>> jack. >> and the last one i fully agree. one of the good things about the lot is the people who commit these offenses have something to lose and if you bring a case and showed the department of justice brings cases like this or other actors will not commit that they otherwise would've done. if we can come up with laws that are giving people notice the prime minister addressed the conduct, really can address the criminal cases we bring. going back to the hypothetical briefly, i do kind of debate it because there's differences between the law here and the facts. you mentioned that the case against mother teresa would be reported in the newspapers. i believe very strongly and most folks here do that we don't want to live in a society where someone was convict based on what's in the newspapers. i can do very often we have cases we investigate whether

allegations in the newspapers, which is the allegations were true and if the allegations were complete story, i can see why the average american with think that is correct. we don't want to live in a society of a form of mob rule, we would get a few allegations without any process and convict somebody. but that's the root of prosecutors to take allegations like that when their public and investigate and see if the facts actually back up what they are in the allegation in the source of a credible. is there collaborating information that makes it even stronger. i think if you have that, and object disc, professional prosecutor to look at those things, the issue have with mother teresa, the mother teresa case does not get inside the courtroom. and if it does come up in a has to decide is there a scheme to defraud? i think then, if you have a statute that makes clear what

the legal and what's not, there's nothing unfair about that. another point to raise here is as as mentioned earlier about the jefferson case, where large sum of cash. that is not usual corruption case. the folks who commit crimes or sophisticated individuals. i am large, give the money and receive the money to receive benefits in all sorts of complicated warrants do make it not nearly as dark, not nearly as easy to reported pipelines of a newspaper article. because of that, because of how these crimes are committed, they are committed by sophisticated people. we do need laws that are brightness to reach conduct. the example given earlier that right now under the statute does exist. we cannot charge on conflicts of

interest. just imagine the fallout this scenario. you have a mayor and he takes bribes for city contracts. he takes bribes with the money in his pockets and a contract. the average american taxpayers are not getting what they paid for. i can prosecute that case. i can prosecute and i think everyone would think that we should. the same mayor says, you know what? i do what bribes. i want more money. i'm going to start my own company and hide my interest in it and are going to funnel the contracts to me. i can't prosecute that case. i think the average american in terms of what's wrong, if you believe those facts, it's been invented just operation, they want the justice brought to that case. >> i see here in terms of the terrain and the contested terrain, with at least three

areas of contestation. one is on gratuities, when it's on campaign finance than one is on conflicts of interest. in each of those areas, there's a lot of funds are two key about the line between criminally corrupt and lawful in everyday politics. i would like to focus that we could on the conflicts of interest to the supreme court's recent case, put them into play. i've been looking at the prosecution of our senate majority leader here in new york, not to leave the whole field to new jersey and joe bruno who is certainly one of the most powerful figures in new york state politics for two decades. in addition to being the majority leader of arsenic, he worked for an investment company

and his job was to go out and to solicit clients for the company, particularly labor unions. he had a special expertise with labor unions, probably because they had so much business before the legislature and in order to get any bills of interest to them, up on the radar screen and so forth, they had to deal with him. so he called -- allegedly called a public site during private site to labor unions and urged them in his most persuasive way to please him best with his company and that was an excellent company would give them very good returns he did quite well and he was compensated based upon the business that he brought to the company. when i was called after the indictment at "the new york

times" and they say what to think about this? i said that sounds like what we would expect to go on and a banana republic. i mean, how could there seriously be a question about whether that is a permissible way of governing ourselves. and they said well, they say everybody does this. this is a business in albany does bend over and told us before, all these legislators are part-time legislators, citizen soldiers so to speak. the above practices. they have insurance companies. they have other kinds of businesses and they do quite well. they find many, many people come to do business with them probably because they are well known and prominent and very smart. what's wrong with it?

>> well, what is wrong with it as it differs the public official from serving the public interest. but it is a tough problem. "the new york times" some years ago had a story about the fact the general dynamics was giving $50,000 a year to the allentown symphony orchestra in western pennsylvania. you probably haven't heard of it. why were they giving $50,000 to the allentown symphony? well, this was the favorite charity of mrs. jack murtha. and jack martha was ahead of the services committee. they were trying to curry favor. i don't think there's any doubt about that. what you want to do? t. want to say they can't give money to the allentown symphony? you want to say were going to lock up ahead of the armed services committee if he makes any decisions that are beneficial to general dynamics and he hasn't disclosed the fact

that some of the general dynamics gave money to his wife's favorite charity? i mean, think about drafting these ethical regulations. as for these problems out to be addressed. we have to have rules about what gifts you can take from obvious. they can't play the super bowl. maybe they can buy you lunch. we got to have rules about whether your insurance company and your laughter and should be looked to do business with people who are contracting with the state. they shouldn't be. but can your insurance company do business with somebody you might do business with the state theater? well, that's everybody, right? that's the way these problems are to be addressed. figure what conflicts of interest to want to cut off at the front-end and forget about trying to come up with some sweeping statute that will cover everything that we don't want

public officials to do in two or three sentences and authorizing long prison terms for violating the statute. >> conflict of interest just too complicated? >> i don't think so. obviously, it's a more difficult soundbite than bribery, but when you have public officials who are beneficial -- benefiting financially, which is not allowed by rule soma and that can affect the way they performed their official duties. >> what if it is allowed by the rules? >> while i think there ought not to be criminalized that conflict with ethics rules and that was the point that justice scalia made and then send them in case

and not make some sense. but again, that is something with good legislating you can a child. senator leahy has introduced bills on the services and gratuity question that attempt to fill these gaps left in the law, but to do it in a way that provides real direction that is not setting traps for people, but allowing prosecutors to go after those cases where you have people that are public servants not acting in the interest of the public, but rather in their own financial interests. i agree if you have a potential company donating to a certain charity that somebody likes, that sounds like something that i to be addressed in ethics rules. when you have a public official personally benefiting financially, that is something

not to be covered by the criminal statutes and can be it the statutes are drafted in a clear but it are agreeably broadway. >> pam, do you want to weigh in on that? >> sure, one thing to keep in mind here with regard to example state legislators with businesses on the side, the american people are getting the kind of legislators are willing to pay for it. that is, if you say to people you cannot be a legislator and eat, you have to do something to put food on the table, that's exactly what you're going to get. you'll have people who are businesses collected in some way because you will find a lot of people in the business of it has relationship and want to spend 50% of their time on businesses. if people want legislators on the cheap, someone also be

played for legislatures and they're going to reap the problems they sell themselves. the second thing that no attached on and i agree with entirely if it's very difficult to move everything into conflict of interest as opposed to talking about the financial interest of legislators because think back to caperton again. what was the conflict of interest there that require chief justice benjamin to recuse himself from the case? was not he was giving money directly. it was that money was given so he would get to have the job he had. if you say it's a conflict of interest anytime elected way that's likely to continue your election, you then create a very difficult dilemma because then what you're saying is if you do some things that's likely to lead to european reelected that creates a conflict of interest. of course, voters vote for you because of what you do.

this goes back to it and milk are missing earlier about are we talking about money or other things as well? if he sat conflict of interest for justice benjamin to third on cases because campaign contributors gave money, which you do about the fact we have good empirical evidence that in the year before they come up for reelection, judges sentence criminals more than other years? are they suffering from a conflict of interest because they are putting somebody in jail longer so they can keep their jobs? once they get away from financial benefit to the individual term you are going to create a situation in which there isn't a clear line and just to quote the old cliché of lord acton's, absolute power corrupts absolutely. unfettered prosecutorial power has its own corrupting

influences that may be just as bad as the corrupting influences if you define -- if you define conflict of interest so broadly that it sweeps anytime the constituents of a representative for our benefit may come which you might enter the allentown symphony has. it's not like they're having private chamber music concert in the murtha's house. that i understand. who wants to go to allentown to listen to the allentown symphony? i shouldn't say this because i get nasty letters, but whatever you do, never say anything bad about guns on something that's going to be on. [laughter] but seriously, you know, if you viewed as a conflict of interest in people negotiate themselves with their legislature by benefiting the legislators constituents, you really have

completely -- you have a completely elastic definition that starts to up against the normal politics is. >> ms. sloan. >> i think the charity thing is a great example for several reasons. first, this is a growing problem, misuse of charities. misuse of charities is getting more sophisticated than just i'm going to be a defense contractor who contributes to the charities. let me give you another example we saw recently. steve boyer, a former member of congress from indiana created his own foundation, the frontier foundation and he created the foundation which was allegedly going to help give scholarships to people and kids in indiana. the foundation and its lifetime gave me the $2000 in scholarships in indiana. but it did do was allow for you to play golf in the best golf courses around the world and why he's playing golf, he is playing

golf with a lobbyist who had been before his committee and all of those folks before his committee were contributing to his frontier foundation that was allowing him to play golf and didn't actually give money to anybody. this is the kind of situation that most people would think and fight to be a conflict of interest. this is an example where the house gives waivers for this kind of behavior comeau worries you would think perhaps members of congress are about to give much for charity, but there's also ethics rules and federations if they are not supposed to train us for anything of value for people who have done this for you, but for reasons i can't comment on the house and senate were to make a waivers to members of congress so yes they in fact raise money from the folks in business before that. when charlie rangel got into trouble for raising money come

he forgot to get the waiver. all of those issues regarding whether or not when he got the million dollars from the rangel center firm iceberg, but because steve boyer went and got waivers, they were allowed to raise money from folks so he could go play golf. and that seems like a kind of conflict of interest we would like to see. yet we see more and more of this. many members of congress have these charitable foundation. orrin hatch from utah has the utah family foundation and he gives a lot of money to it. pharmaceutical companies. pharmaceutical come needs have found mr. hatch to be incredibly favorable to pharmaceutical interests. they are not giving money because they're facing utah appeared at what senator hatch to keep up in a band that is something troubling, although i agree it's a difficult thing to get that criminally. this is where you could have

much greater ethics enforcement at a different level, but sadly we do. >> mr. smith, do you want to weigh in on that? >> just to complicate matters further, another difficulty is when you're trying to enforce whether it's an ethical context or criminal context, there can be a difficulty with the ethical rule is slightly different than the criminal rule. so which you end up in that situation with his people at the legal defense to either or both because they followed advice. i thought there was this because the rules are close enough, take up legal advice from somebody and that this row was consistent with that rule. so for us to have enforceable conflict of interest either in the house and senate are any sort of state body, i think there is a real need for coordination and consistency with the criminal lot because efforts to kind of added another layer sometimes can complicate things so much that it makes it

difficult to enforce. on the other side i would say this in the beginning one of the issues that was talked about is everybody does this. i can tell you as a prosecutor often times when we investigate conflict of interest cases and frankly other sorts of cases as well, one of the defenses as everybody does this. most of the folks here and i'm sure melanie has devoted her career to making sure people who use that defense, it doesn't work. and i think we cannot accept that everybody does this as a defense to a church. if there is fair notice that this was against the rules, we have to bring those cases because again if we bring those cases, i think they can have a deterrent effect going forward. we just need a clear role to base the case design. >> were going to take questions in just a minute. so warm yourself up for questioning.

