affiliates as we explore america. nasa celebrated its 60th anniversary over the weekend. to mark the -- the event, they spoke of the center for international strategic studies. this runs about one hour and a half. kathleen: good afternoon, everyone. i'm kathleen hicks. i direct international study program here and i want to welcome you to our celebration of nasa's 60th anniversary.

we have a hat trick of nasa administrators here and we are very grateful to our sponsor at boeing for putting together and helping us put together to today's event. our keynote address will be delivered by the administrator of nasa and he was elected to represent oklahoma in 2012 in the first congressional district in the u.s. house of representatives and he has just returned back from oklahoma this morning. we are grateful he came back for this event today. his federal service started in the u.s. navy where he flew combat missions in iraq and afghanistan. he also have a degree and an mba. following his keynote address, we will lead a moderated discussion with former administrator charlie bolden and the csis senior advisor sean o'keefe. after all of that, we will invite everyone to join us for some birthday cake to celebrate nasa's 60th anniversary.

without further ado, please try -- join me in welcoming administrator right in starring -- the administrator. >> thank you. thank you kathleen for that nice introduction. thank you john for all you do for csis. this is an organization that i have a high regard for. the center for strategic and international studies is an important organization that helps us as policymakers to make good decisions. i have spoken before this group a number of times, as a member of congress and now as a nasa administrator. it is an absolute honor to be here in this new capacity in which i serve. i want to start by also letting everyone here know that it's a bit humbling for me to stand before this audience and have, in my audience, a former nasa administrator sean o'keefe and

charlie bolden, both who have served this country very well. i'm grateful to have the opportunity to occupy an office once held by both of you. the shoes are very big and i'm going to do the best i can to fill them. thank you for your service as well. [applause] so here we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of nasa and we at csis where we talked about strategy and the strategic implications for organizations like nasa, for the united states of america. i will start by going back in time just a bit. how about the year 1950? -- 1915? a lot of people don't realize nasa had its start a long time ago under an organization called the national advisory committee on aeronautics. this was started in 1915 as a

way during world war i to align academic institutions with industry and government in order to take advantage of aeronautics to ultimately win world war i. naca.as just to be clear, in 1915, when it was created, i read this just this morning, i thought it was fascinating, they tried to pass a bill in 1913, they dropped the bill in the house and in the senate identical language and tried to pass it through congress in 1913. it failed. they couldn't get it to pass. a couple years later in 1915, they actually shoved it into a naval appropriation bill. that's interesting because that's how we do it today. if you're trying to get something passed and you cannot get it done in a standalone bill you shove it into another bill

that's guaranteed to pass and you accomplish the objective. interestingly, i have had a little burien's -- experience with that with the american space renaissance act which i drafted knowing full well that ultimately had very little chance of passing but i also knew full well it would be one of the repositories for the best ideas in space reform and we could get other legislation passed. we've had a lot of success doing that over the past two or three years. now as nasa administrator, we are able to affect a lot of those policies in the executive branch, which is interesting and a great change of venue from my perspective. naca got its start in 1915. it was a national advisory committee on aeronautics and started with about a hundred people and there were four centers across the country. one was langley, which is still

langley. california inin .he san francisco area there was the lewis flight research center, which is now the glenn research center out in ohio and the armstrong flight research center, which was even before it was dried in -- dr yden. it was called the mirror arc flight research center. these four centers composed and their objective was to ultimately help academia industry and government advance aeronautics in ways that otherwise would never happen. so what they started doing is they started working on wings -- airfoils. how to make wings that ultimately can benefit the united states of america. eventually their mission change , but it wasn't just to win world war i. ultimately to advance aeronautics in the united states both commercially and

militarily. now, at that time you can imagine they weren't using terminology like the offset. you're all familiar with the first offset, second offset and third. ultimately, they were trying to create -- here is another one. the qualitative military edge, qualitative technological edge. were tryingt they to accomplish, although they did not use the terms back then. they started designing airfoil and these kinds of capabilities that ultimately produced aircraft that was much better than they previously had. was overcular ability the radio engine. if you remember the big radio engines, you think back to a t6, the original texan, not the text -- texan two or you think back to the t28 trojan, those massive engines. they put this bearing on it and it reduce the drag by 60%.

it increased the airflow over the engine and did a whole host of other things that made the aircraft perform so much better. those bearings on those kinds of radio engines were developed and gave the united states of america an advantage for a good period of time. eventually, it wasn't the wings and bearings, but they developed wind tunnels and engine test stands and they developed places to test flight, ultimately resulting in capabilities that did give us a qualitative military edge. when it came to world war ii, naca got very involved in turbocharging internal combustion engines. the question was, when you are above 15,000 feet, the torments of your engine declines. how do we prevent that from happening? , injecter was

additional air. that was done by naca. those technologies enabled us to fly those engines faster and perform higher. b-17, butt using the uso used in p 51 that gave an edge in world war ii, all the way to the end. superchargedst engines and airfoil. they continued to be involved in airfoils. in fact it was great britain that wanted a new fighter to be more effective in world war ii. they went into north american aviation and said they wanted a new fighter. they came up with the p40 tomahawk and great britain said no, we need something to perform at a higher level.

