presidents? >> guest: i think that one will find that if you're dealing with the war of 1812, the name of thomas jefferson does not go unmentioned. thank you, sir. >> host: and our last call for you comes from woodland park, colorado. bob, please, go ahead with your question or comment for historian michael beschloss. >> guest: yes, professor beschloss, i've read several of your book, and i find them not only very informative, but also very intertaping, and that's not -- entertaining, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish. so you're to be congratulated on that. my question concerns the dred scott decision. i know that it drove a great deal of radical politicallism caused in the country. my question to you is, do you believe that the decision -- which i've read -- was constitutionally correct? and that's what i need to know. thank you, sir. >> guest: well, to the ec tent that it was a majority vote -- extent that it was a majority vote of the supreme court, i

guess it was. it was a horrible decision. and just because the supreme court finds a verdict does not mean that we in retrospect have to say that this was the word of god. it sure wasn't. and fortunately, belatedly, the supreme court made up for that. >> host: michael beschloss, your next book is on and coming out when? be. >> guest: it's on presidents in wartime, should be in about two years or so. >> host: and the lbj tapes trilogy, the third in the trilogy, when is that? >> guest: i'm hoping that will be done in the next two or three years. >> host: and do you work on them simultaneously? >> guest: yeah, they're different. to go between fort sumter and lbj, two different parts of the brain. >> host: for the last three hours, we've been talking with historian michael beschloss. very quickly, here are a list of his books. kennedy and roosevelt: the uneasy alliance. may day can, eisenhower, khrushchev and the u-2 affair.

1960 and 1963 came out in '91. the conquerors, roosevelt, truman and the destruction of hitler's germany came out in 2002. presidential courage: brave leaders and how they changed america, 1789-1989, came out in 2007. and some of his other co-written and edited books include "at the highest level: the inside story of the end of the cold war." and then the two johnson books, and finally his most recent, jacqueline kennedy: historic conversations on life with jfk, interviews with arthur m.

young adults right now, the people you're talking to a voice. did you find that you were up against a lot of preconceived notions and trying to get started? were you from the start of the have a blank slate and move forward?

>> guest: i was not up against my preconceived notions, but i think there were a lot of societal preconceived notions and i was trying to interview experts, one thing that i did find, to get their take on how the medications effective jan people as they grew up and the clinical experience. researchers. it just wasn't an idea that they were accustomed to thinking about. we were so used to debating it in these binary terms. kids over medicated or do these drugs work to resolve symptoms. together, the more new ones look at it, the it's kind -- the experience was a new question. >> host: and the question, of very fresh question. did you find that though some researchers are happy you were doing this? >> it varied. some of them were happier was doing it. especially the conditions were very happy. the people who did both research and saw patients on a regular basis thought that it was a good

question to ask. they had seen this. the researchers were a little more focused on what the study said. we don't have the studies. there were a little stumps. >> host: well, there are some studies that you pointed to. i mean, very few, strikingly few given how important the topic this is. can you tell me a little bit about those, what does exist? >> guest: short. i should distinguish between social science researchers and also the working scientists. so the scientists, it was not a question that was on their radar screen. the social scientists, a small group of them who i think are doing some really fascinating and pioneering work. a formal version of what i do in the book, which is to ask young people about the qualitative experience of taking medications and have it has shipped them and ship their identity. and it was not too hard to find

them. they were extremely excited that i was exploring this topic. i was extremely excited that they were sparring this topic because it was great to be able to have little bit of a larger body of research and drawn. ♪ great to be able to really kind of bring a greater richness to a debate. that has really been pretty sterile along the same lines for all of these decades. our kids over medicated? the solutions to complicated problems. i mean, it is a really fantastic thing he took the debate beyond those simple story lines that we have become all too familiar with. now, you said that you really did not go into it with any preconceptions. you had an open mind. i think you had your own concrete experience to draw on that kind of demystified subject. can you talk a bit about your own experience and then how this led into the project, may be led you to connect better with the -- i don't know -- >> guest: i would say that my

depression and in retrospect also my anxiety, although it was not a defined as such a then, was about 12 years old. i have a very dramatic medical experience. scoliosis. it went very badly. i was having trouble because of his having to leave for medical appointments all the time. it made me very self-conscious about my body. i was having an eating disorder as a result, and that is what landed me in therapy. my parents found out about this. i was in therapy for a couple of years. did not find it to be very useful. they thought that my underlying issues were not the eating disorder but the depression and the anxiety, but then i live in a small town, only a couple of therapists. there were not a lot of different methods are options to draw on. i kept wishing that there was some of the solution. i had heard about medication. i knew people who were taking medication and i knew that it had helped them.

i kept wishing somebody would offer to meet. nobody did. finally i took the initiative and i talked to my parents and my pediatrician about it myself. >> host: holder you? >> by that point i was 17, but i had been thinking about medication for at least two years. the one that is a long time. it wasn't terribly effective. >> guest: that's right. that was another thing that made me more confident in my decision test for medication. i think that distinguishes my experience, the experience that i did tell, the kids were much younger. they did not get a say in it. did not know anything about the medication or -- and didn't even go, perhaps, very long being aware of the way that they were impaired. whereas i went through years being acutely aware of it, as i

say in the book, writing poetry, and his poetry and hoping for a way out. so i would draw a distinction between people who starred medication at an older age like guided and those to begin a much younger. >> host: you had a really well-developed vocabulary for understanding what you were going through. and also, of their bit of knowledge about mental health, about treatment options. what year was this, or what years were this? >> guest: this would have been the late 90's through the turn of the millennium. >> host: so we were already pretty well into the prozac era. the descendants, came out on the market. media reporting around them. which, you point out in the book, at the beginning was extremely positive to the point of giblets. in retrospect, do you think that that media coverage was helpful? do you think it gives you a realistic expectation?

>> i think at the beginning it actually was helpful. it gave me the confidence to ask for medication. the paradigm of the chemical imbalance between oversimplified so many factors that really go into the new end behavior disorders. i think it did lead me to think that medication would be a quick fix. and it was. it works really well for me for a number of years. and then when it stopped working and was really a shock. i think i was not prepared to think that this was going to be a continuing struggle. >> host: you were able to continue with their pure find better therapy over the years once you have had some success with medication? >> it took me awhile. it took until i had had a couple of really bad nervous episodes

where i was experiencing new symptoms and i felt like i needed something beyond the medication. and i was able to find their place in this city who i thought were really smart, just really sensitive and had a really new wants to take on what i was going through. >> host: i think it is important to get people who are watching a sense of what you were going to because i think that people tend to see someone who is kind of coming of the other hand and a sense that you survived, together, successful. and not understand the real seriousness of the symptoms that lead parents to be willing to get their children medication or in your case could lead a teenager to want to take medication, which is very unusual. can you talk about that? i mean, the worst depression and anxiety, but in the book you tell the story, and no way, that makes it very concrete that allows us to understand beyond just the diagnostic words what

the experience fell like to know what your day-to-day life was. >> i personally felt that i was just dragging along through life. it was not as though i was suicidal. although there were times when i did feel very desperate during that initial time, but i just felt that life was exhausting and that it was just getting through every day, just a task. and just owners and the burden. and so i was walking through my is the way i would describe it. and i just didn't take a lot of joy of life. i saw my peers, these are supposed to be people, not in fact the happiest time of your life, but tell you that there are supposed to be. [laughter] very uncomfortable, but i did see, you know, some design. tears. having what perceive to be a much easier time in a much more carefree time, and it just seems like such a pity and a waste to

go through so many years feeling like this. >> host: did your parents noticed the degree to which you are suffering? >> guest: they did notice to a certain extent, but and this is very common, and i talked about this in the book, the children, teenagers to have internalizing conditions like anxiety and depression, parents notoriously underestimate what the kids a going through, and i don't say this as a way to up. [inaudible] the parents, but these are internal experiences the the children don't always share, especially teenagers. i have to say, i was not forthcoming. i did not want to burden them with what i was going through. >> host: interesting, the way you describe your experience, horrible intrusion, and then describe. also experienced this in the same way, and i thought that was very, very interesting. i don't think adults tend to experience it in that way because they choose to.

>> guest: exactly. it is not like a punishment. it felt like an eating disorder, we don't know what to do with you. we'll put you in therapy. my parents did not mean it that way in any way, but there were just trying to be the best that they could. i think that is the case for most parents. they don't know what to do, and i think therapy is a very reasonable first step. my parents were very hesitant to give me medication. i think a lot of parents, and they use is, we have issues. it is not something that the job too readily, they are excited to the tickets and medication. they have concerns about it. the problem is that i think especially for teenagers, and get and articulating those feelings. it really takes quite as skilled therapist to pull out those feelings and to really make progress with the child. and so i think that medication can be in a way really anonymous

and a great way. it can be a way of sort of tipping the -- keeping your private problems private if you want to, but also feeling like you're making some progress. >> host: interesting because you describe your feelings, medication. it was liberating. it was freeing. allow you to be the person that you were. this really, most people have of medication, especially teenagers, being a chemical straitjacket, something that can overwhelm you, something that makes them complying with society's demand to muster really the opposite of a thing as a breeding. >> guest: that is true, and again, this depends upon the age of the child. i had had an unhappy childhood, so i knew what it was to be happy and i knew what it was to be unhappy. however, i think even very young children can be aware and to feel aware that something is

really wrong with them. my peers describe knowing that there were different, knowing that there were depressed and anxious. some and a very hearing aids, from kindergarten onward. and so i don't think you have to be 17 years old are 15 years old to know that something is wrong. i think even very young people can feel that a lot of researchers. you centered your narrative basically on the stories of five people. how did you come to your people in the first place? and then how did you come to focus? >> guest: well, the first thing i did, i searched for anybody who would talk to me about their experiences. that could be difficult because they're is a lot of stigma around this. i was not sure.

there pseudonyms. i cannot guarantee that in the book. i found a lot of people online to. >> guest: in patients communities and communities centered around use of medication. what i looked for in selecting a gradually narrow down the group, you know, from several dozen sub finally those five. but i looked for people who felt that they had had a complicated experience with medication but who were not enveloped on either side because i felt that the story had been told. we had heard about the miracle transformations command we had heard about the people who believe that nobody should ever take medication. and so i wanted to represent a range of experiences in the range of backgrounds and also arrange of psychiatric conditions. >> host: you did. you still very mixed stories. they really don't reduce these people to their sentence, which is great because you place him in the context of their lives,

some of which -- most of which are somewhat difficult, at least. one of which, the story of paul, the former foster child. can you talk about his story begins at think that is is the one that really stayed with me the most. probably the least typical of the experience that most middle-class kids have. and yet children or former children like paul who are really at the epicenter of a lot of the debate going on right now about medication. >> guest: absolutely. one reason why i wanted to include a former foster child is that foster child's arm medicated at many times the rates of their counterparts, even their counterparts on public insurance. during much in the media. the scandal stories about kids being massively over medicated and wrongly medicated. and so what does that feel like?

will looking at a spectrum of people from the most positive to the most negative. he was certainly one of the most negative experiences of medication. taken from his parents' home when he was five years old. now married. his father was abusive. a neighborhood where he was beat up by children. yang versions of that the games. and he bounced around the foster care system. placement to pleasant to placement just want to touch as long need for somebody to adopt him. >> host: the story that you tell, actually at therapeutic placement, short-term, which is not explained to him, he loved and wants to stay with these parents. he yanked away from them for reasons that he does not understand. other kids coming in and being adopted. that is to start breaking story. >> guest: it really is, and i think what makes the whole story even more heartbreaking is that he was given medication which i

don't think it's necessarily unjustified. i have not seen his medical record. i would have a hard time saying that it was absolutely the wrong thing to give him medication, but nobody explained his medication to him. and they did not explain details like the fact that this was a temporary placement. he was in special schools and had all breath of services, people really warrant relating to him the way they should have been, and medication did feel to him like a chemical straitjacket, like it was a punishment, like it was something because she was a bad kid. >> host: it sounds like it did not work. it sounds -- i mean to me this was a child he was traumatized from their early age. the least it does not sound like he ever had anyone really deal with that trauma or try to help him therapeutically work through the actual trauma.

