and fall of the voting rights act." then carlos hill, author of "beyond the rope: the impact of lynching on black culture and memory." saves here smith struggle of hiding her sexual orientation for 60 years. book tv in primetime all this week on c-span two. on c-span3, american history tv will look at how the vietnam war affected life in america, hearing from journalist doug stanton and pbs filmmaker lynn novick. that starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. pedro: today on "newsmakers," because we are joined by the nasa administrator, jim

bridenstine. thank you for joining us today. mr. bridenstine: thank you. it's good to be here. pedro: two reporters on for the questioning for him. we are joined by caleb henry of "space news." he serves as a staff writer. and space and defense industries reporter christian davenport of the "washington post." thanks for coming on, guys. mr. davenport, you start. christian: all right. thanks so much for having us, and thanks for joining us, mr. administrator. mr. bridenstine: absolutely. christian: i thought i might start with the space force, even though, let's be clear, it is a military force under the pentagon, there is the nasa administration, which is a civilian agency, but what would the creation of a space force mean for nasa? mr. bridenstine: nasa has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of assets in orbit right now. plus, we have our american astronauts in orbit. we are dependent on space being safe and accessible. that is important for the science we do, the discovery and exploration. i have been, as a member of congress before i was a nasa administrator, i have been a strong supporter of a space corps, and we voted on it in the house of representatives. i voted on it three times. it actually pass the full house with 344 votes, which is a bipartisan vote. at the end of the day, of all the technologies and capabilities nasa develops, we want to commercialize those capabilities.

many of those capabilities have been commercialized. the space economy represents about $350 billion annually. that is a big economy. the president has made a determination that it needs to be protected. it is true, as you have said, the air force does this. it is a national security mission, that there have been arguments that say we don't want the space domain having to compete with the air domain. we need a separate force that can focus exclusively on space given how important it is to the american way of life and ultimately how it is becoming more contested every day. caleb: do you think that president trump has mentioned nasa and the space force in the same tweet, do you think that

that confuses the general public about what the space force and nasa do? mr. bridenstine: there might be some confusion there, but the american space enterprise, nasa is a big part of that, and so is commercial industry. when you think about the weight we navigate, that affects the conditions of humans on the earth, so the way we navigate, communicate, produce food and energy. people are probably watching this on direct tv or dish network. they could be watching it online, internet broadband from space. all those services are provided by space-based facilities. the way we produce food and the way crops have increased, the weight we produce energy, do disaster relief, national security, defense, predict weather, understand climate. a lot of people don't realize

that every banking transaction in this country requires a timing signal from gps. without gps, there is no banking in this country. the power grid in this country requires timing from gps to regulate the flows of electricity. when you think about cell towers, we need a timing signal from gps in order for cell towers to work and terrestrial networks as well. there is no shortage of dependency by americans on space. the question is, does that represent a vulnerability, and do we need to protect it? the answer is yes and yes. as nasa administrator, it is important for me to talk about how space has transformed the human conditions to the good because of a trail that was blazed by nasa. if i can let folks know that these capabilities are worth protecting, then i think that is a big piece of my job as nasa administrator.

let me be really clear. nasa does not get involved in national security or defense. that is not what we do. we do science, discovery, exploration, but of course we have billions in assets and astronauts, and we want to make sure they are safe. christian: you mentioned the commercialization of space and the space economy and the growth of the industry, and we have seen the rise of high-profile companies like spacex and blue origin that is coming on and building their own rockets. what does that industry mean for the role of nasa, and how will nasa's role evolve with the rise of this industry? mr. bridenstine: that is a wonderful question. i get that a lot from the general public. a couple of things that are important to note, as nasa, we

want to do more than we have been able to do before. and of course this burgeoning commercial space industry enables us to do more. we are now resupplying the international space station with a commercial market, in essence, we don't purchase, own, and operate our own rockets to resupply our own international space station. we buy the service to resupply the international space station. it drives down the costs for nasa, it increases our access to space, and you have multiple competitors out there competing on innovation, costs, which enables us, we now see we have reusable rockets, rockets that launch things in space, then come back, and land and we can launch them again. that innovation is possible because of the competitive marketplace. so where nasa sees itself playing is, if there are things that we can commercialize, things we can buy as a service, then that enables us to do more. where there is not a robust commercial marketplace, that is where nasa needs to be involved in traditional acquisition

