STEVE SANDFORD: My name
is Steve Sandford, some of you may know me from last March, I
believe, when I came and spoke and what we are going to do for
the next five weeks is a little bit of a continuation of what
we started back then. I came and spoke about the
history of the space program with an emphasis on the
national benefits that we accrued from undertaking that
great adventure, even going back to 1917 in the beginning of
aeronautics in this country, at least aeronautics research. And
so what we are going to do in the next five weeks is give you
a much more detail about what's going on now. What NASA is
planning and how we intend to take the next steps into deep
space. Today we have got Pat Troutman and Dan Mazanek here.
They are two of NASA's leading space architects and have
been intimately involved in the agency working with centers
across the country and planning the best way to move into deep
space, building on what we have done in the past and on
the capabilities of the International Space Station that
we have up there now. I am going to turn it over now to Dan and
Pat and let them take it away. PAT TROUTMAN: Thanks Steve.
Sound check, can everyone can hear me okay?
DAN MAZANEK: And how about me? AUDIENCE: Good. DAN: All right. Welcome and
thank you for coming out this morning. We appreciate you
coming. What we are going to do is we are going to talk about a
future history of human space settlement. Now this is a
history, this is we are going to tell you how this might take
form, and what I am going to first do, we are going to
talk about the first steps, the Asteroid Redirect Mission and
the path to Mars, but before that I am going to take you a
little bit farther into the future. So, I want you to, and
first there is a disclaimer here in that this presentation is
meant to educate and evoke discussion, so at the end you
know hopefully you will have some questions and we will be
able to answer those for you. It doesn't entirely represent the
official position of NASA. There is plenty of official
information, projects that we are working on but certainly
this introduction is fictional. And I want to take you, imagine
for a moment that you are in a history class in the year 2776
and you are in a high school at First Colony High School on
Planet Nova. So, this is our history. About 800 years ago our
ancestors here on Earth they had the forethought the economic
fortitude and the know-how to take the first steps in
spreading out from the Earth. And this is our new home, Nova.
We have been here a 100 years. It was originally discovered on
November 21st, 2012, now that's in Earth years, and we have been
here 100 years since our first settlers landed, that is about
eight Earth years. Soon after we arrived all Earth transmission
ceased after we suspect because of the transmissions, viruses
released from biological warfare spread through the solar system.
Here is a picture of the sunset on Nova and you can see it is a
triple star system. Nova orbits Gliese 667C and it has two twin
stars. Nova as we called it is a super Earth. It is about four
and half times the mass of the earth. So the gravity is
little more substantial for the colonists than we experience
here on Earth. It orbits, its parent star will be 28 days,
so pretty much the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. It is
located 22 light years away from the earth. So, that's about
1.4 million astronomical units. Astronomical units is the
distance between the Earth and the Sun. So it is a little bit
of a haul to get out there. So, how we got here? Three
generations traveled in 12 artificial space arks and
devoted their lives to the journey to the Gliese system.
So you think about it, it is 22 light years away, it is even if
we can obtain a fraction 10th the speed of light, which maybe
we can someday in the future, it is a multigenerational trip. So
we had over 7000 colonists at first departure, of course many
more were born and many passed away during that time. More
importantly we housed all the terrestrial life forms that
could be transported. So, it wasn't just taking a colonist
and going to a strange new world, we brought what we could
with us. It was constructed in the Jovian System out of
materials process from asteroids and the moons of Jupiter.
It utilized advanced fusion propulsion using Helium 3 and
hydrogen extracted from the Jupiter's atmosphere. And the
colonists left in the year 2560. So, the journey took little over
200 years to make. So, I ask the question that sets the stage,
why should humans explore space? Certainly we live on a big
spaceship, we are constantly going around the Sun every
365-1/4 days, we are on this spaceship, and we are in a
single spaceship right now. We have multitude of things that we
need to be concerned about, just hazards in the solar system. One
of them is comets and asteroids and I am sure most of you
probably are aware of this but we live in, we kind of call it
cosmic shooting gallery, this is just the leftovers from the
creation of the solar system and it is not that these asteroids
or comets have any ill intent, it is just they are orbiting
with us and every once in a while they run into us, as a
matter of fact we had a very close approach this last week
of a very small object, about 40 feet across that came by
2014CR, came just outside of our geosynchronous satellite orbits,
but it is a constant reminder that we have threats that come
in from outer space that we have to worry about. So, we have to
worry about ourselves and what we experience outside. This next
animation depicts what the final state of our Sun would be, a
red giant, and how it will eventually consume pretty much
out to the Martian orbit. Our Sun is going to expand. Now
all estimates are this will be 4 billion years or so from now, so
we have nothing to worry about from that standpoint, but
someday we will have to leave, and you make, when we start
out we are talking about making those baby steps to
begin that process. PAT: Point here Dan is
yesterday there was a major solar storm with a coronal mass ejection, it is heading towards
earth, it is going to hit tomorrow sometime. People as far
as south as Michigan might be able to see the northern lights.
You might hear some stories that it disrupted radio transmission
and power grid outages. That's just a small sample of what
could happen. Back in 1869... DAN: '65, the Carrington event. PAT: The Carrington
event wiped out what was the major telegraph
infrastructure of the United States at that particular time.
So it is not just end-of-life things we have to worry about.
We have to worry about the solar system throwing things at us
constantly, and civilization is a very fragile state sometimes.
It only takes a short little push one way or another to get
us to the point where we cannot actually sustain going into
space. It is not it wipes out humanity, it removes our ability
to spread humanity's seed. So, just a thought. DAN: Yeah, and to
follow that up you know the Carrington event they actually
were such a strong solar storm that railroad tracks actually
ignited because they acted to conduct the energy, the
particles that came in and of course and the wood and the
tar and all the ignitable things actually caught on fire. If we
had a similar circumstance like that as Pat mentioned, you know
it would affect society. The question is we have reached this
point in history of human kind that we actually can contemplate
our place in the universe, and we can actually go out, we have
proven that we can go to the moon, I mean we know that we can
explore beyond the moon and Pat and I are going to talk about
that. But what if the clock got reset? What if we did have
something happen where we were sent back to the Stone Age?
Would we ever be able to recover back to the point we are. So it
is interesting to think, I like saying to folks just to ponder
that the telescope and the rocket and the final analysis
maybe the two most important inventions in all of human
history because for example for comets and asteroids first of
all we have to be able to see them, we have to be able to know
where they are and of course we have to get to them before
they get to us if we want to do something about it. Similarly,
if we want to find an Earth like planet in another solar system
and we are doing it right now, we need telescopes, very
sensitive telescopes to be able to see those, and of course, if
we want to get there we need a rocket, it is going to be a
different rocket than we are thinking of today but we need
the propulsion to be able to span the gulf of interstellar
space. So, in some sense if we as humans become compromised,
I will say extinct, because species go extinct over the
periods of millions of years, but if we don't have either the
extinction or the capability to travel into space at some point
in the future we are kind of stewards of all the life here on
earth. So to think about that, we have that kind of that
responsibility and we have been blessed with the tools to be
able to do something. So, with that I am going to let Pat
takeover and kind of we will pull you back to human history,
a more recent history of space travel.