>> guest: like as said, he had therapists. does not sound like there were very effective. it sounds like there were trying to get him into certain categories. not working to the really difficult things. in fact, so difficult and so painful that he still can't talk about them today and could not tell me all the details. >> host: all the different diagnoses, the different medications, and remember ever seeing him talk about ptsd or about reactive attachment disorder. it seems that he went from sort of turn the diagnosis. i hate talking that way, but that's what it sounds like to much in the diagnosis to turn the diagnosis. almost as if you were creating a fictional composite character to embody everything that has gone wrong in sell psychiatry of a couple of decades. it happened to him. he ends up with diabetes.

he and seven overdosing and medication. the ins up interpreting the medication as being to control him and his behavior because he is bad, and that is the way it is presented to him. how did he turn out in the end? >> he has turned out remarkably well. he is a really impressive young man. he is now married. the young woman who has a young child of around. he adores the child. he is gone through school slowly because he has to work his way through school, he has done an amazing job at reforming partnerships with mentoring adults finally. i think he, after having a childhood rape really did not have adults looking out for him or not and those that he can rely on for long amounts of time , unconditional love. the estimate great cello sicking of mentors. and he also has sort of found religion. and, you know, to be critical of

that, but i think that it has really fill the void in his life , and it has made him feel deeply loved and unconditionally loved in another way. >> host: it certainly seems that way. to the couple finally adopted? >> no. he was never adopted. but, like i said, he does have extremely close relationships with a number of adults now who are essentially adopted parents. >> host: blessed with great resilience. elizabeth and clear, notably very different. >> guest: an interesting example because she is the daughter of mental health advocates. the father has schizophrenia and became and is a prominent advocate for people with schizophrenia and the argument that they can be high functioning and do extremely well in society. and so her parents were more on

a look up for problems than the average parent. even so, what was so interesting was that your child said mother must have -- soberly diagnosed, when she began to have her problems, they just didn't know what to make of her meltdowns. they thought it was just to she was. they more quickly recognize it probably than other parents would have, and they took her to a pediatrician who prescribe an antidepressant, but it was really striking to me. would not have necessarily recognized it. you referred to clear as having become the poster child for use depression because she made a documentary. she started a documentary basically that was shown talking

about her experience which is, of course, very helpful thing to do for a lot of other kids, but i wondered, the effect of that on her. she had to remain in that role for a long time. >> guest: what was interesting, even though she was the poster child, she did not have this miracle turnaround on medication the way to a for siblings who were close in age to her did also take it and had great responses. they were not the poster children because they were not as inclined. she was very dynamic inarticulate. but it was the medication and all kinds of side effects for. and seventh the same time that she was trying to explain depression and explain that it was a condition that could be treated, she was also struggling to find a medication that did not maker too exhausted to function and to the exhausted,

you know, it's falling asleep in class. it probably would have been even more helpful if that part of her story had come through strongly. >> host: a relatively typical story. these medications have very strong side effects, but no work for everyone. they can work wonderfully for some people, naturally can be left changing and lifesaving for a lot of people, but for other people it is really an odyssey. >> guest: absolutely, and that can be incredibly difficult for children to struggle with, but also just to conceptualize and understand, if they're trying to understand the nature of their problems, there till the medication was supposed to help them and alleviate the symptoms and the medication doesn't do that, that can be really difficult, i think, for them to sustain the commitment and just so relief feel that it's worth it and to adjust their parents and their doctors for years on and while the medications don't

really do what they were promised to do. >> host: an interesting example, maybe in some ways and in some ways not, the polar opposite in that the environment. and yet see is disconnected. she is privileged. in that sense is the polar opposite. yet she is disconnected from parents who are profoundly disconnected from each other. so they have that commonality. talk about her a bit. >> guest: yes. elizabeth grew up in the wealthy suburb of washington d.c. her father was a prominent lawyer. her mother was involved in local politics and that sort of thing. and they had a very difficult relationship. her father doe with alcoholism that cost proms in a marriage. she began said have real dysfunction in mill school where she just was unable to turn in homework and really depressed.

was ultimately diagnosed with both a ph.d. in depression and given to medications at once, -- at once which i think complicated matters because she had trouble telling which struck was doing what. >> host: as i recall, sort of a trivializing way. it can't hurt. >> guest: exactly. we did not really diagnose with depression. they said some kids to have a dat get depressed about the fact there not too well in school, and she almost fell out of for elite private school. and they just sort of threat at her. that made it extremely difficult further to be committed to the medication and to sort of gauge what it was doing, and ultimately she ended up going off of it without telling her doctor i think in part because she was not acclimated to it in the proper way. >> host: what happened then? >> guest: it did not work out well. start cutting yourself, doing

self injury. and she did not immediately make the connection between the fact she got off into the present and the coming, but she got into bed depression and what for a couple of years. it took quite a while to realize that probably she was depressed. this was not just banks. she was going to romanticize in some way that this was something that really did need treatment after off and went back to an anti-depressant. >> host: i was struck by how supportive friends were. by the time she was in college there were really there for an pushing her to get treatment. >> guest: and i thought that was great. that was a function of her feeling comfortable telling your friends about her problems. and not a lot of young people that i interviewed were. or, if they did to make happen in a very casual way. i myself mention to my friends that i took medication for anxiety and depression, and i still sort of mention it, but i am not inclined to want -- i

don't want to burden them, and i think that is a common impulse. and with teenagers and kids, it's difficult to find the vocabulary to explain these feelings and what you're going through and to explain that your friends. >> host: it's interesting because parents, especially once you don't have children with mental health issues tend to believe that this talk about and all the time and never once on medication and a joke about it and give each other their marriage and it is just completely normal. what's happening to our kids, but that's really not the truth, as it? >> guest: i think their is a certain amount of joking, and as superficial way, which does not help at all. and the senate is not help the kids are actually struggling with these problems. i think it makes them less likely to want to confide in their peers because they see that they're not taking it seriously. in with things like medication for 88 steve, i interviewed people who were a shame that the ticket. felt that their peers are going to judge them as another or

getting an unfair like upper something like that. >> host: were going to have to take a break in just a moment. i am thrilled. it's fascinating. will we come back now would like to talk a bit about the issue of the unreliable narrative. the young adults. and also talk more about what kind of conclusions we can all drawn from the stories. >> back with kaitlin bell barnett talking about her important and fascinating new book "dosed: the medication generation grows up". when we were on break you were talking to me about the perplexing fact that for many of these kids their diagnoses changeover time. their symptoms sort of more for overtime from one set of problems to another. you heard this over and over again. can you talk about that? >> a real challenge.

to pose a real challenge for many of the people that i interviewed. this sort of thought that they have everything figured out. i was one of those people. i thought that my problem was depression and then later on in my early 20's i began experiencing severe anxiety. and especially when you have upheld in the works well it can be really destabilizing to feel that no, indeed, you don't have it all figured out and do have new problems. this happens really commonly. one of the most common scenarios, actually, or it to show up, you will see depression , the subjects in the book, he was diagnosed with a severe depression and its 12 and had really a fabulous miracle turnaround on as a loft where his depression, it actually did not completely go away, but he had been so suicidal that to him it felt as though he had been lifted from the depths of how.

and a few years later he began experiencing a completely new symptoms that later turned out to be mania in his diagnosis was tied to buy bipolar disorder, but it took quite a while for his doctors to figure out what was going on. he did know was going on. he thought he just needs medication anymore and had been somehow cured. magically he was undergoing some other hormonal shift, like a second puberty. and that was just one example of many, many different kinds of iterations of the changes that can take place when you are talking about a young person. really growing in developing and changing. >> host: so extreme. contemplating suicide. this saved him. you know, at least he was found and he was treated. there is the problem that occurs in the book of kids wanting treatment and not being able to get it, not being able to be

noticed and nothing will to be admitted to hospital when they feel they really need treatment because regulations have changed so insurance reimbursement has changed. can you talk about some of those systemic problems? >> guest: short. yes. and that does happen. that happened specifically with one of the subjects in the book who was also undergoing much, much more severe symptoms than he had experienced when he was -- he started treatment at ten. his hearing teenage years. he was at a point where he could not recognize that he was -- that he felt possibly suicidal and wanted to be admitted to a hospital and did not have a specific plan to kill myself. they would not admit him. and that is not an uncommon story. as i recall, he did get admitted eventually. he had to lie. incredible.

so sad. and unfortunate. none of these people and that the criminal-justice system, which is a typical thing that happens with kids with entreated psychiatric needs. at which point maybe they did diagnose, maybe they don't. it certainly, you know, too little too late at that point. the other thing that happens here that i think is indicative of a larger system problem is that he was on the captain hostel when he was admitted for four days, and that is really not long enough. i understand talking to the doctors who work in these hospitals to get any kind of real sense of whether a medication is working, so they switch you to a new medication. there is some short acting formulation or you can tell right away. made him feel better, but something like and into the present time it takes weeks to work. four days is not nearly enough time, and especially if they want to weed out the drugs or on

and he was released. a few weeks later he very nearly tried to commit suicide, and that is, is not uncommon for these kind of short stays to result in some kind of drastic event like that that may result in a real mission basically to a hospital. >> host: there is the perception that this is the way psychiatrists' wanted. we see big stories and papers like the new york times showing psychologists you're happily conducting these 50 minute sessions and not having continuous follow-ups with their patients because it's a way to make money, a lot of money. it becomes very difficult. is that what you found? did you find sort of satisfaction with the way things are happening right now? i mean, there is no doubt that most of the kids you're talking to were getting these very quick perfunctory treatments. how did the doctors dispense medication?

>> guest: well, did make a point actually have talking to doctors who believed in a more joint, therapeutic approach. there were the ones that are more sensitive to these questions of identity and have the medications actually affected the kids and there were the ones actually asking the questions. but certainly that kind ray of -- they're not happy with the things -- the way things are. they feel enormous financial pressure and pressure from the insurance companies to conduct these 50 minutes bad checks. it's a cliche. and there were not happy with that at all. and that is why many psychiatrists don't take insurance actually. >> host: which is a problem in and of itself because that means you don't have this bifurcated system. you don't have the top quality of top quality treatment. recede is so clearly. it's really destroying the treatment. i've heard other stories of that

type or a psychiatrist may be prescribing men's to a child to interaction has been seen. not by choice, but because it's the way the system delivers the child to him. that's what he has to work with. >> absolutely. the parents' insurance may ship so that they have a tendency in new provider and go from one person to another to another. i interviewed -- i can't even think of somebody. i wish i could just as for the sake of the doctors, but i can't think of somebody who said that they have a really close to a really long lasting therapeutic relationship with the psychologist. >> host: always the problem. i mean, you get the story that you get in part because of the kinds of people you talk to, the people he talked to when it comes to the psychologist. the ones who were thinking and talking and writing about this. you get their perspective in the first place. you don't know them if the kind of missions on the ground,

people were being sent to you to their health plans, except in the same way in operating the same way, the negative stereotypes or not because you can. did you have that feeling? >> absolutely. and i suspect that some of the less productive interviews that i conducted work, perhaps, with some of those conditions were just not thinking about the issues, just going through to many patients and wants to really have the time to reflect. the was that i talked to in detail, yes, it was a skewed sample. i felt like i wanted to get the bigger picture, the child psychiatry in america. and that would have been a different book. >> host: is difficult to get hard data that would give you answers on the state of child psychiatry in america. you get little bits and pieces, find out what percentage of child psychiatrist state health insurance. it's virtually impossible. or how they're happening,