it will give another five minutes just for a free back-and-forth here on the panel. >> a couple points on the sword as everybody does this approach. i think first of all, it's just not true. there are, as anne milgram said, in light of the public officials or read it for the right reason. it's just simply a copout to say the system is corrupt therefore it can't be held accountable for what i did. the other thing is that to the extent that there is systemic corruption that the way you start to change that is by enforcing the law. and if people start getting prosecuted, then everybody, you know, people will stop doing it to some extent at least,

although he certainly can see the criminal of is not the only solution for a complete solution. and where there is systemic corruption that result in people benefiting financially that is currently outside the scope of the law, whether some of these court decisions that people have addressed, that's where we are finding new laws that are precise and fair warning, but that bring those back in is really important. you outlaw that conduct clearly and firmly and enforce that law and that gives a pretty strong counter incentive to public officials who might be inclined because it's the culture of the place to violate the law. one of their follow-up to an earlier point about not

convicting people based on what's in the newspapers i think the jefferson case is actually an interesting example on that because of course he's famous for the name be whatever thousand dollars found in his freezer. one of the few accounts he was acquitted on with the corrupt practices act cannot stand for the money in the freezer. he was convicted on other things. most people don't know that. so it is really important that that -- that the laws be precise and the facts dictate who is charged in that there could does and that's how you start at least on the criminal level solving these problems. >> al, you look like you're ready to jump in. >> i want to say something about the new legislation to be precise and give fair warning to people that senator leahy announced in this talking about.

it says that you're going to lock somebody up these done -- where is that? if he's taken unofficial action and offending or further into financial interest of anybody from whom he has received a thing of value and failed to disclose information that financial interest is a thing of value by any federal state of rule or regulation. you've benefited everybody. you vote not to reinstate the bush tax is lower taxes for people return of $50,000. you benefit everybody makes them into a $50,000. you benefit everybody who's ever done anything for you. if you have failed to disclose that has acquired via a state

and local regulations coming are guilty of a 20 year federal felony. so what is a federal crime in iowa will not be a federal crime in illinois. you're going to try people for violating state and local regulations of the federal courts. they are missing for a spin on criminal statutes and punish them by 20 years and you're going to adopt all of the uncertainties of those regulations which are enormous. the person who administers the federal regulation says to the members of congress, study them carefully, but you don't understand. different rules for disclosing doughnuts and disclosing sandwiches. different rules for taking money for a book chapter event for giving a speech. in illinois, the statute doesn't cover it at all if it's gone to the status of the nephew for the

kaizen. there's lots of ways around this statute, but in illinois you do have to disclose money given to the spouse if you constructively control it. why? nobody has any idea. some of what the legislation does is adopt the uncertainties that these enormous and complicated ethical regulations. >> can i respond very, very quickly. i don't want to get into all the details of this bill has been introduced, but i think that example doesn't really hold up. if legislators vote for a tax cut in benefits constituents, first about the disclose it. >> nobody. >> absolutely not. what it covers is the situation where somebody is secretly getting gifts were secretly has

a financial interest and is taking official action that benefits interests. insert before expect the number of those cured or ossetians. i also would say that this is a piece of legislation that was introduced in if it can be tightened, i know senator leahy is up for tight and can make it better. saying this is hard if not an excuse for not doing it when there are very significant factual scenarios of a think with all of us would agree are real corruption that are now not covered by criminal law. >> i want to move to the question and answer part. so if you have a question, i see a microphone they are.

please go take the microphone and if you don't mind, let us know who you are. you might be a law enforcer or even a corrupt politician. [laughter] >> that morning, panelists, members. i've a question question for anne milgram about corruption in new jersey. >> the questions are for the panelists. she'll talk later, so why don't we -- she still the front row. she can answer she chooses to. my question is -- my question is for the panelists. my name is howard and my question is in august of 2009, inspector ronald joseph fish released a public report in which she found that re: corruption of the waterfront commission of new york harbor. among the subjects of the waterfront commission of new york harbor report by the inspector general was albert

tenacious junior of new jersey. the report -- >> it to the question quickly because you're going to take the next question in 10 seconds. >> lease give me some courtesy. my question is, the inspector general found in his report that the processor of jersey improperly interfered one involving his uncle and one close friend. what steps if any, ms. milgram did you take -- >> thank you. >> i have a question relating to something that senator carlin alluded to are touched on and it's kind of an economic and psychological question. what connection -- is there any correlation between the issue of perhaps corruption and we all understand what greed is in the issue of what salaries are paid to some elected officials. we had a situation in york city

two decades ago, where we had a president who was making a governor but the exact amount, but was making about one fifth or one 10th of what his fellow graduates of business school are making planning corporations and the u.s. running queens with about 20,000 employees, doing a very good job, having trouble paying for college tuition for his kids and unable to be socially on the level of all of his fellow graduate and may have felt forced to engage in corruption. i don't think he was lining his pockets. >> i think we've got the question. >> yes, thank you. >> well, i think, you know, the salary that public officials make a note going into it with the salaries are at if you feel like you can't live on the salary coming out to be acceptable to do is to say i'll take the salary and then try and make money on the side.

.. >> there's no excuse for taking gratuities or bribes and there's no excuse for any of that, but it leaves an awful lot of gocht officials -- government officials to think what's their next job going to

be and to act in ways that maximize their future income in those next jobs, and that's a problem. >> it appears that we are out of time, so we're going to call this first panel adjourned. [applause] >> we are different from the department of justice which concentrated on the antitrust agent type of oversight. we are responsible -- we have a public interest standard which includes looking at competition, you know, how the market looks, how the existing players in the market will be affected, how consumers will be affected. >> the communicators tonight on

c-span2. >> tonight on c-span2, it's booktv, and then andrew johnson and later author and columnist discusses his book and that gets underway at 8:30 p.m. eastern right after the communicators. his books include private rights and public illusions, the promise of liberty, and the man without a hobby, and he'll take your calls, e-mails, and tweets live sunday, may 1, noon eastern on c-span2's book tv. >> in may of 1961, president kennedy announced his decision to send men to the moon in the

next decade. next, the american association for the advancement of science hosts a look back at the history of the moon shot as well as the legacy of jfk's decision. this is just over 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> okay. good afternoon. i'm alber teich, senior policy adviser here at aaas, the american association for the advancement of science, and behalf of aaas and the washington policy alliance and its participating organizations, i'd like to welcome you here to

this afternoon's symposium, and i'll also do the usual thing of asking you to please turn off your or silence your cell phones and blackberries and iphones and all those other wonderful things. it's been 50 years since president john f. kennedy announced his decision to send americans to the moon. in his words, before the decade is out. his speech before a joint session of congress on may 25, 1961 committed the united states to the largest mobilization of financial and human resources to achieve a single purpose in u.s. peacetime history, mobilization that culminated in the apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969. that was an event of such drama and importance that anyone over the age of 3 at the time

undoubtedly has it engraved in his or her memory as i do, and i was well over the age of 3 at the time. the purpose of this program this afternoon is to congressmen rate president kennedy's historic decision and more importantly, put that decision in per sective a half century later. this turns into a successful program and we'll also look at the scientific and historical legacies of project apollo. do address the subjects, we assembled three distinguished speakers. we don't have time to give them proper introductions, so i'll say a few words about each. our leadoff speaker, john logsdon is president of international affairs at george washington university. prior to becoming there, he served on the gw faculty for 38

years. he has written numerous articles and several books including the decision to go to the moon published in 1970 and john f. kennedy and the race to the moon which was just published last december. if i were to tell you about his other activities and the awards and recognition he's received, we'd be here to midnight. i'll go on. our second speaker, roger launius, is curator in the division of space history at the international air and space museum. he previously served as division chair from 2003 to 2007, and prior to that as chief historian at nasa. he's written or edited more than 20 books and aerospace history including, and this is kind of a random selection from the list, robots in space, the societal impact of space flight -- two

different books, and space flight and the myth of presidential leadership. like our other speakers, he has received his share of honors and awards and made numerous appearances in electronic and print media. finally, in the number three spot is paul spudis, senior staff scientist at the lunar and planetary institute in texas. he was formally with the brarchg of astrogeology in the survey from flagstaff, arizona. he served on the impact of volcanos on the planet and studies the requirement for steady human presence on the moon. he served on the implementation policy and received nasa's distinguished public service medal for his work on that body.

he's written over 100 papers and five books including the once and future moon, a book for the general public that's part of the smithsonian library of the solar system series. i asked our speakers to keep to about 20 minutes and with a bit of luck, we'll have some time at the end of their presentations for q&a and discussion. now, join me please in welcoming john logsdon. [applause] >> thank you, al, and good afternoon, everybody. thank you for coming. a couple people have already asked me is my book for sale here this afternoon, and the answer to that is no, kind of house rules and good etiquette that you shouldn't do that. it does exist. [laughter] it's for sale very inexpensively on amazon, but enough of that.

where do i push here? oh, on the keyboard. that works. as al said, i wrote a book in 1970 called "the decision to go to the moon," which ended on may the 25th, 1961, almost now 50 years ago as president kennedy proposed to the country and to the joined session of congress that the united states accept the commitment to send americans to the moon. why 40 years later have i gone back to the topic? couple of reasonsment one important one was that lots more material is available. at that point, there was nots a kennedy library. all the oral history interviews hadn't been released, to the account could be richer. second reason is it became clear that announcing a decision is

only part of the steps needed to get something to happen, and i was interested in what kennedy did in his remaining 0 months in office -- 30 months in off of may of 61 to turn this into an ongoing program. i missed in the first book an important theme that i'll tell you about as we go along today, so that's the book, and what i'm saying here today is drawn pretty much from the account in the book. you know that today's the 21st so nine days ago we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first orbital flight by a human being, and the media's been asking about that, and my line is that that future of human space flight was as uncertain at

least in the united states on april the 12th, 1961 as it is today, and it's very uncertain today. because john kennedy had come into the white house knowing very little and caring very little about space issues. he had used the failure of the united states to keep up with the soviet union in space as a campaign tool against the eisenhower administration, but he really had not thought very deeply about it, and the best indication of the priority that he assigned to space was that he gave it away. he gave it to johnson, his vice president as something he could do that was not all that important and wouldn't get in the way of the major policy initiatives that kennedy had in mind. like all incoming administrations, there's a call for the relook at the budget.

the new head of that sac, the -- nasa, the last administration, shows you how much has changed. the last appointment was on january the 30th confirmed on february 14th. we don't work that way anymore. james webb came in saying the program that we -- that president eisenhower put forward is a losing program. the united states will always be behind in space. we need money for a larger rocket, and we need a post mercury human space flight program. kennedy, said, well, i'm not sure i want to make up my mind so quickly and said we'll think about this, but we're not going to address those decisions until the next budget cycle in the fall of 1961. then, changed the perception of

the importance of space. the world and domestic reaction to the gagaran flight convinced kennedy he could not see this go to the soviet union and whatever the potentials for tangible results in space, the symbolic achievements of the soviet union linked to the soviet claims of superiority of their social system, and, again, al talks about anybody who was 3 in 1969, you'd have to be over 15 in 1961 srb -- some of us were -- to recreate the cold war and direct fear of fallout, shelters, competition for the aliangs and allegiance of the newly independent country. that was the context for kennedy as he entered office.

