bigger consideration right now than who is up and who is down politically. >> okay. in light of the date i have to ask this question. if we can put a man on the moon 40 years ago why can't be give health care to more than 40 million americans this year? >> bingo. i mean, that's it. that's it. and the addendum to that is, why do we have to upend an entire health care system. everybody is polling. nonpartisan and partisan are polling, it shows the vast majority of americans like their health care coverage, so the vast majority of americans like the quality of their health care. the vast majority of americans don't want uncle sam to touch their health care. ware they're concerned about is the cost. and sew if we can just deal with

that issue that will solve getting the 40-some million people to the table: ... others who have access to health care but just haven't accessed it because they didn't know they qualified for health care, for medicaid or medicare. and those young folks who say i'm not going to get sick, i don't want to have to pay for and they just opt out altogether. but whatever the situation may be, whether it's one american or 40 million americans, we have to do our level best to make sure that every single day they have quality health care at their fingertips. fingertips. when they are access it, however they want to access it. and the government should have very, very little to do with that. >> okay. we are almost out of time, but before i ask the last questions

we have just a couple of announcements. first of all let me remind our members, teachers beakers tomorrow, july 21, gayle mcgovern, president and ceo of the american red cross will address a luncheon. and on july 24, representative john conyers and democrat from michigan will address also the press club at luncheon, at a luncheon. also at a luncheon. and also, i would like to give you our national press club mug. but you're not quite off the hook, so here we go. the last 10 years -- we like to make sure you don't run. the last 10 years cbo scoring for the iraq war was to .4 billion, twice the initial ten-year scoring for health care reform. argue similarly worried with the costs of the war? if so, why aren't you expressing those concerns now? >> well, the cost of the war

like the cost of everything else certainly is of great concern to the american people as it is i'm sure to the administration. but i think in a real sense the costs of health care is something that is up close and right here, something that people touch. it's something people have to deal with in a real way. when they go to get their medicines, when they go to get health services. they are either paying or they are seeing what that cost is in a real way. i think that it doesn't, doesn't take away from the fact that the cost of engaging militarily is a cost like all other costs, but when you are looking at the entire cost of health care as a proportion of our gdp, as the bottom line for our state governments. i know in the state of maryland, health care was about 48% of our budget.

30% of that budget was education. so 78% of our budget was tied up and to think that all the things we did on homeland security and, you know, national defense with respect to the military institutions that we have in our state. was a very small portion of that. so clearly, whether you are talking at a micro level or macrolevel, the cost of health care, the cost of providing that health care is a major, major piece of anyone's budget. and i think that right now this is something that's impacting our economy. it takes up a significant portion of the dollars that we are allocating. and we need to get it under control, and our concern is that additional spending is just out of line. we are not driving this nation into debt. trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of debt by the spending that's going on right now with the war in iraq.

and afghanistan. health care is driving that never. you look at what this administration is proposing, it is astronomical amounts of cash. and we are going to have to pay that bill. and it's a bill that is related to the health care expenses that this administration wants to put in place. and so i think that, you know, the federal government, the state governments will be grappling with this issue in a real way for sometime, but we need to do so smartly. we need to do so with a sense of urgency, yes, but with the right amount of pause to make sure that we get it right. and right now, i don't think we are getting it right. we are getting it very wrong because it's i think in the long term going to cost us more harm than good that's intended for it to do. thank you all very, very much. >> i would like to thank you all for coming today. i would also like to thank the national press club staff

members who helped organize this. melinda cook, pat nelson, joanne booze and howard rothman. also thanks to the npc library for its research and npc member. the video archive of today's newsmaker is provided by the national press club broadcast operations center, our events are available for download on itunes as well as on our website. nonmembers may purchase transcripts, audio and video tapes by calling (202)662-7598, or e-mailing usd

>> in a few moments, monday's news conference with defense secretary robert gates and andrew mike mullen. in a half-hour, the apollo 11 astronauts talk about their mission to the man who they lend it 40 years ago today. after that, we will air again the comments about health care legislation from president obama and republican national committee chairman michael steele. on washington journal tomorrow morning, we will discuss

afghanistan with michael o'hanlon ambassador christopher hill has an update on iraq. we will focus on the health-care debate with representatives christopher murphy and joe barton. also, we have mike allen, the chief white house correspondent for "the politico." >> join the conversation on civil rights and race relations with npr and fox news analyst juan williams live in two weeks. >> defense secretary robert gates said today that the army would temporarily and 20,000 more soldiers. his comments came at a half-hour news conference with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and to mike mullen.

>> good afternoon, today, i am announcing a decision to temporarily increase the active it duty strength of the army by about 22,000. that is a temporary increase from the current authorized and permanent strength of 547,000 two unauthorized temporary strength of 5069 -- 569,000. surely after taking office and

mindful of the decision to surge additional forces into iraq, i recommended and the president and congress approved the size of the army of 65,000 and a marine corps of 27,000. at that time, it was judged that these increases would sustain the projected level of deployments and lower the stress on the force. at the same time, i directed that the army continued to reduce the size of the non- deployable or institutional part of the force. much has changed over the last two years, causing as to reassess whether we are properly sized to support current operational needs. in iraq, significant progress has ushered in a security agreement with the government of iraq to significantly draw down u.s. forces by next year and completely by the end of 2011. by contrast, the escalating violence in afghanistan and the

political turmoil in pakistan has turned out a new policy from the president. the persistence pays of operations in iraq and afghanistan over the last couple years has steadily increased the number of troops not available for deployment in the army. the decision to eliminate the routine use of stop-loss authority in the army also requires a larger personal float for each deploying unit to compensate for those whose contract expires during the time of deployment. the army has reached [unintelligible] the cumulative affect of these factors is that the army faces a time when its ability to continue to deploy combat units acceptable fill rates is at risk. based on current deployment estimates, this is a temporary

challenge which will peak in the coming year and a big over the course of the next three years. for these reasons, i have authorized their me to temporarily increase their personnel strength by 22 dozen trips for -- strength by 22,000 troops. the department will not seek additional funds for fiscal years 2009 or 2010 to implement this decision. we will work with omb and the congress in putting together the necessary fiscal program in the remaining two years. i am mindful that, during this time a financial crisis, this decision will result in additional tough choices for the department. . i am convinced that this is an

important and necessary step to ensure that we continue to properly support the needs of our commanders in the field while providing relief for our current force and that their families. >> of this temporary increase helps us address concerns. it will help us get a better handle on boiled time and boost the number of people we can deploy with capabilities that our commanders must need. it is not just about to leave. is about renewing our efforts to fight these two wars. this has many components, managing stress for troops and families as onis one. as you well know, i just returned from a trip to both

places. what i found was, cross their, there was a much deeper appreciation of counterinsurgency warfare that i found in the past, especially in afghanistan where, nearly to a ñç;kw5r>hñú [unintelligible] a perfect example of that were the marines down and homan was but a day with. i can tell you that there really do get it. there reported not one civilian casualty of to that point in their operations and were using and disposing a very disciplined and a deliberate amount of care for the afghan people. as soldiers, we're looking to add a tour force. -- to add to our force. it is the right thing to do. . the troops we're living in a time of not only great change, but also great simultaneousity.

although we may be tired, we must stay focused. there's no time to lower our gaze or pulled back or stretched hands. >> i have a question for both of you. a couple of weeks have passed to the june 30 handover of control of the cities in iraq. how do you assess the level of cooperation and tension between u.s. forces and iraqi forces, particularly in baghdad where there have been reports of disagreements over who gets to do what when. do you believe you have the authority to protect the force and operate as any to? >> i received a report from the general today that addressed this issue. he said that the level of cooperation and collaboration with the iraqi security forces

is going much better than is being portrayed publicly and in the media. my impression from his reporting and not just this week, but over the last couple of weeks, has been that it is actually, in his view, going quite well >> all the discussions i have had, including the one mid-week last week about this issue, have been very positive. certainly, there are challenges. i would point out the independent effort that the iraqi forces provided recently in terms of providing security for the visit of many, many iraqis to a very sacred mosque. that, as an example, we continued to work with them. from the time before the 30th of june, we have been pulling of

cities until now and it has been positive. there clearly are challenges, but the leadership is working its way through each one of those challenges. so i am encouraged. >> with the vote looming, you made an impassioned speech on thursday in chicago. what would you tell -- >> i was not -- i could. if i was state or animated. -- i could not tell if i was stayed or animated. [laughter] >> what would you tell you worker face-to-face in a tavern about your impact? >> what i would say it is that -- is what you have heard me say before. the net effect of this will be a substantial increase in the number of jobs in the aerospace

industry. the f-22 has 24,000 direct employees this year. the best-35 already has 38,000 employees. -- the f-35 already has 38,000 employees. that will go to 62,000 or 64,000 in 2010 and 80 two thousand in 2011 -- and 80 two thousand in 2011 -- and 82,000 in 2011. >> does it bother you that in number of democrats are basically saying that we need to buy more planes? they're going to come up in favor of that appeared >> what i

have not heard is a substantive reason for adding more aircraft. that is in terms of our strategic needs. >> over the weekend, the taliban, as you know, released the video of pnc bill burton dole captured -- beau bergdahl. have you been able to glean anything from that video? what was your personal reaction when you saw this american soldier put on display like that? >> in the admiral's cup back from their cred lemass can to address it. -- >> in the admiral just got back from there. let me ask him to address it. my personal reaction was one of disgust at the exploitation of this young man. >> i deplore the exploitation of him and would just reaffirm what

the secretary said, having been with the forces who are conducting the operations to recover him or to find him. they are extensive and vast. they're on a 24/7. we're doing absolutely everything we can to get him back. >> was anything able to be gleaned from the video? >> from nine intelligence perspective, we certainly would not share that publicly. -- from an intelligence perspective, we certainly would not sure that publicly. >> you have upcoming talks with the israelis. what is the message you're planning to deliver? >> since it is all over their

newspapers, there's nothing particularly secret about it at this point. but it is a routine visit, as far as i am concerned. it has been probably at least two years since i have visited israel. i have been in regular contact over the last long while with my counterpart, minister barack. i see this as a very routine visit to touch base with my counterpart and others in the israeli government. >> are you -- it is going to come up. will you be reassuring the israelis? >> the only thing that i can say about that is that i am certain that that subject will come up. >> you spoke about the tactical directive of counterinsurgency.