so then they came to naca and the airfoil was used by the 51 mustang. everybody understands the superior aircraft at that particular time. so these are very strategic capabilities. it is important to understand not at this time, people do always say it, but whoever controlled technology ultimately controlled the balance of power on the planet. that was never more true than immediately after world war ii. as the war was ending, a lot of people are familiar with the conference on crimea. you had frequent eleanor roosevelt and winston churchill on crimea. they were negotiating on how to ultimately secure peace for the long-term in europe? it ended up being how do we

divide europe between east and west and ultimately, how do we divide germany between east and west? the russians had lost millions of people in world war ii. they decided they wanted the preponderance of the land in germany. ofy claimed this big swath land in germany. technology ining eastern germany, produced at the hands of some of the most ruthless and brutal people in world history, the not see. -- nazis. it is a scary thought. they had advanced technologies using human beings as guinea pigs. we are talking about some of the most grotesque ways of testing these fears weapons systems. -- fierce weapons systems.

we cannot allow that to happen again, but those technologies were there. the question was, who was going to control them? like chemical warfare and biological weapons that had been developed and tested on human beings. everybody is familiar with the concentration camps and the jewish holocaust. it wasn't just the jews but all kinds of prisoners of war from different campaigns. the keynd, here is concern. they had developed technologies that included are sized cabins for aircraft. and developed chemical biological weapons, but also the beginning of nuclear weapons. andobservable submarines

the me too 62, which was the first jet aircraft used for war. they developed the v2 rocket. technology that as not quite an icbm, but short range ballistic missile that reigned terror on great britain. all of these have been developed are extremely, we grateful that the war came to an end when it did because if they had seen the field of not all, some of them could have extended the war a very long time. at the conference, the leaders of the world got together and said this part of eastern germany is going to belong to the soviet union. that was agreed to with joseph

stalin present. within weeks, harry truman had authorized american soldiers to go into eastern germany for one purpose, to acquire all of those capabilities, all those technologies. and trains were sent into eastern germany with american soldiers together up all the capabilities of the v2 rockets specifically. these were built with slave labor and fell into the hands of the former -- were at the risk of falling into the hands of the former soviet union. technologytrols the controls the balance of power. they went in after signing an agreement that they would not. they went in and took as much

technology as they possibly could, not just the hardware. and they asked if the germans would like to come and ultimately help us understand the technology even further. some of these german technologists ended up being the best rocket scientist in the world, helping us get to the moon and winning that cold war. i want to be clear about this. nasa is a peaceful agency, absolutely it is. we do science and technology. we do discovery. that is what we do and will always do. and we do not get involved with warfare. people ask me all the time will you be the leader of the space force? i'm here to tell you that is not what nasa is or does.

i'm also here to tell you that when we went to the moon and had a strategic purpose to demonstrate that the u.s. has a economic, political and technological capability, so the world would align with us rather than them. that was the purpose of that mission. what is even more fascinating is 12 years later, after the last person walked on the moon, which is not that long. we had a president announced the strategic defense initiative -- in themately media, it was a terrible idea. there was no way it was technology -- technologically -- it was too expensive and the technology was not there. it cannot possibly be done. here is what we learned. because we just walked on the

moon and we did it six times 12 human beings walked on the surface of the man. -- the moon. the whole world watched it. cousin of that, when we announced the strategic defense initiative, people took note and said these are the people who walked on the moon. they can actually accomplish this. they called it the star wars program to belittle it and said it cannot possibly be achieved. the police -- the people who believed it could be done were from the soviet union. they went to all the world conferences to prevent it from happening, calling and provocative. because of their investment, it was a small piece. by the way, how much do we really spend on the strategic defense initiative? very, very little. it never really materialized. but what was the purpose?

the purpose was to force the soviet union to a negotiating table. here is another important thing to note. before that happened, when we walked on the moon, who congratulated us first? the soviet union. their cosmonauts were calling american astronauts and congratulating them, welcome to -- welcoming them to give speeches at universities and other places. ultimately, the apollo program was born. what was a cold war ended up center ofbeing at the a dialogue about the future, about -- instead of competing with each other and putting .ives at risk apollo eight was a tremendously risky mission, but the goal was to beat the soviet union to

orbit the moon. we achieved it at great risk to american astronauts. said that the soviet union maybe we should reconsider, in that of competing and putting cosmonauts -- astronauts at risk, maybe we should partner. that occurred. it has been a remarkable achievement, where you had the two most powerful superpowers competing against each other, sitting down at the negotiating table. even today, that relationship that was forged back then continues. as relationships sometimes because of world events, ultimately those devolution's have been protected from applying to space. after the invasion and

occupation of crimea, the u.s. congress passed a sanctions bill on russia. there was one piece that had to be carved out, and that was space. why? because that was the best opportunity to dialogue. when everything else falls apart, we have american astronauts and russian cosmonaut depended on one another on the international space station that enables us to maintain that dialogue. i would argue that one of the greatest values of nasa as an agency is it is an amazing soft powered fool for the u.s. you go back and look at how the apollo program ended. ,t ended with a partnership which is a very positive development. that partnership continues today on the international space station.