kennedy brought his advisers together two dafs after gagaran, asked what the united states could do to get to a leadership position in space for the first time probably it might be possible to get to the moon before the soviet union, and as he left the room, he turned and said, there's nothing more important. how do we know this? because he invited a high quality journalist into the room to witness the meeting, and he reported this in a book that was quoted on the first slide as a matter of fact. the date is important because one of the questions as a historical reconstruction was how much influence did the fiasco at the bay of pigs have on kennedy's resolve to go forward? it happened the following week. my conclusion is that kennedy had pretty much made up his mind

to do something major in space before the bay of pigs, but the failure while the soviet union looked so successful was clearly a strongly a reenforcing activity. he set out in a memo to lyndon johnson asking for a quick review of the space program, a very nice set of requirements, and you see what they are. do we have a chance of beating the soviets? the last sentence, is there any other space program that promises dramatic results in which we could win? now, those of you anywhere near requirements know that that's a pretty clear requirements document. space, dramatic, win. a review took place over the next couple of weeks run by lyndon johnson, and the answer came back to kennedy, moon. why the moon? it was a technical reason was that the soviet union to that

date and to some degree still today was using a converted ibcm designed to lift a heavy nuclear warhead and therefore could carry heavy space payloads, but to get people to the moon, soviet union had to build a new rocket, and so would the united states. it was brought into the consul traitions and von braun said give me the resources, and we will win. he had little humility about his capability. [laughter] he was right, by the way. over the weekend of may 6 and 7, a group of people came together to write a set of recommendations to go through the vice president to president, nasa administrator webb, that memo on the the morning of may 8, and you see the words, men

not merely machines that captures the imagination of the world, and that large scale space projects aimed at national prestige are part of the battle on the fluid of the cold war. pretty clear language again. you can read the whole memo and find nothing in it about space exploration, about a vision of the future in space. it was very much about how to compete successfully with the soviet union. kennedy on may 10 accepted the recommendations, they dob then did due diligence over the next few weeks and ted sorrenson bundled the space recommendations with other major initiatives and maply security policy, civil defense, a second round of increases in military spending, increases in foreign

aid to what would be built as a second state of the union address on urgent national needs, and that's the space that kennedy concluded, oh, he concluded with his recommendations to set a lune -- lunar landing as a national goal. could he have done that if the first u.s. human fight, suborbital of allen shepherd that happened on may the 5th not been a success? i'm skeptical. i think it was a necessary condition for going forward. there was a big debate both whether humans could survive going into space or not, the gagaran's flight pretty much answered yes, and then second, should the united states televise this event live with the possibility of a failure happening in front of everybody so soon after the bay of pigs, and kennedy got very much

personally involved in that and finally said, yes, we're going to go ahead and do it in public. it's not our style to hide things. on may 8, the same day that the recommendations got to president kennedy, sharped and the other six mercury astronauts came to the white house and they really impressed kennedy as the kind of people that he felt very comfortable with, people that he had written about with profiles of courage, people that the term hadn't been invented yet, but people with the right stuff, so kennedy went before the joint session of congress. the first part of this as probably most of you have heard before, but i'll play it. notice he says mainly it's about impressing people.

>> the dramatic achievements in space that occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all as did the sputnik in 1957. the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. i believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. no single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space. >> but kennedy went on to stress how difficult and hard and burdensome this commitment would be, and that part of it is interesting. >> i think every citizen of this country as well as members of the country should consider the matter carefully in making their

judgment which gives attention over many weeks and month. it is a heavy burden, and there's no sense in agreeing or desiring that the united states take an affirmative position in outer space unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burden to make it successful. if not, we should decide today and this year. [applause] [applause] this decision demands a major national commitment of scientific -- >> you seldom see presidents warning against rivalries. >> the degree of dedication, organization, and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. it means we cannot afford undo work and inflated cost of

material or talent, wasteful rivalries, or a high turnover the key personnel. >> kennedy not only talked the talk, he walked the walk. i put this quote in because it captures that there are two parts to making big things happen. choosing what to do and then excuting the policies. kennedy was willing to do that. look at the dimensions of the mobilization. the budget went up 79% the first year, 101% the second year, and 40% the third year, totally about a 400% increase over the eisenhower budget, a big investment in construction of facilities that were still living -- that we're still living off of today, and nasa almost doubled in size and the contractor work force went up four times in size. this cost in 2010 dollars, $151

billion. the largest peacetime program in u.s. history, and i picked a couple of others for comparison because i give the talk in boston, so i put the big dig in there. compared to other big nasa programs, apollo is interesting because the shuttle through the planned 135 flights, nasa says in 2010 dollars would have cost $209 billion, over 30 years, really 38 years including development and the space station abstracting the shuttle costs another $55 billion, so we have been spending apollo-like money on space, just not in the span of a few years. the program picked up momentum by the end of of ' 61 and ' 62.

there's an interesting story i don't have time for this afternoon and kennedy went out to inspect progress, first to huntsville, and then the cape, and then to houston and made the speech, the most vivid speech, and i can't give the talk without you hearing this. if it works. >> we choose to go to the moon in this day and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and fill because that challenge is one we are willing to postpone and one we intend to win and the others too. [applause]

>> on that same trip, kennedy went being worried about the rapidly increasing costs of apollo, but he was told by the head of the apollo program that with a little more money, we could land in '66 rather than '67 and there was a talk with jim webb when was it was appropriate to provide the extra money. the answer on mr. webb's term was no. holmes went to "time" magazine and leaked the story that webb was not supporting kennedy's goal, and was an obstacle rather than a facilitator of the apollo objective. kennedy being kennedy said let's hear what this is all about. he called a meeting, kennedy installed a secret taping system in the cabinet room and in the oval office after the bay of

pigs, and there's a fascinating discussion, long one, and here are a couple minutes of it of kennedy being very clear on why we were going to the moon. >> [inaudible] [inaudible] of course you wouldn't put it on that priority. the second point is the fact of the system. that's why we doing it. [inaudible] >> you talk about this and between -- >> everything that we do or tied

in to getting to the moon ahead of the russians. >> why can't -- >> later in the conversation, kennedy said i'm not that interested in space. that's taken out of context because he said he's not interested in spending a lot of money on space science rapidly, but still it's a nice quote. there is this historical myth that apollo was smooth sailing, that kennedy made his announcement, the country rallied behind it, there was no criticisms, and we went through to apollo 11, not at all true. 63 people began to say this is happening, lots of money is being spent on it, and criticisms came from multiple sides. president eisenhower called it nuts. a lot of republicans in congress

said the real soviet challenge is in orbit 200 miles up with their military programs, why are we sending people to the moon? the scientific and liberal community said totally wrong priorities and a famous editorial wrote by phil ableson said this was absolutely misplaced priorities. kennedy was very sensitive to this, asked for reviews of benefits, cost, and schedule. the program was having its own technical and management problems and congress cut the budget by 10%, not exactly trouble free. to parallel with this, kennedy returned to a theme that had been there from the start, and this is what i missed in the first book. he had said in his inaugural address to the soviet union, let us explore the stars together. even as he announced his

decision to the moon, he was preparing to meet kruschev. the meeting was intense and was only brought up at lunches and kennedy brought it up at both leverages -- lunches. after the, i guess successful outcome given the al alternative of the cuban muscle crisis, he worked hard to reduce tensions. the first was the ban treaty, and then he turned to space, and certainly nobody in the space community remembers his speech before the u.n. regime assembly, the most public possible place on september 20, 1963.

>> finally in a field where the united states and the soviet union have a special capacity in the field of space, there is room for new cooperations. further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. i include among these possibilities a joint expee -- expedition to the moon. >> others said this was a public relations gimmick or a way to move out of the landing before the decade is out commitment. i think it was neither. i think it was indeed a fairly deliberate attempt to see whether cooperation was possible. the problem was that the soviet union at that point did not have a lunar program, and they had not decided whether to have one. there was no program to cooperate with. the intelligence analysis

estimates that are now all declassified are interesting reading. they say there's no evidence of a soviet union lunar program, but we think they'll probably do it which is maybe what the intelligence community still does, but the reality was during kennedy's presidency, the united states was racing itself, not the soviet union p. he responded in the first of 63 saying a russian astronaut and american astronaut, particularly a female flying to the moon together, what a great idea. at the same time, there was a major review, a serious review of the overall both civilian and military space program which included options of slowing down

or canceling apollo. there were certainly people around kennedy that were concerned about the money, didn't feel apollo was anymore necessary, and at least were in favor of relaxing the end of the decade deadline. the bureau draft memo is interesting reading because bob said there's no need to do anything but the current path. the memo never got to kennedy. what would he have done then and maybe in his second term? would he continue to push hard for cooperation? i think yes. would he have turned off the clock? i don't think in 63, maybe later on. would he have abandoned the goal? my view is no. or push ahead with the program? listen to he said the day before he was killed. >> we have a long way to go,

many weeks and months and years of long tedious work lying ahead. there will be setbacks and frustrations and disappointments. there will be as there always are, pressure in the country to do less in this area as in so many others and temptations to do something else that's much easier, but this research here must go on. this space effort must go on. the quest to space must and will go ahead. that much we know. that much we can say with confidence and conviction. frank o'connor, the irish writer, says in one of his books when i was a boy that he and his friends made their way across the countryside, and when they came to a wall that seemed too high, too doubtful to try, and too difficult to permit their

voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall, and then they had no choice but to follow them. this nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. >> we can use a little of that today. hopefully in the q&a session we can talk about the evaluation of kennedy and his role in apollo. let me just end with one -- i always wanted to take that one off. with one comment, people have kind of idealized john kennedy in many ways, but with respect to the space community as a great visionary leading the country into an ambitious future in space. that's not the image that comes out of my research of this book and thissing the and what i've shared with you. rather, this was a policy and

national security policy decision driven by a pragmatic competitive politician who came to the judgment that the u.s. national interests required the united states to be preeminent in space capabilities and achievements. whether that is a good judgment or not, is something we can judge now 50 years later, but that's what compelled kennedy's let's go to the moon. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is roger launius, and i will bring up his presentation. hopefully. >> good afternoon, everyone. unlike john, my book is not out

yet, but i do have one underway that should appear hopefully late this year or the first part of next year called "after apollo and the legacy of the moon landings," and the intent is to focus on the experiences since the moon landings and what they mean as we reflect back on that. i have several themes to walk through this afternoon and just talk about. one of the things that's striking that i focused on in this particular book is this whole business of the moon as a special place, and there's a long history of this in our background, in our culture, in our methologies and it's tied to many things and are tied to magical things right up to the present. interestingly enough, how many of you -- very few people believe in warewolves and