PAT: Yes, now you are in Ancient Human History 101.
Since I am the oldest I get to preach that.
Dan and I were actually talking about do you remember
the Apollo Lunar Landing? Well he was 2-1/2, he actually
remembers it when it happened. I was 8, I actually remembered
when it happened and it both involves a grainy black and
white TV sitting in some place. And so it is, you go back,
that's the dawn of human expanding their seed. And Apollo
is special in so many reasons. First was because the tremendous
amount of capabilities we developed in the leaps in
engineering and technology that were accomplished in that time
frame, just phenomenal. We had never duplicated that since.
There are reasons for that. Now everybody says well it is
because we are in a race with the Russians or we had infinite
money, there are other things too that allowed that to happen
and that is reflected very much in things like SpaceX now, who
is building rockets and making great progress and doing great
things, they have a very young fresh workforce. And believe it
or not back in the Apollo days NASA's workforce was young 20
something stewarded by some senior folks and they worked
80-hour weeks, they lived, ate, and breathed it and by the time
we landed on the moon we were spent. The NASA divorce rate was
incredibly higher than everyone else's. We were on a war footing
with that. We wanted to achieve that was never been achieved
before. We wanted to beat the Russians and we dedicated
everything we had to do it and we ran the whole marathon at
full speed. When we go the end of Apollo the country was a
little tired, been there, done that, the workforce was just
expired and actually we didn't actually know what we wanted to
do after we got to the moon. We were running so fast, we forgot
about the rest of the journey. So, Apollo taught us a lot of
things and of course at the dawn of the Apollo era NASA was not
a bureaucracy. It was a young agile organization that didn't
care about sustaining about itself for long periods of time,
by the time it reached the end of Apollo NASA was full of
bureaucracy and we still are today. So, I am not making
excuses, I am just saying that's the way it is because throughout
the history of space exploration Apollo to 800 years in
the future, bureaucracy and political momentum and budgets
all play a factor into how we have to accommodate and how we
have to plan for the future. So, it is not nice, I want to talk
about rockets and warp drive and all this great stuff. That's
only half the problem. It is getting people, stakeholders,
Congressmen to understand that this is worth doing and to give
up something old in order to do something new. So you will see
this repeatedly happen through history. So, I am going to tell
you a little about that. So, Apollo, great wonderful thing.
After Apollo we got there and as I said what were we going to
do? Well we had some leftover rockets. We just spent 10 years
beating the Russians. We said well maybe we ought to start
making good with the Russians. So you this idea of reusing what
we got, making it do something else and doing in a way with
international partners to help get that political stakeholders
that we don't have, with just the mission alone. So, by
involving other countries who also want to invest in their
space program and give it a reason for being it just adds
another reason to go do it. So you will see this theme where
we take hardware, we reinvented little bit, applied something
else and then we go do it with the internationals because hey
if their congress wants to do it and our congress wants to do it
then we will get to do it. So the Apollo-Soyuz program was
that it was bringing the module, uniting the two programs,
instead of running against each other we were shaking
hands. After that came the space shuttle. And what was really
interesting was this space shuttle was well now we are
going to completely change our mindset, we are going to do a
total reusable system, we are going to launch 100s of times
a year, we are going to enable this whole industry in space and
take care of it self. That's how shuttle was sold. It didn't
really turn out that way. It is an amazing engineering fete,
in fact much more so than the Saturn V rocket, because there
were miles of wires and circuits and stuff and 10s of 1000s of
millions of parts on this thing and they all worked. Yes, we had
some setback and some tragedies, but the fact that this system
could go up, go to space for weeks at a time, come back, be
refurbished and used, it really was something. But then we
had Challenger, we have had Columbia. And the role of space
shuttle was muddied a little bit. It is a reusable stuff, it
takes satellites and everything back and forth, but then we
didn't want to jeopardize people's life in delivering
cargo. So we had a separation of crew and cargo and space shuttle
was only to be used for human missions. So we have to have a
lot of human missions to use the space shuttle for. We looked
across the seas to our friend the Russians and we said you got
a space station, we got a truck, let's get together. And we
did, that was the Shuttle Mir Program. So I was fortunate
actually to be on the beginning part of that particular program.
We went over to Russians and we negotiated and we setup a series
of protocols and sure enough they had launched space station,
we are flying back and forth and we are going to experience and
now everyone is happy that we are working with our friends. It
was an international experience and we were learning how to
operate in space on Mir. Then we did that a bunch, it's like
what's next? Well, Mir was coming to the end of its
lifetime and so we built the International Space Station. So
I am going to talk about that a little bit. So right now we
are at, the space shuttle has retired, International Space
Station is operational, what are the next steps that we are going
to do? What is our journey to 800 years...I forget the name
of the planet... DAN: Nova.
PAT: Nova, Nova, okay I can remember that, Nova.
Dan and I carpooled everyday back and forth to
Williamsburg and so we discussed this as we carpooled and our
offices across from each other and then he goes to all his
meetings all days, I will go to all mine, then we get back in
the carpool and we discuss it. So, this is how we integrated
this thing together. So, as I mentioned politics is an
important part. Every new President that comes into office
says, "Well, NASA now works for me, I am going to tell NASA
what to go do." And what's very interesting is that sometimes
the presidents have different implementations, but their
higher level themes are very close. This happens to be a
statement by President Obama, and the points I want to point
out here is "our goal is the capacity for people to work
and learn and operate and live safely beyond earth for extended
periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable
and even indefinite." That is the path for expanding human
presence. Now what's really funny is that eight years
beforehand George Bush came out with the vision for space
exploration and he said the exact same thing. But then the
spin masters came in and they took George Bush's thing and
said, oh that means we are going to go to the moon. And then when
Obama came in, the spin masters came in and said, why go to the
moon, let's go to an asteroid. And so we lose sight of the
long-term goal of extending our seed and learning to work in
space by the short term goals of well by the time my
administration is done we are going to go do this, so I can
hang up on my wall and say I allowed NASA to go to an
asteroid and go to the moon. You need short-term deadlines in
order to focus. The problem is that what you have to invest to
go to moon may not be the same what you have to invest to go to
an asteroid, they are different things. So, NASA does this game
where we sort of do the hula as we are trying to adapt to the
current administration. So, our strategy is something now called
the Evolving Mars Campaign where we are focused on creating
infrastructure capabilities, a logical path that it doesn't
matter if whatever the next president it, doesn't matter it
is a red state or a blue state, when he comes in 95% of that
work after we are done is not going to have to get redirected
and refocused. So, our goal is very much as the President has
said, doesn't matter whether it is Bush or Obama, to find
the pioneering strategy for extending human access and
operation capabilities in the journey towards the Mars system.