they're taking place. you have to end up working with the sample that you have. i wonder to comment to you cross itself about how to work with material coming from? demint everyone was a young adult. interviewing teenager's at the time. i realize, certain periods in adolescence, you get to your early adulthood, you are an unreliable narrative because you don't have a full range of of formation of your early years. in some ways you never get it, but you also don't have the perspective necessarily to fully understand what was happening and be able to put yourself in the shoes of the adults in your life. did you ever elected your stories as the narratives that you were hearing, the testimony as you were getting and wondered if there was another side to the story, pieces missing, talk to

the parents along with the kids? what was the basis? >> guest: i did my best whenever i could to talk to the parents along with the kids and i did try to talk to a couple of caregivers to get the other side of the story. especially when you're talking about children who began treatment very young and the paris air the once investigated it, i wanted to know how that happened. but certainly i felt very conflicted. i was writing the book. i really wanted to give credence to what they're saying. i wanted take their opinion seriously, and that was part of the mission of the book, let them tell the story, but i also did not want to present the information completely unquestioningly. they have their own biases. and that use. there were times when i fell like you don't necessarily that the facts of what they were saying, but that it could be

interpreted a little bit of a differ weight. one example. i can certainly imagine that the kid had been a very troubled little boy was caregiver's run a loss of what to do with them and rare medication might have seemed like a reasonable option. >> host: yet in all of these different cases, the young adults have the ability that they have to talk of their experiences and to conceptualize them, but tim and a larger context. they wanted so much, whatever given along the way. adults communicate with them. adults connected to them, empower them. there was really vast differences. >> guest: there were. i think there is an example. mental health activist, an example of one part of the spectrum, getting just really detailed information for parents

about depression, the nature of it being a chronic illness that might require treatment indefinitely even. and some people might say that that is a really kind of negative thing to give a child, but in her case it's sort of turned out to be realistic because medication did not work perfectly in sync up on having to try new ones. there were other kids you just got extremely little information . what i concluded, the more information they can get from their parents and doctors the better they feared. >> host: more connected their work to the adults in their lives the better they feared. the disconnection, a lot of these kids, really, really striking. paul, elizabeth, alex. talk a little bit about how lax. >> guest: sure. alex was born out of wedlock to a mother who -- his father was married to another woman and had

another child. and he grew up knowing his father but feeling disconnected from. very close to his mother, but when he was managing years of his mother started having a couple of series preference to ended at moving into the house. one of them became his stepfather. he got along very poorly. there were arguably emotionally abusive. and try to separate him from his mother. he pro we get less attention and less explanation from his mom and he would have if she had been able to fully devote herself to him without feeling like she had to choose somehow between them. >> host: to his stepfather was very undermining of his treatment, as efforts to get treatment, stay in treatment. he had this kind of you that americans were over medicated and dollars trying to find an easy way out.

need to be more stark and tougher. by try to identify with that of a certain point in time and it identified, but it does to our cramped. >> guest: that's right. his stepfather had epilepsy and did not take medication for it. this sort of macho idea that one does not take medication for one's problems. the tough and out. an alex ultimately went off his medications in high-school for several years with his permission from his doctors, but hoping that he could sort of tough it out himself, and it was really a blow to is self-esteem and his sense of self when he relapsed and began experiencing much more severe symptoms that it require him to go back and return to medication. >> host: the identity issues the race. you talk about the role the medication place in the formation of identity, an area you wanted to explore. he talked about how having a

specific diagnosis to give someone a sense of an identity that can be too narrow. the diagnosis shifts or medication doesn't work, you know, it is not just the faltering of whether symptoms coming back or the disappointment, but as a whole sense of self that somehow against destabilized. can you talk more about that? more about the case of some of these other people. >> guest: sure. sometimes having a label could be very helpful for many of these youngsters. because it was invalidated what they're going through. players brother, who interviewed a bit and tell a story briefly in the buck, joe, so if he felt very ashamed of being depressed. had an name and he was given medication. he felt really validated. he no longer felt like that was something that he needed to hide or just be ashamed of. and i also had that sense. i felt like medication is like

proof that there was something wrong with me. but then -- and then i deserve treatment and that is there something serious. but on the other hand, with these kind of diagnoses, like us say, you sort of thing to to have to figure out. and then a lot of times you don't. and that is nobody's fault necessarily. the doctors, i think, are doing the best to come up with the proper diagnosis. but it was notoriously difficult to diagnose children. they grow and change and sometimes it develop what are called coal market conditions that can resist with the previous conditions. and that shows up later. so in my case, anxiety had been a problem for me for a long time, but it really became a problem, the dominant problem later cali later when i was in my 20's. and things happened. also unprepared to deal with her anxiety because she was so used to thinking of herself as having

depression. >> host: a person who just plain is opposed to the medication, medicating of children, under any circumstances, opposed to psychotropic medications, believes that we have become a bill from society. that kind of fall, listen to you and say, well, people who are medicated and the first place, maybe they're would not have come up with all these other problems later. maybe the medication change their brain said the depression began anxiety said that aid the hd turned into bipolar disorder, so that depression turned in a bipolar disorder. look up the drugs did to them. how would you answer that? is an important question because it is all of its peoples minds. >> guest: well, i have to say, the evidence and there's there's some serious researchers who are exploring these kinds of possibilities, so it is not a completely insane concept.

i think in most cases it is probably not the case. at think that it is very common for there to be this, betty, to develop multiple conditions throughout their lives. turner kinds of symptoms. however, i did discuss in the book the possibility that, for instance, antidepressants are known to trigger mania. and they're is a line of research going on to discover whether maybe that makes people who are prone to developing bipolar disorder, developer that the rage even then they're would have if they had never taken as medications, and it is an intriguing and taunting possibility, i think the science is not there yet to answer that question. but if it were true it would be very upsetting. >> host: very upsetting and problematic because the fear of

that then drove a lot of doctors in the early 2000's certainly to prescribe a cure antidepressants and more into psychotics which as you describe in the book, and as a context for children with bipolar disorder, not for necessarily schizophrenic. trucks have terrible, really dangerous side effects. talk a little bit about these medications, how they came on the market and what the expectations work and then what the fallout has been? >> sure. well, they initially came on the market at the very turn of the 80's and then through the 90's. and they were approved for schizophrenia in adults. then they were increasingly prescribed, this new concept of bipolar disorder in children and also just to treat various kind of aggressive behavior disorders and kids as well. and it did not come out in

studies and sells several years after the millennia. it really was established that they could have very serious side effects including massive weight gain, massive rapid weight gain and type two diabetes which is what happened to paul after he took one of these a typical anti cicada's for a couple of years. nobody had warned him of that possibility or discuss other options for him. and i think, you know, this concern about possible long-term side effects can be really problematic because for certain drugs like stimulants are into the presence what you can get is a drug that causes much more certain or much more likely short-term and very serious side effects, and it makes it such a difficult decision for parents to just want to know what to do. there is a great science to guide them one way or the other. talk about that a bit. why isn't there more research

specifically? >> guest: well, partly in has to do with ethical issues about the controlled studies, randomly assigning children to treatment are giving them no treatment. part of it is a lack of long-term research, longitudinal studies that would be tracking kids for many, many years to see how the medications affect them over the course of the development. and those studies are just one of the complicated things to conduct. there require all kinds of apparatus, tracking people down years later. very expensive, and they require a researcher to basically devote his or her career to this subject, not everybody is willing to do that. it's also difficult to secure funding for those types of studies. we do have a study like that for stimulants. that was funded. it has given some interesting results. some of them troubling, some of

them suggested of ways that we could deliver much better care in our society. at the same time, even those results are highly debated each time a different piece of it comes out there is more debate. how do you get through all that. how does a parent could throw that? >> guest: such a difficult question. i think that parents should do there research as much as they can, but i think that really a key thing is if they do decide to medicate their child the should not look at it as this is an either or decision, but it must go on forever. i decided to medicate much out and there is no going back. it's important to have a distinctive have a continuing discussion with the doctor the second opinions. have access to therapists about the idea medication, talk to the child's teachers and also, very importantly, check in with the child to see how they feel about the treatment and to try to make them partners in the treatment

as much as possible because i think it is so important to treat the kids seriously and to really check in with them, how the medications are affecting them. they are experiencing it every day. >> host: so many negative stories. at their peak experiences. useless therapy experiences. short visits with a psychiatrist. that is what we just don't get. and people do have a positive experiences, what were the onus of those treatments, those experiences, those encounters our relationships? what they are trying to get to my good care, where should they start and what should they be looking for? >> guest: i think that at doctor, again, who really takes the child patients seriously and also takes the parents seriously is really key. you want to have a doctor who respects any doubts that the

parents have and also any doubts and fears that the child has and is willing to explain to the child, the child is afraid that the medications are going to up making craze your changes personality, fears that kids to have or even if they're older and think this is just going to make me into a less interesting person or less funny person, the doctor takes those concerns seriously and explains how the medications work. also, be honest about the fact that doctors don't know exactly how the medications work and that it's a process of trial and error. so i think, you know, looking for a doctor does not pretend to be on knowing and does not pretend that they have to necessarily all the solutions and is willing to work with the family in the child is so important. >> host: a positive experience , a pediatrician or a psychiatrist? 7,000 child psychiatrists in the country, for people outside of

areas like new yorker washington, it's pretty hard to get access to a child psychiatrist. >> guest: it very well could be a pediatrician. there have these very short visits where they don't have the time really to either accurately diagnose the child or to follow up with the medication. but if parents can find -- can do little looking until moving around for a pediatrician who may be does not have as packed schedule of patience and to is willing to, perhaps, consult with the child psychiatrist or consult with a therapist so that there is communication between the doctors, they're not reimbursed for that, unfortunately, by the insurance company. very difficult, very time-consuming. certainly they are under pressure. >> host: i want to ask, you have a really nice phrase in the

book, a legacy of dedication. what do you see is the legacy of medication for yourself, some of these former kids to my young adults to you interviewed? >> guest: i think for both myself and for many of the young people that i interviewed, the legacy was that it made, determining what your problems are and what your capabilities are more complicated. medication really had this extra layer of complexity as we discussed in so many different areas, and it makes this idea of figuring out who you are in your identity, you're end of identity of more flawed process. perhaps an ongoing process as you continue into your 20's and 30's to try to experiment and find a medication that really works with you. as a society that legacy is that we need to teach children opinions about medication more seriously and not just -- are not saying that we are just

wrong medication to kids, but i think that in so far as we can give them medication, we need to understand that they have opinions about those medications, they experience things that in many ways similar to the way adults do, and it can be dramatic. it can be scary. the explanation, guidance along the way. and i hope that this next generation of kids that are growing up now and are medicated and also for the kids and my generation, if they take medication, it would be able to benefit from a little bit more of the sense, a nuanced sense of the many ways the medication can affect you. ..

one the right number. i just hope that insofar as as kids are getting the care, it's done in a sensitive way and in a way that is productive and helpful for their long-term development as possible. >> there is a serious problem with abuse of medication specifically of stimulants. that gets a lot of media attention. doesn't necessarily help in terms of why kids are being prescribed medication. it does, however, point to the pressures the kids bearing down on the kids. to what extent do you think we can indict society for kids' mental problem? >> should we doiting society?