madness, but people believe there's more madness and violence when there's a full moon. that's part of the heritage that i explain a little bit in this particular book. of course, we all know the rationals for apollo and the reasons for undertaking it. it's interesting that many people don't seem to appreciate the deep and abiding connection of the apollo effort with the larger cold war objectives, and the attempt essentially to engage in war by another means in which we can test our medal, visa vis-a-vis, the soviet union. the plans was a big part of this and the scientific results from this was astounding, paul will talk about that later. it bore no relationship to the rationale why we took on this

particular program although we did great things with it. john mentioned this a moment ago as well, but there's this misnomer out there that everybody thought apollo was a great thing to do so in tracking public opinion poles through the 1960s, these are the numbers you end up with. if you asked the question is apollo worth the cost? that's the blue arrow, and the yes' are tracked on this. 35% say, yeah, good idea. goes up to the mid-40s, back down to the 30s, and the only point where it peaks above 50% is at the landing of apollo and then continues to go back down. if you ask the question are we spending too much money on space? that's divorced somewhat from the issue of apollo. there's other things being done in space, but it's wrapped up in it as well, and the yes answer, again, bounces up and down, but

at the point where apollo starts to achieve its ends, where we have the circle lunar flight in 1968 and the missions themselves in 1969 through 72, the yes answer continues to go up that we're spending too much on space. that's when you tie it to money, when you do not tie the issue of apollo to money, that's the yellow line. do you approve of apollo? yeah, overwhelmingly people like it. it rarely dips below 60% that say yes, we like it. most of the time, it's much higher than that. it's not unlike a lot of things you see today. people like the shuttle program, they like human space flight, they like nasa; they just don't want to pay for it, and that was the case during the apollo program as well, and we have this kind of misty-eyed recollection that all was well during this time and had all the money necessary to engage in the

space exploration activities. we certainly had not an unsubstantial amount of money, but it was never what one might call a greatly supported program in the way that we would like to recollect. interestingly enough, and i think this suggests another point that john raised as well. if you track opinion polling about the soviet union and their place in space from october of 1957 up through the latter part of the apollo program in 1971, what you find until the mid-1960s is an answer which you see in blue, yes, the soviet union is ahead of the u.s. in space. that then flips in the mid 1960s and never really at no point after that do we really see a lot of suggestion that the public believes that the apollo program or that the u.s. is not

leading in space by that particular point in time, so it does raise the very interesting possibility that in a second term and john just mentioned he didn't think that kennedy would have killed the apollo program, and i don't believe he would have either or turned off the clock, probably not in 63, but what about in 64, 65, and 66 had he served a second term and we have analysis we are doing well in space, it would have been, i think, not impossible, maybe unlikely, but i'm not even sure about that, decision to say, well, okay, we don't have to do it by the end of the decade. we can let it go on a few more years, and we can reduce the budget accordingly, and that's, i think, a potential thing. we'll never know the answer to that. we love what-if questions, but there's no firm answers. the assassination of course raises the whole specker of a lot of these things, and this is

essentially the same kind of thing that john was just talking about. i really do think that there's a great potential that there would have been chopped discussions -- continued discussions between the united states and the soviet union. there already was some, and john did not mention, but there was a whole series of discussions between nasa and the soviet academy of sciences in 1962 about cooperative ventures. they did a lot of things along those lines, and the potential for further activities down the road. there might have been more including human flight together. another part of the book that i'm talking about is the whole issue of the astronaut corp. we're familiar with the right stuff mentality, some have seep the movie and read the book and the idea this is a unique group of vinals, and --

individuals, and they became essentially rock stars in this particular era, and i think there's a whole series of atut that deserve to be kind of peeled back and analyzed a bit. the first is at some level we have the astronaut as every man. he, and it was all he's in that particular era, had this manner of being just the normal person. it's interesting that when you look at the careers of these various individuals, a lot of them of course went to service academies, most of the rest went to state universities, and only one was an issue of issue of ivy leaguer. they have diverse backgrounds, mostly first individuals from their families to go to college. they are a jimmy stuart type character, and they speak those vur virtues.

another is they are defender of the nation, to do battle with an empire that exists that is bent on the destruction of the united states. at some level, and i compare it to the plow in ancient rome with the call to go from your normal duties to natural things. they demonstrate this over and over again. in the lower picture, you see astronauts on a bob hope television special. they showed up on those things a lot, and then another part of this is the masculine representation of the american ideal. as individuals who are young, verbal, and very much a part of what we think of when we think about american manhood. finally, they are daredevils,

celebrities, heros cool under pressure, can leap buildings in a single bopped, and so on. that is the image that the astronauts developed very early on, and in some cases they were the architects of the image aided and abetted by nasa's effort to cast them in this particular approach, and with the support of the media, especially "life" magazine that created that mind set in the early 1960s and continued past the apollo program by far. never mind the fact they were like any group of individuals. there were some who betrayed all the attributes and some betrayed few of them and all in between, but that an interesting piece to this story and how the astronauts continued to be viewed in this particular manner. i will also now tell you one story about this.

i refer to it in the book as the mystique of the flight suit. you can also say it's the mystique of the space suit. when they show up even today at the national space museum where i work wearing their flight suits, most of the time they are unknown if they are not in their particular uniform, but once they show up, you'll be surprised to see the hundreds of people that flock to them, some of whom probably have never heard of them who are 10 years old, but nonetheless are there getting autographs, talking to them, and engaging with them in various ways. this mind set is steeped in this tradition that evolved 50 years since the first human space flight and it's still part of our society. i can tell you story after story about this, and this kind of gets to that, and i'll just press on from there. i also want to tell you the story about the flag on the moon because it was suggest in a lot

of ways. it was a symbolic activity. there were numerous people in nasa that thought a lot of the activities that were engaged in on the moon were not all that necessary, that the astronauts needed to do certain types of things and not other things, but one of those that nobody thought was unimportant was the planting of the flag and the salute and photography of that. it was a symbol of press teg. that was the purpose of it in the first place and it was clearly the point in which you achieve that important decision point in terms of american exceptionalism, and it celebrated and has been recoiled around the world as a result. there were a whole series of discussions in the runup to the first moon landing as to what flag to plant. would it be the u.s. flag? would it be the u.n. flag? there were people suggested that all the states flag's should be

planted as well. certainly, texas insist the its flag be planted. [laughter] all were nixed. there was a decision at nasa headquarters that this would not take place and just put up the u.s. flag and none other. there was legislation in congress to that effect just before the flight said we're not doing this stuff, especially that u.n. flag. the flag has become symbolic in this particular impage of bud saluting the flag. it's a critical image, one of the five or six most famous images from the apollo program, and it gets replicated and used in variety of ways since that time. let me show you a few. "time" magazine of course, there's an artist redecision of this. the astronaut at the flag at the

rose bowl parade, images like this. artistic renditions, stamps, posters, and in the upper left, the famous mural we have in the museum of the as naught planting the flag on the moon that is a little larger than life, but it's become thee standard place for photo ops in the museum and as you walk in you see visitors crowded around this with somebody taking their photograph, and often they are not u.s. citizens. it's not about americanism here, but being a part of the larger experience. then, of course, andy warhol who did a succession of these day glow images, and they've been proliferated since that time. there's other parts of this, commercial universities, i particularly -- commercial uses, and i

particularly like the mtv flag. there's a whole story about using the nasa image and superimposing the low go on it in the early 1980s as that cable station began to broadcast, and while they are not using that particular logo too much on mtv, they still give out the music awards, and here you can see one of those which is the astronaut with the mtv logo on the moon handed out to musicians every year, and we have one in the collection that was flown. of course, lots of other things like this including a really hideous tie. [laughter] there's pride in progress associated with all this apollo imagery and the iconic pieces of this suggested very important things, and i got a couple of quotes that i would call your attention too.

senator abraham, if men can visit the moon, and we now know that we can, then there's no limit to what else we can do. suggesting that's the really meaning of apollo 11. that's the version of -- and you can fill in the blank -- if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we whatever? that has become a very standard troop in american society since the moon landings as we have used it over and over again. my particular rendition of that is if we can put a man on the moon, why can't we put a man on the moon. [laughter] not everybody sees the humor of that. the flags and footprints part of this was part of the symbol intended of national prestige, and it was a stunning success in every measure that one wishes to use both from a national

perspective and international perspective, but there's also a fine line between pride and jinglism, and i like to use the quote from sam, the late great social critic and comedian who said you really want to impress us, bring back our flag. somebody may do that yet. apollo through all this of process was a representation of american process and -- progress and what it meant to be forward looking. the last thing i want to talk about which is the one piece of the book and it's become larger and larger as time has passed is our whole involvement as a society in the call to conspiracy. that photograph, by the way, is area 51, the military base taken -- you can't get an image like this from a u.s. carrier, but the russians are glad to sell you a picture of area 51, and happily do so, but there's

many, many, many conspiracy theories associated with the moon landing, and they involve all kinds of things. now, we as a society love con conspiracy theories, and some of our most important historic events are triggered by ideas about conspiracy, and if somebody wants to talk about that sometime down the road, we can do so, but in turns of the apollo policeman, there's this -- program, there's this business of people disbelieving we ever actually did it. should i take a poll at this point is the real question. i think for this particular audience, everybody here probably does not question that, but increasingly so that is a question that people ask and increasingly there is more questioning over time. now, beginning at essentially the point where the moon landings took place, the -- there were people who questioned it. there was news stories from 1969 and 1-9d 70 of journalists

talking to various people. sometimes it's as simple as walking into the local bar where cliff and norm sit on the bar stools blabbering about whatever. those guys in hollywood can fake anything. sometimes it's predicated upon a lack of understanding of technology. there was a story that i tracked from 1970 in which a woman was interviewed in macon, georgia saying i know they didn't land on the moon. the journalist how do you know that? she said, because i can't get television signal from new york city, how can i possibly get it from the moon? simply a question of not understanding how the technology works or anything at all about it, and so it's predicated on a naivety and there's lots of

instapses. my grandfather insisted until he died in 1984 that we never landed on the moon. i'm not sure he's a good measure for much sophistication for this because he was a farmer his entire life and always farmed using horses, never using a tractor because tractors were just a passing fad. [laughter] not a guy you want to talk about about high technology. there's blatant attempts to try to just create a sense of uncertainty about this. some of these things are predicated on attempts to make money. others are perhaps more nefarious in that they want to throw into questionable light anything the government does, and we see them over and over and over again.

he's an example of a play at that particular time attempt -- blatant attempt to falsify history. i'll play this video for you, and i'm sure you'll find it humorous. >> [inaudible] >> that's one small step for man, one giant leap -- oh, okay. >> this was filmed in a sound stage outside of paris in 2004. it's on moontrust.com if anybody wants to look at it, go knock yourself out. [laughter] it suggests that is one of the outtakes, one of the bloopers of the attempted moon landing, but it's a very recent recreation of something that is designed to

confuse and conflict people over this particular issue, and normally i don't know that we should spend a lot of time worrying about it other than accepting it as a humorous activity, but there is a piece to it that's kind of significant because while we got a public opinion poll that goes all the way back to 1960 that suggests that maybe 5% of the public questions whether or not we landed on the moon, but i have a friend who is a pollster who said, you know, denning on how you -- depending on how you frame the question, i can get 5% to say anything. that's not a fairly significant result. what is significant or so it seems is a set of polling breaking the down my age. it says 20% of those under age 25 question it. that's more and more interesting in my mind and what's that saying as our society as a whole. i'll play one more video.

you may remember this from 2002. this guy in the light blue jacket is bud aldren. bart is a denier who produces videos. my personal favorite is astronauts gone wild, and he's done a variety of things incoming shoving a bible in front of astronauting who walk on the moon say swear on the bible you did it. some have done it. buzz had a unique take on this. after buzz sparred with him a little bit, he's what happened. >> you're a coward and a liar and a thief. [laughter] do i have to -- do you want to see it again? you heard bart saying you're a coward, a liar, and a thief.