So there is our horizon goal. So we want to focus on going
towards Mars, because whether we go to the moon, whether we go
to an asteroid, that's the next hump, so it gets us across that
specifying certain things to go to a certain destination. So we
are laying this foundation for going to explore. So, it doesn't
really say that we are going to land on Mars at this particular
time. You saw Mars vicinity in the 2030s. Mars vicinity can
be interpreted as going to the moons of mars, can mean to go to
the surface, can mean just going in orbit. The President
did later come on and say after he talked about extending human
presence, he said, well by the way I want humans to go to an
asteroid in 2025. So he had to have his own date. So that
immediately became Dan's headache. So, we will talk about
that. So, my headache is Mars, his headache is asteroids, and
we have to figure out how to weave a thread between those two
because we don't want to invest in one that doesn't enable the
other. So, we are all on the same page no matter what we do.
These particular things are the guiding philosophies. Bottom
line is it needs to make sense. It needs to get to a point where
we are not dependent on Earth and it has got to start off with
budgets and grow to something based upon projected future NASA
budgets. So, this is not a plan, this is a philosophy. So, it
sort of looks like this. On the left is the International Space
Station, that's where we are at today. It is complete for the
most part. 30-40 shuttle flights to assemble and put that
together, nations across the world including Russia who owns
half of the space station. They have made some comments recently
about well, 2017 we are just going to break our part off and
fly away, see you guys! There are pros and cons to working
with the internationals because relationships can change as we
are sort of seeing in the world stage right now and we have to
adapt to that. So even though we want to include an international
perspective in everything we do, we still need a fallback plan if
key partners go away. So, that is part of the strategy we are
putting in here. So, you see these bubbles, the big bubbles,
International Space Station, something here in the middle
of the chart called a proving ground, that's the lower center
of the chart, and then bubbles for the Mars moons, into the
surface of Mars. Each time we go through those it is a large
capability investment. Billions of Dollars to make the next step
happen. So, it sort of looks like this. In lower at the orbit
space station is there, that answers couple of questions. It
was initially put there to say can international communities
work together to do a space based engineering project of
the scale never seen before? The answer was yes. We could figure
out and put together, take everyone's parts they fit in
space and they all worked, much more successful than a lot of
us thought. That was my first project coming to NASA with
International Space Station. Through 20 years it went from
notion to operation to being finished. And now it is my job
to figure out what to do with it afterwards. So, the first part
was engineering and operating. The next part is how do we
use that as a test platform to understand if people can survive
for years in space. And in space there is no gravity, no one
can hear you scream and there is radiation. So, we have to test
those things on space station, so it is an ideal platform for
doing that. So, all this zero G human factors, long duration
systems, highly reliable systems at those space station to prove
that. The point is though as we prove those out on space station
in order for us to go on to the next destination, space station
should go away. Now what happens with bureaucracies and
institutions? What is their main goal in life? Survival, to
sustain themselves. So, we have a space station, 10 years
we could be finished with everything we need to do on
that. Nothing more. All the research will be done and we can
move on to next target. Space station doesn't want that.
The congressional delegation in Texas and Alabama they don't
want that because their jobs now that are running. So this is the
dilemma we face. We can't move on to the next step unless
we can reduce investments in current things. So it's a
challenge that we are always fighting. But to get to that
next step, to get the on low earth orbit you heard what Steve
talked about, investments in major transportation functions,
that is the space launch system, that is the Orion Space Capsule,
that is what Dan is going to talk about solar electric
propulsion to get you into deep space efficiently. Space station
was billions and billions of dollars. Space launch system
Orion, high powering space propulsion, billions and
billions of dollars, how do we pay for these extra things? Now,
why don't we just decommission space shuttle, so those funds in
the NASA budget use the pay for space shuttle, now we are
reprogramming the pay for SLS Orion and hopefully the asteroid
mission. So that's where that box is being paid for. But if
space station doesn't go away how do we get to this next box
on the right which the Phobos and Deimos Mars orbit? This
is where we go from on space station we are one day away from
the surface of earth. We just hop in Soyuz, not an American
vehicle, a Russian vehicle, because we had no American
vehicle that gets back and forth space station now. We hop in the
Russian vehicle, get back to the surface. When we are in the,
what we call the Cislunar space, this area here, where SLS and
Orion will be able to take us to, that's days to weeks away,
not bad. Our current systems on space station are fully
sufficient to keep the crew surviving. When you start
talking about years away from earth and years away from coming
back which we were talking about in the Mars system or going to
asteroids themselves in their native orbits, we have a whole
new class of systems. So we are on space station where we can
order up spare parts you know every few months, they come up
on the Russian or the SpaceX or the orbital delivery systems, we
can't do that in deep space. So things have to be more reliable,
spars parts have to be common and unique and we are not there
yet. Systems have to last long. And then we have to get to
this next level of propulsion, hundreds of kilowatts of power
pushing the spacecraft out to deep space. So, it is like
a billion or so, couple of billions, it is not 10s of
billions, its billions to get out there. But we see going to
the Mars surface that is a huge set of investment. As Steve said
we don't know how to get people down there yet. These little
boxes you see on this page will be hanging there for a while.
So, the next box will be hanging will be this one here at
Cislunar space. Space station, I just talked this whole chart
basically. We have to adjust space station so we can answer
those questions about how people survived long duration flights.
We need to increase the duration of crew going to space station.