you said that troops were showing a lot of discipline. i think you had said that, if this was acrid, we killed to many civilians. one is too many. but i wanted to ask you, and maybe both of you, both of you, for so many years, have talked about the notion that the u.s. military takes every precaution and is more careful than any other country out there about the caution on civilian casualties. but that does not square with the fact that you have no hinted on something else. now you have the tactical directive. clearly, there was something else that could be done that was not done. yet, you have talked for so long about being more careful than anybody else. how do you square both of these? >> every civilian casualty is a

tragic loss in and of itself. in fact, the secretary, myself, and commanders, earlier this year, took what we believe was a significant step in that direction. yet we continue to have -- we have had incidents. what struck me on the strip was how quickly and how deeply this message from the general had penetrated, both on the aircraft carrier when we talk to the air wing and that was having a much more comprehensive discussion about a target set, if you will, and other choices before you had to release a weapon to the marines who had conducted this operation as recently and not had a single casualty.

i found it much more inculcated. in many ways, it is very much a learning process. when i talked earlier about having killed too many civilians, i think that part of it has been that, since we have been in effect, it has been a learning process. i have taken additional steps. i would have done them six months ago if i had thought of them. when i was taken with was how quickly the directives had been grasped by everybody. >> let me try it this way. . if you, for so many years, said that the u.s. has done everything that it can -- you have said this for many years now -- yet clearly there were other steps to take. are you satisfied that it has taken eight years to get to this

point? >> i am only going to speak to the last year-and-a-half. my point of view is that it has been an evolutionary process. all of the things that i have said and that the admiral has said about the u.s. taking more care with respect to civilian casualties than anybody else is absolutely true. when i was in afghanistan over a year ago, i took afghan press with me to bagram where they receive a briefing, along with me, of the measures that were taken by our pilots to check and double checked and triple checked to try and avoid civilian casualties when they were looking at a target.

first of all, i took the approach early last year that we should change our approach when there are civilian casualties in terms of how we react because we were reacting too slowly. then general mccarron took steps to try and tighten up -- then general mckiernan took steps to try and tighten up to limit the selling casualties. now it has been taken to put a different level witfrom a stratc standpoint. our concern all along has been that we not place our own troops in increase in jeopardy. so the question has been how do we design our offensive operations in a way that will reduce the possibility of civilian casualties?

i think that is what general the mcchrystal has undertaken. i think it has been an evolutionary policy. i think it has reached a completely different level. it really keys off of the general mcchrystal's testimony. >> senator dillon read is talking about adding an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would give the memoir a.m. -- a moratorium on done ostinato. some have noted that there has been a change of tone -- a moratorium on do not ask, do not

tell. some have noted that there has been a change of tone. why is that? >> well, for one thing, we have a new president who has a new policy and we will support what his goal is here. i am not going to speak to specific legislation. i would just say this. first of all, even as we look for ways to apply the law more humanely and as we look at how we might begin to implement along, the only thing -- a change in the law, should that happen, the only thing we have continued to said and certainly i believe and i can speak for the chairman in this is that, if the law does change, then it is important that the implementation be delivered and careful. this is not something that should be done abruptly.

i think we have a force under great stress into wars. to tried to do something abruptly would be a real concern. --t to try to do something abruptly would be a real concern. >> given the desire to increase the size and they pacing of the u.s. security forces -- >> i do not think it is inevitable. we're waiting to see what his 60-day review produces. it is fine with me if he takes the full 60 days to examine it. i have asked him to scrub very hard the forces that are already there to ensure that we are using them to maximum

effectiveness. we will just wait and see. but i do not think that an answer either way or not come in their way is inevitable at this point. >> [unintelligible] >> for one thing, we have another brigade coming in later this summer and early fall whose principal responsibility is going to be for training. that is 4000 additional forces that are going to be devoted almost exclusively to training. >> the only other thing i would add to that is that almost every major unit that is coming in is going to have a training responsibility in addition to his other responsibilities. there is very heavy focus on training police as well as the army. additionally, there are forces and training capabilities coming

in from other countries as well. >> there seems to have been a change, substantively and rhetorically, coming out of iraq. lower level commanders are saying that they're being asked to conduct information before they leave. rhetorically, there were, as a day -- there were comments today where they described american soldiers in iraq as being under house arrest. subsystehow confident are you tt they're being protected? if the iraqis see our presence there as putting is under house arrest, putting our soldiers into vast presence, why are we there? >> first of all, i certainly have not heard anything from general odierno that would indicate whether our soldiers

have been put at increased risk. it is perhaps the measure their success in iraq that politics have come to the country. >> having been in kirkuk the the day and the spending part of the day with the commander there who has been there for over half a year -- his interaction with the security forces, police and the army -- in addition, he is in a spot where he is looking at to the interface between kashmurga and the iraqi army as well -- whether your hand cover unable to do what he is doing or what he is supposed to do never came up. >> what is your assessment of

the level of taliban assessment or the u.s.-led offensive. are you confident that the new rules are not creating dangers for the u.s. troops? >> i have spoken about this brother with seniors and juniors alike. the issue of not being able to execute or protect themselves never came up. in fact, when i found was an enthusiasm for that. marines who actually had a group of taliban in the house were very patient. some time ago, they may have taken that house out. they were looking, waiting and waiting. they were assured that all women and children were out. they continue to wait. not too long after that, a woman

came out with two of her finger shot. she was bleeding very badly. there were two other individuals that came out dressed in burke is. they had -- dressed in burqas. they had children in their hands. but there were taliban masquerading as women grin in the end, with the local said was -- as women. in the end, the locals said " coward" cowards to masquerade as women. -- the local said, what cowards to masquerade as women. in my view, that is an example of its really sinking in. >> the first part was the level of taliban resistance.

general nicholson said that he only has 650 afghan troops with the 4000 marines. is there any word on why that is? >> that is how the forces have been distributed. i am sure that general mcchrystal will make that is a part of his assessment. we will see whether or not that changes as a result of that could to aspects of the taliban -- one, in some places, they're not standing and fighting. they are dispersing. they have raised level of sophistication in some cases which is pretty high. i spoke with a couple of renters who were in a tough fight to were surprised that the taliban were as good and as sophisticated as they were. >> let me ask you about what you called the generals to approach. some leaflets have been handed out.

you can see an american soldier kicking out a door with words say, if you do not hand him over, we will hunt you. what is your opinion of the leaflet? >> i would reiterate that there is a tremendous effort on going to return this individual to us. it is full spectrum. clearly, the enemy is able to, as they are, use this in their own information way. i do not think the message is meant to be threatening as much as it is to express the concern and that we will go to every and to find this individual. that is what we're doing right now. >> that is the kind of thing that i leave to the judgment of

the commanders in the field. i am not going to try it and second-guess those kinds of things from here. clearly, there is a balance here between the effort to try to recover our soldier, to get him back, and how we interact with the local population. in a tactical sense, they commanders are in a lot better able to do that than i am. >> you referred to additional tough choices. can you speak a little bit more to that? what were those choices? what is the cost, do think? >> it goes to the line that i have been using all spring. this is a zero-sum budget. if money for one thing as opposed to another has to come out -- there has to be an offset. the cost we expect for the rest

of the fiscal year 2009, just a couple of months left, is probably on the order of less than half a million dollars. for foia 2010, -- for fiscal year 2010, it would be $10 billion. we will absorber those costs within our current top line. -- we will oabsorb those costs within our current top line. this is a very high priority. frankly, this is why some of the wheeling and dealing of a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there and a pet

project here and a pet project there confront us with more difficult choices when we are trying to make tradeoffs in terms of how do we help our soldiers out? how do we relieve the stress on the force? the money has to come from somewhere. this is the point that i have been trying to make all along. >> can you talk about the ramification of the f-22 vote? if you prevail, will this make it easier for you to retool the pentagon the way you want? conversely, it if you lose, or your efforts doomed? >> first of all, i think it is important to remember -- the vote this evening is important, clearly. but the reality is that the president has been quite clear that, if there is money for the half-22 in the budget that comes to him, he will veto it appeared that is pretty clear. -- for the f-22 in the budget that comes to him, he will veto

it. that is pretty clear. i made about 50 program decisions and i announced the main ones on april 6. but the reality is that congress has embraced most of those. they certainly have embraced all of the initiatives that i announced with respect to taking care of our people and taking care of the force. while there are several very high-profile programs that are a source of contention, the reality is that much of what we're trying to do is reflected in the markets that have been passed so far. i think it is being internalized inside this building as i want security or go forward and so one. -- in this building as thicy the

qdr go forward and so on. last question. >> we were surprised to see that coming sheikh mohammed did not show up in court. do you have any word on how this case is a dancing? >> no idea. easy last question. thank you. >> in a few moments, the apollo 11 astronauts talk about their mission to the moon, where they landed 40 years ago today. after that, we have more about the debate about health care

legislation from president obama republican national committee chairman michael steele. later, we are the news conference with defense secretary gates and andrew mike mullen. >> a couple of live events -- the senate judiciary committee will meet to discuss the supreme court nomination of judge sonia sotomayor. on c-span 3, ben bernanke will testify before the house financial services committee. >> how is c-span funded? >> may be donations. >> they have some kind of sponsorships. >> taxpayer funding possibly. >> 3 philanthropy. >> [unintelligible] >> government may be? >> how is c-span funded?

30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a public-service, a private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money pegged >> the first men to the man landed there 40 years ago today. next, apollo 11 astronauts neil armstrong, buzz aldrin, and michael collins talk about their experiences and the future of space exploration. they spoke sunday at the smithsonian's air and space museum. half. >> good evening, lane. i'm jack dailey directo of the smithsonian air and space museum. it's a pleasure to dwom you to the sixth annual john h glen lecture. film you've been watching is newly restored video from the live television broadcast of the "apollo 11" moon walk. the release commemorates the 40th anniversary of the first moon mission to actually put astronauts on the moon.

since it was inaugurated in 2004, the lecture has become one of the museum ace most popular events. in fact, that's our problem tonight. we've had 7,000 requests for tickets for this event. 485 in this theater. so we have folks that are watching from other lobeses in this museum and from home courtesy of nasa tv which is providing it both on television and the web. so it's live just like it was back then. t the -- before we be begin the program i'd like to remind you that photographs and filming are not allowed. please turp off your cell phones and other devices. the annual john glenn lecture support the pum's mission in many ways. it is named for an individual who is known throughout the world for the role he played in the history of aviation and space. each year, a figure or team distinguished in the fields of space exploration or space sciences is invited to deliver

the lecture. the 2009 glenn lecture recognize the 40th anniversary of apollo 11, the first human mission to land on the moon. we are privileged to have the entire crew, mission commander neil armstrong, command module pilot and founding director of this museum, michael collins, and lunar module pilot buzz aldrin for the program here tonight. the fourth member of the panel is dr. christopher of kraft who is known the world over for creating mission control and director of the johnson space center. tonight's program is being made possible through the generous support of the boeing company. in addition to providing support for the glenn lecture, the company has partnered with the smithsonian on many important projects. construction phase two of the museum's center in chantilly virginia is well underway. in recognition of the boeing company's magnificent

contribution to this effort, we have named the facility central hangar the boeing aviation hangar. with us tonight is mr. timothy keating, senior vice president of public policy at boeing, tim, would you employees rise and be recognized, please. without these sponsorships, these lectures would not be possible. so we are deeply indebted to boings for this evening our audience tonight includes the who's who have aviation and space flight ludding the largest garthering of apollo streents in manyears. i'd like to acnone the crew of sts 12-25 who recently flew aboard the space shuttle "atlantis." you won't be able to see them because they're not in the theater. they're in milestones of flight so the folks out there, they will be able to see us though. be sure to respond.