where do you come down in thinking about that? >> guest: i think it's a combination. i think that many of these children would be having problems and did have problems in previous generations and just the problems were recognized. i do think that we live in a more -- much more high pressure society. we don't tolerate little blips or failures and that i don't want to say that people are quick to medicate, exact by but that they're quick to sort of -- if there's a little problem. and that children under huge amounts of pressures they probably will not in the last couple of generations anyway. >> host: one quick question. you don't have children now, but you probably will someday. what would you do if you had a child shows signs of depression or anxiety. how would you hands it? would you medicate? >> guest: i would nt medicate

immediately. i want wait a long time. they are pressure. their years are short. if i were see a number of months of this, where they were impaired and seemed unhappy, i would. that's what you learn from your experience is that the message you would give to other parents as well? >> guest: yes. that would be the take home to the extent of the child is impaired and not functioning the way they should be. don't let them go on that way indefinite nately. glace this has been fascinating. it should be a must-read for people now. everybody is caught up in the debate about kids and meds. you shine a light and have a fresh perspective. the book is "dose." >> guest: thank you so much. all this week turn to c-span for liefl gavel to gavel congress of the democratic

national convention in charlotte, north carolina. day one kicked off yurl earlier this evening and still to come tonight speeches by first lady michelle obama and castro with the keynote address. here on c-span2, it's booktv all day everyday throughout the convention with highlights of non-fiction authors and books from the past year. and on c-span 3, also throughout the convention, 24 hours of american history tv. with lectures, oral history, and a look at historical american sites and art -- artifacts. from the american museum of natural history in new york city. astrophysic talks about the history and future of nasa. and the u.s. space program. he argues that the exploration of space benefits more thans more than they might think. it's a little over two hours. good evening, everyone, and

welcome. thank you for your patience. my name is suzanne morris, i'm the senior manager of public programs. we are thrilled to have you all here tonight, so give yourselves a round of applause. [applause] the american museum of natural history has been home to some of the country's greatest thinkers. scientists and citizens who have changed the way we understand scientific and natural phenomena. and have brought that understanding to the national consciousness. from teddy roosevelt who generated american conservations and preservation practices with to be margaret mead who changed the way we view and value other cultures. neil degrass tyson brings the knew anemic you anemic intelligent to understand the batedty and importance of the

sciences. born and raised in new york city, dr. tyson attended the bronx high school of science and later earned b. a. in physics through harvard and the ph.d. in astrophysics from klum colombia. that's right. he has been an adviser to nasa and three presidents on matters related to spacex plo ration -- he even has ans a destroyed named after him. widely known as a friend and enemy of pluto. he joins us tonight to discuss the latest book "space chronicles: facing the ultimate frontier." please join me now in giving a warm welcome to dr. neil degrass tyson. [applause]

>> thank you. what a warm introduction. in is the only public talk anywhere that i'm giving on the weak. so you are here here and now for it. just so you know, just saying. [applause] not missing missing it somewhere else. [applause] get ready up here. here we go. i'll tell you how it began. it was a big bang -- [laughter] no just -- i was there in

1990's, i was approached by colombia university press to write a chapter in in an ensign low peed ya they were preparing to celebrate the end of the 20th century. it was called "the colombia history of the 20th century." [inaudible] this was it. okay. that was a significant about it is the person originally scheduled to write that was approached in 1996, the person originally scheduled to write that was carol saggen. he had been asked to contribute a chapter on cozzic discovery to the volume. he had taken ill, in 1995, he died in 1996. my name was put up as one who

would then write in his stand. and i was honored to be asked, although the size of the project was bigger than what i was accustomed at the time i was writing monthly columns for "natural history magazine" coming in at 3,000 words. that's what i would pump out in a month. the chapter was asking to be 10,000 words. i just -- i so i was almost declined. then i said, no, maybe i can do something different and a little more creative. i thought, okay, why not think of discovery not in the 20th century, not even in terms of the discovery of objects or places, but maybe the discovery of ideas. and i would track the transition from the discovery of places going back to the era of the

great explorers to the discovery of idea. once you have mapped the whole eater, what is left there for you to discover. this is the bottom of the ocean, but philosophically what's left for you once you know the whole earth is there? you have the exploration of idea. the idea take you to new places beyond earth, they take you to space. and i thought to myself at the time, you know, i really want to go to mars. like with people. that's an uncommon view among my colleagues. my astrophysics colleagues by and large maybe tree to one ratio see no value in sending humans in to space. now that sentiment, by the way is held by an entire generation of my colleagues who grew up in the 1960s wanting to become a scientist because of the manned program. and so there's a little bit of hypocrisy there. i have taken them to task on

it. not only that, it's in any judgment politically naive to think that nasa is simply your private science funding agency. more on that later. so i said to myself, how much would it cost to go to nasa it let's say it costs me to go to mars. let's say it costed a half of a billion. but say cost a half of trillion dollars. what's the factor of 1,000 between friends here? half of a trillion friends i would say. or even a trillion. that's expensive. that's a lot of money. actually, it's a small% age of our budget when spread out over many years. nonetheless, it's a lot of money. and so for this chapter, whey said to myself, is i'm going to go back throughout the history of time and ask of the greatest projects ever undertaken by human human beings what did you

do to compel your community to invest in the way? and i would make a whole chapter maybe even push it out to a book of all the chicagos -- that drove human human beings to do great thing. i would look at the mission of mars and line it in the matrix. it's this% of gdp. who else spent that and what did they do about it it? my my analysis contained in the chapter, the one chapter in here, the chapter called paths to discovery. by the way, don't tell colombia press this, you don't have to buy the book because that chapter was excerpted for the space chronicles book. [laughter] so i've brought this just for a historical continuity. so you know what's behind it. how it all began. so i made list of the most expensive things we have done as

a species, we could agree with most of what appears on the list. there's a great wall of china. expensive in firms of human or financial capital. the great wall of china. the manhattan project. the apollo project, the cathedral builds as an enterprise during the renner sons. how about the columbus voyages? very experiencive to queen isabella. the ma jell lane voyage a whop episode of the voyages. the pyramids. loathes make the list. and any gripe about the list i have tossed up there? sure, we agree major investment in human and financial capital. then i asked what was the motivation for those? and in my list, of the most expensive things we have done, i came up with only three drivers. three no more than three, no

fewer than three. the number one driver of them all is war. we can call if defense, that gets you the great wall of dhien. that gets you the manhattan project, in fact, that also get use at apollo project. it's the i don't want to die driver. okay. if you feel threatened and you're at risk, you will spend money without limit to not die. okay. that's kind of an obvious one in retrospect. what's next? the prospect of gaining great economic wealth. not quite as po at the present time as the "i don't want to die driver" but it is really powerful operated on the motivation of nations. that is what gets you the columbus voyages. columbus himself was a discovery.

somebody had to write the check. the people who wrote the check said, by the way, while you're going, take the spanish flags with you and put them whenever you land. declare the land for spain. see if there are any riches. he the queen didn't say tell us what you learned eat theth botany where you land. he might be interested in it. his crew might be interested in it, not the people who wrote the checks. third greatest driver. we see less of this today than what was common hundreds of years ago. and that is the praise of royalty or day if i. is this is the effort to appease an entity that is perceived to be or is literally is more powerful than you are. so that's how you get the pyramids. that's how you get the church buildings. the so today you don't have

kings and gods motivating major funding projects of nation. there was a day with we did. okay. so i said to myself, if we are going go to mars, and mars is expensive, it's going have to satisfy one of those two criteria. otherwise, we're never going it mars. and this was my revelation, and that is the center piece of that chapter. and all of the rest of what went on in human culture or orbits that revolution in that chapter. i said to myself, my gosh, i wonder how many people know this? because you hang around space enthusiast and what they do they tell? the reason we stopped going to the moon, we didn't have leader, we needed visionary people. we stopped being risk takers. there's a whole list of people will give you for why we are not in space -- why space frontier

has not continued beyond the landing on the moon. there's a whole list. i deduced that every -- without exception every item on the list was delusional. [laughter] it doesn't -- include oh things. we need to explore space for science because it's in the dna. because we're americans and americans are explorers. all these reasons are given. my read of history tells me that none of those reasons matter to those who are writing the checks. that's the difference. and so i thought, i got tell people this because if we're going to go to mars, then we have to motivate people in a way that is either militaristly

driven. nobody wants that to be the reason or economically driven. i started exploring in what ways our presence in space can satisfy one or the other or both of those cry tier imra. i was even invited after that article was published that chapter was published to a space development conference in washington. i was positioned between al dren and the fellow -- forgive me the fellow who wrote october sky. homer hick em. thank you. these are like rah folks. one has been on the moon. another one was inspired so there's a lot of inspiration talk. in front of me and behind me. that's not what i talked about. i said any ambitiouses in space,

if you expect them to be driven by the will to want to go or the locking for as christmasmatic leader, you are deluded. that was -- i was blunt. said it to their faces. [laughter] i was a little bit more polite about it at the time. i thing you might be disdirected directed in in your thinking. that's the polite way to say you are clue legislation about what's driving human motivation here. and so, okay. couple of years would go by. i get a phone call from the white house. this is april of 2001, the white house. it's the george w. bush white house. i get a phone call, they say hello is this neil? yeah. we want to check your interest

to see if you serve on a presidential commission. i said commission on what? i don't know what a commission is. first of all, i'm an academic, i don't hang out in washington. i don't know anything about washington. in ak deenl ya politics is the barrier between where you're standing and want go. in washington politics is the counter sei of all interactions. so this is not my culture, they want me to come to washington to serve the commission. i said, what's the title of the commission? the commission on the future of the united states air are space industry. and i said, you got the right tyson? i fly in airplanes, i don't fly airplanes. but -- we know who we are. we read your writers. i said could they have read? what, how? and i said who else?

so they read me the list of other people buzz al drin was going to be on the commission, and just in case you don't remember, he was apollo 11 astronaut. the second person to walk on the moon of the first mission to the lunar surface. so -- all right there are wellful commissioners appointed to this. all right. now i'm from new york city, born and raised. in new york, you can go all day without ever even seeing a republican. okay. [laughter] so -- [laughter] [applause] m i lying? i'm not. i'm not -- [laughter] there goes one, he's in the corner, in the back, i think. so i'm getting called by a republican president and i'm an

academic, and i later learn that -- i've learned that george bush at yale did not do well at the astronomy class. and so -- they said, we have to ask you a few questions. and out came a series of questions. all the questions that are like illegal on a job application i got asked. because it's not an appointment. it's not a job, right? so the rules don't apply. what's your sexual preference. what's your religion? have you ever protested? have you ever been arrested for nick? have you ever protested and almost got arrested? you know, it was the whole long series of questions. then towards -- i answer the questions fine. then it said are you familiar with the president's politics and policies? and i said, yes, but just what i

read in the paper. i don't i'm not a politician. so i think i'm familiar. then they said, what do you think of them? [laughter] so -- i said how do i answer this? and probably was only ten seconds of thought felt like it was many minutes before i replied. at the time george bush was appointing members of the cabinet and some looked promising at the type. this was early 2001 colon powell was announced as one of the chief advisers and condolezza rice in stanford. these are educate people. he's appointing people smarter than he is. okay. there's hope there, i thought to myself. so i said, because what i wanted to do was reach through the

phone, because he said what do you think? i wanted to reach through the phone and say -- and i said that would not be productive. they're trying to do good here. and so i gained my composure, like i said, it was probably only ten second, it felt like minutes i replied. i said i applaud the president's efforts to surround himself with talented people so that he can make the best decisions he can in the interest of the nation. [laughter] [applause] that was a thursday, by monday i was appointed to a presidential commission to study the future of the united air are space industry. i would learn i was the loan academic on this commission. i would learn that coming from my left liberal posture having

born and raised in new york coming from a liberal family, i would learn that in order to have a conversation with those who are not, you cannot stand there and have that conversation. it doesn't work. because there's actually a smoke screen there and way on the a far right -- there's a smoke screen too. you can't have that conversation. there is what the television, news, talk shows do. they get people with hot air on both end and at the end there's more hot air. you actually have to crawl out of those zones, and stand in the middle and then have that conversation. and over the period of that commission, that's what i did. and upon doing so, i would learn things about the far right. i would not have known or even seen or understood. and so in fact, it was quite illuminating for me to have this

