so any thoughts on that? >> great question. the first thing i would say when you are thinking about >> t competitiveness is, it's a relatively new concept and rel certainly in washington and within policy circles. i think it's a term that we need to spend more time trying to understand what its components are. when policy makers think about this, if you roll back the clock a little bit, six or seven years ago it was competitiveness with india and china. that's where the tom freedman's of the world defined sense competitiveness. i think we're also competing amongst ourselves.g a because when you talk about federal investments and thinks and talk about changing the education system, really reall competitiveness -- when iy hearr that term, i think about the bot ability of families to improve themselves one generation over the other. and doing that very well iscomp

rest of the world. the biggest gains for this country in that field are around the issue of equity.equi when the biggest potential gains are getting people who are not within the s.t.e.m. pipeline into it, i think about that out being a huge advantage that we have as a country because we have a tradition of trying to broaden opportunity for all americans. the s.t.e.m. fields are -- if you believe that brain power ana capability are equally distributed across all differeny parts of our a society, then ret that's by far the biggest place to gain, because if you have role models that can inspire people from all different backgrounds, that's part of thew way -- how you will open up the pipeline. i think to get back to your peln first question aboute. competitiveness, i don't think we fully understand what being more competitive in the global economy actually means in termse of how do we measure it. that's a good place to start.

>> i think the competitiveness, it -- i'm not sure we all have the same definition of what it is.ce but certainly as we approach ly difficult technical problems and create new things, create new materials, create new processesw for dealing with harsh ng wit environments, you know, that brings us to have a skill that we didn't have before. and that allows you to push they state-of-the-art. that's one way to enhance competitiveness, assuming someone will want what you did.a i think the other thing about a program like this is that it forces us to think of ways to make things more cost-effective in a constrained environment. that by its nature is forcing a number of companies now to look at their manufacturing processes, their development processes differently. so it's forcing them to be more competitive. t as we talked about with s.t.e.m., having a mission like

this and the many steps it takes to make this mission toreal, iff do our jobs right and we provid that inspiration of what this is, that will draw people -- ne people into our companies.co you know, this next generation. and with that that enhances competitiveness of our companies by bringing a different mindset as ken said where we tend to have an eldere work force right now, infusing that with a numbe of large percentage of just out of college. that will change the face of tf many of these companies that doo very special things right now o and make them stronger for the future. >> i'd like to take it in a little different direction. the technology and manufacturing technologies and those kind of things that we have to solve in order to go do a mars mission will cause us all to be more competitive.hatetitive. one of the things that i have noticed within our industry is that now we are converging on

common goals here, it's amazing how far we have come over the last few years now that we're all talking about stepping stones and the kind of missionst that we need to do early to get to mars. buzz had great ideas there about predeploying contingency co capabilities and support so that he with can go do these missions unlike when myles mentioned some of the explorers in the part he didn't have that ability. one thing i have noticed in our industry is that because we have this common goal now that whilen we're still competitive, we aret workingil closely together. so it creates a different kind of competitiveness. then if you take that up to a global scale, we're not going to this mission just in the u.s. alone. this is going to be an in international mission, i fully l believe that, in my opinion.and so whenso you talk what we have realized here domestically and

in working together toward a common goal, i really believe that eventually we will have a , global common goal.ommon we're starting to see that through the global exploration road map and some of the thingsn that we'reg mapping out here wia national interests bringing their capabilities to the party here on how we get to mars.o and i think that in itself will create kind of a different nt competitiveness than we traditionally think of. >> thank you. i think we have a question over here. >> first i'd like to acknowledg. the person who asked a question before me. as i was an assistant at a loc presentation he gave at a local school in maryland recently.cena it was on mars. his room was packed withstandin room only.stan the first class was all female students. i andthought, this is a great trend. the second was it all male. but it was really nice mix of

both that were interested and md stayed and asked all kinds of is questions. it's about m maintaining that to inspiration. the second thing i would like tw say is that when we -- when yout had the apololo program and the whole country got excited, thate kind of passion is missing as we know. but i think we can incentivize by using -- just as the iss is a stepping stone to mars, i think sub orbitalone space tourism coh bein a stepping stone what it's like to be an astronaut and have more astronauts in our communite that are our neighbors. at the next researcher convention, there's a talk space tourism is the new education. it's an idea for fund-raising for college campuses so that you can create your own astronaut

varsity teams cross disciplinar and that you vote for and fund the people on your campus to go to space. you can tell middle school students and high school ool students, go to these universities that have these astronaut varsity programs. so they can start thinking about what college they want to go to. and then those astronauts who come back to campus can help inform the can a ruk lum, can help inform and communication that vision to other people faster because you have more people going on. the disincentive is the money. we need to help them -- that should not be the barrier. why not get inspired at 18 when you are in space? why wait until you are 50 and maybe can afford it? thanks. a >> thank you. >> i don't think that was a question. was it? over here. >> very fast, i want you guys to

speak to your audience on the internet and address this to the kids out there. why would they invest the time and the energy to do the things it would take to get into a at s.t.e.m. profession? >> great question.toon? i was just thinking about the audience of students and the classrooms that were watching this under the previous question. i do think there are an awful lot of packed classrooms when tk you talk about this particular topic. you know, there are a bunch of e different reasons why somebody would think about the s.t.e.m. fields as an opportunity. if i'm wearing my hat as a parent, i will tell you it's because that's where you will e get a good job and that's where you will get a great citizen.lle if i'm a wearing my entrepreneu hat, that's where you can make a name for yourself now because last time i checked, the best selling app was sold for $2 billion. that might take an afternoon's worth of work somewhere to so t

create that. that would be wonderful that that was my job. i would also say, if you are interested in where the future is going, that's also where the future is going. in the sense that, we do have a -- we have an interesting t te astronaut now. i was thinking about "gravity" while you were talking about t e example that sandra bullock has in the movie. th i think that people can see the role models more frequently thae they could five or six years ago in terms of seeing people using technology as being ideal. there are lots of images in ourr society that can promote that kind of awareness to kids.kind it's not just about getting a job or doing well. it's also about doing something that's interesting and fun, b which is what most kids are looking for.ut >> great answers.. a question over here. >> my question had more to do with international competitiveness and our own space industry.

in your opinion, when are we going to reach the point where y we're not as heavily reliant on a heritage system for space technology? when we reach that point, do yo? think it will make a huge different in the rate at which we're advancing in the direction that we take? >> i know i'm the moderator, i will take a quick stab at that. i think bill got that pretty right this morning earlier wheny they were talking.right th the fact is, going to mars is hard. mars is very expensive.e. so we need to put those dollars where we will gain the most out of them as far as knew technology that are required. so solar electric propulsion is one. the other piece that came up is going to mars is veryto risky. we have astronauts in orbit today. but they are minutes away from the earth's surface if we needed to get them home. it takes maybe a little bit

longer to jump in the spacecraft and come home. once they have do it, the deorbit burn, they are 60 minutes t from earth's surface.n building step wise, going about eight days away, it's probably d next good step. when we go to mars, you are months and months away from getting back home if something k fails and you don't have a you backup, an alternative.kup, understanding those systems is really, really critical. the other one that keeps coming up was basic chemical propuls n propulsion. it takes a lot of mass. it takes a lot to get us to mars. so looking into solar electric i propulsion i think is an area ea where we now can be very x competitive globally once we develop the technology.gy it has a lot of applications that are very widespread, more so than just helping us get humans to mars.

as a human, you probably don't want the human on that system at least not for the long journey,g because it's slow.of for all the other mass and stag staging ofin equipment and orbiters and landers, it's probably a great technology. >> i would just say adding to that, it's actually enabling foy some of the architectures that b we're talking about when you hit start looking at having the ability to take everything with you that you need, including contingencies, it's really, in really cludhard.tingenci the masses numbers just don't a up. so having th neu ability to pre-deploy things. that's what sep does for you, even though you send it way hae ahead of time, you can pre-deploy assets and contingency capabilities so thaa you don't have to necessarily ht takeo everything with you. i think that's really enabling for some of thed architectures we're talking about not the we'r mention the fact had a it opens up commercial opportunities.