at the end of the day, that partnership continues. the next step was the strategic defense initiative built on the credibility of apollo. think about how nasa has impacted the strategic position of the u.s. through history. think about all the different challenges nasa has gone through. believe me, we know what they are. they have been troubling. the whole world stops when these challenges occur. people know about the challenger, columbia and apollo one. the whole world stops. here's the question. why do this? what is the purpose? did they die in vain? i'm here to tell you they did not die in vain. they died for a very important and specific purpose to create a

world that is freer and safer than it otherwise would have been. nasa is at the center of that ever since it was created in 1958 by dwight eisenhower. it is an honor to be here. being at the helm of nasa with the 60th anniversary is a bit humbling. it is an honor to serve in this capacity. i look forward to a dialogue with my predecessors and i look forward to hearing their ideas as well. i want to be clear. we are here to talk about the 60th anniversary. some of it we like, some is not fun to think about. nasa has an amazing future. i want to be able to talk about that as well. in the coming months, you will hear a lot of that. a lot of it is possible because of the trails blazed at these

people. it is important to point out the power of technology. about -- i have talked about this a lot. if there is one thing i have accomplished in my time as administrator, if i can elevate in the minds of the american public how important space is and how it has transformed our -- ity to do basic things will give you examples. the way that we navigate. anybody use gps? the way we communicate. anybody use directv or internet broadband? when you think of the way that we navigate, communicate, produce food. i was at a swim meet with my kids. by the way if i ever get some kind of diseases that will kill me, i want to go to a swim meet

because they last forever. [laughter] i was there three days, 14 hours a day you wait all day to watch a thirty second race. anyway, where was i? [laughter] so here i am sitting next to a gentleman from nebraska that has grandkids at the swim meet. he said what do you do? i said i work for nasa. what you do? i'm the administrator. what does the administrator do? he starts to go in depth about how nasa technology helps them to understand when to plant crops and when to get the crops .eady to harvest understanding the moisture in the soil. he is telling me how they produce food using nasa technology. i said i'm going to go tell people about your story.

so the way that we produce food in this country. there is a lot of people to feed in the coming years, a lot more people to feed. nasa technology can help produce that food. the way we produce energy. the way we do disaster relief and predict weather. a lot of people have heard me talk about whether because i come from oklahoma. as a member of congress, a lot of constituents have been killed in tornadoes. whether -- the weather better? how do we understand how the climate is changing? the way weink about do disaster relief, national security and defense, certainly one of the things that is most salient is that every gps or banking transaction in the country -- you are required to have a gps signal for timing for

every banking transaction. gps is a critical piece of infrastructure in this country. think about how important is space to everyday lives. i would be willing to argue most americans don't know that right now. if i accomplish one thing is the -- as the nasa administrator, that is my objective. how ultimately it has produced so much more than the investment that has been made by the u.s. government. it is not just spin off technology. there is so much more that people do not talk about that is critically important. whoever controls the technology controls the balance of power. -- gpsthese technologies is a dod program. nasa blazed the trail to make it

all possible. nasa will continue to blaze the trail. the future is just as bright as the history that we had at nasa. it is an honor to be here for the 60th anniversary. i cannot tell you how much i love csis. put out those scholarly paper for his and help us -- papers and help us make good decisions. thank you so much. [applause] >> i'm todd harrison. i am in charge of the security project here at csis.

i have them prepared questions, but we want to hear from all of you. those inve a question, the room or online, you can go youre website and type in question. i will get it on the ipad and work it into the conversation. please go ahead and ask any questions that you may have. my first question. we will get it out of the way. a lot of talks recently. the president came out strongly in favor of it. it has been debated in congress. passed theimilar has house of representatives, but not the senate. -- glad you articulated that what do you think about a military spaceports and nasa? -- maintain that

space between military space and civilian space programs? theresident eisenhower, was a time before nasa was created where a lot of leaves the department of defense was in charge of space expiration and development. development.n and president eisenhower did not want that. he wanted a civilian space agent where all of our friends and competitors around the world could ultimately partner with us to have an opportunity for dialogue. his vision was very different that wanted it to be part of the department of defense. i want to be clear about the space force. i have always supported it. i voted for it three times in the house of representatives. similar to is very

what the space force -- the way i see it -- there have not been specifics released. and what i heard the president say, he wants a force separate from the race force. that is what he said clearly at the last national space council meeting. you are talking about a force that has somebody on the joint chief of staff, a force that has its own secretary that is not guaranteed what they might develop. that is what it indicates to me. force actually already exists inside the air force. service does is train and equip. organize, train and equip.

combatantave the commanders that go to war. they are all joint. so when you talk about the separate space force, there is one that organizes, trains and equips. that doesn't mean they will go fight the war necessarily but a cadre of professionals that are trained and organized and equipped to do that. think about the air force right now. they do the acquisition peace for all the air forces space capabilities. and then the strategic command air force space command that ultimately does the training and organizing. command wase space

already doing that function but then you have strategic command that is the combatant commander that is a joint command. so strategic command could take advantage of those capabilities so a lot of it already exists. at what level is air force leadership paying attention to space? i will tell you they are paying attention to it without question. has that always been the case? many members think that hasn't always been the case. will it be the case in the future? unknown. any look at promotions inside the air force, the cadre doesn't get promoted as much. -- thears as though the morale might not be as high.