experience. i'll give you an example of a liberal smoke screen bias. because there are biases on each extreme. it's hard to see them when you're there. you are to step out ak look back. here's a bleeding liberal -- bleeding heart liberal bias. are you ready? nobody in new york liked bushing with right. i was appointed to a bush commission. they said, oh, because you're black. okay. actually, there's another black person on the commission. the four-star air force general. so argument evaporates immediately. there is no argument. okay. there were two women on the panel, one of them in aerospace analyst for wall street, another a former member of congress who air force bases in her district

in florida. another people there, there's the head of air air aerospace. and buzz who's been on the moon. as we introduce ourself. it's tough to follow him. i've been out moon. i can't follow -- i've got nothing on that. okay. , youyou know, in the meeting, that everybody there reeked of testosterone because they were captains of industry, heads of agencies, former, you know, security advisers even the women had testosterone. like i said, the security analyze for wall street -- anything he would say or write would effect your stock price. they treated her kindly. why did i -- why m attacking you

down this road? i'm trying to share with you my baptism in to the world ever aerospace and nasa and what i've done about it since then. all right. that commission was formed because -- back up one moment. twelve members of the commission it's a white house commission, but the rules are six members are appointed by congress. six members are appointed by the white house. of the six members appointed by congress, there was a mix that reflected the partisan split in congress at the time. okay. so this is a -- their trying to be politically fair as they construct it. since it's a white house commission, the white house appoints six people. bush would have appointed six republicans. but he didn't. i am not a republican. i was one of the questions they asked me. what is your political

affiliation? they're going ask me that if what religious and my sexual preference. i was a registered democrat. i was hired. it was false. it was part of the smoke screen that exist at the limit of each of the political spectrum. so i'm there and apparently in the previous fifteen years, the aerospace industry lost a half million jobs. there have been huge con consolidation from dozen and dozen of companies down to just four or five. that's why the aerospace companies have joint names. it used to be martin it used to be lockheed. these companies started collapsing down in to just a few. congress was worried what affect this would have on the air -- arrow space industry of the nice. they are responsible for the military, airborne security,

responsible for the transportation, commerce, they recognize there's a fundamental part what it is to live in america in the 21st century. they wanted to goat bottom of it. many of the aerospace companies, they not only make the airplanes, they make the spaceships. and so we had air row people on the commission and space people on the commission. i was counted as one of the space people. one of the trips we took was around the world. this is late 2002. around the world to key places that have aerospace industries to find out is there some competition that we're not living up to? what are they doing we're not? we visited china. i went to bay shinning in 2002, my first time there, i went there with a complete portfolio of stereo types about what i would expect. boulevards of bicycles. this is what i expected.

that's what was on the film loops that i saw growing up. arrive in beijing, there are bicycles, that's not filling the boulevard. there's her say mercedes and bmw. it's not like any picture i have seen. we meet with head captain of industry. heads of agencies there. i look carefully and see on the hand college rings, graduate degrees from american universities in engineering. almost every one of the leaders that were shaping the future, culture, the future industrial culture of china were trained and agented -- educate here in america in engineering schools. we took an excursion to the great wall of china. never been there.

all right. i'm on the great wall -- the wall goes -- you and then it ties peers in the midst. right. you can't see the end of it. there it is. i look in every direction, there's only bricks that made the chinese wall. okay. , by the way, do you know what defined distance between the end? there's a reason for the distance. they were set between the tour rants. that's exactly right. it had to do with the precision with which in anager can kill you at at distance. so they are twice that distance. so anymore climbing over, they can take you out. it's a military project as we have already agreed. so not only that, the stairs within the place turn in a particular way so that if you're right-handed, the side where you're carrying the bow doesn't rub in to someone coming up the

stairs in another direction military thinking. it doesn't have anything to do -- this aside. i'm on the great wall of china. i don't see any technology anywhere. this is in the middle of the nowhere. by the way, there was like chinese pes ants that came. they were sun dark end and not well-dressed inspect is none the less a tourist trip for them. none were looking at wall. they wanted to photograph themselves next to me. apparently i have more interesting than the wall. the only black person they have ever seen in their lives. [laughter] so i said, i'm going try something. went to a friend of mine. i said can i borrow your cell phone they had a gsm enabled cell phone. i called my parents in west

cherer, new york, dialed a number, my mother answers, i said, mom, she said oh, are you home so soon? that's how good that connection was! [laughter] i'm on the great wall of china! there's no antenna anywhere. i don't see any electricity, i don't see anything. and i'm having a conversation with my mother. she thinks i'm back home. there have nobody in china saying can you hear me now? can you hear me now? [laughter] something was underfoot in china. something was going on there that we were in denial of. visited russia star city, the head of star city we're there.

we have buzz with us. there's a book in their officers signed by folks who have been there. it was a nice ritual ceremony he signs the bock. there's a statute there. standing bold right out front. it was 10:00 30s in the morning, i think and i think the end of the center we crowded in to the officer we has the cabinet. it's 1:30. time for vodka. [laughter] so it was like, okay. that's how you -- you got to go with the flow. so i'm having at vodka and sipping the vodka, and i'm getting kicked under the table. your pinky doesn't stick out when you're downing vodka in russia. okay. here's my point, about that. many more points to come. i want to make sure we have time for q & a. we visited france, england with

whom we have -- we were told a common language. [laughter] we visited all these countries, but here's russia i don't know the all of fa bet. i recognize a couple of them. some look like the letter pi. it's a different alphabet. when we started talking about space, there was a bond there that i did not share with any other community around the world. even though we were sworn enemies during the cold war, we alone embarked on that grandest of adventures to explore space. there was a come rod i are of kin shim even though we didn't speak the same language. i felt it. it was deep. it was in the culture. it was in the timber of the

interaction. i'll never forget the feeling i had being in their presence. and in the gift shop, where the trinkets that are inspired by space achievements. one of my cherished possession in my office it might be in one of the youtube tours of the officer if you stumbling on it. is a set of dolls. normally what do you find on this? a sequence of heads of state. or people you don't recognize. all right. this set of dolls had russian spacecraft. the biggest of which the international space station their our partners and the littlest of which? sputnik, of course, the cutest little -- he's so cute! somebody said, i'm tired of looking at gorbachev's face, give me technology. give me the frontier of space.

and brussels we meet a coordinative set of the european union representative because they're getting together through explore space together and embark on space trips together. one of the issue was we were perfecting the gps. yes, it was a military-funded project. once it became part of our commerce, then it -- the ownership in a way kind of shifted from the military to the public. all right. our lanes are equipped with gps, gps sever, they can fly their way around the world. europe was planning a competing system to the gps system called gal lay ya. it's extremely expensive. to do this. we're there and -- remember this is the aerospace commission, we said you can use or gps. what's the matter? we want to build our own.

our worry was that if they built it, they will require everyone of our airplanes to be equipped with their receivers, upping the cost of equipping all of our airplane which was already in a bad economic state. so we're at the table, and i remember the guy sitting across from me, i was kind of smug, because we were saying we want use to use this. they were doing it on their own. we were almost begging actually, because we had economic issues that we had to protect. and this guy was kind of smug there. and i think his chair might have been a little higher than mine, you know. sometimes people do that, you know. and i had an epiphany that moment. i said to myself, i am angry. i am pissed off.

not because the guy was smug because here is an industry, here is an enterprise that we and the russians pioneered and we're sitting at the table bargaining as though it's soybeans. as though it's some kind of trade regulation that we have to resolve. and i said, i'm not -- i don't have experience in this state of mind as an american. certainly not with regard to technology. we grew up in a time when america lead the world in technology. and when you lead the world, you never find yourself at the bargaining table. begging for somebody to -- no! your so far ahead of the world. they don't know how to sit at the same table with you. that's the america i grew up in. and for me to bear witness to

this exchange, i was angry with america. because we had lost our way. we were coasting on the investments of previous generation. coasting, when you coast you eventually slow down. and stop you can coast for awhile, and you think everything is going well, because there's still the time delay between innovations at one open pick and when they row veal themselves economically in another. i was angry. meanwhile i come back to america, and i try to share some of the idea with people and everyone is talking about the sat earn sought earn vi. i love it. i have a tie which i didn't wear today. i wore a different tie today.

that's okay. six of you like my tie. that's fine. i have about 100 ties. this is just one. [laughter] any time people talked about space, they kept referencing the "golden era of space" i don't have a problem with that except another rebel story observation come upon me. have you ever seen the five up close there's four of one. one standing vertically at huntsville alabama. where it was invent,ed. they have two. how greedy. one is standing vertically. another one is in captivity in a museum space where each segment was is an actual rocket part to segments would have been flown if we would have continuing making it beyond apollo 17.

you have the rocket with pieces separated so you can stand between them and observe them. there's two in huntsman, one in florida, one in-house ton. i-- houston, i think that's a teat of four. someone in the audience agrees. so you go visit these rockets an it just can't believe it. you look at one of the engine nossels out of the five at the base, and engine big enough to have a tea party for five. in a single nossel, and you walk the length of it is 33 stories long and tall. you see the tiny capsule at the top where the three stawnts were. there is a famous rocket equation man test large. it fells you for every sort of little bit of payload you put u up, you need that much more fuel to launch the fuel that you

haven't burned yet. okay. so this rapidly runs away from you and your spaceships have to exexponentially large depending on the size of the payload. that's why the [inaudible] why am i kneeling in front of the rocket? it's the first rocket ever to leave lower orbit and go someplace. and we did it in how many times? eight times. is that right? do i have a count right. apollo 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, . >> we did it nine times.

apollo 10 went to the moon dissented toward lunar surface and back down. if you were that astronaut, i would said houston i can't hear you. [laughter] no, your breaking up! okay. we have to land. so where was i before i interrupted myself? we're kneeling in frocht of the first spaceship to take people out of lower orbit and go somewhere. i said, well, is there any piece of technology you can name where you are kneeling in front of the first version of it? wondering how they did? the first cell phone?

[laughter] you say, wow, look at that. i wonder how they did that. the first television, it's a little circle this big. the first computer was half the sides of this room. you say, put it in a museum. i don't want to do that. every form of technology there ever was as the decades move on the first version of it looks more and more quaint until you dust it off and put it in a corner of museum and forget about. we are still cherishing the rocketed. a rocket that is 40 years old. 45 years old. so i knew something else was wrong with america. if you keep praising the first of something and it meant nothing came after it. more evidence that we stopped dreams. we stopped exploring. so what happens?

the apollo era ends 1972 within apollo 17 the last of the apollo missions to the moon. by the way, if science mattered to nasa, how many scientists would have gone? we would have put a scientist on ever mission, wouldn't we have? we didn't. one scientist wept to the moon. harris smiths. jack schmidt. that was the last mission to the moon. and -- let's not kid ourself. kennedy's speech may 25, 1961, six weeks after they had done in to orbit and come back safely. we didn't have a vehicle that wouldn't kill one of the astronauts going in to orbit, john john f kennedy stands up in the second state of the union dress of that year, may 25, 1961, and utter the words we will put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth.

we collectively have cleansed our memory of that era and that speech. in the cleansing we think of kennedy as a visionary. as a chazmatic leader who dreams of space like the rest of us. and some of that rhetoric around that part of the speech, he talks about exploring space, and the value of that to mankind. it was okay to say mankind. it was 1961. so go two paragraphs earlier in the same speech. what does he say there? how about that? i'll tell you. florida kennedy space center there's a statute of him. there's a wall behind him, they have the expert of the speech. we will put a man on the moon -- it's right there.

two paragraphs earlier if the events of recent weeks -- he's indirectly referencing gairn. are any indication of the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, that we must show the world the path of freedom over the path of tirn any. it was a battle cry against communism. that's war driver that lead to the check writing that created the nasa centers. an garnered the fraction of the federal budget get together moon required. why isn't that part of the speech on the granite wall at kennedy space center? plenty of room there. i checked. [laughter] you even summarize it and say kill the come anies. go to the moon. i would sit -- it would fit just

fine. [applause] that's part of the delusional thinking that goes on. when we stopped going to the moon, upon learning essentially that russia has not getting to the moon. rush ha is not going to get there. they stopped their program. by the way, russia beat us in practically ever space achievement until then. first satellite, first living thing in orbit, first human in orbit, first black person in orbit. cuba was friends with soviet union. first space docking, first space station. go down the list. in fact, how else do we remember ourselves back then? as space pioneers? no. practically every decision we made regarding space was in reaction toking?

the soviet union did or in reaction they said they were going to do. we didn't lead any of those achievements. we trailed them. another delusional point from that era. so now we stop going to the moon space enthuse yis say we need another leader here and now to continue this. mars is in reach. let keep going to mars. no! there's no reason to go to mars because russia is not going to mars. so the whole program ends. it just ends. and people looking for things to blame other than the fact that the soviet union did not commit to the moon. it's that simple. really i promise. let's go forward a little further.