>> i think the u.s. does have aa leadership position in some of these areas. if you look at mars, i think tha endeavor is so broad that to think that we would lead every part of it would -- it's probably not practical.t's i think we would look for those things that are most aligned with where the u.s. interests are. anybody who is a part ofst thisr going to end up with world leadership in some aspect of itf >> do you see us relying on u.s.-made rocket engines rather than russian rocket engines in the near future? >> at least for the next two weeks. >> my perspective is, is it a global world. so as you look at economics and the most efficient way to get n payloads into orbit, obviously the u.s., we have a combination

of rockets made right here in the u.s. some of the different engines are imported. i'm sure you're referring to the rd-180 issue with the tensions with russia.ssia. the flip side of that is what's going on on the space station where there's cosmonauts and sp astronauts together. near as i can tell, that's beet unaffected. if anything, a it helped stabils the relationships. >> if there's one thing about yt the iss that has been a tremendous success, it's our ability to work with international partners. that has worked out well. we need to leverage that going forward in terms of propulsion, i believe that down the road in the future, we will have a combination of foreign and u.s. provided engines.. >> the only group i'm a leader p of is metro washington mensa. a few years back i was -- as

part of the governor's work vern force investment board in stment maryland leading a committee in dealing with aco among other things getting people to come into tech fields, particularly in aerospace. some of the things i heard when i was part of the governor's work force investment board, young people -- we're not talki talking 10 orng 12-year-olds. we're talking about 19, 20, 22-year-olds are now starting tm avoid s.t.e.m. fields for reasons such as very poor work life balance and very poor uch management in their fields.their and also, this is the mensa n person in me coming out. of one of the things that has ecome become very popular in the high i.q. groups is, believe it or or not, home schooling, because wee don't like things like common ca core and we'rend getting bettere results teaching on our own than

we are seeing in our schools.cho would anyone carels to comment this? are youthis doing anything to b these kinds of problems to the a attentionen of the people currently in the fields? >> i will take that one. there's so many interesting dimensions to this. i think to your point about howi at any given time, s.t.e.m. education is not a mono lynch, h there's a constant back and forth of whether we have too many of this engineer, not enough of that scientist. healthy, we don't need more of all s.t.e.m. graduates. we don'tt train them the same. one of the skills sets that is e not part of the mix -- what you- do see in some fields is a s relatively high amount of tivelh turnover or leaving in the fieln by recent college graduates than thought they were going to do xo

y, z and find out it's not that. one of the ways in which you get at that challenge is making sure those kids -- the kids most commonly that don'ts.t.e.m. did mentorship experience, they didn't have an internship. the next best explanation is they didn't have training and teams that is how most companies work. very hardngs that arerk. to -- they're almost impossible to legislation. but they're harder to get at in a policy context because they're social skills. those are not things we can this expect standards or policies to address directly. but i think the way we address them is if you make the s.t.e.mf subjects a priority and hold ths people who run our schools acountab acountable, we will figure it out. going

>> by the way, you bring up a good point. this generation is different. i think all of our companies are trying to understand where they are coming from, about the work life balance, social media i think is key in how we work wita the generations.e the fact is, it's a different -- it's a much different world ou today than it was when buzz sitting here stepped fo eped fe moon, a country that had come h out of the depression. it's different now. i think we should expect different generations. thank you. last question. >> hello. i'm a sophomore at james madison high school. i was really enjoying the talk that's happened so far. one of the things you are mentioning is how parents are aware that there are these

opportunities in s.t.e.m. field- but the students not necessarily.rt certainly, i have a bunch of o e friends who are interested in f s.t.e.m. fields.them i'm one of them.i te i associatend with people like . that. i was wondering if there's take-aways that i could -- i could communicate, generate more interest in people that i might not necessarily be friends with who have -- are interested in s.t.e.m.? what can i tell them that can inspire them to then at least have the thought of then pursuing s.t.e.m. in college or in a summer program? >> i would say that -- if we're talking about an endeavor like this, going to mars, you can bet a part of something that is unique. you can leave your mark. you know? i mean, you can go work in a grocery store. you can do other things. work in a bank. if you are part of the space

program, you can be a part of something that changes humanity. you can be a part of something that generates a new product that no one ever dreamed of. that's the kind of things that are possible working in fields like with space or being a part of a mission like this is you can -- and you have the opportunity to work with a lot of other smart people who are motivated that way. i've had the benefit of doing that my whole career. and it has been the best experience of my left. >> one thing i would say -- i guess this is a closing comment since our session is coming to an end. i wonder -- i'm guessing that a lot of your colleagues in school are following things like this on social media. on i would say, one of the things n that would be ane interesting challenge is, there a r a lot of cool people tweeting about eall science andy technology issues. if i were -- if i were somebodye running one of these companies who saw an interesting project t

thatin a group of students at yl high school were doing, i would want to be involved with it in social media. i think that's a good way to get recognition to show your college that somebody actually cares col about theseea things.things. it's a potentially good way to d raise money for your projects in school. i don't know anybody who doesn't see that as an incentive to be involved in something. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. great questions. tonight, a look at the future of technology. using gps to find lost people or airliners. today's hearing with the director of the secret service. she testified it on capitol hill about security operations and procedures and the recent breach at the white house. we will have that for you tonight at 8:00 on c-span. join the conversation with other viewers and weigh in on whether or not you trust the secret service to protect the president.

share your thoughts. our campaign 2014 debate coverage continues.

next a hearing examining the search for extraterrestrial life. they heard from scientists on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence who say the search is active and ongoing. lamar smith is the chair. eddie bernice johnson is the

ranking member. >> the committee on science, space and technology will come to order. welcome to today's hearing at e astroe biology and the search for life in the universe. i want to thank c-span for covering this hearing today. that shows the importance of the hearing in a lot of respects. i want to thank the students here as well. i understand you had a choice of hearings to attend. you could attend almost any hearing you wanted to. you chose this one because you thought it was the most interesting. that is one of the purposes of today's hearing. that is to inspire students today to be the scientists of tomorrow. who knows? we may have some of those scientists in the audience right now who will be inspired by what they hear to study astrobiology or other sciences as well. we appreciate your attendance.

i will recognize myself for an opening statement and then the ranking member as well. as we discover more planets around the stars and our own galaxy, it's natural to wonder if we may finally be on the brink of answering the question, are we alone in the universe? finding other life would be the most significant history in human history. scientists estimate that there are 80 billion stars in the milky way galaxy. more than 1700 planets have been found. last month astronomers discovered the first earth-like planet. it's only 10% larger than the earth and about 490 light years away.

the survey satellite which will launch in 2017 and a space telescope launching in 2018 will help scientists discover more planets with potential biosignatures. the united states has buy nears the field of astrobiology and leads the world. a sample of papers published between 1995 and 2013 illustrates the significant groer growth and population of this field. between 1995 and 2012, the number of papers published on ast astrobiology increased ten times and the number of reports that sited it increased 25 times. it's a serious subject studied by serious scientists around the world. reflecting this interest next september the library of congress and nasa will hold a two-day astrobiology symposium

on what the impacts could be of finding microbial complex or intelligent life in the universe. whether life exists on other planets is a matter of debate among scientists. around the world a number of astronomers listen to radiofrequencies. they try to filter out noise and interference of human-made satellites and spacecraft to find anomalies that could be signals from civilizations. a telescope conducting radio astronomy search for life in the even verse. the fast radio bursts have caused scientists to speculate as to the cause. some scientists high poj size they could be from stars colliding or from an

extraterrestrial intelligence source. others search for laser light pulses. researchers run by the harvard center for astro physics, among others use optical telescopes to detect pulses or flashes of light distinct from naturally occurring phenomenon. i hope today's hearing will enable us to learn more about how research in astrobiology continues to expand this fascinating frontier. the unknown and unexplored areas of space spark human curiosity. americans and others around the world look up at the stars and wonder if we are alone or is there life on other planets. that concludes my opening statement. the rafrpi iranking member, mis johnson, is recognized for hers. >> thank you very much.

good morning. in the interest of saving time, i will forgo making an opening statement. will want to welcome you to this hearing on the search for life. including intelligent life in outer space. you both are distinguished researchers. i know that you will have thoughtful testimony to present. this afternoon we will determine whether we will have researchers to continue this. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, miss johnson. i would like to introduce our witnesses. dr. seth shostak. he has spent many of his career conducting research on galaxies. he has written more than 400 published magazine and web articles on various topics in atr

film and television. including sharing the universe and conversions of an alien hunter, a scientist's search for extraterrestrial intelligence. hear him each week as host of a one-hour long radio program on astrobiology. he received his ph.d. from the california institute of technology. our second witness dr. dan werthimer is the director of several of the lab's centers including the center for astronomy signal processing and electronics research. he serves as cheer scientist for the lab's setti at home program.

