liquid or the moon and

jupiter where below an icy crust there could be water, we want to explore that with robots and maybe humans to answer the fundamental question -- are we alone? >> welbeck way to come from denver? this is from the denver museum of nature and science and we are standing by for the question. >> we have a question from chile at the denver museum. >> i have heard the idea that the moon was formed by something hitting the earth early in the formation of the solar system. did material brought back from the apollo missions prove that hypothesis? >> excellent questions. you have heard of the big bang theory. we called the big whack. [laughter] that is the leading theory for the origin of the amount which is called the giant impact hypothesis. an object about the size of mars

which is half the size of earth it the earth early in its history and the material that was thrown off and that impact actually forms together to form the moment but it sounds crazy, i know. it is the leading theory for the formation of the madrimoon. there were three leading theories about the formation of the mon and the apollo mission was to sort those out. they brought back over 800 pounds of rock and we analyze them and found out that none of those three theories were actually correct. from the information we measured with the apollo samples and other missions to the moon, the giant impact. has emerged as the most credible theory. does not perfect. we still have things we need to tweak and understand. going back to the moon and getting more and different rocks

and measuring the interior structure of the moon will help us nail this down. >> thank you very much for that question. i have a clear question about the material on the moon. >> what is there about the signs on the moan that we cannot do with robots? and what about international people who may be there to help fix the robots? why is it that the united states has to make that major investment? i talked to charlie before and we can certainly look at this long duration of systems that we are working on very we can look at those at the space station beginning in 2015, 2016, and prolonged the life of the space station which many people would like. that is far simpler -- >> oddly enough, that was my

question. >> it is much easier. we could put a human on earth among l1 easier than putting someone on the service of the mode and he could control the robot on the surface. that is what we want to do on the moon and mars. that is more efficient and sending people to mars with one set of instructions that are conservative so that if the robot runs into any trouble chris, stop. we will get back to in one day and tell you what to do. spirit and opportunity have nicely lived for five years instead of 90 days. if we had a human being probus, or but every seven hours, what could that person do? he controlled that robot in real time. the moon is automation. mars requires being there.

>> is this a debate? >> from a size perspective, i can tell you that we need to unravel these mysteries. we need a network of places around the mooon to measure seismic measurements. you could do that robotic we and employe with people. you all explored incredible places. we have all the export a small part of the moon. you could do that robotic with. ally. >> all you have to do is learn chinese and ask them to help. [laughter] >> i agree with you on mars.