199, july to, the step of the space museum in washington, d.c. george herbert walker bush president of the united states uses the ass pushes moment to stand blay greatest museum on effort the new museum of national air and space museum on the 20th anniversary of the apollo landing we will build a stays station and colony on the moon and go on to mars. we wanted to give a kennedy speech. he took the glowing rhetoric apart. he referenced columbus and the discovery in the genes as humans and americans. he went down that path? that delusional path. he went down and so he says

let's do this. it'll take 30 years but to do this. they costed out the plan, half a trillion dollars. it was doa in commerce. he an auspicious occasion. he department have the characteristic. it has nothing do with that. what happened in 1989? peace broke out in europe. that's what happened in 1989! you want to do a half a trillion project and you're not at war? who are you kidding? what he was missing was not kennedy's charisma. that may be true.

that's not what entire feared with anybody and his plan. not only that nasa's budget and dollars, so you can compare it accurately was $17 billion a year. multiply that by thirty years, you have a half a trillion dollars. the half of trillion was already in the flow of money in to nasa. so to say we can't afford it. that's a lie. that's how many money you going to give nasa in thirty years anyway. so there's all this lusciousal thinking going on out there. the original title of this book submitted to the publishers was "failure to launch" the dreams and delusciouses of space enthusists.

they said no, that's too dressing. we can't have the word failure in the title. that would be bad. let me try to wrop up. i'm ranting. in the decade of the '60s, that was arguably the most turbulent decade in american history since the civil war. there was a cold war, a hot war, we were losing 100 service men a week. we had been southeast asia, vietnam, of course, there were assassination. the civil rights movement was unfolding weekly on the even news. campus unrest.

protests. students/people getting arrested. the one shining beacon of the decade was apollo four. apollo viii the first mission to leave did a figure eight loop around the moon, coming around the backside of the moon, one of the restaurants picked up the camera so the beautiful lunar landscape. pulled it up to take a photograph and there arose earth. earth as never before seen by human eyes. that picture called earth rise was one of the most recognized pictures there ever was. earth rise.

relative to earth, the moon doesn't rotate, it always shows a face toward us. which means thatth is always in the sky from the near side of the moon. earth doesn't rise on the moon. it's either never there or always there. people think that earth rises on the -- they're moving around the. it's supposed to connell up. all right. what else happened in the 1960s? people dreamed about tomorrow. you didn't have to go along folks old enough in here to remember. you go a week at most. an article in life magazine, look, magazine, "time" magazine talking about the city of tomorrow, the home of tomorrow. transportation of tomorrow.

no we never got the flying cars. okay, i'm an i are about that. nonetheless, we were dreaming and imagining a storm and who would enable that tomorrow? but scientists and technologists and engineers. they are the enablers of tomorrow's dreams. that was understood in the decade. we actually had it an innovation decade. what do you think the world's fair was about? right? it was about tomorrow. 1964 we're on the way to the moon in 1964, the gem nigh program is testing moon voyage. one -- 1964 all about tomorrow. the unit sphere that's a not just a globe of the earth. if has three rings around it. why do you think they got that

idea? three orbits around the earth. space was inspiring a nation to dream about tomorrow who inspiring innovation. steve jobs and bill gateses were a 13 and 14 -- i have it rein written here. 13 and 1 when we landed on the moon. i submit to you that inspite of the moon voyage being driven with military motives, that the return on that investment is huge economically. and i'm not talking about spin-offs, i could. but i'm not. we love spin-offs, okay. there's great spin-offs from nasa. among them is the capacity to perform lay lazer surgery.

it's expensive and didn't always work. it predates nasa. the laser guidance that enabled the space shuttle to dock with a space station accurately without dumping in and having to try it four times. how many people here had that surgery? one person in the whole place has the surgery? [laughter] and she's not wearing glasses. and, you know, of course tang predates nasa. it became a beverage of choice for them to this day, i know not why. [laughter] the point is, you know, and if you are in to spin-offs, every year every couple of years nasa comes off with a spin off book. each product that was pat tented because of space motivation that

became a product is the stride here in every one of the volume. this is twoin. i think there has been some since then. it's beautiful lo composed and written. an interesting one, terrorist an there's solutions that enable people to hear. nasa figured out it's a good thing to do. now you might say why didn't anybody else think about it? they were not not -- motivated to do so. ..

inspired by it space technologies, and you would wake up a technological pauper. in a deep state of poverty, technological poverty was a bad eyesight to boot. and you go out and it rained upon because you would not have gotten an accurate weather forecast. i claim that this is not even the best reason to do it. and dare i say science has never caused any government to spend huge sums of money. a radar level below which we will pay for science, hubble telescope's arctic is that boundary. we can do that, but above that and depending upon the wealth of the nation determines how much

size they will agree to do. above that level, it takes multiple years to fund it and the czech rating agencies, the czech rating political entities, the interest to do it has to survive changes in political and fluctuations in the economy. that is why if i say let's go to mars so we can do science, if they're is a downturn in the economy the press goes to the unemployment line and the person says i can't feed my family, my house has been foreclosed. the reporter says, but we're going to mars. it doesn't play well. that is why only two drivers work. i don't want to dine and the i don't want to dry port driver. i climbed, the 1960's, not only

to nasa innovate because you have to innovate when the advance of frontier, we created for ourselves and innovation culture . steve jobs and bill gates did not end up working for nasa. they ended up innovating. it is the culture of innovation. you are inventing tomorrow. i now plan -- i'm almost done here. i now claim that nasa is an engine of motivation such as the world has never seen. not only do you benefit from the innovations of advancing a space frontier, if you advance the space frontier in a big way, written large across the headlines, we're going to mars, the backside of the moon, stop that asteroid, by the way, that

might be geopolitical reasons to go into space. another point to debate that. there could be the future careers to reasons, scientific reasons, there could be exploited reasons for going into space, you want to mine the moon i assert that if you create a healthy space platform where you strap rockets as whenever you need for the task and, you don't make a destination driven state -- space program. i'm not going to say, let's go to mars. then what? laying out the in a state system in the united states you don't say, let's only go to l.a. that's not how you do it. you put roads everywhere, andano go and when they want to go for whatever reasons they come up with. for me, help the space program is one that can choose to go anywhere. military reasons, economic

reasons, whatever reasons that confronts us. all right. so, now, when you innovate and it is written large you have a grand epic adventures that echoed through the educational pipelined. how am i to do it? i stand up in front of an eighth grade class. who wants to be an aerospace engineer. you can design a plan that is 10% more fuel-efficient than the one your parents flew. that is one scenario. who wants to be an aerospace engineer so that you can design an airplane that can navigate the rarified atmosphere of mars. i'm going to be getting the best students in class. not everybody cares about fuel efficiency. we want them to, but that is not

how you get smart people to express their smart. we tell ourselves we live in a free country. a smart person is interested in whatever they're interested in and out to the will to do that because when they do everybody benefits. all this talk, why get advances, this roundabout way. let's put money directly where the problem is. no. it does not work that way. walk into a hospital. make a list of every machine in that hospital with an on offs which. every machine that has been brought into the service of diagnosing the condition of your body without cutting you open. you will learn that every one of those machines is based on the principle of physics discovered by a physicist who had no interest in madison. right on back to x-rays themselves.

the very first nobel prize in physics went to him. that nobel prize was not in physiology, it was in physics. it is physiological applications that are manifest immediately, of course. i see my bones on the photographic plate. take it over to the hospital. go for it. i want to get the next thing going in my lap. so you need medical technologists to create this machine, cross pollination of disciplines. the entire radiology department of the hospital is based on nuclear physics. the magnetic resonance imager, probably the most useful machine in the hospital today is based on a principle called nuclear magnetic resonance. the other in word, nuclear. so there remove it from the hospital the vice because it spokespeople.

kate into this nuclear machine. this magnetic resonance imager. i'm fine. okay. based on the principle discovered by a physicist who happens to be my college physics professor. he was doing astrophysics concerning himself with the behavior of atomic nuclei in the interstellar space. you want to fund all the frontiers of science. how're you going to motivate that? when you go into space everybody knows about it. kids in the eighth grade class, has anyone ever stood up and said, when i grow up by want to be in nsf researcher. i've never seen that. i'm sorry. the effort of nasa. so has the rest of the world.

i see a healthy nasa. double the budget. double it. right now it is a half a penny on your tax dollar. did you know that? 100 percent of everyone who tells me, why are we spending money up there and not down here? chris spending too much. 100 percent of them did not know that nasa's budget is not have -- half of 1 percent of their tax dollar. you can take a dollar bill and kept horizontal one-half of 1 percent of the. it doesn't even get you into the meat. [applause] so double. then we could go to mars in a big way. yes. we can check that asteroid that as us and our site. we can go back to the moon and put a colony on the moon just

because gingrich's republican does not mean he does not have an okay idea about this. what might be the motivation, it could be economic. whatever is the reason. if you are advancing a frontier you innovate, and when you innovate you invent things. right now american is sliding backwards. the rest of the world is passing a spy. jobs going overseas. not enough scientists and the pipeline. everyone's to put a band-aid on the problem. let's gives -- let's give tax incentives of the companies will want to keep their jobs here. we need more scientists. let's make better science teachers. okay. all these bandits going around. if we double the budget we

resurrect the innovation cultured that prevailed 40 years ago. nobody today is thinking about tomorrow. nobody is thinking about a world fair. i don't remember the last time i saw an article dreaming about the city of tomorrow. they all ended. you know when? after we stopped going to the moon. so i submit that the healthy nasa is a healthier america. that to -- as nasa's future goes, so too does that of america. and if nafta -- if nasa is healthy then you don't need a program to convince people that science and engineering is good to do because they will see it written large on the paper. there will be calls for engineers to help us go ice fishing on your robo were there is an ocean of water that has been liquid for billions of

years. we are going to dig through the soils of mars and look for ice. that will give me the best biologists. the nasa portfolio, biology, chemistry, physics. aerospace engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, all of the stem fields, science, technology, engineering, math represented in the portfolio. house in at the pumps that. it is a fly wheel that society taxes for innovation. i don't know of another force of nature as powerful. and in the next generation we go in because we need to still our economy. that's one of the big reasons in the nation has ever done anything. and not so even as to say let's do it for science. science will piggyback it. we have done that forever does

he pay for that deutsche? had other motivations. i have one last thing. where did ago? this book came out two weeks ago . thank you. thank you. [applause] politics and economics. the interest is crossed over and out of the circle of space enthusiasts and has gotten the interest of economists and politicians.