methods, where we purchase, own, and operate capability, but we also have to be aware to the extent that the new capabilities -- when i say new capabilities, right now, there is not a big market to go to the moon come up but there could be one day, and when that day occurs, we need to be thinking about nasa's role, to go further, to do more, to retire risks that can be commercialized itself. we have retired risks in low earth orbit. that enables commercial industry to take over and we can be a customer. we want to retire that risk deeper into space, at the moon, then eventually all the way to mars, and if we can successfully do that, i think that is our mission. caleb: do you think spacex and blue origin, since they are both building heavy launch vehicles, could one day obviate the need for a nasa launch system?

mr. bridenstine: i get that question a lot as well. there are two things important to note. number one, the space launch system and the capsule are the two best opportunities we have to get into deep space the soonest. we have hardware that is under development, not just under development, we have hardware. you can go down to the space flight center and touch the rocket cores and the orion crew capsule. you can go to the kennedy space center and touch it there. we are almost ready. now that being said, when you look at the horizon, who would have thought in the 1980's that we would be resupplying the international space station by buying a service from commercial industry? when you think 10 years from

now, 20 years from now, even sooner, maybe, who knows, but if there is a way we can acquire that service at a lesser cost and enable us to use nasa's resources to do something else, something more, to retire risks somewhere else, and then we fully support that. nasa's goal is to do more than we have done before, and those commercial partners will enable us to do that. pedro: at this stage, how confident are you to put humans in commercial spacecraft? mr. bridenstine: we are getting more confident every day. as a matter of fact, next year, in 2019, less than a year from now, you will see american astronauts launching on american rockets on american soil, and those rockets will be acquired with a commercial contract. in other words, we will not purchase, own, and operate the rockets, we are acquiring the

service. those two providers are boeing and spacex. boeing's was provider is boeing launch alliance, and boeing provides the capsule, and spacex is using their own rockets and own capsule. christian: there are two companies aimed at flying humans, blue origin and virgin galactic. although not to orbit, and they would do this as a commercial venture for tourists. as nasa administrator and as you are working towards flying nasa astronauts for the first time since the shuttle retired in 2011, does it bother you that these other companies might fly humans first, or do think that is a good thing? mr. bridenstine: that is a wonderful thing. you mentioned virgin galactic, blue origin, they are looking in short order on doing suborbital spaceflight, not just for science, which is important, but also for tourism. the more people we can get exposed to space, the better. ultimately, when those capabilities become commercialized, it results in a market that enables nasa to buy those services as well, and nasa becomes one customer of many

customers, driving down our costs, increasing our access, and we can use taxpayer resources to do things that commercial is not yet doing. all that in my view is good. caleb: one of your commercial providers, you mentioned boeing is using the vehicle from united launch alliance powered by a russian engine. i believe russia has made recent statements indicating they may cut the supply of that engine. does that concern you that my cause further delays? mr. bridenstine: yes, and in fact, the united states of america is working hard to not be dependent on the rd-180 engine. it is also true, and i want to be clear about this, nasa is unique from the rest of the federal government in the sense that when relations get rough between countries, when they are not so good, nasa is able to maintain that relationship. so right now we have american astronauts on the international space station who got there by

flying on a russian rocket. of course that is an amazing relationship that is unique to nasa. that is historical as well. when i was in congress, we passed a sanctions bill on russia, and of course it was signed by the president. during that time, specifically space was carved out, because we want to cooperate on space issues. nasa represents an amazing soft power capability for the usa. when other channels of communication breakdown, nations can still communicate on space exploration and space discovery and science, and i think that is an amazing capability that nasa needs to preserve. so do we want to be dependent? no. do we want a partnership? absolutely. and even when we have a commercial crew, which is an american rocket launching from american soil with american astronauts, which we want, we

want to maintain the relationship with russia, so maybe of their crew will launch on our rockets, and our crew will launch on their rockets. the iss is truly international and needs to remain that way. pedro: nasa administrator jim bridenstine joining us for this conversation on "newsmakers." caleb, go ahead. caleb: so the head of the russian space agency, dmitry rogozin, i believe that he is banned by u.s. sanctions from visiting the u.s. have you met with him? mr. bridenstine: not yet. i intend to in the near future. we are working on how we maintain this relationship given those constraints.