Right now they go 180 days, they come down. That way all
the astronauts from all the countries get to fly the space
station. That is not telling us anymore the need about to go to
Mars. We need to have them up there for one year, two
years, see what happens in this environment. So again getting
the culture to accept the fact that we need to go do that. As I
mentioned we can't go to space station right now unless we buy
a Russian ticket. There is some place in between that if this
geomagnetic storm that is coming tomorrow could be a destination
of very much interest in this geostationary orbit. Those
satellites up there, when I give this lecture to teenagers it
horrifies them, I say one bad solar storm it is going to knock
out your direct TV, your cell phone, your GPS and your
texting. They go, my daughter is going, oh no that's terrible. So
from a tax payer perspective we need to guard and be able to in
geostationary orbit. Right now it is not a destination because
it is seen as routine, but if we are to lose one satellite
and it were to break apart in geostation orbit it can ripple
and take out all the satellites. So, the ability of sending
people and robots to geostation orbit to repair spacecraft is a
very important thing. It is in the back of our mind. So, when
you have seen NASA talking about going to moon or the Mars are
also building systems to go rescue our basic infrastructure
in geostationary orbit. It is not glamorous and sexy but it is
very important. Next step along the way, going towards Nova is
what we called lagrange points. This is the place where the
space launch systems and Orion can actually get to without
additional investments in transportation, and these are
far side of the moon, lunar orbit, places like this. And
this is where we get exposure to the deep space environment, low
earth orbit we are protected by the earth's magnetic shield
until the solar flux hits and we are still protected, but not as
much. By having systems out in deep space we will expose
them to radiation that Steve is talking about and understand
the implication on human rated systems for long durations. And
there are other activities that we can do here like tele-
operating robots on the surface of moon, laying the ground for
people to eventually go there. Sample return where humans
actually bring back the samples. Right now this is where we are
going to get to with our current investments. This is that next
box we are talking about there. So, we are talking about lot
of activities that go to this position and Dan is going to
talk to about the asteroid redirect mission that takes
advantage of this place too, where it also comes together in
a reasonable place. The moon, yes, we have been there
done that. Prior to the last administration change that was
our destination as I mentioned before and we worked very hard
with internationals to come with integrated strategy, we are
all doing the same thing, we are singing Kumbaya and we go off
to the moon and explore in a way not that was like Apollo but in
a way that led the groundwork for sustained presence, like we
are talking about with Mars and Nova and these other places.
Again, next president came in and they changed the destination
to an asteroid and this sort of fell along the way, but going to
the moon would give us all that experience with long duration,
low gravity systems and a dusty surface. And if we don't do that
at the moon when we get to Mars we will be trying it for first
time there. So the moon is still very important in moving out
into the solar system. ♪[music]♪ Near earth asteroid. So, this
is, I am not going to be talking about this,
Dan is, because this is his passion. He has been working
near earth asteroids, comet asteroids, protection schemes
for his whole career, but it is part of my job too in that they
represent a good segue between what I am call the Cislunar
space and actually getting into Mars. The problem with asteroids
is that each asteroid itself has a predictable repeatable orbit
but we don't have opportunities every two years like Mars, we
can't go every day of the week like we can to the moon. So if
you miss a window for asteroid you got to find another one.
So it is hard to plan human missions decades out to an
unknown particular target. Again, Dan is going to talk more
about that. DAN: There's lot
of asteroids out there. PAT: There's lots, they
are always coming along. So the thing about
the asteroid mission is that everything you need for an
asteroid mission you need just a little bit more to do Mars, so
it is a great stepping stone but it is only a one-year mission
at most compared to three-year mission like we are talking for
the Mars. So a great next step beyond Cislunar space. Now, when the President
came out, last President came out and said you
go to an asteroid, we said yes sir, we are going to plan an
asteroid mission for you and he didn't say I am going to give
you a budget increase to go do this. So, we said, okay, what
would be an interesting target, in the late 2020 timeframe,
and there is an asteroid called Apophis that's on its way. So I
am going just going to let this play, let you watch it and enjoy
it and I will tell you a little about it later. [video presentation] PAT: So, we came up
with an asteroid mission, then we costed it,
now we can't afford to do that. It is
very important why an asteroid mission. You know of course we
talked about the whole planetary defense nature and you now the
asteroids have shaped our past and they will shape our future.
Asteroids offer a vast potential of resources that allows
sustainably explore the solar system. This particular one as
you say is going to come by very close and then it is going
to pass through a gravitation keyhole. And if it passes the
wrong way it could come closer. Right now they don't think it is
going to hit. But you would want to put a tracking device on
there. You would want to put remote telemetry on there, you
want to put a science station on there. You want to understand
your enemy, so intelligence is very important. So if you had
to go to an asteroid, resources, planetary defense a big reason
to go there. But the problem we had is that back in 2009 when we
did that the budget wasn't there to do that mission because we
had to bring all those systems further in time until about
2028, we had to have both the long duration habitats and year
in space, we are close but we aren't right there. So, this
particular mode sent a crew to the asteroid in this native
order. And one day Dan was at a meeting out of JPL and they were
talking about, well what if we just bring the asteroid back
to the humans and meet them halfway. And hence was born
Dan's job and so he is going to tell you about that now.
DAN: So, Pat said asteroids and comets are my passion, I don't
know little passion of me has rubbed off a little bit on Pat
here and all our carpooling. Okay, so I am going to talk
about what I really think is the key. We talked about what
motivates us to leave the earth, and in simplest terms there is a
difference between exploration and settlement or you can call
it colonization, some of you would not like that word, but
staying. When we go out and anything we do, you go explore
something, there is got to be a reason to stay. You explore,
okay that's great, and you go home. But if you go and there
is stuff there, there are things that you can do, there is
economic potential that's when you stay, and that's been the
history of mankind in terms of exploration. So that is
really the key and part of the motivation was the ability to
get to an asteroid and having the funding and be able to
make those steps out into deeper space. But another big part of
what I am going to talk about is the potential for resources
and how those resources can be harnessed to help us explore
space as well as potentially return to terrestrial markets.
And I personally think that when you start talking about economic
expansion, we were all driven by that, whatever society we
are here on earth, we like our stuff, we need stuff, we need
food, we need shelter, we need clothing and we like all the
things that come along with that, or come along as
entertainment and travel and all that. But you have to have
an what I call an economic backfill, if we go out in space
there has to be an import back to the earth and export from
that location. So, I am going to talk a little bit about NASA's
asteroid initiative and part of it is to combine the aspects
of planetary defense and these represent natural hazards just
like hurricanes or earthquakes, but we actually can know about
them and actually do something about them, and also the
asteroid redirect mission and I will explain what that is in a
moment. But basically we have adopted this grand challenge
within NASA to find all the asteroid threats to human
populations and to know what to do about them. And I think that
is actually pretty remarkable. Like Pat said I have been
interested in working this problem pretty much my entire
career at NASA. I started off with the space station as
well and worked on some other projects, but in my
undergraduate work at Virginia Tech I became very interested
in process of impacts and mass extinctions and the potential
for bad things to happen because of stuff coming to us.
