a lot of these books have been interesting, i just read a few months ago, too. it's been helpful to kind of read about the american culture. ...

everyone had one of these and i kept mine you could probably sell them on ebay but i will not do that. i still have my little id that law - - id badge but this was little plastic thing for a high school kid that was enough to get me in. and with that space policy forum and then space the free market frontier and i got buzz aldrin to do a chapter my book the first human being to land on the moon and actually has a chapter in my book. i am a space geek from way back. so i also asked the question

when will we land on mars and frankly why haven't we yet? so what i will do in this talk is first i will get straight to the point that what made apollo possible because we are talking about how we were able to go to the moon. first of all technology at that point had developed to a point where we had to seriously think about it. before that science fiction writers the technology really wasn't there it was imaginative. had that time thanks to goddard who was working with germans and american industry but in the early 19 twenties

and then to go to the moon ha ha ha. with a fuel rocket launched in 1926 in march and the new york times that said ha ha it only went 44 feet what a crackpot. and when apollo was going to the moon they published an apology to the goddard space flight center. so at the time the americans were thinking of doing great things with the human capital and those who were thinking in an innovative way. they were not all from harvard but more regional schools if

you look at how nasa ran at the time so nobody had ever done this before so one big rocket goes to the moon. so the whole idea of the lunar orbit with a separate lunar vehicle. you cannot rendezvous in the lunar orbit, can we? but with a very innovative imaginative people. the soviet challenge was there

and then that shook up the americans in 1961 and jfk. he was reluctant really it was lyndon johnson that i don't like politically for anything but johnson pushed and then to sign on to that. if you want stuff done you have to become a communist country. and then the capitalist system can do better and then you have american industry at that time and that was important. and to spend those big bucks necessary to get us to the moon. not so - - nasa was not a bureaucracy was just being cobbled together in the late fifties by eisenhower like

langley still a lot of those folks who knew each other who said yes this is the bureaucratic thing but we will talk it over. so we will start with space and political i will go through this quickly but you will get the point a very brief history from the time of the moon landing to today. to have a permanent moon base

from 1981 and in the early eighties. course that didn't happen. it was supposed to be apollo 1819 and 20 and they already built the hardware for the mission it's a huge savings but not a humongous amount for them he went to the moon what's next and then to do that into skylab that's cheaper saturn five is a great big rocket every piece of that is thrown away except that final capsule surely we could do things cheaper with a reusable shuttle.

so then once it was operational the first flight was 1981 actually went up with the shuttle and jimmy carter but it was still continued to be built but then those government payloads have to go in government carriers a lot of private company said we should get into that. but then in the mean - - in the mid- eighties to go to approve the idea of the space station. after all it gives the shuttle a place to fly to a set of flying around in circles so we will build the space station.

it will only cost a billion dollars and be up there by the early 19 nineties. but not until the 2000's and then cost $100 billion. then the 20th anniversary of the first move landing one - - the moon landing finally mars is on the agenda. and it said $450 billion and this was $1989 and congress said no thanks. that did not go very far. now some programs continued through but bush junior was interesting. when i was writing public policy at the time after the columbia disaster, there was a whole thinking about what will we do in terms of the future

of space? we should go ahead we've been going around in circles for years why don't we commit ourselves to going back to the moon? we can prove we can do 50 years later like we did 50 years ago so that is the goal so that will be great but not so much. let's see if we can do that today again. and then obama said that's not such a great idea. but they kept the orion capsule in a different form but then politics was involved. another thing that came out what about mining asteroids? there are some very good private companies looking at mining the asteroid but nasa

decided they wanted to get into that business as well. then of course by the way obama canceled cancel - - constellation and then orion but then trump came in. what did he do? he said we really should go back to the moon. we should do that and then go on to mars. but he had a thing to go back and forth about it. he made one statement saying we should go to the moon then to mars and then a tweet that said we have been to the moon let's go to mars. than the nasa administrator said can you clarify? you said yes i guess we will go to the moon and then mars so he restarted the national space council that obama canceled he does have a genuine interest in space. this is hot off the press this was yesterday he met with buzz

aldrin who walked on the moon with that first walk and mike collins with a flight command module and during the ceremony he turned to the nasa administrator and said is there any way we can go to mars directly? why did he say that? part of the plan to go to the moon first we would do moon -based first then a lunar gateway. like a gas station going to mars which doesn't make any economic sense it just waste a lot of money. so here's the point he wants to go to mars. why not because since the first moon landing this is how government bureaucracies work