he co-authored and the editor of bioastronomy. his research has been featured in many broadcast news stories such as abc and cbs and many major newspapers and magazines. his work reached a younger audience through a science magazine for kids. he received his bachelor and master's from san francisco state university. i will recognize to start us off today dr. shostak and then we will go to mr. werthi mer. >> thank you for the opportunity to be here. i will give you a few big picture thoughts on the search for life. in particular, intelligent life, the kind of life that could uphold its side of the conversation as opposed to the microbial life. this is a subject of great

interest to many people. let me back up a say that when you read in the paper about the discovery of new planet or something -- water on mars, you are looking at one of three horses in a race to be the first to find extraterrestrial biology. the first horse is simply to find it nearby. that's where the big money is. rovers on mars, the moons of the outer solar system. there are half a dozen other worlds that might have life in our solar system. the chances of finding it i think are good. it will happen in the next 20 years depending on the financing. the second horse in the vase to build large instruments that can sniff the atmospheres of planets around other stars and maybe find oxygen or methane which is produced by cows and pigs. but biology in any case. you could find pigs in space, i suppose. that's again a project debending -- depending on funding could

that yield results. the third horse is search for extraterrestrial intelligence, you know what the idea is, it's to eavesdrop on signals that are leaked off somebody else's world. that makes sense because even we, only 100 years after the intention of practical radio, we have the technology that would allow us to send information across light years of distance to extraterrestrials. let me tell you why i think they're out there. it's unproven whether there's any life or earth. i think that's situation will change within everyone's lifetime in this room. the reason is, the universe has habitats for life. that number is rather large.

it's two to 400 billion stars. at least 70% have planets. recent results from a telescope suggest that one in five stars may have planets that are cousins of the earth. what that means is that in our own galaxy, there are tens of billions of other planets that are the kind you might want to build condos on and live. all right? tens of billions. if that isn't adequate for your requirements, let me point out there are 150 billion other galaxies we can see with our telescopes, each with a similar complement of earth-like worlds. what that means is that the numbers are so astounding that if this is the only planet in which not only life but intelligent life has arisen, then we are extraordinarily exceptional. although everybody likes to think they are special -- i'm sure you all are -- maybe we are not that special. the history of astronomy shows

every time we thought we were special, we were wrong. what has been done so far? we have had various kinds of radio searches. i wouldn't detail the technology. we have looked at -- much of the sky at low sensitivity over a limited range of radio sections of of the band. we have looked in particular directions at a few thousand star systems. we have just begun the search. the fact that we haven't found anything means nothing. it's like looking for nefor something in africa and giving up after searching one block. there's no funding for this. it's privately funded. the total number of people in the world that do setti fo i fo living is fewer than the number of people in the audience. let me point out two other things.

this is very interesting to the public. they have seen extraterrestrials on television and in the movies all their lives. that gives it a certain giggle factor. it's easy to make fun of this. it would have been funny to make fun of the idea to sail around the earth. it's exploration. that's what this is. the consequences are always, shall we say -- there's life out there, intelligent life would calibrate our position in the universe. it would probably be the greatest discovery that human kind could make. what's important is this is the first generation that has the knowledge and technology to do that. >> thank you. mr. werthimer. >> thanks for the opportunity to talk to you about this question are we alone, is anybody out there. can you show the slides? i want to walk you through some of the experiments that we and

others are doing. as seth mentioned this mission, we have learned there are a electric planets in our milky planet. lots of places for life. we learned that a lot of these planets are what we call goldilocks planets. it's not too hot, not too cold, rocky, some have liquid water. there could be a lot of life out there. how are we getting in touch? earthlings have been sending off radio, television, radar signals into space for the last 75 years. the early television shows like "i love lucy" have gone past 10,000 stars. you could turn that around. if we're broadcasting, maybe other civilizations are sending signals in our directions, leaking the way that we unintentionally send them. there are projeblcts looking fo

laser signals. this say project at lick observatory. there's in hawaii look being for laser signals. people are looking for radio signals. the world's largest radio antenna, this is the aracebo in puerto rico. it holds 10 billion bowls of corn flakes. we haven't tried that. it's operated by the national science foundation. most atron myrstronomers would to use this a day or two a year. we figured out a way to use it at the same time that other scientists are using t. we collect data all year round. we are collecting data as we talk to you. that is a problem. even though we have the world's largest telescope all year round, it creates and enormous amount of data. we ask volunteers for help. if you -- you can help us by

running a program on your home computer or your laptop or desk-top. you install a program called seti at home. we take the data from the world's largest telescope and break it into little pieces. you install the program and p pops up when you go for a cup of coffee. the computer goes through the data looking through all the different frequencies and signal types. this is what it looks like when it's running on your computer at home. it takes a few days to analyze the data. looking for interesting signals. when it finding interesting signals it sends them to bur berkel berkeley. if you are the lucky one that finds that faint murmur, you might get the nobel prize. but there's a catch. you have to maybe share it with a lot of people. there are millions of people that have downloaded the screen savor. they are in 200 countries. it's to gather the volunteers

of -- to form one of the most powerful super computers on the planet. they have enautomobibled the mo sensitive search that anybody has done. we are grateful to volunteers. we made that more general so that you can participate in not just seti with your home computer, but you can participate in lots of projects. climate prodisc, gravity waive, protein folding, hiv drugs, and you can i'allocate it. we are working on pan cromatic seti. we are looking at wave length bands. we are targeting the nearest stars star. we are looking at radiofrequencies. we're looking at infrared frequencies. we're looking at also optical frequencies looking for laser signals. this would be an extremely

comprehensive search. we have eight different telescopes we're using. looking at all the different bands. only targeting the nearby stars. another project that we're launching this year is called interplanetary eavesdropping. the idea is that there may be signals going back and forth between two planets in a distandistant solar system. we will have machines or people on mars and have laser communication between our two planets. put it the other way. a distant civilization may have colonized a planet in their own solar system. there may be radio or laser signals going back and forth. we know exactly when two planets in a distant solar system are in lined up with earth. so we can schedule observations and see if we can intercept the signals going back and forth between two distant planets. we are using the green bank

telescope to do that. we haven't found e.t. so far. but we have discovered a planet made out of diamond. these instruments are used in all kinds of things, in brain research which may eventually control prosthetic arms. we haven't found e.t. we are working on it. where we are just learning how to do t. it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. the reason i'm optimistic is that the seti is limited by computing technology which is growing exponentially. it's limited by telescope technology. china is building a huge telescope. the australians and south africans and europeans are working on a huge telescope. i think i will stop there. i have a couple of poems i could read you but i'm out of of time. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you both for your

excellent testimony. actually, you have anticipated my questions a little bit. i would still like to go forward with them. let me address the first question to both of you by starting with dr. shostak. kind of a two-part question. what do you think -- i can anticipate your answer a little bit on the basis of your statement. what do you think is the possibility of microbial life being found in the universe or intelligent life being found in the universe? what do you think is the likelihood of finding either microbial life or intelligent life in the universe? >> well, the probability of life, of course, it's hard to estimate because what we do know now -- something we didn't know very recently, even ten, 20 years ago, we did not know were there habitats that could support life. what astronomy has proven is that the universe is made out of the same stuff.