when you look at the budget levels for the space component of the air force, maybe it is not getting as much attention as the other components of the air force. separatewas to create from the air force. it was not in our bill. it was much like the marine to theltimate reports secretary of the navy. the air force would report to the secretary of the air force. it passed overwhelmingly with a bipartisan vote in both the strategic forces subcommittee armed forces committee as part of the defense authorization act. given all that i talked about, how important space is to our everyday lives and the proliferation of the threat with

the chinese launching anti-satellite missiles, jamming, spoofing, hacking and easing laser energy to confuse satellites temporarily or permanently. always technologies are proliferating rampantly as the explicitlyople are dependent on space for national security and their everyday lives. in my opinion it is well past due to have a standalone force capable to prepare the workforce to ultimately protect our assets in space. i want to be clear. this is important. not what nasa does. nasa does have billions of dollars worth of your taxpayer dollars at risk because of what is happening in space. it is not just hostile actions. otherspace debris and

challenges. i should stope -- there. the reality is there is a lot of threat to the united states of america. nasa has a lot at stake. we are the only agency that has humans stake up there. is something where the time has come. i have supported that as a member of the house. >> i want to pick up on human spaceflight. right now we are dependent on the russians to put our astronauts into space. working with the russians to launch astronauts has gone back 23 years. we pulled the statistics. it looks like we have 52 american ashcroft launched by the russians. but not a single one is african-american.

they have never been launched by the russians. no african-american astronaut from nasa has had the opportunity. this past june jeanette was on a mission. she had trained with the russians but was pulled from the mission. i know you cannot talk about specific personnel actions. but it does raise the question what's going on? are the russians refusing to launch african-american astronauts? >> if that is the case, i have never heard that. i will start asking that question now that you mentioned it to me come but i had not heard that. i am unaware if that is the case. are not sure where that conjecture came from, but i think it is absurd.

i served as nasa administrator for eight years. partners was ast guy with whom i flew. the first joint russian-american shuttle mission. that mission was set up to be demonstrate that they could work collaboratively in space. in anticipation that we might want to send american restaurant and subsequently operate a state -- space station together. that was the beginning of it. i never saw any indication with communicating with the head of the cosmonauts themselves that they ever had any problems at all with anybody that we decided we were going to fly. were an astronaut yourself, the russians flew with you. you never experienced problems?

>> no. more problems here and there. -- than there. [laughter] >> i'm not sure if that is good to hear or not. >> it is american history. >> i want to hear from each of you on this. in your remarks, you talked about how nasa has played an important role in foreign plum -- policy and diplomacy. we have maintained this coalition on the international space station for many years. what do you think that coalition will be in the future? will we add a, drop partners? for the spaceolve station and plans for going back to the moon? >> i think that we will add partners. what we are in the process of is

developing architecture that is open for our return to the moon, starting with the gateway. all the interfaces, whether you are talking about docking ,nterfaces or electrical power all the interfaces will be standardized, published. -- enable a host of countries that maybe do not have an agency with our level of adget, but they can create lander that could interface with an open architecture gateway. about a small outposts around the moon capable of human habitation. the power of propulsion, able to go more places around the moon than ever before. create an open architecture where commercial partners can join. partners can join that

historically have not had access. it will be that easy. if they want to have a space program, we want for them to have the ability to the -- do that. we wanted to be a collaborative international program. i think we can accomplish that. , what weree at nasa your experiences trying to maintain the partnership? was it worth it? >> absolutely. it was a challenge, no question about that. we were comparing notes on the respective issues to dealing with all the international partners. working through but in many respects, as a fundamental part of the history it's been a great convener of capabilities not only around the world among and between what used to be and what

can be adversaries finding common space and position and interest in trying to develop collaborative manner as a global enterprise. so, it takes time and effort to find a common position. it can be developed in a mutual advantage with an enormous amount of effort. elementing every involved, but it is worth it because you create the opportunity for that common dialog. you also reduce the tensions. very powerful. roles played an effective at lowering the temperature level for any number of different adversarial conditions over the course of the last several decades.

that is a huge achievement. only technology developed. with what caned become mutual advantage and gain if done properly. that is always a risk. always avoid the issues that the u.s. is simply setting and -- a position. it takes a lot more effort in that regard. ofare seeing the very effort that mutual collaboration and dependency at play today. on a remarkable capability that has been operational for 18 years continuously with people from all imaginable partners that

have engaged in the national space state -- the international space station coalition. finding a way to understand. it is a remarkable achievement in that regard. it takes a lot of effort and time. we work through a lot of differences with them. administratora when relationships with russia started to deteriorate after the -- somehow ita held together. a partnership held together. what were your experiences. we had a lot of disagreements in areas. >> i would agree with one thing the administrators said about how humbling it is to sit in

that office. the one thing that the three of us have an appreciation of is that when you go into a international forum, there is no question of who everybody looks to. it is the nasa administrator. we tried to meet quarterly with the organizations, all five of us. it was never a question of who was going to sit at the head of the table and who was going to set the agenda and make sure that the meeting flowed well. it was the nasa administrator. he mentioned the term soft power. i am a little stronger when you talk about power. they are all good. one of the strongest purveyors of soft power for this nation is nafta. -- nasa.