i am very confident we will be able to work it out. christian: question about the commercial crew program, boeing and spacex flying astronauts to the international space station. they have announced new dates without crew and with crew. the crewed flights -- they had mentioned mid 2019 for boeing. there have been repeated delays and setbacks in the program. are you confident they will fly on those dates, and if so, what gives you the confidence? mr. bridenstine: we are confident. we did not -- when you think about what commercial crew is, we did not write out thousands of requirements and specifications for commercial crews. we wanted to provide as much leeway to companies to create their own unique designs of the innovative, and they have. to the extent that has enabled us -- it is really advanced technology that has enabled us to do more, we also have to sure those designs are very safe. so that is what we are working through right now.

we are trying to figure out every possible way these rockets could fail and mitigate against those risks. that takes time. this is an important point to make, commercial crew rockets and capsules will be at least three times safer than the space shuttle. so when we talk about the amount of risk that we are taking here, commercial crew actually reduces the risk to american astronauts and our international partners. i think that is an important point to make. pedro: why is that? mr. bridenstine: it is an entirely different design. when you think about the space shuttle, there was no room for escape capability. you think about a fighter aircraft with an ejection seat. there was no ejection capability on the space shuttle. and of course that resulted in

more risk. the design of the space shuttle itself was more risky than a simple rocket with a capsule on top. i don't want to use the word "simple," because rockets are never simple, but it is a much simpler design than the space shuttle. the simpler design combined with a crew ejection capability, if you will, a crew escape capability, really increases the survivability and reduces the risk. pedro: mr. henry. caleb: the senate has proposed in the space frontier act to extend the life of the iss six years, to 2030, so beyond initial estimates. what do you think of this? mr. bridenstine: it is an interesting idea. i will tell you what mine position is and the position of the administration. we need to rapidly transition from low earth orbit to

commercial operations, to figure out how nasa can be a customer on commercial space stations in low earth orbit in a rather than owning and operating the international space station. let me be clear, the iss has been a tremendous asset to the united states of america, and it will continue to be. the president's budget request calls for a transition of the iss in 2025. that is seven years from now. the question between now and then is -- what can we commercialize, and how do you create a business case for commercial entities in low earth orbit? could we take the international space station and enable private enterprise to take it over and close the business case? the answer is we don't know yet. between now and seven years from now, it may well be possible. additionally, we have companies better building commercial space

stations, commercial habitats that are going to be separate from the iss, so that enables nasa to be a customer of those commercial spaces, reducing our costs, become one customer of many customers, and have multiple providers competing on innovation and cost. all of those things are good. the commercialization of low earth orbit, in my view, should be the highest priorities, so we can take nasa resources and focus on going to the moon and creating a sustainable architecture at the moon to do science, but also do prospecting, take advantage of the tons of water ice we know is on the surface of the moon. that water ice represents life support, water to drink, hydrogen and oxygen, air to breathe, but it also represents propulsion and power. liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen powered the space shuttles, for example. we want to use nasa resources to go further and do more than we have done before. to do that, we have to commercialize low earth orbit.

if we want to extend the iss, that is wonderful if we can have commercial enterprise do that. what would that commercial enterprise be? there are a number of companies making tremendous strides in manufacturing in low earth orbit. the idea of manufacturing fiber optics, for example, is one commonly referred to capability. the idea that those fiber optics would be so pristine and clear that you don't need cable repeaters, you don't need to make those massive investments every couple of miles or whatever the number. that closes the business case to manufacture in a microgravity environment fiber optics. the idea that in a microgravity environment, it is possible to, in essence, 3-d print organs that can be used for humans, which is an astonishing kind of development that is being researched right now on the iss. and there is so much more. pharmaceuticals represents another great opportunity. there are so many things being developed in low earth orbit that could be commercialized, and if we can have that happen

in the next seven years, and nasa can use its resources to go further and do more, that is what we should be striving for. christian: the white house has reconstituted the national space council after it had been dormant for a long time, and its first directive was a return to the moon, which you mentioned a few times. what is the architecture that will get us to the moon? how will we get there, and what is the timeline? mr. bridenstine: this show is about four hours long? i will be brief.