there's no way to get away from it give congressman people in their district and other priorities this is what happens when a government is involved they can put humans on the moon if they there were a lot of money at it but they cannot privatize that. so now looking at the private sector this is an interesting story whereas with space, let me do this. bureaucrats and airlines started as a civilian operation with the wright brothers and then the government operation which was military. but it was run by private people and the government helps but for example to carry the mail anyway so they contracted airmail out a set

of had government planes they just contracted that out to private providers one of those was charles lindbergh so in a sense the government was involved with aviation but this kind of way but for example if they wanted to build a military plane they would say we want a certain fuselage if you can build it to the specs. so again to do more of the contracting out. but to put up $25000 for the person who could fly across the atlantic it would have to be airmail charles lindbergh. the way civilian aviation was going finally the dc three came along in the 1930s to

make it commercially viable. space and rocket started private with goddard lindbergh incidentally was one of the people that funded goddard's later work in the 1930s. after world war ii for a number of reasons, civilian operation and military all became part of the government sector. and that was one of the problems and also in private providers said in the fifties or sixties we want to develop our own rocket that is the government purview and conestoga space services rocket was private and they went through hell to get approval for a launch and then we went through those reforms later. so that was a different story for civil aviation but

fortunately we had a space revolution over the last decade and then just to create an office of commercial space transportation. and with the space treaty on dutchess space treaty and then to go around to all the government agencies with one-stop shopping. you have a lot of private societies that were advocating to get the private sector involved but he created the x

prize the first ship that could fly above 50 miles into space carrying three people. and then the company was later taken over by richard branson who said in a couple of weeks he will be on his own private spaceship on suborbital flights you have the private sector folks getting very interested. with that commercial orbital transportation services. with nasa in the last decade has begun to contract out and work much closer with private companies and of course in the end it meant space x now carry

cargo to the international space station. and also jeff be so's with space x and elon musk. he may be more of the celebrity type although jeff has three working rocket designs. than the one that puts people into orbit and then the armstrong and that's what you could carry interplanetary to the moon or elsewhere. so this is very exciting. do you know robert bigelow? and in 2001 he invited a group of 15 or 20 space geeks here to las vegas and said he made

a billion dollars in his hotels and that i will spend half of that on private space stations and i want to make sure i don't run afoul. so we had two or three days to talk about how to do that and of course what he came up with was right up the road here in las vegas are these inflatable modules which he hopes to use as orbiting hotels honeymoon suites and i moon base and what is interesting he set up with these modules now there is a test module on the international space station if you can't beat them join them so nasa contracted out to end

up on the station is very exciting. so to talk about mars elon musk said famously i want to die on mars but not by landing their. [laughter] that is understandable it is his vision to go to mars he has been very innovative and before it was public so now the rocket canned soft land and then bring it down and reuse it again. that was something he pioneered of course and he is looking at building big rockets that is saturn five that can launch to a place like mars and i'm not just

saying the private sector but consider that some years back that a rocket has those cones on the bottom and at one point in the engineer said there is little crack about 6 inches right at the bottom what you want to do? nasa says we can't launch the thing we have to have a major study to see the implications with every agency this could take months of delay and cost a lot of money so he asked the engineer so what if we cut off the bottom 6-inch ring would that affect getting the rocket up there?

they said probably not it was his money so that's the point talk about private sector issue is that those who puts up the money and owns it can call the shots to make the decisions he will do his due diligence but that's the whole point of private entrepreneurs and i can tell you about that. so my prediction first of all and to get to mars probably would be a public-private sort of thing where just like it goes to space x if nasa will lead the way they will have to contract out to people like

elon musk because nasa is too bureaucratic to get things done in a nice clean way if they could just contract out and talk about a mission design and we will go to some questions and the one that i like best is the founder of the mars society. in the case for mars also has the case for space which up states the case for mars material. so as an actual rocket scientist and so when bush said we would like to go to mars and only cost $450 billion he said that can't be right you don't build the cattle salon - - the battle star galactica to do

that nasa is so political so to say there is a better way so look at that calculations he figured between 20 and $30 billion but here is the design it's very exciting. first of all one of the biggest expenses of flying in space is carrying your fuel. you have a spaceship and a rocket to get it out there every time you had payload you have to add more fuel but you add more weight so then you have to add more weight to add more fuel so that's a big problem to build a spaceship

and to have enough fuel to do that really becomes very expensive and with billions of dollars and battle star galactica so why not live off the land? we have carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if you go up in the unmanned lander before the human being takes off with hydrogen and a chemical laboratory you can convert the carbon dioxide mixing with the hydrogen to produce methane which can be used as rocket fuel the break that down into hydrogen again see get methane and oxygen rocket fuel meaning