it is the sustainability of the international's a station over the last 18 years. one of the reasons is because everybody is focused on a mission. everybody realizes that it is a team and that no one element survives without the other elements when we have problems in the russian segment. you run over and you get something out of that segment to do normal kinds of things that are necessary for human beings. that may seem trivial. first two things -- there are only two places to go to the bathroom in place -- in space. they do not always work altogether.

always one of them is working. i am not trying to make light of it. i want to reemphasize what he's said about the critical importance of sustaining partnerships. expanding them whenever we can. one of the things that we is every time we went to an international forum -- we are getting ready to explore now. there were nations that did not the a space program when international space program started, so we invited everybody to the table. nations that do not have a space program but wanted to be at the table, sharing their ideas on what we do when it comes to exploring. what will we do when we go beyond? we want to be there.

i think that is critically important. about all was talking the different space agencies from around the world are looking in one direction. i did a trip to israel and the airshow where all the different space agencies were represented. there were a whole host of them, one-on-one and in groups as well. me how atonishing to lot of them were saying tell us what you need. we will go sell it. we will get our governments behind it. tell us where you are. i was expecting to do a hard sell. they are ready. they are waiting for americans to say this is what we need to do and then they will pull the trigger. that is there because of the history here. they know what we have been able

to achieve in the past and they want to be part of it in the future. sean o'keefe was at the helm when the international space station was at risk of being canceled. i want to be clear there was a research poll that came out and -- thethe questions was specific question was, what the international space station a good investment for the united states of america? over 80% of the respondents said yes, the international a station was a good investment for the united states of america. i come from the political realm. you don't get 80% of people to agree on anything ever. you can say the sky is blue and you will not find 80% agreement. they agreed the international space station is a good investment. that just shows you the impact that it's had.

he wasas a time when going through his confirmation process. i went to a confirmation process of my own. i watched his confirmation process and i was astonished at the challenges that were happening at the time and also voteme down to one, single in congress that allowed the international space station to go forward. americansve 80% of saying it was a good investment. that shows you how it is different than any other government agency that you could imagine. so it's all good. >> i want to go to some questions from the audience. the one related to the soft power. when china has the more plans to use space exploration first soft power, how does nasa maintain

the leadership role and engage other countries, international partners with its plan to return to the moon. >> the big thing is to get everybody engaged, to accomplish stunning achievements are you that is how the that has led in the past and will lead in the future. 's directive takes us back to the moon. he wants it to be done sustainably. create architecture to take us back to the moon sustainably? we are all in all of apollo. of apollo. how you accomplish that given our budget? i want to be clear that he has been very generous. congress has been generous.

is in good shape as far as the budget, but to be sustainable, we need to take all of our international partners and commercial partners with us. it has to be open architecture. geters had to be small to us to the surface quickly. large lenders to take humans to the moon, all able to integrate with a gateway, and outposts around the moon. why is this important? what we have learned from commercial industry is that if , the cost reusable goes down. we are very grateful for it. there are more companies developing reusable capabilities. that is great for our country and the world. we need the architecture to be reusable. we need landers to be reused dozens of times.

whatever they pick up on the surface of the moon -- you have scientists at the gateway that can check out what the are picking up on the surface of the moon. 1969 until 2009, 40 years we believe that the moon was dry. moonnt to six spots on the . in 2008, the indians made a discovery. there are hundreds of billions of tons of water on the moon. how did we not know that for 40 years? had it not change the gender three -- the trajectory? it would be like landing in the middle east and trying to deduce something about colorado. it would not work. there is so much more about the

moon that we do not know and so much more opportunities to discover that we want to go to more parts of the moon that we .ave ever want to before with the sustainable architecture, we could get back and forth on a regular basis, not just with humans, but also with robots. it would replicate itself for a mars mission. continuing the journey to mars. i think it is important that we do that. that's how we bring in our international and commercial partners. one of your achievements as nasa administrator, commercial cargo and crew program, bringing in these private sector partners and bringing them into the game with nasa. they have their own plans to build base infrastructure. some of the company are talking about going to the moon on their own.

one of the questions is how do you see nasa working with these private sector organizations to coordinate and leverage what they are doing to help advance nasa's exploration goals? >> i wish i could take credit, but it was started a couple of administrations before us and we just facilitated it. i think that is the magic word, their job is to facilitate the success of the commercial entities. we found a vehicle called space act agreement which is a type of contract, but it is more flexible to the commercial entities. that is how we chose to do business with commercial entities up front. ofwill study what kind service we want and it is up to you to design, build and propose the type of vehicle to do that. my best example of the wisdom of that, it did not start in the

obama administration. like most things it is a continuum. >> i take full credit. , you only get to be administrator for a brief period of time. take credit for everything that happens because you are the guy that made it happen. you are the person who allowed it to happen. but facilitating the success of commercial entities is one of the duties of nasa and we took that seriously. so you try to find ways to be flexible in the way that we do business to adopt some of the practices and policies that the civilian entities recommend and that was what i think made us so successful. the best example i can give you with the value of the system that we put in place was the