i'm enchanted by this. so the first chapter of this was exited for cover story, the case for space . this lands in the lap of every single congressman in washington so within one week of this book being released and this article appearing qaeda phone call i get a phone call that said we want you to testify in front of the senate. now, generally i don't like speaking directly to politicians . no. i don't mean in any insulting way. what i mean by that is, i'm an educator, a scientist, and it is my preference to speak to the electorate, to highlight, to inform, to educate, to eliminate

and in that way you choose their representatives that you can in the best interest of your community. for me to go straight to a politician who is representing a million people or an entire state, i'm not comfortable doing that. so i testified. it's now on youtube. my testimony, six minutes of testimony. i said, you know, i don't know if anybody is listening. it ended up on youtube. in the past week it has 200,000 use. and so i realized, and some of the comments are very moving. people said they almost started crying because i am appealing to -- i'm appealing for all of us to dream about tomorrow again, and i don't know another force that will enable that, but the pathway that i just described. so i would like to believe that we are tapping something deep

within us all that wants to -- once tomorrow to come again and will certainly enjoy the economic benefits that come from a because it shifts our vision from worrying about where your jobs are to creating the jobs that issue forth from innovations, jobs that are high-level jobs that are so innovative they cannot go overseas because they have not figured out how to do it yet. that is the state of the country i want. [applause] [laughter] i'd just like messing with the sound people. [laughter] sorry. actually, can i have a little more volume. the sound guy over there. a little more.

more. more. more. thank you. this is the only part of the book come going to read verbatim, and i will end with this. i wrote this in the spring of 2008. dear nasa happy birthday. perhaps he did not know, we are the same age. in the first week of october october 1958 you were born of the national aeronautics and space act as a civilian space agency while i was born of my mother in the east bronx. [applause] so, the year-long celebration of our golden anniversaries which began the day after rebel turned 49 provides me a unique occasion to reflect on our past, present,

and future. i was three years old when john glenn first orbited the earth. i was eight when we lost astronauts in the tragic fire of the apollo 01 capsule on the launchpad. i was ten when he landed armstrong and aldrin on the moon , and i was 14 when you stop going to the moon altogether. over that time was excited for you and america, but the vicarious thrill of the journey so prevalent in the hearts and minds of others was absent from my emotions. i was obviously too young to be an astronaut, but i also knew that my skin color is much too dark for you to picture me as part of that epic adventure. not only that, even though you are a civilian agency, your most

celebrated astronauts for military pilots at a time when war was becoming less and less popular. during the 1960's the civil rights movement was more real to me then it surely was to you. in fact, it took a directive from vice-president johnson 1963 to force you to hire black engineers at your prestigious marshall space flight center in huntsville, alabama. i found the correspondents in your archives. do you remember? james webb, then head of nasa, wrote to german rocket pioneer who headed the center and was the chief engineer of the entire manned space program. the letter boldly in bluntly directs them to address the lack of equal employment opportunities for new gross. and to collaborate with the area colleges, alabama, and them, and to speak to identify, train, and recruit qualified negro

engineers into the nasa canceled family. in 1964 uni had not yet turned six when i saw pictures outside the newly built apartment complex of our choice in the riverdale section of the bronx. they were protesting to prevent the growth families, mine included, for moving there. i'm glad their efforts failed. these buildings were called, perhaps prophetically, the sky view apartments. on whose roof 22 stories above the bronx i would later train my telescope on the universe. my father was active in the civil rights movement working under the new york city mayor to create job opportunities for youth in the ghetto as the inner-city was called back and. year after year the forces operating against this effort were huge. poor schools, the resources,

abject racism, assessment leaders. but you were celebrating your monthly advances in space exploration, mercury, gemini i, apollo, was watching american to all it could to marginalize who i was and what i wanted to become an life. i look to you for guidance, for a vision statement that i could adopt, fuel my ambitions, but you were not there for me. of course i should not blame you for society's roads. your conduct was a symptom of america's habits, not a cause. i knew this. but you should nonetheless know that among my colleagues i am the only one of my generation who became an astrophysicist in spite of your achievements in space rather than because of them. for my inspiration i instead turned to the libraries, remanded books of the cosmos from bookstores, my rooftop telescope, and it the hayden

planetarium. after some fits and starts to my years in school were becoming an astrophysicist seemed at times to be the path the most resistance, i became a professional scientist. i became an astrophysicist. over the decades that followed me, yes, long way, including most recently a presidential initiated congressionally endorsed mission statement that finally gets us back out of world -- orbitz. orbitz does not recognize that route -- value of this adventure to our nation's future and soon will as the rest of the developed and developing world as a spy in every measure of technological and economic strength not only that, today you have much more quickly america, former senior level managers to the most decorated astronauts. congratulations. you now belong to the entire citizenry.

examples of this abound, but i especially remember in 2004 when the public took ownership of the hubble telescope, the most beloved unmanned mission. they all spoke loudly from ultimately reversing the threat that the telescope might not be serviced to extend its life another decade. transcending images of the cosmos have spoken to gasol, as did the personal profiles of the space shuttle astronauts who deployed in service at the telescope and the scientists who benefited from its data stream. not only that, i have even joined the ranks of your most trusted to. i served dutifully on your advisory council coming to recognize that when you're at your best nothing in this world can inspire the dreams of the nation the way you can. streams carried by a river of ambitious students eager to become scientists, engineers,

and technologists in the service of the greatest quest they're ever was. yet come to represent a fundamental part of america's identity, not only to itself, but to the world. so, now that we have both turned 49 and we are well into our 50th orbit around the sun, i want you to know that i feel your pains and share your choice . i look forward to seeing you back on the moon, but don't stop there. mars beckons, as to destinations beyond. birthday body -- [laughter] even if i have not always been, i am now your humble servant. thank you. [applause]

[applause] [applause] [applause] >> and so we ran a little long. i'm sorry, but i want to devote some time to your questions. we have a microphone right at the front of the child, and i welcome comments about anything or everything that has been bugging you were reading you , critical or supportive. yes. let's start here. >> you are talking about education once people get more

involved in the space program, engineering and sciences, but there seems to be a move in this country to suppress education. state legislatures saying that education is not an m desmond in the future, but some sort of program for welfare and cutting back education aid at the same time universities are cutting engineering and science because they're more expensive. a possible presidential candidate who says going to college is only for snobs and the only thing you learn there is to be brainwashed by liberal professors. in new jersey you have a governor who is taking apart teachers -- >> i think we get the point. [laughter] >> new jersey, but he is cutting back education and using the money to give tax benefits to billionaires'. what is going on and what can we do about this and why is this happening? you would think that people would be looking for the future, not trying to destroy it. >> that's why i try not to speak to politicians.

[applause] you heard the question. there is a movement that is anti intellectual. >> anti education. >> and anti education, which is even worse, worse for the fate of the nation whose economic health and security depend on innovation that could derive from being educated. and so my sense of this is, what we need to do is to compel the nation itself to want to become educated, to want to go into space, to recognize that there is economic value to that exercise. and once it becomes part of what we want for ourselves it is then a fundamental part and to mention of who our elected officials are. we don't have to wait from one official to the next to see who has an education idea. it's our idea. of give you an example. what would you do if you were

head of nasa? i don't want to be head of nasa. you know why? because he reports to the president, and the president hansen the budget and that is what he has to spend. i kind of like the fact if i'm not in the command chain to the president, if i'm just a citizen , that means the president works for me. and under those conditions -- [applause] -- you can motivate. under those conditions you motivate the electorate to demand that which is in the best interest of this nation and to the extent that we fail at that, our leaders were fail. it's that simple. >> how did you get past this well-paid propaganda that is anti education? you just can't get news coverage >> i am happy to say that the 42 videos of me, one of them that when a barrel in the last few days with 2 million views that is celebrating what it is to know about space.

this is a measure of the appetite that people have for this adventure. .. remains to be fully served p.m. i'm a piece of that puss l. there are ores throughout in the u.k., he's more popular in the u.k. than carol ever was here in america. there is, in fact, hope for the

world. and it's represented by the -- not by the elected officials, in my humble opinion. >> good evening. the way i see it, you know, -- [inaudible] the 20th century blocks to america and russia as the spacex mother ration is concerned. when i looked at the international space station, i see that -- [inaudible] international level. you talked a lot about war and economic being motivation for countries to do it alone. [inaudible] globally where china, india, jarp, russia, america we come together to do something, you know, a grand version so to speak. stay despite being a very big skeptic of u.n. and how the international system functions. >> okay. >> is there some hope for us. >> a couple of things.

the international space station is the greatest collaboration of nations other than the waging of war. in erm it is of the size, the scale, the investment, the number of nations that participate, so it is quite a model for the cooperation of space as we go forward. but i'm reminded of the scene in the film "2010" when was the sequel to "2001". they try to find life in jupiter it's during the cold war. there's a cold war incident at the embassy or ally country, and it gets ugly and nuclear weapons, the silos are opened. all right. and it gets so bad, they have to empty each other's embassy from the respective country. and up comes the phone call from uptar, the russians have to leaf the american ship and the

americans have to leave the rush shall russian ship because we're having problems on the earth. that's strew paid. you know how it happens. politickings are driving all of this. i like to believe that collaboration keeps nices at peace. since we're being driven in the idea rather than militaristically driven. everybody could have a piece of the pie and all the nations of the world some of which are in desperate need of greater need of an economic boost than we are. so i agree in the context of economic growth, it would be a boom to everyone. thank you. >> thank you. >> yes, sir? >> hi, doctor, i have a real estate question . >> real estate or realistic? >> real estate. i'm a new york city residence and so are you? >> yes.

>> as it pertains to . >> i have no idea where the question is going. okay. [laughter] >> as it pertains to sea level rise, i feel more comfortable knowing that tyson is a coresident of new york city. >> so i can drab alongside you. [laughter] >> so if i were looking to buy an apartment right now, would you advise against a ground level apartment? what would you say i should be looking at for a money mum floor? >> i would advise that you -- [laughter] here's the problem. we now live in a culture, it's not the '60s in this regard. a disasterrer is impending, and the first thing people think of is "run"! or buy up the toilet paper! clear out the water from the

shelfs. the hurricane is coming. the tornado is coming, hide! if you're surrounded by scientist and engineers. that's not they're first reaction. their first reaction is how can i stop this? how can can i deflect it? how can i prevent it from happening again? so what i'd like to see is an investment in just pulling this out a geoengineering. there are people among us who want to tear form mars. that's a cool thought. turn mars in an o'way sis and question live there. you can control sea levels on earth if you can do that like it's a trivial homework problem for school. so i'm -- i try to not run away from problems. i see them as interesting challenges to solve. and so why not view this as an occasion to solve the problem of the melting icecaps rather than

to distract you're with what apartment to buy to avoid it? [laughter] [applause] , yes, sir? >> hell -- hello, dr.. you said one of the economic -- i was wondering for you could see corporations being at the forefront of spacex mother ration as opposed to the government of the world. >> that will never happen ever. [laughter] another delusciousal point they make in the book. all the people say let corporations do it. even gingrich while he's pandering as politicians do regionally to the space community of florida where you find kennedy space center, let's give corpgs up there and he was a rah. no. no. no. any time this is important, you will -- you're seeing it except

for the people lined up. if something is expensive, which spacex mirror ration is, if something is dangerous, if something has unmeasured risks, which space exploration is. can't be done by private enterprise you can't create a capital market evaluation of it. you can't -- i'm saying. the way it works is i'm looking for investors. what's my return on my investment? here's the risk, here's the cost, here's the rate of return. you cannot do that for something that expensive and that dangerous you have never done before but yo cannot get investors for that. you could never have gotten investors for that. columbus was paid by governments, he drew the maps, he found out where the trade

wind are. he found with the hostile doings are where he landed and the happy folks are. he found the wood supply to fix the boat. he goes back, the maps are understand, then comes the dutch trading company. the real roads across the country. somebody to acquire that land. it was called the government. somebody to figure out where the good indians were and the bad indians were. they had to figure out where the mountains and valley. it was started with thomas jefferson and lewis and clarks and other pee expeditions that out this. you draw the maps then private enterprise coming bhap role could likely prize enterprise play? we're the patent have already been granted and the risk are assessed and the danger understands. it would be lower orbit. nasa has been there and done that.