you send the unmanned ship the laboratory and you create your returns on the planet waiting for you before you even get there. so now you have cut down your cost going to mars. by the way the first landing is unmanned and you rotate with the landings to create the fuel and those modules this is important you will stay for a year. one of the big expenses depending on which design it is that you go to mars and it takes six months at least to get there may be more you stay there for a week or two he did the flag in the footprints and get some samples and then rush

back for another six or seven months. so you say way not - - why not wait for the planets to come into alignment and stay for a year so you can do it that way? that will save you a lot of money as well. and then you are going there to explore so that's one of the reasons to the module on the planet before the humans get there but you see the point instead of the model of the moon and do it like this. the next two final thing is mars is a place that can have tara form but that there is water available, there has been a lot of work done by the mars society or other

organizations that actually not only do the scientific studies how to live on mars or the habitats the mars society has an arctic station that simulates a martian base with over 212 teams staying for months and that mock martian base in the arctic. one of the excuses for going back to the moon before the orbiting space station is that we need to practice going there so we can practice to the moon but right now they are doing in the arctic when the teams come out of their habitat they have to put on spacesuits everything to

simulate but even there the gravity is not as low as on the moon so that will be easier. so then the final thing this is mind blowing. we can transform ourselves potentially here is a thought to engineer the environment of laws to make it suitable for human biology or engineer human biology to make it suitable for the environment of mars. so we are learning a lot about bio hacking and some of that cutting-edge stuff concerns genetic engineering that can make us susceptible to radiation there has been some experiments on that but there are the things that you put in

your lungs that are rebreather's so when you put them in your lungs and basically you can run for an hour or two without ever getting winded this isn't science fiction anymore so one of the things that struck me is yes we want to tara for mars over centuries to give it that atmosphere so human beings can breathe but by that time we can engineer ourselves to be more compatible with the planet mars. anyway i don't have a good prediction when we get to mars because i showed you all of

the problems with the politics of it but with what's going on with the private sector increased interest i do think it's possible in the future in the next decade we could see real trips to the planet mars thank you for your attention and we have some time for a few questions please come up to the microphone for your questions. [applause] >> on behalf of the taxpayers i would not list richard branson in visionary billionaires and nothing is happening 15 year. >> to build a building stations come on we do that

with stadiums in baltimore. they can afford to build a stadium he can afford that himself. >> but my concern is with nasa spending billions of dollars we have seen more people getting in line atlantic certified once a spaceport it's almost they now they will all wanted to launch their own's base programs. we have a lot of capital falling into the community investments the first truly portable built by a rocket lab so do you see a danger in that as well? >> absolutely because i have done work in regulatory areas and you see the same thing for

you have the whole thing with amazon for quite love amazon. i use it all the time. but this comes from amazon that states have done this for decades if you just pay a ton of money but that's the problem estate financing. they are big-money losers and i heard the podcast.

>> so the question that i have is they didn't touch on a lot but is the radiation. but the ultimate goal he advocates very strongly for those missions that are purpose driven and first is the colonization of mars but even for mining asteroids. but i think the radiation problem is a problem for colonization. can you speak to that quick. >> it is a legitimate question. there is arguments about how much radiation astronauts will absorb going to mars. he does have some good statistics showing it's no

worse but there is good statistics he's argues is not a big problem to say this just will not be a problem but those that would be very damaging for us but it is a legitimate problem. and then to make them less susceptible to radiation. so you can imagine so then

maybe we can tweak the gene so they are not as susceptible to radiation. remember also a century or two project so now suddenly this isn't so far out if we are tweaking the genes. >> anybody working with the evil empire a.k.a. nasa so i was there during private spaceflight in the late nineties and nasa had discussions and we are forced to encourage people that they can never fly and deny licenses. they were deliberately trying to kill the investor class so

they would never invest in private spaceflight it can but one was a millionaire and did not care. so why didn't we continue to go to the moon cracks because the entire thing was for the soviet union so why do we keep doing it cracks we need to have a commercially viable reason to go to mars so we put survivor or the bachelor on mars. i'm only partially joking but we have to find a way to monetize otherwise you are asking the taxpayer to do it for whatever and that will not have mind - - that will not work nasa will suck the lifeblood out of it. >> i want to agree. one of the things that could come out is a joint thing but my preference is certainly that elon musk or jeff bezos who are competitors right now

get together to say let's do that ourselves. that is my preference in the more it goes in that direction the more likely we can go to mars for exactly those reasons you are saying. that's the why - - that's the reason i presented robert bigelow who is right up the road looks at how you monetize it. he wants to do this because he has a passion for it but what he wants to do is build infrastructure in orbit. you have to have your own batteries and so forth but what if he constructs infrastructure so you can plug into the grid? now you can monetize them before we said we cannot go over there because of these

