classroom discussion of the variety of topics current and relevant today. >> if your middle school or high school teacher join fellow teachers across the nation as a member of c-span classroom. it's free and easy to register at c-span.org/classroom. you can request the free classroom size american presidents timeline poster. a display of all 45 presidents. >> now, astronomy professor chris, his book "beyond" is about the future of space exploration. we talked to him on the campus of the university of arizona, in tucson. >> host: we want to introduce you to chris in p, what to do here? >> guest: i'm associate dean and professor of astronomy.

>> host: how long have you been here? >> guest: thirty years. >> host: what is that entail? >> guest: i'm an administrator, teach online classes, over a hundred thousand and those so i keep my arm in teaching online. i do budgets and try to improve outreach for the college the various pigs. science literacy is a big concern of mine for science students and the general public. >> host: what did you get interested in astronomy? >> guest: a little late. there's always the little kids who had a telescope who traded them up for bigger and bigger. i grew up in big cities with no stars. i got in through physics. it's a gateway drug for strong me. you think wow i can apply physics to the universe and that's cool. that's how i did it. >> what's the connection between the university of arizona and

astronomy? >> were big astronomy department. were on the way out of making the word world's biggest telescope on a football stadium. it's a big business here. astronomy and optics and related industries are worth about one quarter of a billion dollars of year. we have a space nations in big telescopes and research. it is a buzzing place for astronomy. >> before we get into the book beyond future, can he go back to football field, was that about? >> guest: telescope building had reached a limit. was built around the second world war, it was not exceeded for decades.

so there was an obstacle because big mirrors are expensive and heavy and hard to move around and keep accurately shaped. one of my colleagues recently retired and invented a way of making nears large, thin, and very accurate. the trick, the secret is to put the glass blocks in an oven it's been the oven fast enough the liquid takes the shape and then that it cool and take it up. you have a mere that's really large, bigger than any mere made in the u.s. and half a century. >> host: was the connection to the football field? >> guest: at the time those who only place that was big enough space to do this. you need a lot of vertical and horizontal space. you just have to avoid game day. >> so it's under the angle of the stand. and the university was available space. >> host: why did it matter how

big of a telescope? >> guest: we're just greedy. you think 5 meters cert 10 meters should be big enough. were trying for 22 meters now. more gathering, more light lets you see further away. trying to look back toward the big bang and get as close to that as possible. you need bigger glass and bigger mirrors make sharper images. to see details you want to bigger mayor. everything is driving you in the direction of bigger glass. >> host: where these physical telescopes? >> guest: we have our own telescopes on five mountaintops around tucson. the very biggest one is in chile. the 22 and a half meter that were building is in chile. it's the darkest, driest, best place to observe in the world. >> host: you wrote in your book

that our dna tells the story of the profound human urge to explore. what is that mean? >> guest: while animals, whales, birds that might migrate large distances for food or mating, were the only creatures for the history of the planet that have traveled out of curiosity. when you go out of africa and migrated across the planet, it took a few thousand years ago from the bering strait to all the way to patagonia. that's a few hundred generations in the didn't have to. there were plenty of feud sources. i believe we spread across the planet out of the urgent desire to explore. we have explored the whole planet. there is even better gene identified the of the explore

gene which correlates with risk-taking behavior and adhd. things that might associate with being an explorer. it is built into us. when you have explored the earth you have to go up and out. >> in 1969 we landed on the moon. is that like looking at a horseless carriage today? or is that advance? >> it's an amazing achievement. there's a tension between the fact that their gallup another pulls seven to make 10% of americans didn't think we did it. even setting aside that so many americans were not alive when that happened. it is a dim cultural memory. on one hand to is most stunning technical achievement humans have ever achieved. hundreds of thousands of scientists and engineers, thousands of different companies, enormous amount of money dealing with computers ever so primitive to get to the

moon. it was th an extraordinary achievement. >> host: how does nasa fit in with all different aspects of potential states exploration? >> guest: mass is critical because it's the government space agency. they have had hard time. the budget sword during apollo and then retrenched as the vietnam war was starting up. you cannot afford to spend that much. but the budget has gone down in the last 20 years. nasa has to do more with less. things are expensive and technology is challenging. it's a very important space player, but now there are new players. probably three dozen private space companies. a few funded by billionaires and have other investors.

in the aggregate, these private space enterprises rival nasa's budget and will eventually exceeded. >> host: are they cooperating with each other? >> guest: with nasa, i think there's frustration on that that things are moving so slowly. the space shuttle was obsolete technology by the time it was retired. it is not loved universally. some of the private space companies wanted to do their own things. yvonne maas wants to reinvent rockets from the ground up. there was rivalry. but recently there's cooperation. first of all the private space companies to not have a good business model yet. so over time with spacex and several others have multibillion-dollar contracts with nasa to ship freight and eventually astronauts in orbit. that money is important to them

because nasa cannot put an american in space and hasn't been able to for six years. so there's rivalry and cooperation. also nasa is trying to be more noble. they're trying to encourage entrepreneurial outfits not at the level of spacex but student groups and small startups to put microsatellites up. masses trying to learn and roll with the time to be more entrepreneurial. >> host: you've mentioned that university of arizona has its own space program. >> guest: we have been entrusted by nasa twice to do everything except launch itself for space program. first the phoenix lander which went to the polar region.