the reality is what we understand now because of reusable rockets, the cost of getting to space and the access to space for more people is going to be better than ever before. that being the case, we want the architecture between the earth and moon to be reusable as launch is now reusable. we want low or if orbit and lunar orbit to be reusable, a gateway, a space station in orbit around the moon that will use solar, electric propulsion, so it will be there for a long time, but the key is that it has solar, electric propulsion, so not only be a near regular halo orbit, it will also go to l1 and l2 and more parts of the moon than ever before. we also want landers to be reusable, landers going back and forth from that space station in orbit around the moon, back-and-forth to the moon many times. if the entire architecture is reusable, then the entire

architecture is sustainable. the president said in his space policy directive he wants a sustainable return to the moon. he does not want to re-create apollo with flags and footprints, and in 1972, after our sixth landing on the moon, we came home and never went back. he does not want to do that. he wants a sustainable architecture and to utilize the resources of the moon, the water ice that i mentioned. there could be, and we don't know, but there could be rare earth metals on the moon. we talk about rare earth metals on the earth. those are not earth metals at all. those are asteroid impacts from a billion years ago or more. the moon has the same marks on the moon, but it does not have

active geology. the hydrosphere there is much less active than earth can which means there could be massive deposits of rare earth metals, but that could be on the moon as well. we need to prospect the moon and understand it. there is a lot we don't know. from 1969 until 2008, most people believed that the moon was bone dry. 2008, the indians made a discovery there is water ice. 2009, nasa discovers that there is hundreds of billions of tons of water ice. that should have changed our perspective immediately, going back to the moon with a sustainable architecture to do the science, discovery, and do more than we have ever done before. the architecture not only gets us to the equatorial regions, which is what apollo did, it

gets us to more parts of the moon than we have been to before, so we can make those discoveries. we should know more about the moon today than we did. we have just not been doing it. the other thing that the moon represents -- we talk about the gateway in orbit around the moon, and that is to give us access to more parts of the moon for a longer time than ever before, but the second gateway is a deep space transport. that is in essence our mission to mars. we not want not only everything to be reusable, we want everything replicable for a mars mission, and we want to take advantage of our commercial partners and our international partners. if we want to create this sustainable, lunar architecture, again, we are not doing apollo again -- and i want to be clear, apollo was amazing, critically important. we proved the united states of america had a superior political and economic system and that we were superior technologically. we proved that.

now what we want to do is we want to be the only nation on the planet that establishes a lunar architecture sustainable for the long run that brings along our international partners and commercial partners to do more than we have ever done before. all of this is about one thing, that is improving the human condition on earth. that is what nasa's vision is. pedro: before we wrap up, a quick word about the study of the sun that will take place. mr. bridenstine: a wonderful question. the parker solar probe is very soon going to launch. this will enable us to know more about the sun. we talk about a carrington level event, a coronal mass ejection out of the sun, charge particles coming out of the sun in mass quantities very fast. that can damage humans in space because there is a lot of radiation. on top of that, it can damage satellites, it can mess with our power grid. a carrington level event, should it happen today, it would be a civilization-damaging event. we have to be prepared for that. what we will understand with the parker solar probe, which is a mission to the sun -- which is

crazy to think about, but a mission to the sun -- we will work and predict those kinds of events and mitigate against them here on earth. pedro: jim bridenstine, the nasa administrator, joining us for this edition of "newsmakers." we appreciate your time today. mr. bridenstine: thank you very much. pedro: christian davenport, commercial came up time and again. did you walk away with that? christian: absolutely. he has come into the office and the trump administration has tried to embrace this growing space industry. you heard the president talking about these billionaires and the rockets, elon musk, jeff bezos, and others. they are providing a critical service for nasa flying cargo to the iss, but next year, nasa will be entrusting the lives of its astronauts to these companies, counting on them to fly to the iss, but what was really interesting about what the administrator said, caleb asked a really smart question about the space launch system. this is the massive rocket that boeing and other more