of the most distant galaxies have the same 92 elements on the wall in your classroom. this means if you have taken chemistry in school, you don't have to take it again if you move to another galaxy. it's the same everywhere. we know that the building blocks are there. we now know that there are going to be plenty of planets where you have liquid water. life could arise. he would know life began on earth very quickly. it's a sample of one but it does suggest it wasn't difficult for life to get a foot hold on this planet. maybe elsewhere. life, i think, is maybe not so hard to get started. that's the general impression amongst scientists. what they believe is not so important is finding it that's important. what about intelligent life? that's harder. right? the earth has had life for at least 3.5 billion, probably 4 billion years. almost since the beginning. this place has been carpeted

with life. almost all of that time it required a microscope to see t. it was all microbial. only in the last 500 million years did you get multi-cellular life, you know the story. that opens up the question, if i give you a million worlds with life, what fraction of them is going to cook up something as clever as you? the answer is that, we don't know the answer to that. there are indirect suggestions that it will happen because we are not the only species that's gotten clever in the past 50 million years. if you have dogs and cats, they are cleverer than the dinosaurs. >> you made a point that i might emphasize. that is, what 20 years ago we hadn't detected a single planet outside our solar system. now we're up to 20,000. it's almost exponential growth. >> it would be bizarre if we are

alone. but i don't know that for sure. the intelligence is going to be rarer. because there are a electric planets, i believe it's going to happen often. it's happened several times on this planet. it's likely to arise elsewhere. >> you would put it at is 100%? >> 99%. >> good. the next question -- let me follow up with, mr. werthimer. the seti screen save other, that would be something the students could do at home. i tried to adapt that to my laptop several years ago. maybe the government needs to change its policy. i'm not sure which. let me ask you, what are the advantages and disadvantages of radio seti versus optical seti? >> there are pros and cons.

l lasers are good for bits. we should look for all kinds of different signals and not put all our money in one basket. it's hard to predict what other civilizations are doing. if you asked me 100 years ago, i would have said smoke signals. we try to launch a new project, a new idea every year. >> anything to add to the advantages or disadvantages? >> they are both sort of different colors of the same thing. literally different colors. they are both electromagnetic means of communication. we use bother in our telecommunications on earth. i suspect aliens will as well. just about every week i get an e-mail from somebody who says, you are looking for radio signals. that's so old school. the extraterrestrials will use sophisticated than that. i'm not sure what that is. that depends on physics we don't know. one shouldn't discount a technology because it's been around a while. we use the wheel every day.

i suspect we will for a long time. >> thank you both for your answers to my questions. the ranking member, miss john n johnson, is raised for her questions. >> thank you very much. i'm trying very hard to ask something that sounds sensible. what is the status of the extraterrestrial intelligence search now? >> i think we're just getting in the game. we're learning how do this. i think we would be lucky to find -- i'm optimistic about life and intelligent life in the universe and it's likely there's a galactic internet out there, i think we would be lucky to find them. >> i might point out that, contrary to popular impression, this experiment isn't the same from day to day. people figure we're sitting around with ear phones listening to static every day, a tedious job, if that's what it were. but it's not.

all the listening is done by computers. the important point is that much of this experiment depends on digital technology, computers, if you will. as you know, there's something calls moore's law that says whatever you can buy today for $1, you can buy twice as much for $1 two years from now. there's this very rapid growth in the capabilities. in fact, the search is speeding up. it's actually speeding up exponentially. a heavily overused word, but it applies. >> tell me this. i know that the improvement of technolo technologies are important. and yet some of the old technologies are also still in play. how do you predict your advancement based on what you have available to you for research tools? >> i will just say something i'm

sure dan has much to add to this. in terms of what we can do in the near future, the foreseeable future, what you really need to chance of success -- mind you, this remain speculative. this is all like asking chris columbus two weeks out of cadiz, hey, found any new continents lately? his answer would be there was only water around the ship yesterday, today and tomorrow. he can't predict when anything interesting will happen. nor can we . if you look at what arest hats and they are guesseses as to what fraction of stars have somebody you might be able to pick up it sounds like you have to look at a few million star systems to have a reasonable chance of success. we have done less than 1% of that as of today. given the predictable advancements in technology to

look at a million star systems is something that can be done within two dozen years given the funding to do it. [ inaudible ] >> seth captured it well. >> okay. when we find the life on other planets what do you speculate we'd find and what ises the value or potential value? >> i i think it's profound either way. this is not an expensive thing. on the order of a million dollars a year. funded by the national science foundation, nasa, temple ton foundation, private donations. the reason i think it is profound is if we discovered we are alone we better take good care of life on this planet. it's precious. the other thing that's profound, too, if we find we are part of a galactic community and learn all their poetry, music, loiiteratu,

science, we could learn a lot. >> i will add nobody knows what we'll learn. if we can decode the signals this is like being confronted with hire geroglyphicses. turns out they were written by humans which made it easier. also the rosetta stone and whatever. we may not ever figure it out. if you could you would listen to data being sent from societies far in advance of us because we are hearing them. so they are more advanced. maybe they teach you important stuffment imagine the incas find a barrel on the shore from maybe europe filled with books. if they could figure out the books they would learn interesting stuff. i don't know a that we'll ever figure out the books. even if we don't the important point has been made. we have corral brcalibrated our place not in the physical

universe, but in the biological and intellectual universe. it's maybe good for our souls to know how we fit in. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. the gentleman from ohio mr. johnson is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, for both of you, how has the recent discovery of over 1700 planets by the chemical weapon ler space telescope, how has it impact eed seti research? >> if you asked aston hers if there were planets going, stars, es weed say we don't know. a lot of it is due to the mission. if you ex trap late on planets which are a few thousand planets, there are a trillion planets in the mill can i way. three or four times more planets than stars. a lot of places for life. >> it's affected the experime s

experiments. in the past we would point telescopes in the direction of certain masses of stars. those stars were the ones we thought these might have an earth-like planet. but we didn't know. we know now that the majority of stars have planets. you can look at a random star. feel confident it has a planet. we'll get an indication frwhat planets have atmosphere almost leek the earth. that's not one in a thousand, one in a hundred. it might be one in five. 50 star systems and you examine ten earth-like planets. it made the search more straightforward. we look at all the stars we can. >> would you please provide examples of the technical contributions that seti made to astron any and other fields?

how has seti research benefitted other areas of science? >> the benefit is less so in terms of discovery. we haven't found e.t. or we wouldn't be having this hearing. to my surprise, seti has not turned up astrophysical phenomena that were unexpected as well. that's surprising. normally the history, the precedent is every time you build an incident it examined a different parameter in the phase space of the universe. you find something new. so that's instructive. the kind of technology that has been developed is of interest to other fieldses in astronomy. the real value of seti isn't so much in terms of what it does to astronomy but in terms of the other efforts made to find life in space. nasa has a big effort. the rovers on hars. yes, they are there to find the history of water. why are you interested in the history of water on mars? because you want to know if

there were martians. microbial likely. are there still? that interests people the most. seti was always a punch line to this story that nasa had about finding traces of water on mars or burrowing through the ice on europa and going to the moons of the outer solar system where there are vast quantities of liquid water. we may find life. what about intelligent life? that would be more interesting. that's what's missing, in fact, from the nasa program today. >> okay. >> you made a comment a few minutes ago that caught my attention. let me make sure i got it right. you said if we hear from intelligent life out there somewhere that they must be more advanced than us. they are hearing from us and not the other way around. how can you draw the conclusion?

maybe they have been hearing from us for a long time and don't like what they have to say. >> it's possible we are in their catalog. they have seen our atmosphere, oxygen. they know we are out here. life in the universe will have different stages. microbial, trees, more sophisticated. the earth is 5 billion years old. some stars are 10 billion. there could be advanced organizations as well. you won't hear from advanced societies. >> at least equal to. perhaps more advanced. maybe they got caller i.d. blocked or something. >> i wouldn't speculate on alien sociology and whether they like our television or not. i don't know about that. the chances they are at least within a hundred or a thousand or 10,000 years of our level is

on statistical grounds eegly uncertain. if you hear from somebody. >> one quick question. how do you define successful seti research. >> that's a nebulous question. >> if you found a signal that could be corroborated. if you find it once and not again it's not science. if you find a signal moving across the skies because of the rotation of the earth. it's made by a transmitter. that's success. >> the most likely scenario is finding some sort of artifact. a radar signal or navigational beacon. we'll know we're not alone. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman from oregon. if she would yield to me for ten seconds. >> certainly. >> the likelihood is if there

were other intelligent civilizations they would be likely more advanced than we are. we are relatively junior galaxy. they might be 2 billion years older than we are. it's fascinating to think what form of life maybe existent in a universe or parallel universe or another galaxy where they have had a 2 billion year head start. we may not recognize the sent yent beings or communicate with them. we are fascinate bid the subject. thun of it would be counted against the five minutes for questions. >> thank you so much. i noticed this your testimony that you said there are 24 seti scientists on the planet. i can't think of a time in the committee where we have had a percentage of experts on the panel. thank you both for being here. i appreciate it.