>> hey, you pa lucas are supposed to be out in the front row. let me apologize to those of you who -- those reserved seats in front row outside, you can go ahead and sit in them, folks, because they're available. well, that kind of messes up this little part. i'm not going to -- six of them are here. there had he are right over there. stand up. they had a very clever series i was going to do at that point. okay. thank you. this fall, we look forward to having here in the museum two of the astronomical instruments that the crew brought back to earth from the hubble space tell it cope, the wide field

planetary camera and the space telescope axial replacement better known as co star. remember that? those were the corrective lenses that had to be put on hubble and they're going to be put on display. think about that. it was determined that hubble had a lens problem once it was on orbit. nasa analyzed the problem, developed the correction, produced it here on earth, launch it had into space and install it had on orbiting an spacecraft. that's a perfect example of what nasa does, the incredible things they do on a rel basis. my favorite comment there was if you can identify the problem, nasa can solve it. i think this is a perfect example of that. those boxes are going to be on display here in the museum very shortly. we'd invite to you take a look. they're not in the script tonight but something that happened we need to mention is the passing of walter cronkite, truly a member of this team and he's what really brought the

rest of us into the picture with his narrations of all of the activities and it was clear that his commitment to the program was total. and so we'll all miss him and there will be tributes to him throughout the week. there were many today. also i'd like to mention that major general charles boldin, united states marine corps retired was confirmed by the president as administrator of nasa last week. charlie, i know you're here. stand up. there he is. for those of you air force guys who are concerned that the marines are taking over, that's too bad. one year ago, the smithsonian institution welcomed its 12th secretary. over the past year, drst cluf has gotten to know the institution's 19 museums, 20 libraries, nine research centers, is the national zoo and has traveled the smithsonian

operations in other countries including panama, chile and kenya. his vision includes renewal rethinking the institution's role in the life of the nation and the world. he is moving forward with a major strategic planning effort. his priorities include engaging new audiences and harnessing latest technology to achieve the institution's founding mandate which is the increase in the diffusion of knowledge. he has shown great support for the museum and has visited both this building and the stephen f several times. he has viewed exhibits, met with scientists, participated in programs, toured collection storage facilities and helped us break the wall through the center with a bull dozer to begin construction of phase two. it is my great honor to introduce the 12th secretary of the smithsonian institution, dr. g. wayne cluf. dr. cluf. >> good evening. and thank you, jack, for that

nice introdubz and thank you for your leadership and to all your colleagues for what this mum does for the american people. it's a wonderful thing for all of us. let me also say welcome to our special guest who are here. obviously, there are many here tonight many who indeed were heroes and who have indeed made history. thank you for coming to help us administrate the annual john glenn lecture and the 40th anniversary of "apollo 11" of the moon landing. welcome to all those who are watching courtesy of nasa through the web broadcast. we appreciate that very much. we love our partnership with nasa, not only jointly do we celebrate the wonders and accomplishments of the space program of this country, but indeed, we also share activities together such as operating the orbiting satellite telescope as well as working with them on the new kepler mission looking for new planets.

1969 was an eventful year in our politics art and culture but probably no event was more important, more inspiring or more transforming than the foon moon landing. the world changed forever that day. and all of us at least of my generation already where we were when it happened. and when we saw it on television. i was a student at the university of california at berkeley working ph.d. degree and that particular day, we were imbibing slightly on the side at a place called the beer garden. celebrating the landing of these great astronauts and we raised one and hoisted one in your honor when it happened. well, tonight, you will hear from those who actually did it. we are honored they are here. in a speech at rice university in 1962, president john k. kennedy sfribed their mission as the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which

man has ever embarked. here at the smithsonian, we're dedicated to telling every expanding story of our fascination with flight and space exploration. here we celebrate the incredible accomplishments of the courageous visionary men and women throughout our history who dared to defy the odds and gravity. pilot and invepter igor see score ski once wrote air naught ticks is neither an industry nor a science. it is a miracle. d here at the smithsonian that you see the whole story of that miracle. how astronauts, pilots, politicians, scientists, engineers inventors and many others made it possible to soar. the apollo 11 mission illustrates the best of that story. it took many years of hard work to make it happen and there have been many years of hard work

since then. so last year at our annual folk life fes activity, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of nasa and thousands of dedicated professionals who make our space exploration possible. more than a million dame to view the exhibits. i personally visited at that time and i'll never forget the look on the faces of the children and the adults as they saw the many dazzling demonstrations about space flight. we also tact separated the country of buton and many of the mucks who came to participate had never been out of their monastery much less been on a plane and when they had the opportunity to see what was going on in the nasa pavilion, they were amazed and it was wonderful to see their inspiration when they saw it. the national air and space museum hosted more than 7 million visitors annually. the smithsonian though is in a new era. we want it reach not just the million who's visit here on the

mall but the billions we can reach using digital technology to inspire young people themselves so that they willal want to be scientists and astronauts and nasa participants scientists. >> science, of what it can mean- what it means to be an american. there is a wonderful exhibit in this art museum. it's an example of how science and art come together. all of these stories speak to the great american spirit and what we stand for as a nation. the best of what we stand for is exemplified in our next speaker. and it is my distinct honor to introduce him. please welcome a true friend of the smithsonian for decades, the man for whom this lecture series is named and astronaut, a senator, a marine, a pioneer, and above all, a great american

patriot. senator john glenn. >> thank you all very much. thank you. thank you. the summer of 1969 was a defining time in america because of the milestone that we're recognizing tonight of apollo 11. you can ask anyone over the age of 50 what he or she was doing when we landed on the moon and they can tell you and that's me too. i was fortunate to be -- i left nasa at that time but i was in the observation area and the control center and watched the whole thing unfold there and something i will certainly never, ever forget along with you and people all over the world. this was not an idol objective.

i think a lot of people forget what the drive was back at that time. a lot of the drive behind our efforts that time was a cold war. this wasn't just a scientific stunt or environmenter to exceed just for the doing of it. it was inspired by the cold war and the competition we had, the soviet claims of research superiority to us. they were taking thousands of students to the soviet union training them, sending them back to their own countries. they were ahead of us for a while in the earlier days of the space program when they were launching and successfully while some of ours were blowing up on the boosters -- the boosters were blowing up on the launch pad. in 1968, we have to remember the things that happened at that time. we had great turmoil over the

vietnam war and we had actual riots in chicago over this. we had the assassination of martin luther king and bobby kennedy. at the time, america stood at a critical cross roads. and i think that apollo 11 did a lot to bring this country back together again. people had a feeling that we were all one again and we could go ahead and move ahead like we hadn't felt for a long time. we talked about people, americans around the world where foreigners were coming up to them in different capitals around the world and saying we did it. we did it. we did it. they were talking about themselves along with us, the way they viewed this whole

thing. for the first time in human history we had the people of the whole world with a sense of -- it was a major time for all man kind that this was a step that nobody had ever done before and it was something that meant a lot to people all over the world. too bad we can't keep that same kind of dedication because everyone shared in the success of this historic mission as too bad we just can't continue that attitude day in and day out. people wonder if younger generations recognize the poshs of these events and perhaps there is a resurgence now of interest in public service as there was back after those days of apollo 11. the 40th anniversary reminds how we sent these people to the moon on that day. neil many times mentioned about this about what a team effort it was, a giant team, hundreds of @

i would like to introduce market with a camp. she has a number of graduate degrees and has received numerous awards. dr. weitekamp overseas many space items. she has a job that i would not have for any amount of money. [laughter] how do you have a flight come back from space and make the decisions of where it is -- of what is the level to hang on to

and what is just chalk? -- is just space junk? thank you. [applause] . >> thank you very much, senator glenn. it is an honor, a privilege to coordinate the glen lecture this year as we commemorate the 40th anniversary of apollo 11. our speakers this evening, the crew of that mission and christopher graph agreed to share with us their thoughts on share with us their thoughts on the significance of and american space flight to the moon. our first speaker will be dr. craft. as nasa's first flight director fo human space flight, christopher c. craft jr. enjoyed a firsthand perspective on the early years of american human space flight. many of you have enjoyed this

since nasa's early history in the 2001 autobiography, "flight, my life in mission control." dr. craft served in houston in 1972 to 1982. and then worked as an aerospace consultant after his retirement. he has spoken at the museum before. and we are honored to have him back with us again this evening. please welcome dr. chris craft. >> i'm going to see if i can do that like this stuff that's in front of me. >> it's an honor to be here tonight. it's a great day 40 years ago. an honor to be involved in this great evening with the three men who did the job. they are great americans and they deserve the highest praise.

my job is supposed to be tonight to set the stage. so i'll try to do that. the russians started this whole business with orbiting a satellite. they had it on page 37 of their newspaper. every newspaper in the world had it on the front page, they put it on the front page. in the spring of 1961 following that, there was a great deal of turmoil in the space program but even more in the u.s. everyone was concerned about what was happening with the russians. the president was having sleepless nights. and in 1961, the u.s. space

program was also -- which was created to start man's advancement into space, with attempting to launch the first human into space, allen shepard. it was a competition with the russians. the press drove that immensely. nevertheless, we were struggling to make a safe launch to the first astronaut into a suborbital flight. now the second flight in project mercury was a very interesting flight because sitting on the top of a red stone was a chimpanzee named ham. and he was there because we had to prove, before we could put humans in space, that indeed would not kill a chimpanzee.