-- we lost back to back to back commercial vehicle in a period time and then a cargo vehicle. we were kind of stunned that for a while. we had our european partners to lean back on. we still have capabilities to get cargo to the international a station and disdain the crew. -- sustain the crew. working to open the door to enable as many international partners who want to become part , nontraditional partners. israel is a great partner and a lot of things. israel is not a big space nation, but we were -- they are

one of the nations we would call a nontraditional partner. they have a device to mitigate the radiation effects on the crew members. that is a big deal to me country that does not have a powerful space agency or program like some of the other countries do. punctuation point is that by and large, we look at all the different elements of technologies and capabilities that are emerging. yes, some of them come from utterly sponsored -- federally sponsored agencies and laboratories, but a lot has also come from a wide range of commercial sources. what is common about every single one of those circumstances is that nasa was hitting other organizations that

rely on the available commercial technology to be leveraged to a different game. to establish the imperative for which you are trying to use it for. that is one of the most 1958kable elements, the act, and what the primary objective of nass is supposed to be. really to explore, to develop overcomeies that will limitations to get to something else you wanted to. and in that, you've got a -- you got to marshall resources, some of that are organic, progressive nevertheless that this has moved off much more to the commercial but it's primarily to look at what is the limitation of getting to the next capacity that you need to go and where you need to achieve the next outcome.

that is what they are able to crystallize in a statement of here is the capability we are looking for. and with that comes enormous achievements and success and some unbelievably tragic failures. those are accompanied by a fact nobody else has tried to attempt to try to leverage it to those levels. that requires not just collaboration in the commercial and commercial capabilities but with international partners, broad capabilities, wherever it resides, that is what you are you -- looking to try to harness and develop a capability for that. xo want to raise one point because we always tend to drift into conversations about human spaceflight. nasa is a big organization that does a lot of things.

they have relatively nice sized directorates and the less if you will aeronautics is our heritage , and that is where some of the incredible developments today are going on. there are the two that are recognized. it's been decades since we did that. the supersonic aircraft and in science we lead the world when you talk about planetary science, you name it. that is where everybody looks to us and also, we have unbelievable international unlikely international partnerships. with the chinese, what you're talking about planetary science, looking at earthquake -- earthquakes, those areas were scientists in the world who

could care less what nation you come from. they've got a focus on some tough problems to make the world a better place to be. nasa provides a great place to assemble and take a look at those different kinds of things. >> itch of your thoughts on future plans for the international space station retirement around 2024 can be 2024, they handed over the commercial partners and operators. do they need more time to make the transition or can they make it by 2024, and what happens if it doesn't?

>> we put together the request for information which ultimately seven years from now would you be able to add a consortium of companies? would you be able to manage it in a way that would be cost-effective and close the business case for the great return on investment? here's the most important thing to take away from it. we had a period of time when apollo ended and we had eight years before the launch of the first space shuttle and a period of time and the space shuttle ended. what we don't want is another gap. we want to mitigate the cap. the question is how do we do that. we know that the international space station cannot last forever. it's a physical impossibility. sure we can extend it with what we are doing right now is forcing a conversation as early

as possible to say if we want to humans in low earth orbit forever and think of people graduating from high school right now, people graduating from high school have had somebody in space the entire time they've been alive, multiple people the entire time they've been alive. at the big accomplishment, and we don't want it to go away. we want to grow the number of people in space, not shrink it. the question is, how do we get there? the other thing is they've been putting a lot of money into human activity in low earth orbit for 20 years. the question is can we go further. have we learned sufficiently what we need to go further and the answer is probably not, but it's one customer or many

customers with a commercial capabilityfor the commercialcapability for the international space station where the government and one customer could be manufacturing or medicine, they are doing three d. printing of biological components. think about organs being printed in space because of the environment that enables that to be possible. so these capabilities are developing right now very very fast. seven years from now is it going to be possible to have the commercial industry. and at theat forward same time use government resources to go further than we currently can go. that is the objective. we are going to see what industry is proposed but ultimately i think seven years is quite a long time as fast as technology is developing. and i do think that the low earth orbit can be a commercialized where they are one customer of many, multiple providers competing on cost and

innovation. i think that is ultimately what will give us the best result. >> what are your thoughts, do we stick with 2024 or do we end it? >> the argument for the avoidance of a gap between the circumstances where we are able to operate together and learn something it's a risk in a hard time. we have learned from it now but we keep repeating the same instances as we discover that reality and logic. but the other that goes to this is the logic by continuing an effort like this and in many ways there are arguments that can be posed from a scientific engineering etc. on both sides of the argument as to whether or not it can be sustained and whether there is a platform a federal approach. but in the meantime it keeps the

convening capacity, to keep exploring, to keep turning over different ideas of how to use the capabilities and infrastructure that defines them what the limits are and informs what you need to do as a succeeding opportunity as opposed to start with a blank sheet of paper every time there's been one of these kind of gaps. the last point has been repeated several times and is just the amazing ability to keep you focused objective on the part of several different international global partners and players engaged in this capacity as a means to then discuss the dialogue, and it's hard. there's no discounting this kind of collaboration between different nation states with different objectives and views

and so forth is a really difficult challenge. you spend a lot of time working through it, but it is always to the advantage and you are also in the process of settling differences on a wide range of other issues that you never would have anticipated because you had the opportunity and the reason to define how do i deal we deal with this limitation, overcome it and get on with it together, rather than each going out there and everybody is going out for a pass. it doesn't work that way. >> general, what are your thoughts? [laughter] >> i haven't been the general for a long time. [laughter] onwhat are your thoughts