So, that's a huge jump, a consciousness shift that I
think has happened within the population because we understand
it and within NASA. So, I am going to talk here about the
asteroid redirect mission and there are basically three
components. There is an identify component where we have to find
objects, characterize them and know what they are all about and
as Pat mentioned they go around the Sun just like the other
planets and sometimes they are in good position, sometimes they
are not too in good positions. But it is the same
characterization that helps us find those that are a hazard
that might be a problem for the earth. Then the second part
is what we call the robotic redirect portion, and that's
where we use advanced propulsion technology, in particular solar
electric propulsion and it is kind of, it has a very high
specific impulse or ISP, you might have heard that term, it's
basically the gas mileage that you get out of your space
vehicle. So, it is very low thrust but it can move for
every pound or every kilogram of propellant that you bring
you can get a lot of momentum transfers, you can move large
objects, albeit slowly kind of like a tug, a tub boat. We have
got two options, one is to find, characterize and capture an
entire small asteroid, kind of on the level that kind of
came by somewhere around 4 to 10 meters, the one that came by
this past weekend. Something that is not a threat to the
Earth. We actually have, you know the Earth is really
cool, we have a couple of force fields, first of all we have our
atmosphere that stops a lot of stuff from coming in, and every
comet, every meteor shower that you see during the year, you go
out and watch the shooting stars that's our atmosphere stopping
these little pebble-sized, pea-sized grains from coming in.
Sometimes we have bigger stuff, the size of softballs or
footballs or even a car or house every one in a while and they
burn up in the upper atmosphere. So, we are talking about
bringing back an entire small one or we have a second option,
that we call option B, of going to a large asteroid and
capturing a boulder and bringing it back off to surface, a
multi-ton boulder, and then finally the third part is to
explore this return material and we are going to bring it to a we
call it lunar distant retrograde orbit, right now we are looking
about 70,000 kilometers from the moon, the moon is about 400,000
kilometers away from the earth, so it is on the moon side and it
is in a stable orbit so it will stay there for 100s or 1000s of
years, but we are going to use the SLS and Orion to send
crew members out to it to do the first initial exploration. I
like to call it first contact because we have the resources
and we expend the energy to bring this material, this
asteroid material back and if we bring the right kind of material
we can start looking at how we can process it for resources
including water, metals, radiation shielding to start to
look at some of these issues we have in space. But I like to
call it first contact because we are going to take that effort,
I hope there are a lot more missions to this returned
asteroid material that we will do. In a nutshell the objectives
of this mission are to prepare for human exploration in Mars,
as Pat mentioned our horizon destination, demonstrate
advanced solar propulsion, enhance the detection, tracking
and characterization to defend our home planet, so those are
the good things there. We are also planning on demonstrating
basic planetary defense techniques while we are at
the asteroid. And if we go to a large asteroid then it is a very
relevant, it is on a relevant size, something that could be
a threat, and if we go to a smaller one we can see the
effects of that planetary defense maneuver faster because
it is less massive and we can extend that to larger asteroids
in the future potentially. And then finally it is we have
adopted another objective that we want to know more about
these celestial bodies for the scientific knowledge and what
we can know about resources to enable the mining of these
assets in the future. And there are a couple of companies that
have setup in the United States, Planetary Resources and Deep
Space Industries with the goal of characterizing and mining and
one day returning materials to the earth. This is a video... [Start of video presentation] FEMALE SPEAKER: NASA is
developing the first ever mission to identify, capture,
and redirect a small asteroid or a piece of a large asteroid
to orbit the moon, then send astronauts to visit it and
collect samples in the 2020s. Using telescopes in space
and on earth NASA and citizen astronomers are studying the
thousands of near Earth objects around us including good
candidates for the asteroid redirect mission and hazardous
ones we want to track. The robotic capture mission
will prove a number of the capabilities humans will
need to reach Mars in the 2030s including advanced solar
electric propulsion, an efficient way to move larger
cargo payloads into deep space. NASA is studying two robotic
concepts to capture an asteroid. The first concept would fully
enclose a small asteroid in an inflatable mechanism. The
second would use robotic arms to retrieve a boulder from
the surface of a much larger asteroid. Each concept also
provides opportunities to demonstrate techniques to alter
the course of large objects in deep space, a capability that
could help us defend earth from impacts in the future. After
capturing an asteroid, the robotic spacecraft will move
it to a stable orbit around the moon where it could remain for
hundreds of years. The asteroid will be so small that even if it
did approach the Earth it would burn up in the atmosphere and
disintegrate before it could reach the surface. In the
2020s astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft and space launch
system rocket will launch towards lunar orbit gaining a
boost in speed from the moon's gravity to rendezvous with the
asteroid. The journey will be the farthest humans have ever
traveled into deep space. Orion will dock with the
robotic spacecraft carrying the asteroid. Astronauts will
conduct space walks to collect samples of the asteroid that
could hold clues to the origins of our solar system and life on
earth. The crew will return home aboard Orion having ushered in
a new era of human space flight and scientific research.
Groundbreaking work is underway to prepare for these human
missions to deep space. This year NASA will conduct the first
uncrewed flight test of Orion. Aboard the International
Space Station, NASA and its international partners are
learning how humans can live and work in space for long periods.
Astronauts on earth are using underwater environments to
test spacesuits, tools, and techniques they will need to
explore an asteroid. The lessons we learn and new technologies
will be proved through the asteroid redirect mission
will put humans one giant leap closer to Mars. DAN: We can see that last image, that is actually using
the asteroid redirect vehicle to use the
technologies that we develop to head to the Martian System. So I
think that animation--that video does a nice job of pulling
everything together. She said a lot of things I said, so she
repeated in there. But again these are the two mission
concepts, capture a small asteroid or a robotic boulder
capture, and again if we go to, if we use Phobos and Deimos as a
gateway to the surface of Mars they are either very large
captured asteroids that may have come off of the Martian surface
from a collision. Their origin is still being debated among
scientists. But one way or another they are proxy for
asteroids. So, as we move out and we understand how to
interact with asteroids, we send humans to asteroids, if we use
the Martian moons we will gain a lot of knowledge there and
information. I am going to kind of skip this a little bit, but I
will say that we have currently known candidates for both
options, several small objects, and then we have objects that we
have sent, robotic precursors, one asteroid Itokawa, this was a
3000 scale model of Itokawa, so you are talking about four
or five football field in dimensions. It is about 500
meters across. And Apophis that you saw in that video is about
325 meters across, these are very large bodies. We have also
got 2008 EV5 and Bennu, this is a model 2008 EV5
to the same scale and this is one of the
potential targets for the option B and we have got
Cyrusrex and Hayabusa 2 both traveling to large asteroids to
give us reconnaissance for that mission. You can kind of see
here this gives you a relative scale, there is Itokawa, there
is the asteroid redirect robotic vehicle and in terms of how
much we can bring back, we potentially can bring back with
option A up to 500-1000 tons of material given the right
asteroid. We can do that with option B as well but we have
to contend with pointed off the surface, so right now we are
looking at something that's probably about 50 tons. Well
if you compare that to what we returned so far from
any location it is pretty outstanding. It is just kind of
mind-boggling to think we might be moving around even 25 tons
of material. It just so happens those are the same types of
masses that we need to move around like habitats and landers
and things like that. So there is the applicability of using
the spacecraft, the ARV as a space tug, and of course this
just makes the point that if you go to a metallic asteroid versus
a stony asteroid or carbonaceous target, the densities are
different, so the size relates to a different mass. Styrofoam
ball versus a bowling ball, size and density really matter.