>> i just hope buss didn't hurt his hand. times up. okay. let me quit. i suggest to you there's four narratives to the present. one is a dominant narrative from the very beginning to the day of american sees, and we hear that over and over and over again. there's counternarratives as well. one is a criticism of the program from the left that we misplaced the use of our resources by going to the moon. we could have more effectively used it for other things. a criticism of space flight from the political right that these activities should be done in the private sector and space activities are dedicated to national security and other practice call things, and then this fourth narrative of conspiracy, and that's where we are. with that, i'll quit, and thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much, roger, and our next speaker is paul spudis, and i will bring up his presentation right now. ..

in response to a vigorous debate for a long time against bible based creationism. geologist's respond by saying you can see what's happening on the earth today and how the earth works. that happened in the past few accept the premise that the president of the past you can understand and read the record of the earth that is preserved. so a lot of geology was reactive against the idea that things could happen that we would call today catastrophes. was it very strong bias against catastrophe. catastrophism to issue will just in the 50's was a bad word. keep in mind geology developed and emerged largely on the land and the earth's surface is three-quarters water. we knew virtually nothing about the configuration of the geology and the structure of the ocean bases. yet there were hints in the midcentury the we might be a will to learn about that. they were doing surveys for the dredging the bottom, the

geophysics was getting pictures of the inside of the earth but we had a long way to go and we didn't understand how the earth worked. the middle slide is interesting. this is something called the incline and anyone who has taken the university courses and geology since 1970 probably has never even heard that word. that is basically the geological explanation for how they form. fix sediment and 84 under their own wheat, the surfaces and that is of a mountain folds develop. it now that sounds pretty arcane and what does this have to do with the apollo and the moon? it was considered less relevant than geology, this base. the moon was something that got in the way when astronomers were trying to get a good view of the sky. it is interesting things to look at and the moon was a mowing because it is a bright light and you were not able to see things. but if you renegade scientists actually challenged that of wisdom and thought the moon was

important in its own right, but they were sort of marginalized. they debated their theory about the moon on the sidelines. a sort of i just put some controversy here to give you an idea what the dates were like. it's how the craters form. they were on these cycles in the ground. were they volcanically know about the chemicals in the earth but the impact hits caused by asteroids with the moon. the dust bowl on the right believed the moment a little lemon and sink into the quicksand of finely levitated dust or where the laforme flows the body the body of the left is a nobel prize winner was discovered of heavy hydrogen and is the media right and he went to the moon he would have and preserved impact specimen of the piece of the solar system. so all these things were debated with the rebate on the sidelines. they were not considered part of

mainstream science but there were a few people who sold through that and actually pinpointed scientific issues about the moon. the first one is g. k. gilbert, the geologist of the survey completed geologist, very learned man who actually ironically studied media critters including it wasn't an impact but a volcanic steam vent. yet he mapped the moon by looking at it through a telescope and first recognized the impact origin of the basin on the front side of the moon. robert dietz was a geologist involved in two of the great revolutions of the 60's. one was the dynamic earth because he was an ocean a geologist for scripps and he helped develop the criteria to impact on the earth and what he did was recognized these things which are in the middle are surfaces caused by the passage of a shock wave. finally there was a rock baldwin who was basically a businessman, a trained astronomer but he voted book called the base of the moon and this was published

in 1949. respectively it got everything about the moon right. he recognized the basins of the origin, the craters were impact craters, the dark mario with a lot of flows and by the dust. but all of these people studied the moon first in their spare time and actually in hiding most of their work from their colleagues lusty be ridiculed. one guy was a little bit different and this is a guy that's important order story of the moon and that is eugene shoemaker was the geologist matting and framing deposits on the colorado plateau in the 50's. he was convinced in his life meehan would go to the moon and in his mind the moon was a body that should be studied by geological sciences. now he didn't just believe this, he actively promoted it. he himself decided he knew how to get the moon to the geological community to focus their attention on the moon and first by studying the crater he did his ph.d. dissertation on the crater and demonstrated the

impact mechanics responsible for the creation. the big debate about the reason culbert didn't recognize the craters impact is because there was no bearing on your media right he believed the impact craters were collided with the service, dug the hole and it was at the bottom of the crater. that's not how the critters work and gene shoemaker proved this by actually not only mapping the crater and the geology of the crater but he also documented the physical and chemical effect of the passage of the shock waves and it is called shock metamorphism where you have very high pressures, extremely small, extremely short periods of time, so shoemaker did that and at the same time emulated gilbert who was one of the predecessors by mapping the mooney and using a telescope, mapping the cartographia sharing if i had a crater where i have a line on top of the unit then that form after the unit was in place. that's called love all of the position, the basic geological law using the technique he was able to use it for the entire

moon the will to work up the geological history on another planetary body for the first time in history of science. so in the meantime, we have the moon race we just heard about. it was largely a race for puerto rico stunts and spectaculars. the soviets, the first one to fly in and the moon, in the u.s. would send the first probe to hit the moon or the soviets did that, then we would be the first one to soft land on the moon, who would win that battle? it revolved around doing things first, getting to the moon making a measurement of data that was the first. it turned out that after the initial reconnaissance by the soviet union on the far side, the specter of the top is the first of the far side, and it's very poor quality but what it did show is the far side was different than the nearsighted and this was a surprise and in fact that started people thinking why would the moon have a different farsighted than nearsighted.

the americans tend to favor the geological approach and it's largely to do with the effect of shoemaker who see strong and articulate advocate for that we're as the russians country did on the physical measurements, plasma, magnetic fields, gemmer ase, very much focused on getting physical measurements of things rather than understanding the jeal logical approach. so apollo went to the moon to 1972 and we landed in six spots on the moon. now, as you've heard, sissons wasn't the motivation for paulo and the system wasn't even designed to do science. science was an add-on, afterthought and in many cases of was improvised. one of the classic things the science obtained about was that the actually used a rope and a plea to transfer material from astronauts on the surface. so when they filled up the container they were it would touch it to a conveyor belt and literally put aboard and that seemed to be a very improvised way to return samples of the moon which after all were the first of an extra terrestrial body that we have had.

yet at the same time, despite the fact science wasn't an interpol part, what we got fundamentally changed our view of the way the solar system works, and its -- there was an amazing story, and hopefully in the remaining time i want to try to convince you that there really was revolutionary but before i get back to what apollo told us there were things happening on the roof. remember mentioned in the 50's geegaw what she was a stodgy ossified science we were undergoing the revolution and most people didn't even know it. a lot of the geologists were surprised was happening even while that was happening and there were two primary developments that happened in the 60's. first was the advancement of the new idea of the dynamic earth. the old idea of the static slow process these and uniformitarian as of may and old muskie guys looking at fossils' kind of gave way to the new surveys in the ocean basin by the ships and drilling the sea floor and

measuring and seeing the ridges. we developed a theory of the earth where the earth is a dynamic body. this report and underneath the continents and the trenches. they collide and former the mountain ranges. the picture of the himalaya formed by the asian plate. so the plate tectonics which incorporated the olver constant of the continental drift showed that the earth is a totally different body than we had imagined. i got my degree in geology in 1972 and that had just finished. it had just sunk into the consciousness. i learned about the geosyncline when i was a geologist deutsch and and i don't think there is one now who would even know what the term means. the other thing that happened was the idea that catastrophes happen and this seems sort of basic fundamental logic but just because you have the uniformitarian process doesn't mean it can't become punctuated and there's two times, multiple kind of catastrophes, the biggest were impacts, both a lot of the work in the 60's was

documenting earth impact craters and the effect of the shock metaphor for some in the terrestrial rocks, and there was a body of work designed specifically to support the scientific aspiration and the moon apollo was turning out. we studied the craters to understand what the moon rocks with look-alike and in addition to that we understood about other things like super volcanoes, the yellowstone plateau is recognized as the result of a gigantic explosion, things like john and floods from the channel scablands'. now these were strangely disturbing to the geologists' because they were reminiscent of the pre-geological bible based creationism rather than a true science and yet they couldn't do my catastrophes have a role to play in the geological process. in the meantime, of paulo told a lot about the moon coming uninteresting body. it isn't just a big blob of land for and she did it matter. it's a miniature planet that has its own evolution. it created probably by small particles created when a planet

collided with the earth 4.6 billion years ago. that was so fast the imaging malted the moonves of the initial moon had a ocean rock that form a crust and mantle of the court and was later melted to flood parts of the surface with volcanic lava and it also had these gigantic impact that spooked out the giant circular impact craters some of them larger than the 2,000 kilometers across. now the moon's geological looked at the end of a 3 billion years ago and since then we have had a steady rain that ground the surface into the popular left so in a nut shell you are now experts on the geology because that's the geological story of the moon, but the insight from the sample is every time we look at a moon rock we saw this telltale evidence, the idea a high-pressure way it would pass through rocks, turn some of them to glass, milk and even vaporize rocks and deform the minerals as a fundamental observation in all of the lunar samples.

how do we know that there was caused by the impact? because we had studied it on the earth, we studied the terrestrial intact and we came to recognize the signature of the hypervelocity impact. all right, now the story is going to shift to have a little bit. from the and apollo to 1980, and there was a geologist studying the sediments and italy, looking at the sediments, looking at limestone at the boundary. he wanted to know how fast they were deposited. he didn't have a way to measure the rights of the segmentation of the rocks. his father was a physicist who worked on the manhattan project and he suggested an idea to his son walter they're bombarded by the debris and media rights contain these elements that are called siderophile elements and it's rare in the crust so if you measure these sediments you actually have a clock that will tell you how fast the sediments of accumulated. so he started measuring the concentration and sediments.