unfortunately, as that flight took place on a rocket built by engineers, the rocket cut off early. and as a result, the escape system created 17 g force on both the chimpanzee and the spacecraft. he was pretty unhappy about that. when it got through, it proved he could do a job in space. and as a result, even though he continued in the slight interruption in his work but even though he continued, he was supposed to get a shock if he did the wrong thing and a banana pellet if he did the right

thing. no nmatter what he did, he got shock. and as a result of landing 100 miles down range and a slight hole in the bottom of his spacecraft, by the time we got there, he was pretty damn mad and also pretty wet. now we considered that to be a very successful flight. we did everything we were there to do. we got the chimpanzee back and did he a very good job. but a lot of people didn't see it that way, and particularly the medical community who had not yet believed that man could do a job in space. and as a result, they said we want you to test certain number of chimpanzees at the johnsonville before we'll let

you fly alan shepard. fortunately, several weeks later a gentleman flew into space. and not only did he not do us a suborbital flight, he did an orbital flight. the doctors quickly decided that it was okay for us to put alan shepard into space in a surbital flight. and by the way, that was done in the glare of the real time press. while that was taking place, they scored a coup. however, several weeks later we flew alan shepard. and that was truly a successful flight. but it was also a surprise to

the president of the united states and a lot of other people that the response of the united states was high praise. they thought it was a wonderful thing. it was a hell of a propaganda coup for the united states. and as a result, the president called nasa to -- i'm paraphrasing here, called nasa to his offices and he'd been asking his staffer what might we do in space that would ace the russians? and so the learned fathers of nasa said, well, we can probably fly around the moon in about ten years. the president's response, that's not very exciting. so two weeks later, all the nasa people got their flight rules and whatever they had and said,

okay. that's what we are proposing to do if that's what you want us to do. if you're wanting to make that commitment, so are we. now i don't know what you think our response to that was. but frankly, it scared the hell out of me. we didn't know anything about space flight at that point in time. we did not still put mr. glenn into orbit. we didn't know how to do orbit determination with the radar data we had. somebody was asking us to do the orbital mechanics associated with going to the moon. we had to do the surface properties of the moon were unknown and many scientists in this country thought it would sink into 60 to dust. they thought it would catch on fire due to the flame that came

from the devices. and we had to figure out how to do a lot of other things. it also sent us back to reading jewels burner. many people had great ideas. the two that came into great view is direct dissent. we shot it at the moon just like jewels bird did and land. the other technique was you put everything into earth orbit and put it all together and then fire it to the moon and land. and as we began to look at that and everybody in the country did that had anything to do with thinking about going into space, many of the universities, we all came up with these great huge rockets called nova.

and there were many rocket systems that were being thought of. fortunately, a small group of very smart guys at the langley research center started looking at what they might do to overcome this tremendous amount of mass that would have to be sent towards the moon. and they decided that the best way t do that was to take a bug, as they call it, and orbit it around the moon with a mother ship, send it to the moon, land and take off again now as it was first thought of by all these people that had been thinking the other way, they thought they were crazy. they literally thought those people were crazy to think that we could do rendezvous around the moon. but as they began to recognize that there was a certain amount of intrigue to it, eventually

that's how all the people decided that we would do it and call it lunar orbit rendezvous. the man sitting here tonight is thankful that that happened. now as we begin -- began to think about that, however and, yet, had not flown first man in orbit, we recognized that you probably had to do a lot of learning. and that's when we concede the spacecraft that was a two-man version of mercury spacecraft. it would allow us to do hopefully rendezvous and docking in space for the first time. it would allow us to use something besides batteries as power known as fuel cell. it would help us to find it if man could survive for 14 days at zero gravity. it would help us to do eva which they practiced valiantly on the

group and proved it can be done. it developed -- we had to develop new space suits to allow the men to survive while working in space. and all of these new requirements were operations that eventually we would have to do around the moon. and in a sense then geit was a proving ground for apollo. i don't have enough time to describe the group so i won't. and i want to talk about it, however, how we got to apollo. because while many of us in the operations world and some engineers were still working on gemini and apollo, the apollo program came into being. and this was a whole new concept to these people. many of these people had never had any experience in space flight. they came from all kinds of other engineering walks of life.

but they had been given the task to very quickly come up to speed and start building a spacecraft. frankly, they built a damn lousy spacecraft. they were running like the devil trying to get it done. they didn't have time to listen to lessons learned. and it was quite a turmoil in 1967 when we sent three men to their death on the pad at cape canaveral. it was a terrible day. it was a very terrible day to watch t etc., and so, we had a regrouping of nasa following the review of that program, and one of the first meetings we had

with senior program manager was a meeting to decide what we needed to do, and we listed over 100 things that had to be done to make that a viable, and we did that. we worked our fannies off, and we got it done. there are many contractors. and in 1967, after having done that, and getting ourselves ready to go, it took a lot of guts, frankly. we had to rebuild the industry, had to rebuild ourselves, and we had to rebuild the spacecraft. unfortunately, in the summer of 1968, after recognizing that we are ready to fly the spacecraft, we flew on apollo 7 and apollo

8. apollo 8 was a typical program. with the apollo 8, i think we would have been hard pushed to find out how to do apollo 11 and the time that we did, and, also, i want to say -- in the time that we did, and also, i want to say that even though the death of those men was a terrible thing in our memory, without the fire, i can guarantee you we were still trying to get to the moon, because that was not going to happen with the hardware we had, so we quickly did apollo 9 and apollo 10. and apollo 11 happened, and the gentleman here tonight and tell you about that. and apollo 11 happened. and the gentlemen here tonight will tell you about. that i want to spend the rest of my time tonight talking a little bit about the problems that nasa is struggling with today.

because i think that's important. first in, 1915, the naca was established, national advisory committee for aeronautics. 80% to 100% of the vehicles in this museum had roots in the naca. think about that. all of these flying machines that you see around here had their roots in the naca. now the nasa program that we did in the '60s had a great deal of payoff. we didn't invent everything that happened in apollo. but it was the demands of product -- of products of the

perfection of the reliability, of the performance, of the mass, of the reducti in power that brought about a spike and in my opinion the greatest advancement to the technology in the history of man. it was the nasa programs that drove that. so i say we can call that return on investment. every company in the united states has the capital expenditure. i served on a number of boards. and that's our whole life. their whole future depends on making an investment with capital funds every year. this is the best investment that this country has ever seen and

the best government agency to get a return on investment. and it is where our future lies. so the point i want to make is that we need to make an investment in new technology. there are all kinds of ways to use that technology. everybody's got its ideas and buzz will tell you a budge of them tonight about how to g there and how to use it. there are a lot of other people that do that. but what we need is new technology. we have not made that investment since apollo. they spent money into technology for the future. and in mercury, we spent about 10% of our moneys on the future. fuel cells, thermal protection

systems, the communications satellite and computers changed the whole world in which we live. that's what we need today. it's in the future and return on investment which we can see and provide to the country. so i say to mr. obama, let's get on with it! let's invest in the future! >> our second speaker this evening will be apollo 11 lunar pilot dr. buzz aldrin, a west point graduate, he joined the air force in 1951. he flew combat missions in korea

and then earned his doctorate from m.i.t. he dedicate the his dissertation to the crew members of this country's present and future manned space program. if only i could join them in their exciting endeavors. he soon did. becoming a nasa astronaut later that same year. his successes flying the lunar module pilot for apollo 11, cemented his place in history. with the long career and public life, dr. aldrin continues to be an active figure, lending his experience and energy to books, conferences, documentary films, and even this year recording a music video with rapper snoop dog. it is my pleasure to welcome dr. buzz aldrin.

>> somebody was going to put a slide up there that i was going to dazzle you with. it will be on www.buzzaldrin.com. and i know that it's a little daunting to view progressive ways into the future. i volunteered to talk about the future. that's not the only thing i'm going to talk about. but that's what i've always been looking at. what can we do that's a little bit better?

we are here -- and i think that we can be here from the wright brothers and kitty hawk to tranquility base with 66 years. 66 years in the future takes us to 2035. i believe we deserve to do a little bit more than footprints on the moon. and i believe that there is a time line, that are many of them, but i believe question do that. yes, we can. turn on the slide, please. thank you. and good evening, everyone. i'd also like, of course, to thank the smithsonian and my former colleagues for the

opportunity to be with you all this evening. four decades ago have passed since neil, mike and i traveled across the blackness of space to win a peaceful race. it was then and still is today an honor and a privilege to be a part of apollo 11 and the entire apollo program. toght, you may well ask, what did it mean that america was fit on the moon? and what can america do next in space to build upon that long ago achievement? apollo 11 was about exploration, about taking risks for great rewards in science and in engineering, about setting an ambitious goal before the world. and then finding the political will and the national means to

achieve it. indelibly the press impressed upon our nation's memory the voyage of apollo still seem incredible. we are inspired by the magnitude and teaming efforts of people from all walks of life. from industries big and small who worked in tandem to attain a long-term goal of magnificent achievement while neil and i stood on the lunar surface with mike orbitting above, supporting the three of us were hundreds of thousands of american workers who compromise what may be called the greatest team ever assembled. they're often overlooked at a time like this. i would like to pause tonight and look backwards, not through the eyes of a lucky pilot and astronaut but through the eyes of these hard-working americans.

meteorologists, policymakers and flight directors. navigateors and suit testers and all those in the shop floor such as the seamstrett who stitched the 21 layers for each custom tailored space suit. we cannot ever adequately thank them for committing their lives and professional energies, minds and hearts, to this mission. i want to think about and thank those about whom we never would have walked on the moon. ed white. roger aftery. the americans who came committed, believed in and conquered the unknowns with us. apollo 11 was also about

leadership. we are moved by a young american president who challenged himself and all of us to think boldly and not retreat from our vision of what we could do in space. the path that john f. kennedy inspired us to choose was not easy. in fact, it was very hard. but it served the betterment of america and ultimately the ending of the cold war. all of these lessons are worth learning a a. new today in the difficult times we face together. i believe that bold achievements in space not only reflect our country's greatness but beckon us to discoveries that can improve our lives on earth. i also believe that national leadership and the coming together of the american people

are the ingredients that make overwhelming obstacles possible this was how progress was achieved 40 years ago. this is how we can rise from our challenges today. apollo 11 is a symbol of what a great nation and a great people can do if we work hard, work together and have strong leaders with vision and determination. that is what apollo 11 means to us today, to me to daflt realda. realizing the dream by way of determination. what we did 40 years ago was a great mission of exploration. tonight i'd like to share with you a glimpse of where we can go in the next 40 years if only we are willing to be truly bold.