And of course the carbonaceous objects they may have up to 20%
water contained in them locked in hydrated minerals that you
can extract and process. This is just a comparison of an ARV to
a human. To give you an idea of the solar rays we are talking
about it is a 50 kilowatt SEP, which in order of magnitude
larger than anything we have commercially flying in
geostationary orbit, so we are pushing the technologies there.
It is about half a football field for this upper
configuration which we call the ROSA Rays, the rollout solar
rays and the megaflex which are king of a Chinese fan type
deployment is shown in the bottom. It is a large spacecraft
when you put the solar rays out fully extended. We are doing
solar ray technology work in 2014, there are examples of
both of those technologies with humans in the scales, you can
see how large they are, and it is big, it is not definitely as
large as space station, it is still a large space craft.
Working on electric propulsion and this is really the key. We
could not contemplate doing this with chemical propulsion,
meaning like liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen rockets things
that power the space shuttle and the Apollo. This is really a
new technology that has been demonstrated. We actually have,
Dawn has visited Vesta, it is a robotic spacecraft and it is on
its way to Sirius, which used to be an asteroid, it is now a
dwarf planet like Pluto, so Pluto got demoted and Sirius got
elevated. But there maybe an ice sheet maybe 100 kilometers thick
on Sirius and someday it could provide an oasis, literally an
oasis in the main asteroid belt for exploration. We are also
doing a bunch of internal risk reduction tasks for both
options. The deployable bag that you saw in the animation and the
robotic system for option B. I am running a little bit short on
time, so I will just say that we have looked at different
operations and different configurations for the option
B and I have been leading the studies here at Langley in
that effort, here locally in Virginia. I have got an
animation that shows the process. [video presentation] For ARV we are trying to take what we call a modular approach.
Just like a tractor trailer has a cab and the trailer, to be
able to break it apart we want to be able to have a spacecraft
that we can use for other missions, like slow boating
material around the solar system, so we have got this SEP
module and a mission module and those form really a spacecraft
bus. You can do what you want with it. You can do a scientific
mission. You can push a habitat or a land around, push some
fuel somewhere, but we have this capture module that we would put
on the front for either option and then you have some sort of
common interface so you can put other types of modules on it. So
one of the things talked about was the ability to do planetary
defense demonstrations when we are at the asteroid. And I think
this is really a very important and key aspect of this mission
in addition to the exploration value and the resources, we can
demonstrate, we are planning for option B we demonstrate what
we call an Enhanced Gravity Tractor. So, gravity tractor, it
uses Newton's Laws, and you kind of saw in the video in the
animation, just go into a halo orbit around and station
keep with the asteroid. You can standoff or go into an orbit.
But as the asteroid is turning the spacecraft is just there.
And the two actually attract each other very, very minutely,
but it is enough that if you can hold the spacecraft in one
position it literally is a gravity tractor being that
will move the asteroid. Now the bigger the asteroid the harder
it is to pull but of course you can just like a team of horses
you could actually put multiple spacecraft in that orbit and
just pull and provide more of a force on the asteroid. And what
we are talking about doing in option B is going down to the
surface and actually picking up a boulder off of the surface
that is many times heavier than the spacecraft. Now we have got
this massive spacecraft in orbit and that amplifies that tractor
being effect to the point where it may take, for a very large
asteroid called Itokawa it might take 100 years or more for that
spacecraft to move it enough to make it miss the earth with that
with a boulder or material you could collect a boulder you
could scoop material in the final planetary defense mission,
but if you could get about 250 to 300 tons of material off the
surface you could move that same asteroid in about three or
four years. If you had multiple spacecraft you can do it in just
couple of years. So there is a lot of power in that ability to
go down to surface and get mass. We can also use the ions
that actually come out of the thrusters to actually hit the
asteroid and literally push it with the exhaust and that is
another technique and the big advantage of that is you don't
have to touch the asteroid, you don't have to come anywhere near
it. Another technique that is called a Kinetic Impactor. We
can also demonstrate with option B, we don't have that in the
baseline program right now because of the additional cost,
but basically the ARV would watch as another spacecraft came
in and impacted the surface and then we could measure and see
what the effect of that was. This is probably the most viable
short-term technique in the planetary defense system or set
of techniques that we could use. Another one is surface ablation.
That uses a laser beam, kind of like the ion thrust hitting it,
but now you focus a laser beam on it, you burn off portions of
the asteroid and that causes a momentum change. And I could
talk for an hour on all of these. But we don't
have an hour. PAT: Yes, you can. He does
it every night on the drive home from work.
DAN: So, I don't know how to respond to that because
he is right. I am just going to close with this and turn it back
over to Pat to finish up. There is a distinct connection between
the threat that asteroids are, the hazard, I only like to use
the word threat because that kind of makes sound like an
enemy, they are just doing their own thing, they are not trying
to hit us, we just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time, but the asteroid hazard is also combined with what I talked
about, the economics of space. They are a valuable resource,
they may have everything from water which we need, to metals,
platinum metals that we may need on earth some day, hopefully we
never have to import water from space, that we can manage our
resources in that manner, but there maybe materials on
asteroids that we have never seen before because of the
conditions of the microgravity and the conditions that they are
created. So there is a lot of potential there and I will just
close with what I think is kind of a key aspect is, right now we
talk about planetary defense, we are talking about doing
techniques, but we don't have a dedicated planetary defense
system. It is a very infrequent hazard. It could happen tomorrow
but not that we know of. We don't know that there is
anything on a collision course, but for example comet 2012A1
sighting spring is going to make a close pass by Mars in October
of this year, so close we are taking NASA agency and other
international partners are taking precautions for the
satellites that are in orbit around Mars to make sure there
are no effects from the comet. But you have got a fairly large
body coming in that we just found 18 months ago or so. So,
there is the ability to have kind of an integrated solution
and the analogy that I give is bulldozers for snowplows. You
need snowplows to plow the roads during a snowstorm, right? It is
a natural hazard that we have to deal with. Problem is if you
try to sell snowplow to say the Tallahassee Municipal
Government, they are going to go we don't need those, we have
never had a snowstorm. Well, not in the recent past but there
actually has been snowfall in Tallahassee, climate changes,
we could have a change in the weather. But you can't sell them
bulldozers. But you can't sell them bulldozers. You can
do construction, you can be productive and in a pinch you
can turn those bulldozers into snowplows if you ever had this
blizzard come along. So, it's that idea of leveraging the
capabilities that we have for human exploration and for mining
the resources of asteroids that could one day help us with
the planetary defense aspect as well. So, there are
opportunities and extensibilities for asteroid
mission in addition to planetary defense, the science and the
extensibility. So, again the Mars forward path and I am going
to turn it over to Pat is what the asteroid redirect mission
helps us focus on in the near term within the budgetary
constraints that we have at this point. And with that I will give
it to Pat for the closeout. PAT: You went longer than me.