>> host: beyond a future station what about the importance of asteroids? >> guest: asteroids come if you want to get the glitter in your eye, they are valuable commodities, a 500-meter asteroid happens to be coming near the earth that you could capture by altering its orbit has probably $2 trillion worth of precious metals at current market prices. in about the same amount of rare earth. so these are huge mineral resources that are out there and available. there is little practical problem of how you get them in a safe orbit without threatening the earth and then harvest that mother load at an economic level without destroying the market because you have so much of it. that is not discouraging people. >> maybe not five years or 1015 years from the there will be viable asteroid mining. >> host: is a time to retire the

space shuttle? >> guest: absolutely. it never lived up to promises. it was supposed to go up once a week and it never went out more than once a month in its history. the tiles were problem in two orbiters were lost. was devastating to the city space program each time it happened. it was long overdue to retire it. >> is an important international space station continue to orbit? >> guest: i think so but never scientific reason. the truth is scientists have not flocked to it. companies have not flocked to do microgravity research on drugs was heavily subsidized. so what has been is a demonstration that we can live and work in space. seventeen countries involved including our superpower is kind of an emblem and learning how to

do it. until you do it all the practical stuff it's electrical and plumbing and not very glamorous. it's important in that regard but very expensive. $120 billion and counting. >> the idea of the moon is about flow. that seems very disappointing to share sites in the near spot a half a century after we had been back. the moon is a very good as the space station is a good place to live and work in space just half a days drive. the moon is a very good place to learn how to move in itself self-sufficient economy. the soil is extremely soil and you can get a liter of oil out of a on the soil. you can trim the rock water into

rocket fuel. you can use it for plans to go there. if you want to learn how to live beyond their the moon is the best place to do it. also just a staging post for the rest of the solar system. >> in your book beyond her future in space where would you like to see us go. >> guest: the outer solar system takes longer and is more ambitious. some of the moons are so interesting. we have a europa clipper going to the waterworld around jupiter. it could be the next place where we can find life in the of. some of the other moons solar system and fascinating places. it's just multiyear more expensive proposition to go out there. >> host: is there life in your view beyond our earth? >> guest: beyond earth includes

a few hundred billion stars in our galaxy but typically can't stay for sure but i'm almost certain. the work on actual planets in this traffic system and the news has shown us their tens of billions of planets in habitable situations just in our own galaxy. the ads of billions of years i think that are very low. i believe there is life out there. >> host: what is the pipedream you have when it comes to space exploration? >> guest: obviously that i get to go. this bmi means i'm not great to be an astronaut. i would like to experience earth orbit. my pipedream for the all activities is to keep you on the

solar system with the stars. unknown systems are tens of thousands of times greater. so will need some technology, will probably need new fuel but we just need to do r&d. and heading to the stars would be an ordinary thing. >> host: is anyone doing that? >> guest: nasa's resuscitated visionary ideas which is to the nearest star system. they're now hosting conferences on propulsion systems and they stop doing it the medical research on how humans could be taken into away state for own medical reasons.

>> host: what is it about you that a hundred thousand students take your courses online. >> guest: to be honest a hundred thousand is a lot but not outrageous. you're tapping the whole world. my courses about the cutting edge of astronomy. so rather than marching through the subject the way i would with students at the university, and give them the good stuff. talk about xo planets and how we make huge beers mear mirrors. >> we have a good online discussion. it is a lot of fun teaching online. >> host: your book is a trait title. not an academic title. was that purposeful? >> guest: i have written a lot of technical articles in my crew. career. to be able to explain it is a

challenge and it makes you know your subject better. those are exotic abstract concepts and it challenges you to know your subject well and explain it to anyone. i like to challenge of a popular science book. science is important now so i am extra motivated to communicate to the public. >> host: we been talking with chris, his book is called "beyond our future in space". >> guest: think you. >> host: tomorrow on c-span to the museum hosted discussion about the trump administration with the press.

members of the press corps and press secretary will participate. that is at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. at 1130, five coverage of the canadian parliament first speech. the pakistani human rights advocate is the severed nobel peace prize winner. five coverage on c-span2, c-span.org, and on the c-span radio app. >> washington journals live every day with new some policy issues that impact too. coming up on wednesday morning, emily, writer for form policy discusses the trip by rex to listen to moscow on the future of u.s. russian relations. then, douglas discusses what republicans could face as they attempt to replace the repeal the affordable care act. editor of the nation, the key progressive priorities and how to achieve the in a gop control

government. the future of the supreme court, the conflict in syria. watch c-span's "washington journal", live at 7:00 a.m. wednesday morning. join the discussion. >> the los angeles times has been putting on the festival of books from other 20 years. it has become an institution that is part of the community. it's a way we can celebrate with the readers of the paper and with the city as a whole. the very notion of reading. today, when the idea of there being something called fake news is out there, i think books help us celebrate the way that words and facts are grounded in storytelling and in history.

>> in his book, amazing stories of the space age, rob tells true stories of lesser-known space missions by nasa and others. he recently spoke at a bookstore, this is one hour. >> thank you for joining us tonight. rod is author of the book is also the author of -- [inaudible] i'm happy to introduce him. he has been an assistant professor