the best way to honor and remember all those who were part of the apollo program is to follow in our footsteps, to boldly go again on a great new mission of exploration. if our leaders are as wise today as president kennedy was in our time, a strong and visionary space program can once again inspire us to great achievement. my vision of the future for the space program is very much in keeping with our apollo tradition. but this time instead of a moon race, we c with the moon acting as a new, global situation for all nations. we can venture out were to mars for america's future. it may sound like a distant destination beyond our reach,

but that is what some called apolo. oh, to reach the moon, and they were wrong. let me share with you where i think america must go in space during the next half century. come travel with me on a journey of the imagination. it begins in earth's orbit where american space entrepreneurs have opened up the space wades into adventure travel. -- space waves. it builds upon the great international space station, which has become an orbiting research center and laboratory for all nations. and including india, china, south korea, and all other nations that aspired to explores space. we traveled to earth's orbit, aboard a new, reusable space deck. a magnificent space shuttle fleet. multi-purpose, international, and commercial ships.

capable of runaway landings and a variety of other missions. we test wolong duration light support, exploration modules. -- we test long duration light fe support. the cycle back and forth between the earth and the moon and then station in the murder vicinity to act as communication relays -- and then station in the lunar intended and to serve as refueling depos. not just in low earth orbit. but at the lie brags point close to the moon. we fly by commons and intersecretary asteroids with duel missions for redund ancy. the comets have names like veer tanen, heartily three, and the earth threatening near earth

object opofus swinging by in 2011, in 2023, and in 2029, pretty damn close. and if it just goes the right play friday the 13th of april 20 2029, apofus, is that right, rusty? it might impact us in 2036 right after we landed on mars. 40 years ago the name of the lunar seas, ocean storms became a part of america's vocabulary. and in our future, so will the names like apofus and other near earth objects. as we look out from our ship, we see the golden tail of an ancient comet filled with the material of the berirth of our galaxy. we develop tools and equipment to sift the rocky soil and

discover what the building blocks of the universe are made of. and then bring it back to our home world we're studying. step-by-step, just as mercury and gemini and apollo made apollo possible, made the landings possible, we move deeper into space for several manned landings on the inner moon of mars. all in a prelude to our historic mission to homestead the red planet itself. such bold missions of exploration will require determination, support and political will as did our mission to the moon four decades ago. we have the vision. we can reach these destinations on the pathways to mars within the next two decades.

and if we persevere, the pathways, we can reach mars itself before that 2035, 66 years after tranquility base which was 66 years after kitty hawk. to realize the dream of humans on mars, we need a unified space vision. we need to focus on pathways to the prize. even now russia and china and france will soon embark on the focus soil sample return mission. very complex. and they will share the soil sample with the french by agreement. the greatest challenge for us is this -- america, do you still dream great dreams? do you still believe in yourself? are you ready for a great

national challenge? i fall on the next generation and our political leaders to give this answer. yes, we can. yes, we can. a quarter of a million miles from where we are tonight on the dusty surface of our luminous moon are the traces of that first adventure. and we've just seen them on the films just brought back. attached to the lunar lander, the eagle that brought neil and me to the surface is a plaque with the words that can still be read today, it says, owe came in peace for all man kind. yes, we did. and yes, we will again. it was a great personal hor to walk on the moon. but as neil once observed, there are still places to go beyond belief. my goal is for the next

generation of space explorers and their leaders, isn't it time we continue our journey outward, pass the moon. thank you for listening to me and may god always bless the united states of america. . >> thank you very much, dr. aldrin. our third speaker is michael collins. general collins graduated from a school here in d.c. and then from west point before entering the air force in 1952. he flew an an experimental flight test officer and then joined nasa as an astronaut in 1963. in his career at nasa, he flew on gemini ten and then the command module pilot for apollo

11 circling the moon while neil armstrong and buzz aldrin landed. after leaving nass yashgs he became the director of this museum overseeing his construction and opening during the nation's bicentennial of 1976. he also served as an undersecretary of the smithsonian institution. when we were planning this evening, i did what the coordinator is supposed to do which is to offer each of the speakers a chance to have a rehearsal or walk through to familiarize themselves with the room to get a sense of the space. general collins politely declined. he knows the space. in fact, he probably approved the plans for the seats that you're sitting in right now. we're delighted to have him back on such familiar territory. please welcome general michael collins.

>> thank you. thank you, margaret. you're right. i spent a lot of time in this room. i apologize in some ways for its design, it's design for imax, not for live speeches. not sure anybody is up there. i'm down here in the middle of a black hole about to be sucked in by gravity. but anyway, it's very nice to be back here. and it's always nice to talk about apollo. a great success story, i think. behind me i put that because it's better than looking at the black imax screen. and i like that photo. it's my favorite one. you see in the little thing there are three billion people and then in the big thing there are two people. and posing for the photographer who remains discreetly out of

view. but it's nice to talk about apollo. as john glen described, john f. kennedy's mandate was a stark and very simple one. man on the moon by the end of the decade. such a clear objective. there was no ambiguity to it. all factions could pull behind it. at one time we had as many i think 400,000 americans working apollo. when i was director here, i tried to use the same clarity in this building's construction that was scheduled for july 4th, 1976. the nation's bicentennial. so we have apollo, man on the moon in a decade, museum on the mall bicentennial. and i used to run around washington screaming bicentennial whenever there was a snag that popped up in the design or funding of the museum. and it helped a lot.

but you're not here to discuss buildings. i know that. but to ask this, i suppose, what about apollo? what do we remember? what was important? i was talking with my daughter ann recently and one small step for a man came up. does this suit make me look fat? but back to the end of the decade, mr. president, i think you would have been pleased with the flight of apollo 11. everything worked so well, so

surprisingly well. about the flight itself, the thing i remember most is the view of planet earth from the great distance. tiny, very shiny, blue and white, bright, beautiful, serene and fragile. you don't get the full flavor of it looking at this because this has to be processed by film which are pretty crude and then projected. so it doesn't sparkle like the real thing did. it doesn't shine like a little gem as it would be if you could see it on a filter. but is the vision true? well, serene it is not. fragile it is. the world population when we flew to the moon was $3 billion people. today it's over 6 billion and headed for 8. so the experts say.

this growth is not wise, healthy orsustainable. loss of habitat, the trashing of the oceans, the accumulation of waste products. this is no way to treat a planet. yet, how do you stop it? and our economic models are all predicated on growth. a requirement. grow or die or maybe both. the dead zone created by runoff from the mississippi into the gulf of mexico is now larger than the state of new jersey. and still growing. we need a new economic paradigm that somehow can produce prosperity without this kind of growth. now turning to nasa in our future in space, i had my voice

of buzz. sometimes i think i flew to the wrong place. mars was always my favorite as a kid. and it still is today. as celestial bodies go, the moon is not a particularly interesting place. but mars is. and mars is the closest thing to our sister that we found so far. i wor that current emphasis on returning to the moon will cause us to become ensnared in a technological briar patch needlessly delaying for decades the exploration of mars and much more worth while destination. i realize there are many difficulties in reaching mars. it's a very long duration voyage. i even wrote a book about it one time. equipment reliability, exposure

to radiation, aspects of crew selection and psychology. all these things are tough problems. but i don't see -- i don't see a show stopper. that can be solved. i'd like to see mars become the focus just as john f. kennedy focused on the moon. getting back to apollo, what was its significance? historians tell us that it's much too early to judge. but suppose -- just suppose we could fly out into space, a whole bunch of light years and look around. what would we see? with the right instruments, i think we could detect i have to stop here and tell you a brief story. years ago, i was writing about what we may detect in the way of

far, a distant planets, and i kept using the word "detectable." i writing in longhand, so i sent it off to a typist -- i right in lonegan. when it came back, "detectable" had changed into "delectable." and i thought, that is wonderful. , what a great promotion for a planet. [laughter] but, anyway, how would we judge does detectable, delectables -- those? what category would we put them in? to see if their inhabitants were wanderers and if they had a capability to wander away from their home planet. our earth is 4 billion years old, and in the first 4 billion in cosmic terms, not much happened. then, in 1968, we left.

apolo 8 left. it exceeded escape velocity, and gravity could not keep us down here on the surface. the next year, apollo 11 not only left but arrived. the surface. the next year apollo 11 not only left but arrived. neither went very far or did very much. but as ben franklin once asked, what use is a newborn baby? i think apollo is a dividing line, putting earth for better or for worse into a new category, into the big leagues of planets. to me, that is what is the most significant thing about apollo. if you permit me a bit of

litteration, the flight accomplishments, the major accomplishment was not the flight of apollo 11, but the 11 apollo flights. now, turning from the macroto the micro, my concept of time is always been a bit strange. i can see a giant grandfather's clock up in the sky. the pendulum doesn't swing back and forth. it's stuck. it only moves once. it starts way over on the left. that's the young you, too young to drive, drink, or have a steady girlfriend. then one night while you're asleep, it's -- leaps over to the right. to the two old side.

then the next morning you're over the hill, getting bald, go try running, better add some omega 3 to your diet. you know, for a lot of people, it seems that pendulum has and goes two stops. no middle. but not for the crew of apollo 11. consider that neil armstrong was born in 1930. buzz aldrin, 1930. mike collins, 30. we came along at exactly the right time. that pendulum stuck for us in the middle. we had survived hazardous careers and been successful in them. but in my own case, at least, it involved 10% shrewed planning and 90% blind luck. lucky that is how glenn did the one word i would describe my life. lucky to have found -- lucky to have had loving parents, lucky

to have found pat. lucky to have two great daughters and seven great grandchildren. lucky not to be rich. i think most rich people develop problems. but they're not poor either. so that i can spend my time doing things that i like. what more could i ask? the things that i like, i split my time between southern florida and new england. i have a small paddle boat with which i fish, stripe bass in the north and snook in the south. geing good exercise along the way. i do some water color painting. i'm not a pro like my friend al bean. but i'm trying to get better. i read a lot, cook, do one triathlon a year, look at the stock market, keep looking for a really good cabernet under $10.

i'm moderately busy and happy. so -- put lucky on my tombstone but not too soon. >> thank you, general collins. our final speaker this evening will be apollo 11 commander neil armstrong. a proud graduate of purdue university, mr. armstrong holds a masters of aerospace engineering from the university of southern california as well as numerous honorary dock trats. mr. armstrong has flown over 200 different models of aircraft. he serves as a combat pilot in korea and as a research pilot for the national advisory committee for aeronaut ikz,

nasa's predecessor. he was the project pilot on any aircraft. but he is our final speaker this evening because mr. armstrong became the nasa astronaut in 1962, commanding gemini eight and apollo 11. he is a college professor who taught aerospace engineering, a trusted expert who helped run the rogers commission. a businessman who has served on numerous boards and for 40 years a careful steward of the responsibility of being the first man on the moon. it is an honor to introduce mr. neil armstrong. >> thank you so much.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> thank you very much. our reason for gathering here tonight is to remember the apollo program and in particular the 40th anniversary. the year of achievements in the year of 1969. and because i wanted to talk about things other than what the previous speakers talked about, i chose for my title goddard, governance and gee yopsychics.