DAN: I was supposed to go longer than you.
PAT: All right, so we start at Nova, we went back to low earth orbit, we progress to geo
space, we have gone to Cislunar space, we have gone to asteroid,
our next step along the path to the future is Mars. [video presentation] Mars is a good candidate
for establishing the human seed someplace else.
It has abundant resources on its surface. It
has glaciers with water, it has all the natural
materials in there. It might be hazardous to human life, we are
not sure about that, that's why we have to go check it out with
robotic missions. Huge problems in getting there, Steve
mentioned, getting to the surface. Mars atmosphere is
very, very thin. It is like being at the top of Mount
Everest or something worse than that. Its gravity is one-third
that of earth, so it is twice as much as the moon. So parachutes
don't work well and if I am using rocket engines like I
am doing on to get to the moon because there is so much more
gravity, that doesn't work too well either. So we are sort of
stuck somewhere in between. So can give a big lecture on that.
So, it is hard to get to the surface that requires a leap in
investment and capability, but that leads other things. There
is the Mars system. Now, for the sake of time I am going to skip
this entire section. Dan did an excellent job of talking about
how we will use solar electric propulsion to get there. So I
am going to summarize the next three slides in this way. If you
look at this chart and you look at the little things where the
thrust is coming out, those are basically two of his vehicles
that he uses to go get an asteroid. If you look at the
big solar rays on there they are much bigger than his, because
Mars is farther and harder and we are taking people there and
back and they are lot heavier to get there, not heavier
coming back. So, there is a good synergy as Dan mentioned,
because how we get people back and forth the Mars and what we
are exploring with the asteroid redirect mission. By the way
this vehicle is fully reusable. You fill it up and Cislunar
space, it takes all the way to Mars, everything comes back
gets refurbished and reused in Cislunar space. We are not
throwing away things like we used to do. This is not Apollo.
Because if we are going to go beyond the solar system to Nova
you need spaceships that last long time and are reusable.
So this is what we are trying to infuse into our architecture.
So, another course we will talk about this. But let's talk about
what to do while you are waiting to get to the Mars surface. Does
everyone know that Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos? Some
people think they are captured asteroids. Some people think
they are part of the creation process of Mars itself,
answer is we don't know. Almost everything we know about
those moons is captured in these pictures. We have got pictures.
We got some spectrometry. We have never sent a probe there.
The Russians have tried to send two probes there, each one
has failed. But they offer such unique platform because you can
land on these, they are very, very micro-G bodies, you can use
the bodies to protect you from the galactic radiation that we
have in space, so we solve part of the radiation problem by
actually going to these moons or the surface of Mars, but these
again are lot easier to get to. So, one cool thing about them is
that, as I said they are micro-G bodies, so me with the spacesuit
on I would weigh 0.3 pounds on the surface of Phobos. An entire
50,000-100,000 pounds in English units weighs 63 pounds. So, moving around
these planets is incredibly easy to do. So
basically if I were on the surface and I did this I could go six or
seven miles in one leap and I do it slowly. In fact
if I did it well enough I would go into orbit and I would leave
Phobos and go into Mars orbit, but what that buys you is the
ability to navigate to explore with very little energy, very
little propulsion, you just have to be careful. So what you
see in the bottom here is an engineering sim showing growing
going from there is a larger crater called Stickney crater
and it is a big place, it looks like someone took a shotgun to
it. There is a habitat in there and they are doing a 30-minute
commute. The same time that Dan and I go back and forth from
Williamsburg to Hampton they go miles in this area. So they just
did a hop, basically a 4 meter per second hop and they are
flying up, they are going over from this side of the moon to
the other and they can fly those crater. See little shadow down
here, they are just going to get close the crater rim, as they
get to the crater rim they are going to spin on by and you will
see the shadow fall away. These are very daredevil type pilots.
Now here is another view, this is the Hollywood view they call
it. There is the habitat down the bottom of the crater, it
gives you a rough approximation of scale. And there is the
vehicle, looks like a little bug, all it does is it pushes
with its legs and does a little thrusting. And there it is
shooting right over the rim of the crater. And lo and behold
what is this thing you see here coming up here? You guys heard
about the monolith on Phobos? That is actually to scale. It is
about 100 meters tall and it is a big rock thing sticking out
the surface. We don't know what it is. It could just be a
rock that hit into the moon and landed sort of funny. It could
be something from space 2001, we just don't know. So there is
abundant science there on Phobos and Deimos. In fact, impacts
on the surface of Mars from asteroids throws up regolith,
so there are pieces of Mars on Phobos. 50 million years from
now Phobos' orbit is going to decay, it is going to breakup
or it is going to impact the surface of Mars. Maybe we want
to know what is going to happen to Mars, understanding Phobos is
doing to tell us that. So lots of good reasons to go there.
Lots of cool ways to explore. So, that's why the moons of Mars
will be our next step. We are not going to go direct to the
surface, we are going to go to the moons of the Mars, stage
ourselves and get ready to go to the surface. Operate robots on
the surface of Mars while we are in the moons of Mars. That's
the next step. So, Dan already talked about this. He pointed
out there is the Mars, the Phobos vehicle, there is the
asteroid vehicle. This is early 2020s,
this is mid 2030s. They look about the
same. So, again we are investing to
go multiple places. Mars, the way you
want to do Mars in a sustainable way. So,
we are rethinking Mars. Before the last couple of
days we have been thinking Mars missions, we will go down, we do
some science, we bring out some rocks and then we never come
back to that site again and we throw everything away. That's
not extending the human seed. So we will take advantage of the
resources on Mars, go to the same spot over and over again,
build infrastructure, extend our presence, but that's child's
play because the next place you want to go is the Jovian System. AUDIENCE: Can I ask a question?
PAT: Quickly, yes. AUDIENCE: Continuing in this
scenario let's make believe I am King Ferdinand and you are
Christopher Columbus. You said before you
had a budget, so how much money do you want? PAT: You can't quote
me on this but I did see some budget analysis
today that said if we were to terminate space station before
2028 we would have enough budget within the existing NASA
guidelines to go to Phobos in the mid 2030s.