2024? can nasa push forward with a new space exploration agenda? >> we talked about this before so i'm going to take a little bit of a different path. i refer everybody to who was my brain in that capacity. one of the stipulations that we made internationally with all of of these nations for them to be part of the program as we do not want to have a gap. we cannot tolerate a gap and while we recognize the fact the sooner we can get off the international space station is something that the u.s. has to be the primary partner for, the better.

but we are not coming off the station with nowhere to go. when jim talks about the gateway and everything else, it is really critical to facilitate the success of commercial entities to take over if you will, a lot of people don't like that word, but take over the low earth orbit and with nasa the customer, one of many. and then to do what it does so well, be the leader in louvered -- and lunar orbiting until the commercial entities can migrate with us but we don't want want -- don't want to not have humans in orbit whenever that day comes that the space station goes away because it's over. we cannot tolerate another big gap like that and that's why i am a mars guy. i happen to be who thinks you one could skip the moon but who cares.

we need to do it all. i like being the guy at the head of the table. i like the u.s. being the person at the head of the table. if you're not there in fighting other people to come along with you, you are not at the head of table. if you are not there inviting -- we provided for the world and international docking standard, so anybody that wants to go to the space station can use the international docking standards that he made available available. it's not secret, it's not private. this has fueled by these standards, you can probably qualify. i want them docking on a u.s. led place rather than somebody else's place. that is one little thing.

>> a question from the audience and this is a tough one. what is your view of repealing the laws that prohibit the u.s. china cooperation? >> i don't know that it would repeal, yourequire don't have to put it in the next appropriations bill if i'm thinking about it right. >> i appreciate the question. prohibition isn't against collaboration in science. it's against collaboration because we work cooperatively in air traffic management and

science and global characterization of glaciers and all kinds of stuff. that's the last thing congressman wolf did before he left the congress when he softened the language and set come to the congress, let us know what you want to do, tell us who's going to be there by name and guaranteed through all of these agencies that you're not going to have any bad actors at the table mainly for human rights violations. that was his passion. >> we sent a letter over to congress indicating that we are going to be meeting with some chinese space folks in germany. so we are going to have the dialogue. as charlie said, we do have partnerships already. the challenges going forward, there's of course the wallthere is of course the wall that we have to follow that it's

critically important and then a whole host of other challenges we have with china to include the theft of intellectual property, and as charlie mentioned, human rights challenges and a whole host of other things. so to the extent a deal can be hatched that ultimately puts other things on the table if it enables them to partner with china in a way that doesn't ultimately challenge our own national security, then i would before that but it's going to be well above my pay grade. [laughter] and it would include things like that are dissent from the air defense identification zone, it could include building islands in the south china sea. these are outside of the realm of the nasa administrator and i am thrilled about that.

[laughter] but i would imagine to the extent that it changes, it would be inclusive of a number of other. >> what are your thoughts and should we be trying to cooperate more with china on human spaceflight, particularly going back to the moon, should we try to bring them in as a partner? >> i think it's inevitable, in part because you've already created an open-source system. in any capacity right now you can research online and don't have to break through anything right there on the website you can find out a manner of different things, but its characteristics you have to have a service as part of the back is

to make this capacity the leverage, the investments made by a the government, by the people of the united states a greater game for anybody to want to get to that next solution set. it is by definition available for open source and in all the years i spent previously it is exactly the reverse and in attempting to protect the information because of the nature of its sensitivity. the exact opposite is the charter and mandate of what nasa does to make it available it is the means for anybody to do so and in that regard the linkage to the question is very clear that yes this is a partner but , does have an international reputation for trying to derive information from all sources.

no question about that. with that said, they could avail themselves of it now. you might as well be working with folks to common objective, rather than to be constantly competing for the purpose of something as basic as how do you access what's already commonly available anyway? and that means we are moving through each of these different intervals of time and a common reference point and mission objective and understand exactly where each other are coming from and all of those advantages and limitations that are far better than constantly being on opposite sides of the equation and attempting to artificially limit something that fundamentally is impossible to do. no technology discriminates over its ultimate application.

individuals, people nation , states etc., the technology doesn't care. it can be any circumstance you want to use it for and how you control that and then apply it to leverage gain is the best example of how that can be done . it's far better to do it get it together then in the way that encourages lots of adversarial conditions. i've always been an advocate. far better to bring everybody into the tent than not. >> i spent 34 years as active duty and what i learned almost cost me my job as an administrator and you are one. -- in year i'm not changing my one. mind. i think engagement is absolutely essential. i think our system of government in our democracy is the strongest thing in the world and i've not met anybody yet if they spend enough time with me or us that doesn't recognize the fact

that what we have is something everybody else wants and you can't get them to believe that if you don't allow them to at least see what's going on. sean mentioned the military. ironically among the most open when it comes to the tent is the military because we want people , to know you do not want to come and tangle with me. so i will let you inside my tent and i will let you see the kind of things we can do but we what we can do them together or we can go the other road and none of us want to go the other route. i'm a strong advocate for engagement which means bringing everybody in that wants to be in and watch them and kind of monitor what they do in the way that i think the handle our relationships with everybody right now.