reasons if all you have to do is put in the plug and do the thing then you are right about that. survivor on mars of course everybody saw the martian and that's a good movie. >> our society had the national conference in southern california in los angeles if anybody wants to learn more it is a good opportunity. you said you want to venture a prediction as to time the word you who will be first? nasca or elon musk or nasa or could humans be on mars under current regulations humans cannot even set foot on mars. >> first i would still probably bet on eli and hopefully going but not dying

i still bet on hi him. and frankly in my book it is a little dated there is a couple of articles on the space treaty. that is way below the ground anyway and if i get to that point who will stop have you seen destination moon? go out and rent that. it is libertarian going to the moon and the funny thing is

that government regulators and then to stop the rocket from going to the moon because they don't have the proper licenses and requirements so they are running to the spaceship to launch it ahead of the government regulators. you have to see destination moon. but think of the pr if you have this guy or a team who has built a rocket and will go to mars who puts lots of money into it and then imagine a bunch of government officials saying you can't do this. that would be very interesting. which administration? certainly not the trump administration a matter what you think of him he wants to go to mars. he won't say lawyer geeks say we cannot set foot on that can you imagine his tweet the next day?

>> you haven't said anything about china or india don't they have plans to do something on the moon quick. >> thank you for that question i had to cut my slides down and i was going to say something about china and india. of course china landed on the far side and that is a technical feet and jack schmidt he was on apollo 17 and an actual geologist who taught the other astronauts were originally was on apollo 18 which was canceled. he argued that apollo 18 should go land on the far side of the moon to put up a communication satellite and was arguing that in 1979 than

the chinese did it. the chinese want to dominate the moon. and also the israeli probe is fascinating because it was privately funded they did do tracking that was funded by entrepreneurs and a private company and fortunately it crashed on the moon but it did get there and what is interesting if i could get buzz aldrin who has a chapter , he advocates the idea of you basically have a spaceship that goes out to the moon then gravity flings it back to the earth and then says that's a cheaper way to set up a cycler and then go up and meet it. he set up one for mars also.

that was a little more difficult but then to use that concept starting off in order - - in earth orbit and then finally slow down when it gets to the moon. there is a lot of innovative stuff it will become international thing and we will have competitors i don't know china can be big enough for you don't necessarily want the government. but jeff bezos is more likely to go to the moon to set up the base on the south pole and use the water. i hope he does do that. >> so with life on earth we have water is there enough water on mars quick.

>> very good question. all of the studies continue to show there is water not only at one of the polls and of course it evaporates with the seasons but you may have seen the photos taken from different times apart looking at a crater and you can see a stream is probably mud and / that is clearly a liquid of some sort carbon dioxide cannot exist as liquid that water can. so right now it looks as if it's possible we just don't know how much of it. >> one of the cool things about technology to look out to use scarce resources better so a lot of that recycling

stuff is a boondoggle that you could find ways to recycle water on the planet if it is that scares. initially you don't have billions of people on mars he would have enough anyway. >> as far away as it is from the sun is there enough 81 - - enough heat quick. >> if there is enough atmosphere yes it will not be tropical but most of the studies that i have seen like the mars society and other groups every year they have their conferences real scientists are doing studies and the ones i have seen indicate may be a cooler climate but it is survivable. right now the pressure on mars you cannot live there and

build up enough oxygen in the atmosphere so you can breeze so there will be a transition where people could go out because the pressure is okay maybe you have to have a mask and there will be a transition over time for that. >> so the picture of your daughter's cracks was one holding the size of a scale model these are not scale models. where are they? >> no. these are not to scale.

>> so the gravity of the moon is 16 moon is about one - - mars is about 30 percent not hopping around as buzz aldrin was doing. i have argued for years and earth day very quick question now. >> because that is part of my talk because of politics in the cost.

i think we should have a human achievement day. july 20th would be a good day for that because it celebrates one of the greatest human achievements in history. going to the moon so i would love to see every student trying to understand going to the moon by the way if you are interested the best book is charles murray apollo the race to the moon and i encourage if you are interested as individuals who put us there to read that book but it's great to have a human achievement day where we celebrate this sort of thing but ask how did we do it? so we are in las vegas right now it is 110 degrees outside i am very comfortable because

of air conditioning where does that come from? there is a guy named carrier 100 years ago invented that how and why? there is a whole fascinating story about that how did air-conditioning go for something used for a particular investor but everyone has it now? i would love to see a holiday in this country celebrating human achievement like the moon landing so we can all appreciate it to have our own moon landings and achievements for the future. thank you for coming i appreciate your attention. [applause]