AUDIENCE: I'm King Ferdinand and you are asking me for money. You want to go someplace.
Give me a dollar amount. PAT: The current NASA
budget is $8 billion a year, that's the current NASA budget,
$8 billion a year, I was trying to get there, that includes the
launch vehicle development and everything else.
AUDIENCE: In how many years? PAT: From now all the
way to the surface of Mars, what is that, 20 years from now,
that is 20 x 8, $160 billion. And if we don't go anywhere
it is still $160 billion because of the political aspects of it. So, we want to take that
$160 billion and do something good with it. And so
now let's talk about 20 years beyond the surface of Mars,
Jovian System. Dan showed a video where the Sun turns into
a red giant. Eventually if that ever happens it is actually
start getting warmer rather than ice in the Jovian System, for a
time. Jovian System is full of hydrogen, water, it has moons,
cleistogamy that are all made out of ice and water. So what
you are seeing here is little animation of mining ice and
using it as a way point to go to future destinations in
combination with the asteroid belt and other resources in
the solar system. Dan showed you configurations where we had
kilowatts of power. We need megawatts of power. Nuclear in
space power or some magic fusion or something like that that
comes along to get to this point where we could go back and forth
to Earth and power these large solar system class spacecraft
that have rotating sections and the crew buried in hydrogen
tanks to protect them from radiation, you have to go to the
next step because the journeys are long even with all that
power, but that's an interim step to what we are talking
about here, which is other solar systems. So, we start
smaller orbit, we progress our capabilities, we get to the
point where we are going from years to decades and centuries
and travel. So, we want to end up where
we started that right now as a civilization we are pretty
at our peak from a technology perspective. We can
argue politics and social and stuff like that. Technology
we are really, really good. There is enough
financial means in the world if applied properly to
begin doing this. We don't need budget increase, we need budget
redirection, budget focus. But as we all know this window
doesn't last forever. Crisis happen, Ebola, whatever it is
and this is something as we have shown takes decades and
generations to actually accomplish. So if you say
well lets wait until the killer asteroid comes or lets wait
until a million years for the Sun goes red giant, it is going
to be too late by then because maybe we will pass through this
opportunity we have right now. So, one day we have to leave
the cradle, we can't stay in it forever. So I think our point is
that this is how we would like to proceed. This is our plan,
this is our strategy and with that we have a few minutes for
questions. Yes sir? AUDIENCE: How do
you life is going to be more sustainable on
Nova or whatever it is? PAT: We don't. And in fact
I pretty much say that any natural disaster that
happens on Earth, Earth will still be the most habitable
place that we know of, it still will be, however, if there is
decay of civilization, Earth is still habitable but civilization
might be at a better peak some place else because of having the
cross pollination. So, you are right Nova will be a, if we send
a probe out there we are not going to know, but remember we
are going spaceships that keep people alive for 200 years, so
if it is a bust you are just orbiting Nova or extracting
resources to figure out another plan.
DAN: Yeah, let me just add. We are finding more
and more planets every day. I mean literally we
have got more advanced telescopes. One of the
aspects is if we find the right planet, okay, again Red Giant,
Sun stops sustaining light, that's probably billions of
years, but orbiting a red dwarf as actually Nova does it is a
much longer lived star, tens of billions of years. So there are
different classes of stars that have longer lifetimes. If you
find the planet what they call in the 'goldilocks zone', right
place for liquid, water, and right temperatures can exist, it
is finding it. AUDIENCE: It is wrong for them
to use the word indefinite. DAN: Well, yeah, technically
indefinite, there is no such thing, you always have to move from one solar system
to another in the big scheme. AUDIENCE: You talk about it
takes a long time to get to the outer space, but what is the
minimum age when you send them up there?
PAT: This is why the pictures that we showed here,
these are big self-sustaining, these are generations that are living, now the good news is
that the older you are the better you are as a space
candidate because the bad implications of radiation only
impact you 20-30 years after you go, so statistically speaking
older people going have a less chance of developing cancer
and bad things because they will pass before they actually take.
So, we always say the ideal astronaut candidates are
women from Nepal who are already senior citizens, they are
perfect to send to space. DAN: To add to that,
Pat is talking from an astronaut standpoint. I
wanted to be an astronaut at one point and that's
never going to happen. I would like to see
space opened up to all of us, and that's going to happen
through commercial endeavors, etc., just as everything has
happened. I personally think one day we will colonize the moon
and I would love to see, before I retire or after I retire, I
would love to see a retirement community on the moon. You know
you think about how you would react in 1/6th gravity. You know you wouldn't
have all of the issues. You could go out and
play golf and play basketball. PAT: Everyone hits a 500
yard drive easy. So space is for everybody. We just have
to find the right way to get it. PAT: We are at the explorer
stage, explorers were the rough guys who
says they knew the risk was really bad, we are
trying to get explorers to be pioneers, and that's a different
mindset right now, that actually, we want to get to
a point where everyone can eventually get there going.
Right now we have six astronauts in space that one out of billion
people in the world get to go to space. We got to up that ratio
a little bit. AUDIENCE: Whether
you breathe the fact or go up... DAN: Are there any
other questions? Oh yeah, back there,
yes sir. AUDIENCE: If you are
looking for another location somewhere in the universe. What is the likelihood that you find
something and it is actually habitable. This is the goal
right, to find life forms? If there aren't life forms,
there are these types? DAN: Very possible.
Okay, so, again right now we don't have any proof that there is life beyond the Earth.
That's just the fact. We haven't discovered it yet. My personal
opinion, the galaxy, the universe is probably
teaming with life. So, you are absolutely right, we kind of
avoided that question, probably an entire philosophical
discussion to be had. PAT: In fact about Mars.
DAN: Yeah, and Mars itself. There could be microbial
life on Mars. How do we deal with
that, okay? That's a big question and we need to
start talking about that and learning that now so that we are
ready. Typically what happens is whoever is exploring and
colonizing adversely affects the life forms that are there and
there can be vice versa. PAT: As history has shown. DAN: But when it comes
down to it, you know in terms of survival and extension
of human and other species on Earth you know that's
where there is a philosophical discussion about it and
hopefully you can find a planet that is not inhabited or that
you can share that planet that's something to be talked about.
PAT: And frankly you probably will not know until you get
there. That's the sad part. DAN: I mean they are
already talking about sending probes to planets
and other solar systems. It is going to take a while
with our current technology to actually get there but you
know eventually that's what we would probably do.
Thank you all very much. [Applause] STEVE: Thank you guys.
That was great. I hope everybody is now interested
in where we are going in deep space. Next week will be Orion
and so hope to see you here. [Applause] macaroni