i'm intrigued by your section in testimony on the interest. and how the idea of life and space is an idea that everyone grasps and is especially an ideal hook for young people in science, evidenced by the full committee room today. one of the statements that resonated with me is it would be a cramped mind indeed that didn't wonder who might be out there. i appreciate that. you also said this your testimony extra terrestrials are the unknown tribe over the hill. potential competitors or mates. someone we'd like to know more about. i recollect a similar hearing in this committee. it was last year when one of my colleagues and i'm fairly certain it was representative chris smith who is no longer on the committee said the interesting question is what do we do when we find life on another planet. can you talk, both of you about

what's the plan? do we announce it to the world? do we do research more to determine if these are friendly or collaborative? what do we do when we make the discovery, assuming it's going to happen. >> that's a question of great interest to the public and of great importance as well. there is no danger. you tune in your favorite d.j. here in d.c. on the car radio. there is no danger that the d.j. will jump in the car and give you a hard time. they don't know you picked them up. if we pick up a signal, they don't know that. there is a question of, well, should we reply? i will get to that in second. suppose we pick up a signal. it would be announced. the public has an idea that you all have a secret plan, that the government has secret plan for what to do. as far as i can tell there is no plan. we have had false alarms. i have waited for my congressman

to call me up and say, hey, you guys are picking up a signal. nobody in the government shows the slightest bit of interest. what happens is the media start calling up. the new york times calls up. the government isn't that interested. what happens is it would be immediately known that we found the signal. it would be known before it was corroborated. there will be false alarms. but you get somebody to observe it. you would not believe it if you were the only ones to find it. too many things could go wrong. >> do you have anything to add to that? >> i think before you make a big announcement you want to make sure it's real. you ask those with different equipment to verify it. you can triangulate, make sure it's coming from something outside. make sure it's not a graduate student playing a prank on you. once you have confidence that you found something it could be

a new phenomena. when pulsars were discovered they thought maybe it was little green men. at the point you're confident you found something you make the information public, the coordinates in the sky, the frequency, if anything you know about the signal. there will be debate about whether some new natural phenomena or whether it's really evidence of another civilization. a lot of people will be working on the problem. >> >> of the 24 seti scientists on the planet, to what extent are other nations involved? how collaborative are we? we have a lot of discussions in the committee about international collaboration especially in space. could you talk about where we are as a nation compared with the other countries in the world? >> yeah. seti is fragile. there are 24 people doing it. two-thirds of them in thes. the u.s. is leading the effort. a lot of original ideas came out of the u.s. working with other scientists if other countries and because it's

fragile we are trying to train new people, get ideas and other groups. it's only at a small number of institutions from here. >> the funding is fragile. fluctuating around. the biggest telescopes. those are in funding jeopardy. looks like one of the observatories will have to be shut down. the other is hanging by a thread. the chinese are building a bigger telescope. there is a new one to be built in soth africa and australia. the u.s. may not be willing to lead this work. >> i would find it disappointing. i'm out of time. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman from new york, mr. collins is recognized for his question. >> thank you. i think i might ask the question everyone in the room wants to ask. have you watched ancient aliens?

what's your comment about that series? we'll start with you, doctor. >> i think i have been on it actually. more than once. the public is fascinated with the idea that we may be being visited now or may have been in the past. i personally don't share the conviction that we are being visited. i don't think it would be something all the governments of the world managed to keep secret. i don't believe that. the idea maybe we were visited during the time of the ancient egyptians. during the four and a half billion history of the earth the time of the ancient egyptians was yesterday. again, why were they there then?

they were clever and could certainly do that. i don't think there is good evidence that con venss me that we were visiteded in historic times. >> how about you? >> ufos have nothing to do with extra terrestrials. i'm optimistic with life but there is no evidence that any of the sightings. some are real phenomena. we get a lot of calls when the space station goes over. but people embellish, say it has windows and things. jules vern wrote about when people watch movies. >> i yield back. >> thank you, mr. collins. the gentlewoman ms. edwards is

recognized. >> i feel i should have been here earlier. i apologize. i enjoyed the discussion thus far and reading the testimony. my favorite movie is "contact." every year it comes out since 1997 i watch it. i dream. i think, well, who knows. what's intriguing about the conversation is the idea -- and it's a little bit of hubris that somehow we are waiting to find them as opposed to them finding us. maybe that's just the nature of homosapiens, what we do. i'm a little bit curious in your prepared statement you discussed the seti project which will use six telescopes to search nearby stars and stars most likely to host an exoplanet system similar to the suns. the project, as you describe it,

would examine a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum through optical light to detect signals from advanced civilization. how are the target stars that you talked about identified and how are you going to coordinate the use of the six telescopes? >> we are not trying to use the telescopes at the same time. that's hard to do. we use a telescope. other groups, we are working with groups at universities and observatories. typically one telescope and a month later another. the stars that we are targeting, instead of targeting stars that we know have planets because it looks like all stars have planets. we'll target the nearest stars. that's our plan. just target the nearby stars. >> you talked also about the notion that there are 24 of you

folks most interested robustly, academically studying this. aren't there a whole network of people in communities that feed the research you're doing. sure there are people looking for the higs-bozon ft. it's hard to do the experiment without the instruments. >> i want to talk about security issues in the time we have left. i understand early on there was an assessment of the seti ohm software to with stand penetrations and attacks.

in the earlier study you found there had been two note-worthy attacks and the web server was compromis compromised. you found that hackers had stolen thousands of user e-mail addresses. can you give us an idea of the current state of security? >> yeah. i think in general downloading software and installing it on the computer, be careful. seti at home is one of the safest things you can install on the computer. the reason is because millions of people are using it and testing it out. also it's been running for a long time. it's open source software. anybody can read the software and help a lot of the volunteers help us write the software. we are now reporting it to cell phones so you can run it on a cell phone which will allow more people to participate in the

search. >> especially when you deal with one source, the challenge of the system's vulnerability. >> open software is safer because so many eyeballs can look at it. >> okay. i'm done. i think i'll go back to watching my movies. >> thank you, ms. edwards. mr. posey is recognized system thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for inviting these distinguished witnesses. for this fascinating testimony. very enjoyable. i go to the seti facebook page every day to get a factoid, learn something every day. i haven't been there a single day to find that i already knew your message of the day. very educational.

inspiring. obviously very interesting. graphics are good, too the. i want to thank you for that. on your disclosure i was impressed with the number of agreements and grants. i'm glad nasa is so engaged and allows y'all to have a free hand to do what you do better than anybody else is doing it, obviously. so thank you for that. obviously there is curiosity about your thoughts about such things as project bluebook. what do you think? >> i want to thank you for noting all the grants are for the astrobiology research at the seti institute. there is no federal money going to the search for intelligent life. the majority of the scientists are doing astral biology. the outer solar system. life on mars. >> we're glad you are. >> so are we, i can assure you.

that's a very productive line of research as well. in terms of the whole phenomena, as i say, i am personally skeptical. one-third of americans believe we are being visited. that's the result of polls taken since the 1960s. the number doesn't change. if you think this is especially an american opinion, that's wrong. one-third of australians, europeans, 2 believe we are being visited. i do not. i don't think the evidence is goodment i think the if we were visited it would not be controversial. it's been 60-some years since roz wel roswell. if you asked them in massachusetts 60 years later they were visited by spaniards, that's not con server shall. everyone would knowment. >> i believe stephen hawking made comments about contact with

extra terrestrials or other life. your thoughts about his comments? >> yeah. this is a controversial topic about whether we should transmit messages called active seti or meti, messages to extra terrestrial intelligence. most people in the field think we are just an emerging civilization. the first experiments we should do is listening, trying to receive signals and see what's out there. we think advanced civilizations are going to be peaceful. if you watch "star trek." we don't know that. it might be naive. my feeling is we should be just listening for now. maybe in a thousand or 10,000 year ifs we don't hear anything, we should think about transmitting signals. that's for all humanity. shouldn't be uh up to a few scientists. that's a big decision about who should speak for earth. we should be listening now.

i believe that's what hawking would say as well. >> i'm going to disagree with my colleague here. there is very little danger in transmitting. if there is, we are already doing it. yes, we are not deliberately targeting the stars in general but we have done that in the past. nasa sent a beatles song in 2008 to the north star. these signals are on their way into space. any society at that level can pick up these signals. if you are going to worry about it, i don't think it would be a good idea. >> okay.

still related, your thoughts on tho thorium. >> i'm sorry. i'm not familiar with the topic. nuclear reactors? >> yeah. >> i'm not an expert. i'm sorry. >> only this. if you are talking about powering spacecraft this way. >> yes. >> if you sent spacecraft to some of the more interesting parts of the solar system, they are out to jupiter, saturn and so forth. when you get to saturn the amount of sunlight drops by a factor of a hundred. you can't use solar cells there. i wouldn't worry about radioactivity in space because there is plenty of it. that's the nature of the cosmos. if you are worried about the fact that these launches could go awry and you would land them on earth, that's a danger. people are aware of it and try to mitigate it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank the witnesses.