part one. goddard. many of you here tonight know robert goddard. an american inventor of liquid fuel rocket. as a young professor at clark university who early in the 0th century, he searched for support for rocket research without much success. his first substitute help was a $5,000 grant over five years from the smithsonian institution. he received no government assistance in any of his liquid rocket work. the first successful liquid rocket flight occurred in massachusetts in 1926.

distance covered -- 180 feet. it was the fourth maximum altitude, 41 feet. from then for the next decade and a half until the beginning of world war ii, he was improving and enlarging his rockets and flying them faster and higher in his flight test range in new mexico. as a result of this work, he held 214 patents on that work. his inventions, his patents and successes were of limited interest here in the united states. but they were often noted in europe where rocket clubs were very -- very popular. british interplanetary society and the soviet union and the

german rocket society and the rocket section of the society of france. in the 1930s, the weapons department of the army in berlin recruited rocket enthusiasts including a young brown from german rocket society in order to institute a crash program in rocket weapon development. and they built ever-larger rockets culminating in the a4 or the engine's weapon v2. at 14 tons and 46 feet in height, it was a gigantic rocket for the time. thousands of b2s were launched toward england and holland with speeds of over 3,000 miles per hour, and a range of 234 miles, and approximately a 1-ton

warhead, the v2 clearly suggested that a rocket-powered, long-range weapon might be a useful edition to a military arsenal. and no v2 had ever been intercepted or shot down. at least six concepts resident in the v2 had been patented by robert godard. most of them prior to the beginning of the german military rocket effort. analysis of the v2 immediately after the end of the war disclosed that all of its principle characteristics were nearly identical to the godard rockets. it didn't take long for military planners, particularly in the soviet union and here in the united states, to note the

possibility of long-range rockets armed with nuclear warheads. probably atomic warheads at that point. aerospace manufacturers responded to military requirements with pocket-powered ballistic missiles of ever-increasing range and accuracy. part two. governance. a great global schism developed during these years. this political discord was based on two super powers, the united states and the soviet union, competing for the respect of the world in general, and the unaligned nations in particular. and many of you here tonight remember well the cold war vividly. younger members of the audience may not remember it at all.

the cold war was a state of high tension and high political pension and intense military rival re. the united states and its western allies versus the soviet union and its socialists satellite states. to defend themselves, the super powers depended on the doctrine of mutually-assured destruction. to deter either side from initiating a nuclear attack, both sides were committed to a full-scale nuclear counter attack. assuring the total destruction of both nations. thousands of ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads created by the two super powers and pointed toward each other. the ultimate in brinksmanship.

part three. geo physics. during the cold war, a little remembered but particularly important research program was under way. the program was called "the international geo physical year year" or igy. 56 countries gatheredogether to look at our earth, oceanology, the earth's magnetis the atsp sm tian.to landing program, and there's was a covestory for the failures of their gigantic lunar rocket. the space race faded away. it was the ultimate peaceful

competition. usa versus ussr. i'll not assert that it was a diversion which prevented a war. nevertheless, it was a diversion. it was intense, and it did allow both sides to take the high road with the objectives of science and learning and exploration. eventually, it provided a mechanism for engendering cooperation between former adversari adversaries. in that sense, among others, it was an exceptional national investment for both sides. so i close, remembering godard governance and geo physics, the american robert godard invented the liquid propelled rocket.

germany used his technology to develop a large, strategic weapon. the governance competition between super powers resulted in the military development of very high-performance rockets. a scientific program in geo physics led to the use of those big rockets to launch the first satellites around the earth. those satellit initiated space race, and the space race culminated in the events we celebrate this evening. would humans have explored the moon without the work of robert godard? the existence of the cold war, or the igy? perhaps. but certainly never on the schedule as it actually occurred. history is a sequence of random events and unpredictable

choices. which is why the future is so difficult to foresee. but you can try. thank you all for helping us celebrate this space flight anniversary. good evening. this conclude's this evening's program. and i'm sure you all share my gratitude to doctor aldrin, general collins, colonel armstrong, and doctor craft for what is truly a

>> on the party at anniversary of the moon landing yesternight, the president met with the astronauts. this is about five minutes. very rarely do i have the ability to welcome people like

this, neil armstrong, and was aldrin here beside me. it is just wonderful. i think that all of us remember the moment in which mankind was finally untethered from this planet and was able to explore the stars, the moment in which we had one of our own step on the moon and leave that imprint that is there to this day. it is because of the heroism, the calm under pressure, the grace with which these three gentlemen operated, but also the entire nasa family that was able to, at great risk often times

and with a great danger, was somehow able to lift our sights, not just here in the united states but around the world. we now have a wonderful administrator, the deputy administrator, and we are confident that they are going to do everything that they can in the decade to come to continue the inspirational mission of nasa. i think it is fair to say that the touchdowstone for excellencn exploring will always be represented by the men of apollo 11. i'm a great -- i am grateful to them for taking the time to visit with us. the country continues to derive inspiration from what you have done. personally i grew up in hawaii

and i still recall sitting on my grandfather shoulders when as capsules would land in the middle of the pacific and would be brought back. we would go out and pretend like they could see us as we were waiting at the people coming home. i remember waving american flags. my grandfather telling me that the apollo mission was an example of how americans can do anything they put their minds to. i also note that as a consequence of the extraordinary work of nasa generally, that you inspired a jock -- an entire generation of scientists of the engineers and ended up sparking the innovation, the drive, the entreprenuership, and creativity back here on earth. it's important to remember that nasa is not only about beating our curiosity, that sense of

wonder, up but also it has extraordinary practical applications. one of the things that i have committed to doing as president is making sure that math and science are cool again, and we once again achieved the goal by 2020 of having a high as college graduation rates of any country on work, especially in the math and science fields. on this 40th anniversary, we are all mustang fall and grateful to all of you for what you have done and as we speak, there is another generation of kids out there who are looking up into the sky and will be the next armstrong, collins, and aldrin. women make sure that nasa will be there for them when they want to take -- we want to make sure that nasa will be there for them when they want to take their

journey. >> thank you, mr. president. >> thank you so much. thank you, everybody. >> your watching public affairs programming on c-span created by america's cable television companies. over the next hour, more about the health care debate in washington. first, comments from president obama. then in 10 minutes, from michael steele, head of the republican national committee. in a little more than an hour, monday's news conference with defense secretary robert gates and joint chiefs chairman @ rahm mike mullen. -- admiral mike mullen. >> on "washington journal," we

will discuss issues with michael of palin. christopher hill has an update on iraq. we will focus on health care debate with christopher murphy and joe barton. also joining us, the chief white house correspondent for the politico. washington journal is live on c- span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> join the conversations with npr and fox news analyst juan williams. it will be on booktv on c-span2. >> here is president obama on health care legislation. this was after a meeting with health care providers at a children hospital in washington, d.c. it is about 10 minutes.

>> please have a seat. i want to thank the children's hospital today and the participants. i just had the opportunity to talk to doctors, nurses, physicians assistants, and administrators at this extraordinary institution. we spoke about some of the strains on our health care system and some of the strains are health care system places on parents with sick children. we spoke about the amount of time and money wasted on insurance-driven bureaucracy. we talked about the growing number of americans who are owed -- uninsured and underinsured. we talked about a system where women cannot always afford

maternity care and parents cannot afford checkups for their kids and end up seeking treatment for emergency rooms like this one at children's. we spoke about the fact that it is hard for families even with health insurance to access primary-care physicians in a city like washington, d.c. you got all the doctors and one half of the city and very few in the other half. part of that has to do with just the manner in which reimbursement is taking place and the disincentives for doctors, nurses, and physician's assistants and caring for those who are most in need. we spoke about where we are headed if we once again delay health insurance reform. these health care professionals are doing heroic work, each and every day, to save the lives of america's children. but they are being forced to fight through a system that

works better for drug companies and insurance companies than for the american people that all these wonderful health professionals entered their profession to serve. over the past decade premiums have doubled in america. out-of-pocket costs have shot up by 33%. deductibles have continued to decline. even as america's families have been battered by spiraling health-care costs, health insurance companies and their executives have reaped windfall profits from a broken system. we have talked this problem to death, year after year, but unless we act and act now, none of this would change. a quick statistical about this hospital, just a few years ago there were approximately 50,000 people coming into the emergency room.

now they have 85,000. that is almost a doubling of emergency room care in a relatively short span of time, which is putting enormous strains on the system as a whole. that is the status quo and it is only going to get worse. if we do nothing, then families will spend more and more of their income for less and less care. the number people lose their insurance because they lost or change jobs will continue to grow. more children will be denied coverage on the town of asthma or heart condition. jobs will be lost, take home pay will be lower, businesses were shuttered, and we will continue to place hundreds of billions of dollars on insurance company boondoggles and inefficiencies that add to our financial burdens without making us any healthier. the name for a firm is urgent and indisputable. -- the need for reform is

urgent and indisputable. we know that there are more efficient ways of doing it. i just spoke to the chief information officer here at the hospital and he talked about some wonderful ways in which we could potentially gather up electronic medical records and information where every child, not just the ones at this hospital, but the entire region, and how much money could be saved, and how the help of these kids could be improved. but it requires an investment. there are some people in this town that are content in -- to perpetuate the status quo. they are hiding -- fighting reform on behalf of special interests. there are others to recognize the problem but believe or perhaps hope that we can put out the hard work of ensures reform for another day and another year and another decade. just the other day, one

republican senator, and i am quoting him now, if we are able to stop obama on this, it will be his waterloo. it will break him. think about that. this is not about me. this is not about politics. this is about a health care system that is breaking america's families, businesses, and economy. we cannot afford the politics of delay in defeat when it comes to health care. not this time, not now. there are too many lives and livelihoods at stake. there are too many families who will be crushed if insurance premiums continue to rise three times as fast as wages. there are too many businesses that will be forced to shed workers, or drop coverage unless we get spiraling health-care costs under control. the reforms we seek would bring greater competition, a choice,