>> one final question down the line. i want to ask the former nasa administrators looking back at your time, it was one of the hard things that you have to do as administrator reflecting back on it now? >> the most concise answer i've been able to come up with with -- with what is a regular question is, i discovered and realized in fairly short order and the privilege and the owner as we have reiterated to be in that capacity is the highs are really high and the lows are really low and there isn't a hell of a lot in between. other than testifying before congress. >> was that a high or a low? [laughter] >> i will leave it at that.

it's a circumstance you have to thet to both ends of equation. and trying to work through an extraordinary group of professionals that are incredibly gifted people and the expertise of every discipline that you can imagine. any problem you've got you can , assemble folks to find a solution to something that is just an imponderable problem. having everybody focus on how do you get to that objective and by the way avoid the highs and avoid the lows. and the extremes. how do you find how to move everybody through the equation those common objectives. to reemploy and dedicate themselves to the next solution. that's what got us to the achievement that buzz aldrin and his colleagues were able to obtain a because everybody kept

their eye on the objective. when the times were really tough in some circumstances and things were celebratory but they always stayed the same. here's the goal, let's not get distracted from the objective and that was a challenge given the extremes in those cases and also the nature of the tragedies and successes to motivate people to look in different directions for how to revise what that mission ought to be or what that objective ought to be, and go through the discussion in a way that resolves it and moves on rather than continually debating the differences. >> i'm not sure if this will answer your question, but i share this with people because it's really important. the worst, the absolute worst administrator of the agency

could have had in my first two years. i was lousy. i didn't understand washington, i didn't understand the politics of the system and everything else and it wasn't until i got through the first two years of being the rogue administrator that i recognize the fact that, what did i believe in and why did i come, why do they let the president talked me into doing something that my wife said, do not go to washington because they will ask you to do something and you don't know how to say no. but i really believe that the agency and most importantly, i love the people. once i realized my job was to take care of the people and they would take care of everything else, it became one of the best jobs i've ever had in my life. so i just cannot say enough for the workforce and the people

that made every single day really special. i live down in mount vernon, and driving up the parkway every morning worrying about what kind of day it was going to be, knowing it could be a really bad day but every single day that i , went home for the last six years, i said the boy did we really make a difference today. that was the biggest thing just , being around the greatest group of people in the world , next to marines. >> looking forward, 60 years of history behind you but are you -- what are you most excited about coming in the future? >> anything i say right now is going to get me in trouble with somebody else. [laughter] really think what we are seeing right now is for the

first time in a long time increasing budgets at nasa. the president's budget request has been strong, congress has been increasing it from there, the president is calling on us to do big things, going back to the moon, creating an architecture that includes commercial and international. there is no shortage of exciting things. as far as the challenges go, we have to be clear about what the commercial industry brings to the table and ultimately what nasa is currently doing. one of the foundational things, one of the fundamental challenges we will face in my tenure at nasa is should government do this or should the government buy it as a service. on any given issue there is no one right answer. there are capabilities we need to develop capabilities that

exist and we need to purchase as a service. but i'm very excited about seeing how ultimately all of it develops in a way that enables the united states of america and our international partners to do more than we've ever done because of the new capabilities that are coming online. i think what we have to be really careful with is not allowing it to become political or partisan that this person is for commercial and this person is for traditional. i want to be clear, our traditional partners are acting more commercial than probably ever in history and our commercial partners are having to figure out how to meet the requirements in ways that they never had you figured out before so there is a massive blending that's happening where ultimately nasa is trying to figure out what is the right way to acquire the capability that we need right now. and i think it is destructive to

onecountry to try to pit against the other. of course i understand the industry is for themselves and that is the part of culture into like that because it makes them compete at the same time making that a reality without turning it into a key is this guy and she is that way. that isn't going to be good for the country. that will be a challenge going forward but i'm also excited about the fact that if managed correctly, we will be able to do more than we've ever done before as a country and we will be able to do it with all of our international partners. you mentioned israel, they have a commercial company right now raising money privately. they are launching in december for a small lander and they are going to be landing in february. that's one of the reasons it was important for me to go to

israel. how are you doing this and is there a way to nasa can take advantage of it and bring them on board for the future architecture program. that's just one country. you look at some of the other countries that now have space agencies. emirates, for example. they have a mission to mars. for a country with 1 million people and 9 million immigrants, that's an amazing capability that they've developed and of coarse they want to have a big partnership with the united states. they want an astronaut program. there's no shortage of opportunities in the future because of what is happening in the transformational capabilities that have come about in the last ten years because of the trail that these gentlemen have blazed into so many others. if managed correctly, the future is exciting for a whole host of capabilities.

>> i want to thank all of you for joining us here today. it's been a great discussion. i don't know if we actually got the cake. we heard there was a problem with the bakery earlier. we'll see what we had about their to celebrate the birthday. please join me in thanking the administrator and former administrator. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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