>>rá thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. to our witnesses, let's see. what have we learned? there is a chance that aliens don't like the beatles. which i have trouble imagining. they don't like our television programming. and there were other things. "contact" is the best movie. right? somehow i thought that would be funnier. a couple mechanical questions i want to get my head around some of the current scientific understanding. tell me if the scenario or this is the current thought. asteroid hits earth. and rock is thrown out into the cellulsell ste lars. it carries dna. does it survive?

doctor? >> yes. this idea that one world could infect another has been looked at. people have simulated the environment of space and put some of our earthly bacteria in a rock and put it in space to see how long they could survive, for example. would the dna be viable when it got some place interesting. the result, as i understand them, suggest if you are talking about communicable disease within the solar system. could a rock from mars have seeded the earth, that's possible. there is no evidence that it occurred but it is possible. life would remain viable over the kind of time scales to send rocks into the solar system. if you are talking about the distance of the stars, space is aer harsh environment, even for a rock. there is a lot of radiation. it's incredibly dry. anything in there will be

suffering desiccation for maybe hundreds of thousands, millions really of years before it gets there. and the general consensus is it won't be viable when it does. >> i think that's the current thought nowment >> as you know, asteroids it the earth many times. it will be really an interesting question. if life is found in our own solar system like eu uh ropa, a moon around jupiter, a liquid ocean. there could be something swimming around down there. by the way, i talked to elementary schools and asked how to get through the ice and see if something is swimming down there, the boys all say we should use machine guns, bombs and the girls say we should melt our way through using mirrors. a little bit different. >> once again proving there is something different in our dna. >> if we do find life in our solar system, really exciting. is it the same kind of life

using the same acids, dna, nucleitides. is it identical chemistry? does it mean rocks are going back and forth between moons and planets in our solar system and it really happened in one place and was carried back and forth. that's really not interesting. what would be much more interesting would be discovering life that's different with a different chemistry. if we find something like that on europa or another moon or mars, that means that the universe is teeming with life. >> it makes the imagination wonder. earlier the chairman and i mean this with all the love in the world. give me a percentage of life out there in existence.

i remember doing this as a thought process with my professors years ago. i guess one of the mechanisms is from the beginning to today earth had a hundred billion species and how many can do higher math and give you -- use it as a benchmark. it's noble of what's out there and what isn't. see the world of large numbers, large planets. these huge numbers. >> on earth, intelligence has arisen independently. there are intelligent creatures but none as intelligent as us maybe. we're not sure. >> we use the higher math. >> my guess is on some planets there will be selective pressures that select for different things. you can be successful in life if you are strong, fast.

but you can also be successful in some evolutionary environments by being smart. there will be placeses in the universe where it is an advantage to be smart. >> the fun is how would you calculate it? how would you build your baseline to build from? will you move from hope which is a powerful thing to being able to put it into a calculator. there is quite a leap. >> it's difficult to estimate. we have one example on earth. so i think the only way to find out is to do this search. >> it's aquin quinkin to the ba0 estimating the probability that an expedition into the deep south will find the sihypothesid southern continent there. what's the probability? give me the figures before i

fund you. you can't. >> so it's a leap of faith. >> it's reasonable. a reasonable hypothesis that there is life to be found out there, even intelligent life. we can sit around and have drinks and talk about it. in the end, if you don't do the experiment you will continue to have the drinks. >> seeing some of the questions there may have been a lot of drinks going on. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you. thank you both for your testimony which was clearly appreciated. by both members of congress as well as the audience. i also want to thank the herndon high school students for being here. you had a wonderful opportunity to hear about a fascinating subject. i hope this will spur you on to study astral biology and other scientific subjects as well. in case someone has an interest or wants to follow up, you might go to our committee website which is science.house.gov.

we'll have information about this hearing on the website as well as other things that might be of interest to you all. thanks again for a wonderful hearing today. we stand adjourned. coming up tonight, a look at the future of technology. using gps and disaster relief to find lost airliners or people. followed by a look at 3-d printing, connected cars and consumer drones.

watch it tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern c-span 3. our campaign 2014 debate coverage continues. tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span, live coverage of the final texas governor's debate between senator democrat wendy davis and republican greg abbott. wednesday at 8:00 on c-span, live coverage of the minnesota governors debate between incumbent democrat mark dayton, republican jeff johnson and independent party candidate hannah nicolette. thursday, coverage of the oklahoma governor's debate between democrat joe dorman and republican mary fallon. thursday at 8:00 p.m. on c-span 2 the nebraska governors debate between democrat chuck hasabrok and pete ricketts.

and live coverage between john lewis and ryan zinke. campaign 2014. more than a hundred debates for the control of congress. the candidates for the senate seat in iowa pet for their first debate. democratic representative bruce braylee and jo any ernst are vying for the sheet from tom harkin. here is some of the debate. >> you say philosophically you oppose subsidies but support the renewable fuel standard. how long would you make an exception for renewable fuel? >> until we are on equal with footing. if you look at the subsidieses going out there to oil and many other sectors out there within the energy industry, our rfs

needs to be on equal footing. i'm someone who will continue to support it and my father is a proud farmer. one in six jobs are created by the iowa farmer. i i'm so proud to have the endorsement of the iowa farm bureaument again, i will continue to support the rfs and do that as your next united states senator. >> if i could respond, i'm not sure that's what senator ermst told the koch brothers at their secret meetings. she said she was philosophically opposed to the renewable fuel standard and in a perfect world it wouldn't exist. my support of the renewable fuel standard has been clear, strong and unequivocal. in my first term in congress i voted to triple --

>> congressman, you're not running against these other people. you're running against me. i am a hother. i am a soldier. i am an independent leader. you are being funded by tom stire who is a california billionaire extreme environmentalist. remember, please, you are running against me. not against any of the other groups. >> the name isn't on the ballot. i'm not going to owe president obama anything on election day lt you will owe the koch brothers everything. >> please continue. >> i don't owe anybody except for the iowa people. i will stand up and do what's right for iowans, not california extreme environmentalists, senator reid, not for president obama.

again for the iowa people. i have stood uh up for the community, the state and my nation. i have not left my rural roots. i think, congressman, you have left those behind in your belt way. >> 15 seconds to wrap up. >> i have never forgotten where i came from. that's why i voted to pass a five-year farm bill. every major farm group supported itment that's why the iowa corn growers are supporting me and the national farmers union gave me award. i haven't forgotten my rural values. >> that's one uh of more than a hundred debates c-span is covering for the control of congress. for more, visit our website, c-span.org. earlier this year george washington university hosted a conference on mars explo raegs

featuring senior officials from nasa. thnasa administrator charles bolden says we have to -- in order to survive. his remarks are about 30 minutes. thank you very much, and thanks to all of you for allowing me to be with you this morning and it kind of kick us off, i hope. i also want to thank explore mars as well as g.w. president steve knapp and scott pace of the g.w. policy institute for bringing us together for the

humans to mars summit. let's leave that slide up, i'll talk about it all day long, and at least you can refer to it and you don't have to look at me. with mars making it's closest approach to effort last week and currently appearing as the brightest body in the eastern sky during the month of april, this is an ideal time for this conference, as the red planet draws nearer to earth--sort of as -- i'm surprised she remembered, maybe i'm not surprised she remembered, but we did talk last year about my three grand daughters, the number one granddaughter being 14-year-old mckayla who wants to be the rocket scientist, who has begun telling me i'm thinking shortsightedly when i talk about going to mars. she talks about going outside the solar system.