what he found when he looked at the boundary was a huge spike in the concentration of the element. many factors in the background level. welcome this suggested to them there was a giant impact at that time. the cretaceous 65 years ago and is responsible for the extinction of about 75% of the fossils'. so in fact the idea came about and they came up with it was that impact might have caused the extinction that the cretaceous boundary which includes the dinosaurs that many other species including a lot of the marine species. we looked for a crater that nobody could find one so everybody starts saying maybe parts are subjected and it isn't preserve any more. finally they found a buried crater because the surface is covered by the leader carpets. it's about 180 kilometers across, and we found when we looked at the boundary all around the world with some high

amounts of tritium and little brains of shock ports, it's something different in the crater in 1958 and the minerals their indicate the passage of the shockwave cause of the velocity impact that's world wide and women with the fossil record we see many extinctions and also found many previous evidence of hypervelocity impact in the geological past. what we had was a revolution and planetary science coming from an oddball process that everybody thought was a geological freak of impact and we now recognize that it is the most fundamental process of old women trade policies, the process by which the planets come into being, the planets come into being by smaller pieces of the soboleva themselves into bigger pieces and the only way that happens is they collide together and as they grow and grow basically we continue to hit each other and form craters. preparation for the apollo

taught us to recognize the basic indicators of the shock metamorphism, telehealth physical chemicals lines and knowledge of the signs a lot of us recognize not only in the lunar samples but also the boundary in all the other countries where we find mass extinctions and in the previous record and as the zero current the regular times to receive and suggested period of extinction and and the idea has been proposed. so where does this leave us? allin to them and gained an entirely new and different perspective on how a white t balsillie eurith. and he would we get scientifically from apollo? you used to get in the 70's will we got 300 pounds of rocks photographs and measurements and people would john but now what did we get from apollo well, it completely changed the way we

look at home life evolves. is that good enough? i think it's an amazing result. it's a totally unexpected one, too. what are my conclusions from all of this? the volume was low we are all wrong and it's also wrong that impact is a trivial process both of those beliefs, the first two bullets were widely held in the scientific community in the 50's and i also contend we are not solving the problem we think we are solving but whenever we explored we broaden our imagination, and this is what to me is the critical thing. we didn't go looking for a new explanation for the mechanism of evolution and speciation when we went to the moon but we got one any way and we got a lot of insight from a variety of different problems because we had a different example. we looking at a problem from a different perspective with a different set of viewpoints. i also think that this shows the boundaries between the discipline is a man made an

artificial one but fundamentally it took chemistry and physics and geology and biology and sciences and used synergistic with to get this view. this came about as a true multi disciplinary kind of thing. but the consensus you hear a lot about these these days there's a consensus on that and on this. i think one of a listen to take from this is that consensus is and scientific knowledge it's an expression of our state of level of ignorance and it is an agreement among scientists we have reached the limit of our understanding and process, collective opinions tend to be wrong and or a place that best the are incomplete, so scientists should be humble, and prepared to acknowledge what they don't know, they can state with the can infer and they should do that but at the same

time we should always be careful, you are never quite seen it in total, you are always missing a piece. it took a skull and to the moon to see what we were missing and understanding the history of life on earth and effectively i think now we know that when you do that you're gwen to have a different viewpoint, a different feeling for what is the actual truth and what is just a wild guess. i think that the truth is gradually uncovered. we all tend to get there but sometimes we don't get there from the direction that we are expecting. thank you very much. [applause] >> that was absolutely fascinating as were the other two. this is the most interesting afternoon that i have spent in a long time. we got the politics, the history and the signs all in one unique

package. so we have a few minutes for questions. if there are a lot of questions we may go over by a couple of minutes but why don't we go ahead and start? >> [inaudible] >> please identify yourself. >> [inaudible] >> i'm not sure. >> big difference. my question is there's a fairly recent book that impressed me quite a greatly who among other things suggested the apollo mission had many negative

aspects for first of all it was extremely dangerous, and it was almost this superhuman coolness of the neil armstrong that allow it to be successful. second, this already well-known excesses and a tendency in the american character already= mentioned by -in 1835 wordoñw shallowness, search foryñó sensation and so forth, and finally, one thing they didn't is that the 60's which was totally ignored by lyndon johnson and he kicked the ball to the senate to deal with it and the senate >> the result was the overreaction. i'd like to get the panel's beau

how they viewed the social significance of this great event with the scientific value. >> okay. who would like to start with that? john? >> do i have to push anything or are these on? >> they should be on. >> but they are not. i'm worried about the tv audio and that sort of thing. let's pick the last one of these, the environmentalism or the lack thereof in the 60's. it seems to be one of the lasting impact of the apollo missions was the image of the earth rising over the barren lunar surface taken by bill ander is on the apollo eight mission. there's a kind of cliche that says in scientific terms we went to the moon to discover the earth. so i think the lasting impact,

tomorrow is earth day. of that image is one of the most profound impact of the apollo mission. >> microphones are kind of directional so unique is begin to it. >> there was something sad about the rest and they're seems to be a suggestion that it wasn't worth the risk and i would totally disagree with that. yes, there was a risk involved and yes, the astronauts and the mission controllers in all of the other people associated with the program did everything it could to minimize that but it still existed and of course we did lose three astronauts in the process and the ground accident of course, but nonetheless the loss, and there's -- you have to ask yourself the question at what risk are you willing to take to accomplish these various

things and quite frankly you have to ask yourself a question what risks are you willing to take to get out of bed in the morning because there is a major risk with that as well. they made those decisions i think very open, open-minded, and the individuals engaged in this had decided this was something that they were willing to do. and generally speaking, the political leadership and the nasa management and all of the other folks associated said it also reached the same conclusions. and we've seen that over and over again with statements of a variety of them. >> i think that you were saying there were negative aspects this part of your original statement. everything we do has negative aspects. there's good and bad to every public policy, every initiative. i think that the interesting thing about apollo from my perspective is we ended up

solving problems, but not the problem we thought we were going to solve. a lot of the apollo scientists when they were asked what do you hope to learn from the moon rocks we hope to learn the origin and the moon they didn't. it took 20 years for the origin of the moon to the merger and it came out the left field out of the studies of planetary accretion not release the study of the moon rocks, but nevertheless we got something from the study of the samples that we totally -- it was totally accepted. so to my mind i think that is the essence of discovery. science at its best. >> graduate student. a great set of presentations. i ask this question for all the panel members. as a startup firm and also some of its work to the national science foundation's ayman advocate of science also.

since the country seems to have stated its desire for pre-eminence in space and at least science and commercialization left and can the commercialization and the pursuit of science be compatible on the moon science on the moon? >> you want to take that one? who wants to take that one? >> let me sort that out a little bit. i will take pieces of it before i try to answer the whole thing. we continue to say we want to be preeminent in space. we don't seem to be willing to pay the price of pre-eminence. the fact we are about to retire the space shuttle with the replacement to me is a remarkable country and the lack of commitment of this country's leaders to a preeminent space program. so rhetorically we talk about it, we don't as kennedy did walk

the walk as well as talk the talk. can the exploitation and exploration of states as a multifaceted undertaking and clearly in my mind commercial the activities of people who think that they are the basis for making profits out of things that can be done in space are not compatible with those people who want more data about new things to advance the understanding of nature. so i don't see the tension between the commercial and scientific activities in space. probably different actors carrying them out, but to me they are among the many reasons we put our machines and put ourselves into the space

environment. >> anybody else want to speak to that? >> one of the things your finding on the new discoveries of the water on the moon, that clearly has commercial possibilities. if you are able to actually make and produce water if there's a lot of products coming useful products you'd and sold for that you need science because right now we don't know the seat of those are and exactly what the physical state is and the contradiction is, how tough it is to get to them but once you do that and you start producing that product you're going to get a lot of science as a part of that so it is synergistic as you develop commercial markets science will help you develop them and after they are developed the will allow sissons access to more knowledge. so why think they go hand-in-hand. >> would make a comment also. we don't need science to go to the moon. one of the things that enable the committee to make his decision was nasa's studies in

1960 and early 61 but said there were no scientific or technological breakthroughs required to design systems to carry off the mission, just lots of money and very good engineering so it is just a side comment that science didn't enable the and to the moon but it enabled a lot of science. >> in the interest of getting us out of here and in time for dinner i'm going to do anybody wanted the microphones if you are already lined up the microphone that will be all the questions. >> jonathan drake, a planetary geologist by training but my question is about the policy and the politics. i was only preferably aware of kennedy's proposed joint exploration to the moon and the soviet union and i was wondering if daniel could discuss essentially there were several

counterfactual mentioned in that presentation and if the in one hadn't been such a flawed design and the soviets for in a closer competition concurrently of course the cooperation that eventually took place was so used that is a sort of one of things. would you mentioned in the event of a more competitive race to the moon would you precedes that as not taking place at all or taking place to a greater degree >> cooperation or -- >> cooperation in the vein of the publisher used. >> first of all, there were technical suggestions to kennedy to have the united states and soviet union work together absent the soviet program and

that was to have the soviets do what we would call now the robotic precursor missions and logistic missions and have the united states develop the human transportation system and then perhaps put the soviet as if not the first one of the early members. so they were thinking without knowledge we didn't begin to see the m one which is the soviet rocket so it was post kennedy. by the way it wasn't supposed to be a one-off. another little-known but true is the united states and the soviet union have the means of nassau in the academy of science on may 1st, 19707 signed an agreement for the follow-on to the apollo that included shuttle's docking with the soviet space station.

it just happened 15 years later that the u.s. didn't honor the agreement because of the soviet involvement in afghanistan in the carter administration. so there's an interesting history of the u.s.-soviet collaboration and potential collaboration that is yet to be written. >> [inaudible] >> let roger and i've got some data.

>> the question was in the aftermath of apollo what happened to the workers and you specifically mentioned the scientific workers -- >> [inaudible] >> one of the things that did happen in the aftermath of apollo is at nasa and with organizations were doing work for nasa there were cutbacks, and we tend to see the dispersal of the engineers and the scientists to other locations taking with them the knowledge they gained, the connections they had gained and proliferating. they were not lost to science and technology and accept maybe a few instances, but the ended up working in other programs and other ways. it's fascinating to trace the dispersal of this knowledge base

that these individuals and what they did with that because they bring the base of knowledge with them which proliferates in other ways, and i would suggest to you that there was at some measure flowering of technological capability in a variety of other places because it is pushed by the moon program and has now been translated into other areas >> i wouldn't at all disagree with that. the work force was reduced by 22% in the four years after the first moon landing. but by about a quarter. the same sort of thing could be happening now accept the people in congress much more aware of the workforce issue and so resisting it rather strongly. i think the people did well in other areas in particular engineering. apollo was about engineering.

the people with ph.d. in science motivated by the image of apollo being about science i think went out into the university and the research system in the 70's and found many of them found very productive career paths. there were not really very many people with a phd driving taxicab's which was kind of a cliche at the time. >> just before we leave the subject, you are looking at one of them because i was basically -- i watched -- i was a space buff is a kid and watched the astronauts on the moon as a high school and college student, and based on the inspiration. i think you'll find there's a lot of guys like me in the business now with planetary science who have that same experience. so if you are really inspired and motivated you will find something to do that's relevant.