traditional companies are building, and it has come under real scrutiny because of its cost and schedule delays, but also now that you have this growing industry that are building heavy lift rockets, what does it mean for the future of sls? he embraced that. he said we need that now. he also left open the possibility that should other rockets come on the market that he is all for open competition between these companies because that will only benefit nasa. pedro: what else did you take away from those responses? caleb: i thought his sls comment was important. before spacex launch their heavy rocket this february, there was speculation as to whether sls would be necessary, but you could compare it because neither rocket has flown. now the falcon heavy has flown and you have evidence of a heavy lift vehicle alongside the delta heavy. you have strong rockets and the fact nasa is willing to embrace

those. pedro: he talked about the confidence of putting humans into these rockets. is nasa confident in the ability of these commercial rock is to safely carry people to space? caleb: i believe, yes, nasa standards are world renowned. they are very serious about safety. it was interesting hearing about his experience being a pilot. it is certainly top of mind, the safety of the astronaut. these companies will be put through rigorous tests to make sure their vehicles are up to par. pedro: mr. davenport? christian: they don't have a choice.

these contracts are out the door. the spacecraft are being developed. right now, nasa does not have the ability to fly astronauts into space, and has not had that capability since 2011 when the space shuttle was retired. a lot of people do not realize that nasa's astronauts still fly to space and go to the iss, but they do it on russian rockets. boeing and spacex are trying to restore the capability for nasa and developing the vehicles, but the programs have been delayed. right now, nasa does not have a choice. they have got to get these spacecraft and rockets up and running. pedro: he spoke in optimistic terms of going to the moon, going to mars. what is the reality? christian: mars is always 20 to 30 years down the road. i think a return to the moon is more realistic, but when i asked the question about it, we did not get a real sense of the timeline and when this is going to happen. they talk about putting a

propulsion element of this gateway in the early 2020's, and i know they are working on the lunar lander proposal now. it does seem like it is a more achievable and reasonable goal, in the way they are thinking about it, and again, as the administrators said, it is not to just go there, touch the moon, and leave, but to build a sustainable architecture so you can stay there and be there for some time, just as we have a presence in low earth orbit on the iss, extend that to the region of the moon. pedro: mr. henry, he talked about the future relations with russia and china. what is the reality of the future of relations with those countries, particularly when it comes to space? caleb: as you mentioned, space has been a special area that has been carved out when there are tough times. the u.s.-russia relationship in space has been very strong. he talked about possibly making

the lunar gateway. something that also has a lot of international representation. i think it is clear that international partners are concerned that america is much more concerned, focused on going alone, and he has certainly spoken against that, but i have talked to people in the industry who work closely with nasa, and there is evidence of concern about whether or not the u.s. will shed some of the responsibilities with others. pedro: caleb henry is a staff writer for "space news," and christian davenport is a reporter for the "washington post." thank you for joining us. christian: thank you for having us. [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] >> here's a look at our primetime schedule on the c-span networks. starting at 8:00 p.m., remarks from supreme court justice

stephen breyer on the u.s. constitution and the law. 8:30, its bookt tv with a look at some local authors from the cities we visited on our c-span cities tour. on c-span3, american history tv with programs examining how the vietnam war affected everyday life in america. ♪ >> this week on "q&a," ginger thompson. thompson talks about covering the u.s. immigration policy.

>> i grew up on the u.s.-mexico border. mexico has long been a part of my life. i learned to speak spanish very early. i spent weekends with my friends and their grandparents. i have been interested in mexico for a long time. journalist, the fact that i spoke spanish gave me a bit of an edge over some of my colleagues. there weren't a lot of spanish-speaking reporters in newsrooms. i was working at the los angeles times. i started as an intern, spoke spanish, covered spanish-speaking communities, and in doing that, it became a natural progression