so i told her, one thing at a time. let's get to mars first. during the next three days, you're going to get an update on nasa's steppingstone approach to mars from some of the leading experts at the agency including ellen stoffen, our associate administrator operations director, and mike gazirik, national technology space admissions director. and i will be learning and listening to all of you as you share your thoughts on the best step forward. while humans have been fascinated with mars since the beginning of time, there are a number of very tangible reasons why we need to learn more about our closest planetary neighbor, for one thing, mars's evolution and formation are comparable to earth and we know at one time mars had conditions suitable for life. what we learn about the red

plant may tell us more about our own home planet's history and future and help us answer the fundamental human question does life exist beyond earth? while nasa has been on a path to mars for decades, with our earlier mars rovers and orbiters, a critical national policy statement in support of our strategy, was on april 15, 2010 during a visit by president obama to the kennedy space center, where he challenged the nation to send humans to ans a destroyed by 2025 and to mars by the 2030s. the national space policy stayed in 2011 further supports those goals and over the past several years, nasa has been developing the capabilities to meet these goals through a bipartisan space exploration plan agreed to by the administration and congress in the 2010 authorization act and embraced by the international space community in the 2013 global exploration road map. while robotic explorers have explored mars for more than 30 years, nasa's plans for the exploration of mars begins aboard the international space

station, our springboard to the exploration of deep space. even as we speak, astronauts aboard the iss are helping us learn how to safety execute extended missions deeper into space. we're guaranteed this unique orbiting outpost for at least another decade by the administration's commitment to extend the iss until 20 in. there means an expanded market for -- microgravity and opportunities to live, work and learn in space over longer periods of time. and as most of you know, we're working to return both cargo and human launches to the iss to more than soil. the president's 2015 budget supports the administration's commitment that nasa be a catalyst for the growth of a vibrant american commercial space industry. already two american companies are making regular cargo deliveries to the space station. in fact i think most of you know we had an easter sunday delivery

of dragon and it has now birthed to the international space station and will be there for a number of weeks. while the russian space agency remains a strong and reliable partner, later this year, nasa intends to select from american companies competing to send astronauts to the station from american soil. if congress fully funds our 2015 request, we believe we can do this by the end of 2017. our next step in deep space, where nasa will send the first mission to capture and redirect ans a destroyed to -- returning to earth with samples. this experience in human space flight beyond the earth orbit will help nasa test new systems and capabilities such as solar

electric propulsion. beginning in 2017, nasa's powerful space launch system or sls rocket will enable these proving ground missions to test new capabilities. human missions to mars will rely on orion and an evolved version of the sls that will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever flown. i have made reference several times now to earth and the proving ground and you're here to talk about mars, so just sort of as reference to my chart, since mike's going to use it, bill is going to use it, ellen's probably going to use ill and anybody else that comes from nasa is probably going to use it because we want it indelibly emblazed in your brain. we fade are earth reliant. we are dependent on being on this planet. we are not a multiplanet species

yet. i don't know whether buzz is going to talk to you about it later. but buzz and i agree on a number of things and one of them is that only multiplanet species survive for long periods of time. here in the western world, we think very shortsighted and some of you have heard me say this before. we think about the time in which we're going to be on this earth or which our kids or our grandkids are going to be on this earth. many other civilizations think much longer than that. and we need to start thinking that way. we need to remember that depen department on a star, the sun is on a star and just like many other stars that we study all

the time and many of you who follow the exploits of the hubble telescope get a picture of a star that used to be but is no longer. one of these days that is going to be the story of our star, the sun. so if this species is to survive indefinitely, we need to become a multiplanet species. one reason we need to go to mars is so that we can learn a little bit about living on another planet, so when mccaylee, my granddaughter is ready to move out of the solar system, we'll know more about this planet than we do today. mars is the steppingstone approach to other solar testimonies and other galaxies that people have always dreamed of but frequently don't talk about. so we're earth reliant right now. and our steppingstone in the earth reliant system is the international space station. i hope i don't need to remind this audience, but i will take advantage of it anyway, because i find that sometimes people don't remember. we have now been on the international space station continuously without interlineupation for almost 14

years, continuously, without interruption for almost 14 years. everybody's excited right now because of what's going on in the ukraine, although i'm cautious, i'm cautiously optimistic because we went through this when the russians went to georgia and the station continued to operate the way it is now. we continue to operate just as we always have today with cosmos and jacsos, and esa and all of our partners. so the iss continues to move on as our steppingstone to the rest of the coz mows. the proving ground is where we need to go. so we're going to present our case to you over these next three days and hopefully you will pummel us with questions. i'm having trouble with the lights, but i think i may see, michele, are you down there? there's michele on the third row. i know mike was here, but you should pummel us with questions about why we chose this path. there are all kinds of ways we could go to get to mars. to include those that people espouse, which is just go right

now, forget about all this other stuff, just go. we don't think that that's the right idea. so we don't think we can just go, but we need to take a measured approach as we go. so we have chosen an asteroid to be our proving ground. so we can develop the technology to make it the disfans to mars, we can learn how to operate in that environment. because mars and it's moons will probably not be like operating in lower earth orbit. we're accustomed to -- i give them the example of when i was a young snotty-nosed astronaut in camden, and i was one once. and i remember going to the johnson space center for the first time and they said you're going have a class on orbital mechanics and you're going to go over to the simulator and you're going to learn how to rendezvous and dock, i said piece of cake, i've been rendezvousing for 14 years now, i have been flying for 17,000 hours, all u you got to do is put your nose on the airplane that u you want to

rendezvous with and just go. the first time i got in the simulator, the instructors, they didn't push back, they just said okay, another little snotty-nosed quid that thinks he knows everything, we'll just see. so i got in the shuttle mission stimulator and off shuttle to rendezvous with the space station or something and i didn't come within hundreds of miles. and it was because i was flying an airplane in the atmosphere that doesn't have to worry about orbital mechanics or anything of that stuff. and it seemed like the more i fought to get there, the favorite i got away, and then i learned a little bit about orbital mechanics and how you have to do stuff. when we go to mars, we're going to find the same problem, it's not like flying in lower earth orbit. we already know that, but what we don't know is what is it like flying? we're going to use an approach to an asteroid in luner orbit, to figure out how do we maneuver out there, and we're going to in a steppingstone manner, go out and probably maneuver afternoon

the moons of mars and figure out how do we get down to the planet safely with human beings? so that's sort of what we talk about as being the proven grounds in being mars ready. and with some modest increase in nasa's budget over the years, we're going to be able to get to mars by the 2030s, president obama didn't ask us to do anything, he just tells us and we make it happen. a feet of robotic spacecraft are already around mars, dramatically increasing our knowledge about the red planet and paving the way for future explorers. the mars science laboratory, curiosity, rover, is sending back radiation data from the surface today. this data will help us plan how to proteblg the astronauts. seeking the signs of past live, also will demonstrate new technologies that could help astronauts survive on mars. engineers and scientists around the country are working hard to develop the technologies

astronauts will use to one stay live and work on mars and safely return home. this conference is bringing together the best minds to share ideas about the path ahead. it's important to remember that nasa sent humans to the moon by setting a goal that seemed beyond our reach. with mars as our focus, we're steadily building the capability to enable human missions to mars. the challenge is huge, i don't want to fool you, the challenge is huge. if you don't think so, then please listen up as we talk over these next three days. but we love huge challenges. we're making real progress right now as a radiation monitor on the curiosity rover records the mars radiation environment that

our crews will experience. advanced entry, descent and landing technology are ready for entry speed testing high above the waters of the pacific ocean in june. orion ask finishing preparation for a heat shield test in december. we're counting on the support of congress, the scientific community and all of you in this summit to help us realize that goal. the future of space exploration in my estimation the bright, but it will be up to all of us in this assembly to bring the rest of the world along on this great adventure that awaits all humanity. so with that, i'll finish my formal comments and then, do i have time for questions? can i do that? >> yes, you do. >> great. uh-oh.

oh, that's okay. >> welcome to our company. >> that's all right. so i think they told me they have mikes that way and that way. right here. so if you all will come down, i'll try to answer questions that you have. and if i can't answer them, trust me, there are enough people out here in the audience, that i'll let ask and you can answer some of them. and there are two mikes, are you all awake? yeah, come on up. >> my question's not directly about mars, but it's about, you know, human access. >> yeah. >> american human access to space. congress was not especially polite to you last time you had to testify before congress, they wanted a contingency plan about how can we quickly get american access back to space. space x thinks they can do it by 2015. i think a kosovo contingency plan if we could give them

additional funding so that they're not just flying their own crews, but can in fact fly nasa crews. >> if we elected space x as one of the providers, then i would be able to do that. which haven't selected a provider yet. you may know more than i know. i don't know that space x is the best provider. they haven't provided any human rated vehicles yet. but they're in competition, there's a blackout right now so i don't know what they're doing. we're going to select the% potential providers and we'll go with them. they may be ready before 2017, but our goal right now is to be ready by 2017. i told congress a few weeks ago, the contingency plan for rockets is years away by $10 million. and the american capability to put humans in orbit is $800 million by next year and a few years away, that's better than the contingency plan on rockets. there is no instachbt access to space on american rockets. it just ain't going to happen because we didn't pay attention, you know, years ago.