>> [inaudible] in the early 60's to 1970 which is an omb. to what moment was the apollo? >> well, i don't know. >> the excess r&d spending in the post period to follow. one thing you can do is -- >> not nearly as cool a thing to say for mr. obama and secretary chu's speech writers that have said, used the term sputnik moment. the spur to the innovation of the investment was safe guard gary and moment. the u.s. reaction as embodied in kennedy's apollo decisions.

eisenhower put very little new money in science and engineering. there was the national defense education act that cannot of the sputnik reaction but there wasn't a big infusion of money -- >> [inaudible] >> most of the apollo money went from engineering. it didn't -- but even a little bit of a lot of money went a long way back then. >> i'm going to take the privilege of the chair and ask one last question of all the panelists, which is what does this experience mean for the future, for the program, for anything else we might want to do in space particularly human space flight. >> let's let paul start actually carry it >> i don't think it means much. we've heard talks that show in

many ways what an anomaly of apollo was in the sense that arose because of some unusual circumstances. my suspicion is if there is a lesson in their relation to some future spectacular it's that will require extraordinary political circumstances to make it come about. i think we are trying to develop a new paradigm to from of a long-range sustained approach where we gradually increment come incrementally and an increase our ability further and further in space. that is what we need to be aiming at. >> if there's a take away from this i think it is literally one thing. there's lots of other pieces to it, but apollo was created for a very specific end, and the kennedy decision was about demonstrating american technical and scientific progress and the rest of the world.

it succeeded magnificently and in any mall wished to say is correct and it did achieve all of those ms. the purpose of swathing the world that america scientific and technical capabilities that a system of government based on the democracy and an economic system that is capitalistic can do these kind of things and it did persuade a lot of places in the world that the was the case. >> i get asked this question a lot and say some things about it in the last chapter of the book i get my friends that read the book and say i really enjoyed this but i didn't like the conclusion because my conclusion is that apollo was bad for the space program. that it wasn't sustainable but it created a set of expectations, the model and an

institution created to do apollo things and we have spent the last 40 years trying to find another apollo like major programs to motivate the space program and kept the organization constantly under stress trying to do too much with too few resources. and i review the attempt to be a little partisan here and now a leader a sustainable, affordable to the human future space and the hero of apollo is finally over let's do something different. let's reinvest in technology and let's -- we are not in a big hurry. we can afford to lose the

specific capabilities that we developed to apollo and shuttle and have them go do something else productive while we get ready for the next round of humans these activities through apollo and its persisted through the shuttle and station program making those changes in this political environment is proving very difficult so we find ourselves april 21st 2011 still not knowing what we are doing. >> those are three fabulous presentations, thank you for joining. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

a discussion on matt neutrality. our first middle school winners- in the 2011 studentca competition focused on this issue for their video. >> i use the internet every day

to talk with friends on websites like twitter and facebook. >> [inaudible] >> i use the internet for research for school papers. >> the internet is something that our generation takes for granted. we use it every day for research, entertainment, and everything in between. it is always free and open, and most americans assume that will always will be, but will it? for the open director of the internet coalition is it will not. >> the internet is turning that looks moreething like cable television. >> network neutrality or net

neutrality is the idea that all traffic flowing across the internet should be free and not blocked. most people would agree that the principle of neutrality makes sense. after all, this is the way internet has operated since the start. it is largely the way it still operates now. >> there is tremendous agreement that right now there is net neutrality in place where consumers can get the content access of their choice. >> the question is, should the federal government get into the business of enforcing this principle or should this be lost in the private sector? >> if we keep in the private sector, things will remain as

they are now, at least we hope they would. in forcing net neutrality could be the demise of the internet. >> the technology that they employ to be able to take content and block it and prioritize it is still in the infancy. that is why we want to have basic rules that say we want to preserve the open and neutral networks that will largely have today. >> however, the chairman of net competiti competition.org belies differently. >> i would have to most respectfully disagree quite strongly with you in discussing this is just preserving the status quo. you do not need legislation to maintain the status quo. >> to get from status quo to the land of net neutrality there are

several paths the government can take. first, the federal communications division has to apply the old regulation. that happened in 2008 when they decided to block comcast. the sec decided to move on to the next one. -- the ftc moved on to the next one. they would then have a legal enforcement mechanism to deal with them affectively. hear the chairman explains one of the three rules that make up the proposed regulation. >> through adopting a band of unreasonable discrimination, it would make it clear we are not

approving fast lanes for some companies but not others. >> right now the commissioners are poised to take a vote on this proposed regulation. >> that rulemaking may culminate as early as december of this year. >> i am here at d.c. headquarters where the commissioners of the vote on the regulation on december 21 of 2010. the result was a vote in favor of the regulation. >> so why did the fcc pursuer regulatory past rather than legislative? you may be able to find a clue and the results of the midterm elections. republicans gained control of the house and took away the democrats' supermajority in the senate. we found an interesting fact and the results. out of 95 candidates for

congress who pledge their support for net neutrality, not elected. one gottent this did not mean the elections were lost because of the candidates support for a net neutrality. however, disinformation did lead to an important conclusion. >> what the show is that the people who most support in the neutrality did not have the support of the american people in the election. >> he offered this prediction on the prospects of net neutrality legislation to was in the interview. -- to us in the interview. >> how does this issue affect me? on the one hand, that neutrality would level the playing field between big and small companies. >> and open internet is perhaps as much as anything else the great equalizer.

it allows people with innovative ideas to succeed on the merits of those ideas. >> on the other hand, [inaudible] rather than spurring innovation, it may produce a place for entrepreneurs to start small businesses. >> when there is no problem, cannot fix it, because basically fixing the problem that does not exist will create many worse problems. >> the issue of net neutrality demonstrates how the federal government can and have influenced the online community. do not let yourself be fooled. the fact that they have approved this does not mean the battle is over. >> many people are calling for a

congressional review of the legislation. there is also no doubt the regulation could face serious legal challenges. so americans should expect to hear more and more about net neutrality in the future as the story unfolds. we do not know what will happen, but one thing is clear, whether you work for or against it, americans cannot afford to stay neutral on net neutrality. >> -- net neutrality. host: over the next few days we want to introduce the winners of the student cam competition. today we are talking to first prize winners in middle school. you just saw their documentary. they are joining us from nashville, tennessee. they are all in eighth grade. congratulations, lady. -- ladies.

how did you decide on this issue? >> we really wanted to choose a topic that was unique and not something that everyone else would do. net neutrality is something that is new. it is not something that the general public knows a lot about. after researching of line, we a lot of twistsit had and turns. we also felt it was a developing story as the documentary was being made. we have to constantly update and change our documentary, and we thought that was pretty cool. when the fcc pass the new regulation, we have to update our documentary. even now it is still developing.

we just thought it was a really cool topic that would be something that the american people would be interested in. host: it is not something that a lot of people know about, the words and that neutrality. that's on something like the people in washington, d.c. would did youut, so how hear about it? >> melissa came and told us about the topic. and i decided to research it. i found it is really important and we have to tell everyone else. and >> when you talk to your family and friends about net neutrality how did you describe it to them? how always explaine would is about to internet openness. they are usually concerned,

because it is a confusing topic. it is really important. >> when you sit at your computer at night doing homework or surfing the net, and now you have a different perspective, and are you thinking about net neutrality? guest: definitely. when i am on the computer i think about how i cannot take it for granted. host: let me come back to you, melissa, since you are the one that came up with the initial idea. what surprised you when you started to work on this issue? guest: what surprised me about working with this issue is we knew when we chose the topic that it was very abstract and that we would have trouble coming up with good visuals, but i never anticipated it would be so hard. i took pictures of newspapers and made video collages and made

animations, but our video was still dry after that. the solution finally came to me on a carnival cruise ship of all places. i was doing the interview and i realize the government was trying to arrive at the land of guaranteed net neutralities t through several different paths. that is where we came up with a hand-drawn map. when i had that in mind, i knew where the legal challenges came and it cleared everything came up here and one other benefit of the mac is that it showed all reactions of the government coming into play in various stages. host: this year's theme is

washington through your lens. and what did you learn about washington? there are three branches of government. what did you learn about it? guest: i learned they each had an important role in this, and i learned all of the different paths that the fcc could take. they tried to take some of them, and i learned which one they did take. it was really interesting as the story went on to not only tell other people but learned myself as well. did you have an opinion when you first are doing this documentary? did it change at all by the end of the process? guest: it definitely did change. i started to see the positives and negatives in it. at first i did not know much about it, and now that i do i definitely do see the positives and negatives for it. guest: what do you think,

melissa? guest: i really did not have an opinion at the bidding. and after working with it for so long, i see both sides of the issue will now. i think i am leaning towards the opponent's side. the government wants to get something done and they should try to go to congress first. the fcc took the executive path first because they knew they could not get through congress. i am opposed to it. host: you think the market can take care of it by itself? what is your view? you say you agree with the opponents. why? have you think this could be handled? guest: i think people should

leave this in the private sector, because it broadband providers have to go through fcc every time and ask if this is reasonable, then it would just make work a whole lot harder. i think they should leave this in the private sector, because it is not a problem. host: i did a googol search on all three of your names. -- a google search on all three of your names. the local newspaper talked about the middle school taking in all sorts of prizes in this contest. honor roll mentioned prizes etc.. total prizes is about $9,250 to

the middle school alone. i am just wondering was there a teacher at your school or a that encourage you and others to get involved in this contest? guest: my friends were all behind me. miss reeter was really encouraging. host: how did she help you with this? guest: she always answered our questions when we needed her. she spent a lot of her own time helping us. sara atkins, along with winning in getting this attention you are getting, there is also prize money that goes along with it. $3,000. what will you do with the money? guest: i will probably save it

and donate to church. wanted to go to an jonas brother's concert. host: whenever the coming to tennessee? guest-- when are they coming to tennessee? guest: i am not sure. guest: i think i am going to save up for college, because i want to get the bestlege ucible. ..where do you want to go to school? guest: i am interested in math and science. i am not sure. host: katie, what will you do with your portions of the winning? guest: i of also wanted to save money. most of it will go to my church

mission that i am planning to go on. host: where are you going for your mission? guest: i do not know. they assign it to you. you do not get to choose. host: talking about the prize- winning documentary. they will be with us for the next half an hour. joining us is lynn stanton. she will help answer questions about net neutrality. let's review what it is. guest: it is the idea that the provider of their product and cannot say what you will see on the internet and what services and applications you can use. then there are ideas that there should be some kind of safe

harbors or limitations or caveat. most people who have broadband service do not want spam, check for viruses, various kinds of a list activity, child pornography, fraud, different issues like this. there is also the issue of congestion. when the networks become so heavy with traffic that all of the people cannot on it cannot do everything they want to do, some decision has to be made where it will be cut back. whatever happens gets dropped its dropped or whether they say this is a heavy user, let's go after them. host: where did issue stand today? -- where do the issues stand

today? guest: right now it is a little bit in limbo. the court ruled earlier this month that challenges to the rule are not yet essentially right. you cannot have a challenge to rules that have not yet taken effect. going to court right now must wait for the rules to effectively say that the rules and the congress have passed. the house has plaster role saying that those rules as past and any similar kind of roles cannot be effective, but that has to go through the senate on a simple majority. and it would have to either be signed or allow it to be defined by the president. host: what is the likelihood of it coming up in the senate? guest: fairly low. there are aids that have predicted this is such an issue that people view so negatively

that democrats would have to vote for because they have acted beyond their authority that they would have to vote for it. obviously democrats control the senate and the democrats in general have come out in favor of net neutrality. host: who are the players? guest: on one hand, for the most part you have broadband internet providers. for rise verizon, at&t, comcast. also, as possible new competitors, especially as we move from 3g to 4g, we have wireless providers. historically the speed have not been competitive with land line

speeds and they have been more expensive, so it has been cheaper to go with the land line provider. host: dan joining us from georgia. good morning. caller: i learned a lot just listening to the students. the one question i have is even if we settle this, what about the internet channels around the world? how would this affect the whole world if we did this? guest: it is a very interesting question. some parties have indicated that how they handle it at home affects the ability to make arguments about should the 0 internet the open around the world, which is something the state department has said they want to see happen, which would

prevent dictators around the world from shutting down the internet which is to organize protest. so on the one hand we want to neutrality, but istnet that allowing the government to come down in an area we do not want them to be, which is a conflict. host: so right now egypt is dealing with this. you are following the debate a little bit. can you explain what they are wrestling with? guest: they have a different internet economy. here we focus more on trying to promote facility-based competition, which many argue having these rules would undercut because it would th

disincentive fis investments if it would not have much of a say or an ability to profit from what travels over the networks, which is the other half of this debate between content providers and the network providers. and in europe they have focused more on having the competition be on one set of areas. they are starting from a different point in terms of looking at it. i think it does to a little bit color of the debate or policy issues they have to face. host: one viewer tweets this -- let's go to derrick, a democrat and kansas. caller: i would like to complement the three young ladies that undertook this cam thing.