savings, and efficiencies to our health care system. and greater stability and security to america's families and businesses. for the average american it will mean lower costs, more options, and coverage you can count on. it will save you and your family money if we have a more efficient health-care system. if you will not have to worry about being priced out of the market. you will not have to worry about one illness leading your family into financial ruin. you will not have to worry about supporting a treatment for a child they get sick. but be can and must make all these reforms and we can do is in no way that will not add toward deficits over the next decade. the bill that i sign must reflect my commitment and the commitment of congress to slow the growth of health-care costs over the long run. that is how we can ensure that health care reforms strengthens our national -- our nation's

fiscal help at the same time -- fiscal health at the same time. we always knew that doing what is right would be hard. there's a tendency toward inertia in this town. i understand that as well as anybody. but we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easier wrong. that is what we have to do this time. we have to do that once more. let's fight our way to the politics of the moment and pass reform by the end of this year. let's commit ourselves to delivering our country a better future, and that future will be seen in a place like children's hospital when young people are getting the care that they deserve and they need when they need it, and we do not have an overcrowded emergency room that is putting an enormous burdens

on this excellent institution. i think that we can accomplish that but we're going to have to do some work over the next few weeks and months. thank you ever met -- thank you very much, everyone. >> more about health care legislation now from republican national committee chairman michael steele. he was at the national press club for an hour. -- >> this is my favorite part. i am president of the national press club. what the world -- we are the world's leading organization for a professional journalist committed to the future of journalism by providing informative programming. for more information about the press club, please visit our web

site. press.org. i like to welcome our speaker and our guests and the audience today. i was also like to welcome those of you who are watching us on c- span. we're looking forward to today's speech. i will ask is many questions from the audience as time permits. hold your applause during the speech said that we have time for as many questions as possible. for our broadcast audience, if you hear applause, it may be from the members of the general public to attend some of our news makers and not necessarily from the working press. our guest today dictate twisting path to politics. at johns hopkins university in baltimore, michael steele was class president and a member of the fencing team. he was nearly expelled when his social life trump is academics. he later studied for the priest

hood before turning his attention to law at georgetown university. a corporate finance attorney by profession, he founded his own company, the steel group. formerly the low attendance -- the lieutenant governor of maryland, he's mounted a strong challenge for the u.s. senate seat in 2006, and in january, mr. steele was elected chairman of the republican national committee in a close fought battle that went six rounds of balloting. he is the first african-american to hold that post. with the republican party in the political wilderness, mr. steele has jostled for a prime spot on the conservative limelight with such figures as rush limbaugh and sarah palin. today he has the stage to himself to talk about the republican alternative to the democratic plans of president barack obama and the

congressional leadership regarding that critical subject of health care reform. president obama has promised a health care bill by the end of the year. the nonpartisan congressional budget office has said that democratic plans do not reduce the spiraling cost of health care programs as the president says that he wants. this wednesday the president will be holding a prime time news conference to try to take command of the health care agenda. following criticism of his input or lack of it from democrats on capitol hill. mr. steel now has the chance to get ahead of the president and use the -- and seize the agenda for republican by putting forth an alternative to what the democrats are proposing. please join me in welcoming michael still to the national press club. >> thank you very much. good morning. it is a real pleasure to be here. i appreciate the national press club offering this opportunity to address one of the most

fundamentally important issues in generations that our country has to face. president barack obama is a good man. he cares deeply about this country but he is determined with an unprecedented single mindedness to transform into something that none of us would recognize. candidate obama promised change. president obama is conducting experiments. he is conducting a dangerous experiment with our health care and with the quality of our lives. he is conducting are reckless experiment with our economy. he is conducting an unnecessary experiment with our tax dollars, which would transfer of go very way of life of our country and our citizens. he is rushing this experiment through congress so fast, so soon, that we have not had a moment to think it would work. and to think about the consequences to aren't -- to our nation and our economy if it does not work. it is our risk that our country

cannot afford. it is too much, too fast, too soon. surveys show that a solid majority of americans are concerned that president obama has no strategy to reduce the deficit. perhaps that is because his strategy is to increase the deficit. in only his first six months, this president's first budget has sought to take on as nearly as much debt as we have taken upon are out in the entire history of our country. that deficit for this yearlong will be the highest in u.s. history, nearly five times as much as it was just two years ago. this economic experiment have left all of us in generations to come with a staggering bill. the obama experiments are not working. so far these experiments in the economic laboratory called congress have simply failed or blown up. president obama told us that the stimulus package would keep unemployment under 8%. it is now at 9.5%.

and now he tells us that unemployment will go up to 10% anyway. that experiment cost us $787 billion. try to understand the enormity of that number. the interest on the stimulus package alone cost us nearly $100 million every day. president obama has committed the ball rolling trillions from creditors -- fallen -- foreign creditors. heart children will be working to build productive capacity and improve standards of living but not here in america. for our foreign creditors. unquantified at a bit. the total profits of all american businesses are mounted 7% of gdp. ." that obama is on budget projects that our country's debt will exceed 100% of gdp in the next

decade. that means that even assuming relatively benign interest rates, no safe assumption with all the inflationary policies the president has pursued, roughly 5% of our gdp will go to paying interest on our federal debt. that means ensure that capital roughly equaled all the business profits in the country, capital that historically has expanded our economy and improve our standard of living, will go instead to our creditors, largely china and opec, to expand their economy and improve their standard of living. mr. president, you are putting your part is entire of big government wish list on america's credit card. that card comes with a bill. yet as more dead are children will have to pay -- is more debt our children will have to pay. . when president obama faced a

credit crisis, a struggling economy, a housing bust, bankrupt auto companies, wall street failures, whatever the problem was, he re responded by spending, spending, and more spending. and now our president is proposing more did you not, morrimore risk, more experiment. his next item is a pull at this trillion dollar experiment with our health care, including a government-run health care plan. it not only risks our economy, it risks every american's health too. president obama says he wants to reduce health care costs. well, republicans agree. health care costs waste too much. health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages. health insurance is costing families and businesses too much and certainly we have to fix that. but here's my question. how come the democrats' plan to save money will cost us more money? how come their plan to reduce health care costs will cost us trillions more in tax dollars.

democrats boast that their plans cost only about $1 trillion. now you need to consider the absurdity of that idea alone. but that assertion is based on a deliberate ms. reading of the date -- misreading of the data. the non-partisan congressional office, projections to which they refer, are for the next 10 years, but the democrat hes' plans are only fully implemented towards the end of that window. according to cbo's best plan, once this plan is fully implemented, it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year. in the case of the house bill, $202 billion in 2019 alone. and note that i said best guest. the thousand plus page house bill was not released until less than 48 hours before markup and cbo said that it still had not completed its revenue analysis. for example, cbo stated, we have not yet estimated the

administrative cost to the federal government of implementing the specified policy, end quote. in other words, the staggering costs estimated by cbo does not even include one of the biggest expenses in the bill. only washington could make saving money more expensive. it doesn't matter if your insurance charges you more through the front door in higher premiums, or whether president barack obama charges you more through the back door in higher taxes. it's the same thing. under the obama-pelosi plan, costs are going up, and you, the american people, are going to pay. let's just use common sense here. when was the last time washington ever made anything cheaper. or cost less. if you're a small business owner, you will see a tax hike on your income, your payroll, and you were investments. all of which won't help you to grow and create more jobs. if you're a senior, you face

$400 billion in medicaid and medicare costs. if you're working, you face $600 billion in new taxes. and they're just getting started, folks. some democrats are even complaining that they're not raising taxes enough. if you get health coverage at work, they actually want to tax your health insurance. but they're not finished. if you're thirsty, they're considering a 10% tax on a can of soda, and if you need a stronger drink, after hearing that bad news, i've got more bad news for you. they're thinking about raising the alcohol tax too. in addition, they're considering a new tax on employers equal to 3% of payroll, also under consideration is the value added tax, a sort of national sales tax of up to 1 1/2% or more. now foolish me, all this time i didn't know raising taxes on something actually made it cost less. that's like those commercials that promise you can eat all the cake you want and still lose

weight. who knew? a good doctor though makes a thorough diagnosis and prescribes a remedy that is specifically targeted at what ailes the patient. if you come this with a sore knee but are otherwise healthy, the doctor doesn't remove your kidney, put your arm if a sling and perform quadruple bypass surgery. and above all, for thousands of years, physicians have pledged to adhere to one principle above all others -- first, do no harm. we should approach health care reform in the same way. we must specifically target reforms at what ails our system. do no harm to what is right about it. in fact, p about our health care system is in very good shape and we should make sure those aspects are strengthsened, not eliminated. currently $250 million americans have health he insurance, the majority through private insurance and polls show they are overwhelmingly pleased with

their current coverage. second, america is home to the high of the quality and most innovative health care in the world. now, you don't have to take my word for it. ask the saudis receiving care at johns hopkins, the canadians at the mayo clinic or the british at mass general. or ask the committee that awards the nobel prize for medicine. over the past 25 years, the vast majority of honored researchers have been americans. so what is the diagnosis for what ails our health care system? the problem for which we must provide a remedy. in a word -- cost. we spend a colossal amount on health dare. over 15% of our gdp. the next highest industrial nations spend about 10%. and for that amount, in the aggregate, we have similar health outcomes as countries spending less, when measured by such metrics as life expectancies. our uninsured are a symptom of that cost problem, a problem senator daniel patrick moynihan once characterized as health

care costs disease. for certain, some of our uninsured have the means to purchase health insurance, but unusely choose not to in the hopes that well, they'll stay healthy and save money. others qualify for government assistance, but for various reasons, do not receive it. but for most of the uninsured, the problem is easy to diagnose. they just can't afford the insurance. yet, president obama's response is to make health care insurance even more expensive. let me throw another statistic at you. one that remarkably receives little or no coverage from the media as far as i know. according to the latest cbo estimates, under the house democrat version of the health plan, after it is implemented, the cost of insuring each additional individual would be nearly $30,000. and amount far greater than the average annual cost of insuring an entire family. in fact, according to the henry j. kaiser foundation, the average cost of an employer

health plan for a family of four is about $12,800. what's more, to add insult to injury, cbo tells us that every version of the democrat health plan, even after spending trillions of dollars, will leave millions still uninsured. the democrat plan does not contain costs. it shifts them to the taxpayer, to our children, and to future generations that will have to cope with this crushing debt. by implementing huge premium subsidies and establishing a government-controlled health care plan. in fact, the president's plan prescribes short-term pain relief instead of trying to fix the source of the pain. if adopted, that would be malpractice and this plan is likely to be worse than the plans those americans have now. don't believe me? then believe president obama. on the town hall a few weeks back, president obama refused to pledge he would limit his family

to getting the same cures and treatments his plub plan 0 would give the rest of us. now if the president doesn't have faith if his own plan for his own family, how can we trust this plan for ours? the american health care system should not be more like the european health care system, where patients who are over 70 are told no, you're too old for cancer screening, where sick people are told you have to wait in line for this test or that medicine. no thank you, mr. president. the president tells us that he just wants the government-run health care plan as another choice to compete with health care insurance you have now. he says you won't be forced to join but his plan does exactly the opposite. in fact, the president's proposal creates yet another government czar. what are we up to, 20? who will push government run health care wile dictating to your private insurance company how they should operate, the

insurance coverage they should provide and which health care services you should receive? now, we all remembered harry and louise. harry and louise helped save us from hillary clinton's health care experiments in 1994. this year, harry and louise have been replaced by another couple, harry reid and nancy pelosi. harry and nancy aren't really doctors, they're just trying to play one on capitol hill, by experimenting with health care and insisting on a big and insisting on a big government takeover. grocery business or office store or a hardware store. imagine if the u.s. government knocked on your door and said, hi, we're opening up a business right across the street, and it will be a government-run store, we came here to compete with you. and we're going to have to lower prices a little bit cheaper than yours, because we're the government, and quite frankly, we don't have to pay our bills. we'll just leave them for your children to pay later on.