>> i think part of that was congress's fault. >> i'm not going to -- i don't want to get into the position where i'm blaming congress alone. it's been a number of administrations. the decision to do this, okay, and i'm going to help some people here who don't remember history. the decision to tart this path came in 2004, when we lost columbia, the colombia accident investigation board met and gave a report and one of my predecessors, the nasa administrator at the time said i'm going to accept every recommendation in that report. whether that was wise or not, i don't know. but that was the decision that was made back in 2004. and so we started on this path. and i think we have kind of picked it up. we have picked up the pace at least in the five years that i have been nasa administrator. we only talked about commercial cargo and now we have it.

and we had no money that the administration put toward it, not even a proposal. so when the president came in, i think the first time we requested -- and congressman wolf corrected me, the first time in the budget, although we knew we needed a million dollars, the first time in the budget, we asked for $500 million. i don't care what the administration or staffers say $312 is not 500 million. and it's not more than $500 million. so we have never gotten more than what the president asked for the commercial crew. we really need the support of congress. it's my intent to get down on my hands and knees and beg and plead and help them understand that this nation needs our own capability to get humans into space. and we can do it. >> we have no experience whatsoever with gravity, 38% gravity as we have on mars with any biological system much less

humans, so in previous conferences, i have heard american folk, european and russian all say we need to put a centrifuge on the space station and do something with mice or something. why don't we see nasa doing that? >> well, because back when the space station was envisioned. and again, i wasn't here, so i'm going to tell you what i heard. although the plan was for a centrifuge to be on the international space station, it fell victim to what things usually fall victim to, the budget. so it just fell out when we looked at how much money was going to be available for station. but we're looking for alternative ways to do it. if you look at that chart, the proving ground, we're going to be orbiting in -- you know, in sis lunar and translunar orbit. that means, okay. some people will hopefully take an opportunity to drop out of lunar orbit to the surface. we have commercial partners.

we have international partners who are saying we can't do it on our own, but if you can help ust things on the surface of the moon. the u.s. government can't do everything. and i said our plan is based on the budget we proposed is based on modest increases and we won't get 4% of the federal budget. in this group if you are serious about wanting to go to mars and start thinking about reality and reality is the budget and we are not going to get 4% of the federal budget to go to mars or any other place. we will have to figure out ingenious ways to do it based on the budget and modest increases.

i think you can do it. you all may not agree. if you feel we have to have funding levels and forget it right now. don't even spend your time in the conference. we are not going to getwys1 it. people told us we couldn't see commercial cargo. anybody in here who works in nasa will tell you five years ago that it won't happen. some of my predecessors commercial crew and cargo, forget it. i'm not putting any money. i will give you $500 million and that's all you are getting for commercial cargo. we took $500 million and we have commercial cargo. we are saying, we have smart people too. we do listen to you. no, we won't have four slss out.

there pieces of this chart. truth be told. sometimes even we are not good at chartsmanship. slss are not going to be flying around mars. there is a purist who is going to tell you. he has slss going all the way to mars. sls doesn't go much further. they do like most first and second stages and end up in the ocean. we do know that. don't humor me. don't let me talk all this time. >> yes, sir. two questions actually. sorry. question one, what do you say to the public when they say that nasa is dead. that's question one. after the space schultz. this is a popular perception. question two, please speak to education and k 20 and what people will do to get the message out to kids. >> people talking about nasa being dead and i wish i could agree with you and we are still

working hard keeping curiosity moving all over the lunar surface and we have opportunity which is a much smaller rover that pumps data back. we have orbiters who are orbiting mars right now and there 15 nations contributing to on the international space station. we now have commercial cargo that is going back and forth to the international space station. serious competition to carry through to the international space station. we hope to make an announcement sometime into the summer and early fall. if that's dead, so be it. i can't help you understand. i am a schultz person. i love schultz. it was time for schultz to go.

it was time for schultz to go long before we phased it out. schultz was not -- i know there is schultz people in here. i talked about thompson all the time. i spent a saturday with him not long ago in houston over beer. he helping me understand why if i just kept schultz going, we could have used schultz to get to mars. that's true. we could have. if we had one of the fuel depots and the commercial companies were flying rockets the way they will do some day. we could have done that. those of you who are schultz fans much more than we still think it should be around. i'm not going argue that point. there 1,000 ways to do what we want to do. as a marine, i was taught as a second lieutenant. make a decision. if you don't, the troops are not going to follow you anywhere and they'll leave you at the startment they will tell you when they come back and talk

about it. we made a decision. some people in the room don't like it. we are on the way. you can go with us or figure out everybody in the room i think knows what happened when you start all over again. we are further down the road than we have been in a long, long, long, long time. if you don't want to admit that, i can't help you. if you stop and think about it, we never had a commercial capability to get anything to space the way we are doing today. we are oh, so close to having a commercial capability to get crews to space. nasa is finally freed up to work with all of you to do exploration which is what everybody in the auditorium i hope came here to talk about. get over it. to be blunt. this is the path we have chosen. help us get it right. we can tweak it along the way.

everybody knows that. if you don't start down the road and figure out that you took a wrong turn, how do you get to the destination. i can't tweak constant ideas with nothing. we now have hardware under construction and we can do this. i need your help. a question here sn that's already. more. >> okay. >> michelle will answer them and bill and i will. >> i would like to put a bug in your ear. there is an example of gravity that can operate on the space station which has been sitting in the lanes for probably a decade. have your or your min yons reexamined the mars gravity biosatellite. it was a joint task between georgia tech and mit years ago. it sits in moth balls. it can be flown on small

boosters. it is a centrifuge full of mice. female mice in fact. >> is that important sn. >> it is for the statistics of the biophysics. it can be parked outside the space station and to add to a space station, park it outside and spin it up and take it out. another question. >> that was not a question. that was a statement. get to it. >> the question is, have you considered it sn. >> i didn't know about it. me more time. >> mars gravity biosatellite. >> okay. >> the second question, is it automatically craze tow imagine more money sn we have spent less in terms of gep and physical sciences for 40 years. we are now down to more than two over the time and the budgets we spent to become great in the world. there is no reason i can see why

we should not readdress that grievance although obviously it's an uphill battle. why not go for the big money. >> we are going for the biggest money we think we can go for right now. i just think it's unrealistic to assume that this congress and any future congress is going to jump to 4% of the gdp. i just don't think so. 1%. we may get to 1%. 1% would be like a gold mine. i said a modest increase. we did what we said. we can do it consistently before we can do anything. we are going to fly orion in the

fall. that's step by step. people are not going to support us to be fair. thank you all very much. >> more now from george washington university's mars exploration summit. senior officials talked about the budget challenges nasa faces. as it tries to put humans on mars over the next 20 years. the panels moderated by the science reporter. this is about 50 minutes. >> thank you very much, michael. gentlemen, let's get this straight. out there it's a lot of technological challenges that requires about to eight eureka moments if you are keeping score. can we go to mars today in a perfect world if we had a blank check if we go today or is it

just going to the vicinity, but landing on the surface. >> depending on how you get there and how long you stay. we got to take the steps to be able to get that in place. that's going to take time to get a reliable system in place. the landings we mentioned, woo ke land on the surface of mars. we know that's about the size of the mini cooper car.

that's to get the