it shows great intelligence. i would like a question answered. can there be a way to get rid of -- the lady mentioned pornography and students talking about other students which is out there for the whole world to see and things like that -- is there any way for the fcc to undertake that and forget about net neutrality? guest: a first to eliminate child pornography on the internet generally come from outside the fcc and more law enforcement. there are laws on the books that allow the broadband providers to help law enforcement do that. that would be without having to worry about the issue of net

neutrality. the other issue -- host: talking about bullying. guest: that seems to be canceled at the school level. a lot of schools have their roles in plays that affect students outside of the schools. they seem to be going after it that way. the fcc traditionally has not attended to regulate the actual content that travels, whether it is over cable or the internet. host: lynn stanton is a senior editor with "telecommunications reports." joining us are the first-prize winners of the students who did a documentary on net neutrality.

if your interested in watching the documentary, go to our web site. all of our winners for 2011 of past winners are on the web site. next calller from very, massachusetts. caller: i have a very simple statement question. is net neutrality basically a government takeover? i am a design engineer. when you start taking away what cannot be viewed, where it is, etc., and now you're talking about also degrading the amount of service -- isn't that a takeover? i really waiting to hear that answer. guest: the supporters would say it is the opposite of a takeover, all they're doing is to not let the user choose what you can watch or see and to some

degree not to have your service degraded. historically this has been difficult for internet subscribers to find out exactly what it is they're supposed to get and what did is they are getting, and why maybe they are not seeing what they think is equivalent to what they're paying for. and supporters would say they are trying to do all the things you've just accused the government of trying to take away. host: melissa, you heard that calller. he thinks the government takeover. when you were interviewing people for this documentary, did that hadpeople similar viewpoints? when you were entering people for the documentary, did you find there was a similar

viewpoint as the callers that it could be a government takeover? guest: no. we interviewed chairman cleveland. he did not think it was a government takeover pierre yen it was just the government overstepping its authority. host: when you talk to people when people are not familiar with the issue, did they have that initial reaction that they do not want the government involved? our people mostly on the other side, that they want the government to get involved? guest: there were some people on that side and some on the proponents side. some people were uneasy about the government getting so involved in the internet, because you can go -- because the internet is so open. some people thought the government would over regulate,

not a lot of people who were proponents. host: back to phone calls. caller: my comment is i have been following this issue, and i was confused, but the ladies and young girls in tennessee really explained the situation to me. i send out my thanks to them. i have a question for the young lady who said she was opposed to the government's involvement. i think just opposite. they really have so much control over what we do in this country. my question is, not so much to the young ladies, but i would like to know what was the issue with comcast that led to the

whole issue coming to pass? guest: in the spring of 2009 the fcc directed comcast should not take a particular dealing with congestion that have been using, which was specifically in sight transmission sessions -- ending transmission sessions. this was going after a specific kind of application, and the idea of net neutrality is your neutral among content and services and applications it would not go after a specific way of using the internet. so they said you cannot do that. comcast challenged it in court.

the court said the fcc did not have the authority to do what it has done in terms of directing comcast to not take this path. host: there is a tweet that says this. private companies are monopolies and so they can get a rate. guest: that is certainly an argument of the opponents. right now we have a duopoly. it is a fairly stable duopoly right now. it is two is better than 1 but not as good as three or five in terms of controlling prices. the other side is not just the price to pay for your internet service, but the price to pay for a service like netflix. they have become the poster child in this argument as of late. they would charge not only you

for asking for a video and having it sent to you, but possibly charging a company like netflix for delivering the content you asked them to send you. host: we will go on to vivian, democratic line in austin, texas. caller: they have brought up the very subject -- it was very short-sighted of the girls. did they ever look at the corporations part in this? i am afraid of those texas text books, but we are in the argument of who controls the message? the government or corporations? it is the lesser of two evils. did they ever look into the part of that?

did you look into the part of it that was corporate control? host: part of the roles is that you have to show both sides of the story. do you want to answer that? the calller wanted to know who opposes netd to neutrality in the documentary? that is ok. let me phrase it a little bit different. part of the rules for the competition is that you talk to both sides of the issue. can you talk about who you all interviewed in this documentary. guest: we interviewed scott clevelanaland. he did not want to regulate it, because he did not think there was a problem. if there was a problem, he would

want to regulate it. why fix something if there was not a problem? that was his perspective. host: melissa, who did you talk to that supports the idea of net neutrality? guest: we talked to mark m. ericsson. he thinks the government needs to get involved in this issue, because he thinks there is a problem, and that with government involvement they can internet open.net ope host: if you want to watch their documentary, go to our web site. jo is an independent in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: what did you think about alan jones in austin,

texas, about his views? what if someone disagreed with him and decided he should be banned on the internet? i will listen. thank you. host: talking about limiting people's views on the internet in general. guest: the proponents would say what there are great for is allowing anybody to express their ideas just as we do in other free-speech irina's. -- arenas. that would be that side of it. even the opponents say that is not what they're interested in doing. they say they're concerned about being able to run the networks in a way that makes sense. i do not think anyone on the opponent's side has said they are interested in controlling what it is to see in terms of content. host: wanita, republican in

kentucky. caller: i just want to make a statement. i think it is the way government is trying to close down some talk radio and fox tv. host: have you heard that argument before? guest: this is similar to what they're doing with the radio. not really, no. there was some people who had concerned with the democrats controlling the fcc might go after that side of broadcast , but i have not heard that they are tried to control the content on the internet, other than the people -- the people that are deeply involved in the policy arguments. host: we are hearing from viewers, a lot of different

viewpoints. you say americans can no longer afford to stay neutral. why did you say that? guest: once the government gets involved in the internet, it could affect everyone's internet experience. we all want more innovative technologies on the internet. both sides of the debate argue their position supports innovation. we do not want the next youtube or facebook to be hampered by the distance or lack of net neutrality regulations, depending on your viewpoint. host: do you think that is a selling point for people your age and older, the this is about social media, the sites that they often use? guest: it is about all of the innovative technologies that the internet -- that small businesses are coming up with. host: let's go to emma,

democrats and baltimore, maryland. caller: i would like to commend the ladies on an excellent job. i was not familiar with the issue. thank you. i have a question for your guest. i am unclear whether she is for or against net neutrality. my other question is if you are against it or for it, can you give me an explanation of why? i will hang up and listen to your answer. host: lynn stanton is a reporter. guest: i do not take positions on issues i cover. host: we will keep taking your phone calls. we're talking to middle school winners, first prize. they are joining us from nashville, tennessee. they took home the prize for

first place and $3,000 as well. the issue is net neutrality. studentcam.org is the website. let me ask you about the whole process of doing a documentary. what advice would you give to a friend who is thinking about doing this next year? guest: you need to plan ahead, because there is a lot of work you have to do. you need to have a good schedule and be devoted to it as well. you definitely can not procrastinate, because that causes a lot of problems. you really need a good schedule and devotion. host: how much time, can you tell us hours or days that you had to put into this? guest: a lot of time.

especially with transcribing the interviews. that took me a long time. like five hours per night at a time, because you have to write it word for word, which is a hard job. a lot of hours. host: net neutrality is the topic this morning. next calller from georgia. caller: i have a question for the ladies that work for net neutrality. it relates to taxation. do you think if it passes through the congress and senate whether or not taxation would follow and how rapidly would it become a factor? host: melissa, i do not know, is that something that came up while you were doing your work? guest: no, i do not think taxation came up when we did this.

even the net neutrality repeal that is going through congress, that came up after we submitted our documentary. be a: it doesn't seem to huge issue, but obviously there are costs and burdens to the companies in terms of complying with reporting requirements and making their information transparent to potential subscribers, but that is not typically considered a tax. there is an issue in the budget -- this is tried to get through congress other than the repeal act method that melissa discussed. it is to simply say they cannot spend any money on enforcing the rules. that is another way of going that sort of ties in to the taxation issue. host: and whitaker was quoted as going to letn't

these companies use his ties for free." there will have to be some mechanism for these people to use these hikes to pay for the portion they are using. that was a very controversial statement when it was made, and it did get the ball rolling on discussing net neutrality. guest: although the debate has shifted a little bit, and the idea as he describes it sounds like a direct payment for sending anything over the pipe, we do not see a lot of providers presenting it in quite that way anymore. they focus more on the idea of net management. host: we will try to get one more phone call in. democratic line. caller: my question was about access to the internet. if you were able to -- companies

that were able to pay, we could access it very quickly. whereas others that were not able to pay to put their things on the internet, if we wanted to access it, it would take us forever or something to the effect. i thought it was a degree of access. guest: for starters the companies to provide this content to pay for their access to the internet just like you as the individual pay for your access. obviously they are paying more for it. they also purchase servers across the internet to get their packages closer. there is also the idea that they should somehow be able to see some return, but only large companies would be able to afford that. so with their content it to you sooner than if you wanted to buy your content from very small companies? host: the next story line is

what? what should we be watching for? guest: i think the ball is in congress. they have basically three paths to pursue this. the bill under the congressional review act, which is now waiting for consideration in congress. there is not allowing the fcc to spend any money. then there is the possibility of a stand-alone bill that might be more nuanced and saying these rules are bad. it could be transparency is ok, but nothing else you want to require is allowed. host: lynn stanton, senior editor. thank you for talking with us today. we want to thank the ladies and tennessee. eighth graders and first prize winners and that student cm competition this year.

-- student cam competition this year. over the next three days we will introduce you to our top prize winners. the grand prize winner will be this wednesday at 9:00 it did. tomorrow we will speak with their first-prize winner in the high school category. -- >> two-thirds of the american people depended on the network news of those three networks as their primary source o n