we can quantify the dangers. sure, nasa pay a private enterprise to take us the space station. i don't have a problem with that. let private enterprise take tourist in to orbit. i don't have a problem with that. let it happen. we live in a free market society. free market should go whenever an investment pays a return. if it includes face, let it be so. my read of history of human conduct it tells me it will never be the frontier of space. that will always need to be reserved for the wisdom of governments. thank you. [applause] yes? >> hi. two-part question based on my trip to huntsville -- [inaudible] is the [inaudible] the stuff they were talking about where they go whey can can go. that's awesome. what happened to the stuff

[inaudible] part two, that . >> stop dreaming. >> okay. part two my son will be 19 this month who is getting your book. he spent ten years mass physics, at it good at it. he wants to a matt teacher. that's not a bad thing. we're losing our best and brightest because that drive is gone. are we going to give up the whole generation. >> it's not good enough to have a better science teacher in the classroom because when a science teacher is gone because you move on to the next year, maybe a flame was light. something has to fan that flame. occasionally you have to reig hate to it. everybody who barbecue knows. if you move forward, there's a grand vision there it becomes self-driven. >> what do we do with the generation of kids who had their wind taken out of their sails. >> i wouldn't say wiped is out

of the sails. the rocket fuel is launch. it's a lost generation in that regard. that's the grim reality of it. there's no polite way to put it. so a lot of them -- but they are hireable. they won't be working in the fields in which they were trained. specifically in those fields which they had am bigs to work. that's the lost generation of americans in this 21st century. have a nice day. [laughter] okay. all right. yes? >> hi. i wanted to expound on your -- [inaudible] for [inaudible] it is an ak are anymore because what you said it might be a

driver to have actually not one out. >> yes. it's a defense project at that level. because once the inventory we find them the next one in denext is 1 her years. the funding goes way. would it not create spiboff? >> all of this great spin-offs. you get spin offs. i'm not arguing the spin-offs. there are always spin-offs but these are not the spin-offs i'm talking about. i'm talking about the effect on the culture where everybody wants to innovate whether or not they're in the space program. that's the real exik -- economic

driver. >> you don't think -- [inaudible] >> it will. it will. but through mass funding and we get a better measurement to thes a destroyed and we find out it's not going hit it up. the funding dry up after we landed on the moon. it's a wrong motivation to debt it going. it'll work. but it'll be a oneoff. i don't want to a oneoff. -- [inaudible] >> it is the problem is our data on asteroids are on time scales longer than the re-election time of our representatives. [applause] 88% of congress runs for re-election every two years. 88% of senators and cang on the block every two years. i say this it's going to come in 100 years, i'm not going there. it'll work when the time comes.

fine. but, you know, it might not work because if we don't do space defeat now and then it might be too late to start a new space program to make it happen. if we go extinct by ans us a we would would be the laughing stock of aliens in the space [laughter] they had a opposable thumbs and a space program? yet they went extinct! like the peabrained dinosaurs before them? they had an excuse. they didn't have a 0 poseable thumbs. we're running long. ly take a few more questions. i don't know if we will get to everybody. love the hands, by the way. >> my question is -- it seems to me that and ticks is what kind of drove the space competition between the united states or capital and competition between

the soviet union and communism. that doesn't seem to be -- that doesn't seem to be a need for -- [inaudible] there is no competition. >> okay. so today -- the question is back then we were in competition, for sure. of it a military contest. right now we have an economic competition going on with china. and i wouldn't quite say there's a military conflict there, but i can tell you this, i've actually fantasized about this getting back to the military driver. i wanted to go visit the head of states of china. and whisper to them, i need you to leak a memo -- don't have to be true. leak a memo that says you want to put military base on mars. [laughter] we'd be on mars mars in duoyears. do you know how juicy that would be in china? mars is already red.

to the market with that. you got that one! so competition does sort of collaboration is better than noncrab rating. if you see any other countries as the economic competitor, it may be greater incentive for you to not join with them and beat them. this is -- we should -- this is what humans do. we can be in denial. there are some of the greatest drivers. i try to be honest what it is to be human and get the job cone. yes? here's what i'll do. we'll end the line with who is standing now, and i'm going give you sound byte answers and pretended i'm on john stewart. we'll get through you quickly and call it a night. go! >> short -- by john stewart a

couple of days ago. my question is granted you are gather enough collective will to people to give the motivation economic driver to actually make this happen, get the budget going, something longer than the particular term of congress or a. what is the next step you mentioned that instead of focus on one-offs particular destination or killings asteroids to create a platform which we can do anything that we dream of at that time, what is your idea or what were you proposal be for that the pratt form. is a launch loop, a space elevators. >> i'm not going prescribe the next steps people take. that'll be a function of the creativity of the engineers and technologists of the day. maybe they want to a build a space elevators. that's a cheap we to get to the orbit. by the way, as you visit the space exhibit, there's a whole

section on the space elevators. beyond earth is the name of the dpibt. cure rated by my colleague. so you build a capacity of going anywhere and let scientists decide. i need to go here and there and geopolitics said we have to do this. military said we have to put a laser beam over here and the tourist folks said i want to visit them. it'll run it course. as long as you're advancing a strong -- frontier our economy gets happy. i have no preference. all of space is my preference. okay. >> thank you. i wanted to ask about [inaudible] i really don't think i could ever vote for gingrich, but . >> but. let just say remember yourself in new york city. >> let's say obama is like let's do it. got moon. what is the actual reality of the -- [inaudible]

could we do that? >> i think a moon colony is a little bit of ambitious. there's no air on the moon and there's no cattle, you know, there's no grass. so it's a little ambitious, i think. is it crazy? >> no. it's not crazy. it's not more crazy than queen isabel will saying columbus, find the edge of the earth. it's not more crazy than that. >> not having an atmosphere. >> that's sticking point right there. [laughter] but whenever columbus went, he could still breathe. these are challenges and maybe a moon colony won't pan out. there is always science on the moon. and the military views the moon as strategic place. is the new -- [inaudible] entire space between earth and the moon's orbit. there could be military reasons for doing that as well. i don't like war, but i

recognize that war is not a new conduct among nations and among people. so and just because people say,let make space, you know, [inaudible] if you're that committed why are we having wars down here. what are you saying? if you can manage not to have a war in space. why not manage that down here. we fail at that wadly. i'm giving no reason. i'm not hopeful to think there won't be space wars. i wish i could be hopeful. i don't have that much in human conduct. so maybe the colony's won't pan out there will be plenty of stuff to do in space. maybe a colony is place to go, as a one-week tour. >> what i want to do. >> we'll send you. okay. >> yes? >> [inaudible] where does spacex fit in this.

>> they are trying to make a vehicle of efficiency of enterprise to substitute for nasa's vehicles. >> are they going substitute for the fun that would have been frowght nasa. >> no what happens is nasa gets a budget. instead of having to spend more to send their own people. nay do it with private enterprise. the same way the postal service rents belly space on-air planes to move your mail. we presume when you go private enterprise they do it more efficiently and more intelligently. more reliably than what the government program would have done. that's the goal. and spacex founded by elon musk the writer of pal pay sold it to ebay for $1 billion and he was 32 or something. one of these space billionaires who loved space so much. he's trying to make the own spacecraft. >> yes? >> how would are you?

>> eight. that is so cool! [applause] [applause] is this passed your bedtime. it's past my bedtime. go on. >> [inaudible] i was wondering if -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> let the record show the 8-year-old wants to go to mar and no one else has question to ask that of themselves. i was wondering what it would take to me get me this. >> you the age right now of who we would -- in other words, when we go to mars, which i would like to think is in the next couple of decades you will become the age of the astronauts. i might be dead. you'll be just right. and so the people who want to go to mars is right for an 8-year-old. it's dangerous, you'll be a long

time away from home. so probably want to get take some video with you and some books, and nasa put a lot of effort in to makes the space journey very much feel at home. so you get to have an e-mail account and get to make phone calls and video calls with your friends, and nasa talks you to all the time, all right. it's a long voyage and still some challenges. there's radiation from the sun. we don't know how to shield you. i see those as engineers problems. we have lot of clever engineers. it's nine months to mars. you have to wait until earth and mars line back up in the orbit to come back. so that's couple of years. the whole round-trip is about three or four years. three or four years away from home. as long as you're okay with that. we'll send you to mars. go sign up!

[applause] thank you. yeah? >> she gives me hope. my question is how can we get our son and daughters who wrapped in technology that they do nothing else to innovate, create, or have a passion. they stay on facebook and ask for another telephone. [laughter] [laughter] >> so. the problem is not that they are looking down in their technology. the problem is that we are not engaged in a project that is grand enough to compel them to look up. that is the challenge. [laughter] [applause] can i give you an example? it's a quick -- i said i would be quick. hoim not being quick. do you know what tweet ups? in the twitter verse nasa did a launch you invite a certain people that are active on twitter. they are twitting everything and

so the twitter verse learns what's going on. i am one of the nasa launches gave a talk to the tweet community. you now what i said? this is the biggest test of my life. i want to be so compelling in my delivery to the audience they will not want to tweet because it will distract them from what i'm saying on the stage. and so i started speaking and i reserved my best stuff. it's going and nobody is look do you think at the device. because what was coming out from up here was a greater message than anything they could have possibly been doing on their smartphones. so, don't blame the technology, blame the actors. [applause] [applause] yeah? >> hi.

i have a philosophical question. would you rather die now or live forever? [laughter] i kind of, you know, bought in to the concept of a natural life. i mean, -- so i know policy fors like having the kind of debate. never believe that the option is available to a creative person are ever limited by the choices offered bay policy for. by a policy for. there's a lifeboat and certain amount of food for four but six people. do you throw them overboard otherwise everyone die. do you eat them? these choice, i'm saying maybe question invented a way to draw fish from the ocean. [laughter] we don't have to throw them overboard. i like solutions to problems

rather than the blunt a or b. and part of this is because we grew up in a multiple choice school system. sometimes answers exist where beyond the choices that you have thought up as the person who the exam. that is my unfulfilling answer to you. okay. [applause] >> okay. encode we don't have a hashtag for tonight's event so we don't get scractded by dwitter about it. the early observation about the politicians talking about a not tsh need to be antiscience and antieducation which wouldn't exist had they had their way. >> yeah. this is part of the hypocrisy of it all. the people who said they don't need the space program. i have the gp and the weather

channel. what do i need spend money on space for? you gate lot of this going on. yes, sir? >> oh. dr. tyson the big expense of space is getting on the surface of the peter. it's the big rocket which is really robo tool technology. they've been looking seriously at antigravity just like in the early hg wells [inaudible] from earth to the moon. yeah. >> good question. among the proportion research that's going on. it doesn't nos include antigravity. it's a remote notion with respect the laws of physics. and so you don't find people who are ready -- physics fliewbt to ready to devote their lives on antigravity. the people who tend to do antigravity are people who think that laws of physics only guidelines rather than laws.

and so these are the same community who would do perpetual motion. it violates laws of physic. okay. maybe you'll scweed but i'm confident you won't that i'm not going go about my way. so don't expect a lot of money to be devoted to antigravity device. there are other challenges propulsion. there's ion drives. we are behind. it is world world war ii propulsion technology. we are behind. it's embarrassing. i tweeted recently whab did i say? i said the state of the country now is that aye be embarrassed if an alien landed. i would be embarrassed to show them what the technology is. you want to sort of, you know, do a oneup manship o