how do you think your store will survive? how long do you think you will stay in business? how long would you have your job? when big government competes, one congressman said, it's like an alligator competing for a chicken. and the health care you have now is the chicken. simply put, experts tell us president obama and the congressional democrats' run plan could lead to19 million americans being dumped out of their private coverage into a cheaper government run health care program. that's why they're forcing members of congress to vote on legislation to reshape the economy in a fundamental way before a single member of congress has even read the bill. now, i don'n g@ ge d t ld d d d democrats are determined to show this bill through without permitting any meaningful scrutiny. that is why they are cutting

republicans out of the process. they have no intention have a bipartisan bill, they never have. the president takes care to arrange for some nice but a lot, but that is set. when hillary clinton tried to jam a massive build down congress throat, highly respected democrats gave a speech in which he flatly stated that he would not vote for bill which did not have republican support. i am waiting for a democrat, any democrat to show that sort of courage today. please don't throw up the blue dogs at me. they may talk about fiscal responsibility but in the end they had been nancy policy's most reliable voting bloc. don't tell me that republicans are unwilling to support the responsible health care proposals from a democrat. the major health-care reform was written by ron wyden, not just a

democrat, but a liberal one. his bill had some good ideas and has as many republicans co- sponsors as democrats. democrats. republican support health care reform that addresses the biggest problem in our system -- run awe way cost. we don't need to spend more money on health care, we already spend more than the rest of the industrialized world. what we need to do is spend it better, starting with a third party payment program, that limits choice, and misal indicates resources -- misallocates resources. we wants the 60 million americans that have health insurance to keep that coverage. we want people to choose their own doctors and make their own choices regarding treatment option. we want to focus on health outcomes, keeping people healthy through preventive care and promoting good fitness and nutrition. under the obama plan, the vast majority of americans will pay more to get less, it's that

simple. we will spend trillions more, trillions, and the 260 million americans who now have insurance will have fewer options and worse care. and we still won't cover all of the uninsured. this is one sixth of our economy we're talking about. if we screw this up, it could last a generation. and congress is trying to do this in the next two weeks? they want to get a bill done in the next two weeks? this is -- this reckless approach is an ill-conceived attempt to push through an experiment and all of us should be scared to death. so slow down, mr. president. we can't afford to get health care wrong. your experiment promotes -- proposes too much, too soon, too fast. your experiment with our health care could change everything we he like about our health care. and our economy as well.

so it is time to stop the experiment with our economy and our health care and our future, mr. president. if you will only slow down long enough to see a better way. a better way of helping our families and businesses get hold of and bring down health care costs. republicans stand with the growing number of americans supporting the patient-centered health care reform movement. we believe of the patient centered health care reform movement offers the best way to reduce health care costs bottom up. with patients and doctors in control, not the government. the old top down washington senate system the democrats propose is designed to grow washington's power to restrict the cures and treatments your doctor can prescribe for you. the president wants to make health care more affordable, so do we, but republicans have a completely different vision of how to do it. republicans support simple common sense fixes without the big washington experiment. obama, pelosi want to start

building a colossal closed health care system where washington decides. so, mr. president, let's talk about some common sense reforms that the american people and their doctors can trust. let's have doctors and hospitals post pricing and outcomes. in this day and age, why aren't the costs of all tests, treatments, procedures and office visits, as well as effectiveness of treatments posted openly on the internet? that will bring down costs. and how about if we make health insurance companies compete with each other with simple, understandable contracts, and minimal benefit packages, so insurance is simpler, cheaper, and fairer. just like many banks are doing with car or home loans, and why not put in place a simple, one page reimbursement form, so folks can navigate a little more easily. that will bring down costs.

and let's protect doctors from frivolous expensive lawsuits, so they can work together with other doctors and patients if their communities to reduce unnecessary and expensive test procedures and costs. i appreciate the president's very brief flirting with tort reform. we'd like to welcome you back to that tort reform table, mr. president, because that will certain brings down costs. then we change the law so you can take your health insurance with you if you have to change your job. eliminating expensive and unnecessary insurance turnover. that will bring down costs. and we cut out the washington health care middleman, reducing expensive bureaucracy to produce big health care savings. that will bring down costs. let's support new paperless computer age health care i.t. systems to reduce the cost of health care management, as well as reduce medical mistakes. that will really bring down costs. and let's make sure every american has equal opportunity

to get the best value and buy the cheapest insurance, no matter where he or she lives, or horhe or she works for. let's change the law, so any american can buy the lowest cost insurance available nationwide, not just in their state, whether from insurance companies, businesses, church groups, college alumni associations or groups like aarp, who often provide it a lot less expensively. guess what? that will bring down costs too. and don't you agree that companies like target are best suited to bring down costs than any politician in washington? so let's use consumer buying power and washington buying pour power, to bring the cost of health care down. let's support a bipartisan idea, effective prevention, wellness handy stacey management programs, because they will improve our health too. and that will also bring down costs.

let's support bold new incentives for companies to develop new treatments and cures, because that is smarter than paying for a chronic, long-term illnesses we can't cure today. that will bring down costs. every american should also get a tax credit for their health insurance premiums. certainly that will bring downs costs. but further, under current law, employees not covered by health care plan, a group which disproportionately includes the working poor, cannot deduct the cost of insurance premiums. incredibly, rather than remedying that injustice, the democrats make it illegal for anyone to purchase a new individual plan. we believe in bottom up up health care savings for the middle class and the working poor. and here's another idea. how about we give small businesses the same cost saving break big businesses get by helping them form small business health plans and small business health co-ops. guess what? that will bring down costs. then let's support tough new

penalties against anybody who rips off the health care system, whether they are corrupt big insurance company executives, unethical physicians or patients or government pen pushers. guess what? that will bring down costs too. an one more thing. no lifetime health care benefits and insurance for congressmen who leave their jobs, unless and until everyone else in the country gets to share in the same benefit. that's the right thing to do. and it brings down costs. now, i know president obama has some tough challenges to get that, we understand that, and the president tells us, he doesn't want to spend more than we have, he doesn't want the deficit to go up, he doesn't want to live off borrowed money. but he also told us, he didn't want to run an auto industry. the president has insisted every step of the wave that his health plan will not add to the deficit, but just last friday, cbo concluded that the obama-pelosi plan will add

$239 billion to the deficit by 2019 and hundreds of billions of dollars there after. that means, according to cbo, not michael steele, the obama-pelosi plan does not do either of the two things the president swore they would do -- contain costs, and not add to the deficit. president obama justifies this spending by saying the devil made him do it. he doesn't want to spend trillions we can't afford, but he says he just can't help it, even though he says he believes in less spending, he says he has no choice but to spend even more. even though washington is on fire with spending, he said he's compelled to conduct this experiment with reckless spending and pour more gasoline on an already growing fire. mr. president, the time to stand by your principles isn't just when it's easy. you need to stand by your principle with it is not easy. the time your character is tested is with doing the right thing is tough.

: don't tell as it is going to cost less when it is going to cost more. don't tell us that we're going to spend more to spend -- to save more. i challenge the american people, when you see the press conference on wednesday night, tell the president and as congress is exactly how you feel. if you think his experiment is too much, too fast, too soon, picked up your phone and call the contras, called the white house, plug them with e-mails and let them know what you think and how you feel. you are important actors in this process. you should not sit on the sidelines and just wait for what

happens to you. in short, yes, you can. show washington who is really in control of america's health care. in america we do not allow one man to roll the dice of our entire nation. we do not allow one political leader to risk our health care system and our a time limit -- our entire economy. we don't let one group gamble with the fate of generations. we of never allowed one political party to experiment with the future of our country, that is until now. it is time to hit the pause button on this reckless experiment with america's economy. this type of experimentation is not what america voted for and it is time to put this experiment on the shelf. of today the republican national committee is unveiling a campaign aimed at informing americans about the risky experiment that the president is performing on our economy and

our country. we're taking our message to the voters out there through our new web site, and through advertising such as a television ad that we're launching today. you average joe and jane understand what is at stake and what this administration is about to do to you and to your family and to your community. we want to mobilize and we're going to mobilize voters to oppose further experimentation on the economy, especially health care. voters may want health care reform but they do not want this kind of reform. today we are faced with a lot of challenges, we are stymied with increased costs and burdens that some cannot bear, and many democrats outside the cabal

know that they will not stand friday as full as prescriptions for our health care or for themselves. that is why republicans will do everything humanly possible to remind voters about the risky experimentation going on in washington and what we must do to keep the house in the senate out of the laboratory. this is the time of great economic uncertainty. this is the amount it mind the very structure of the global economy which depends on our economic might is being challenged. we would get through this global economic storm but we will have to compete and win in the new global economy that is going to draw it dramatically in size and complexity in the next few decades. who is going to get all of that prosperity, america or someone else? who will own no more economy with more minorities and women succeeding, and the work force earning bigger paychecks as we build a wealthier world? who will soon the future, the

most powerful economic and technological growth the world has ever known? it was going to lead the world where health care is transformed and people, live longer, and healthier lives, building on the most valuable resources on the planet, and his point is settle a new global frontier of space, prosperity, and progress? i say we are. we the american people. i am telling you that there is not anything before is that we cannot ach