The race to Mars | Meet The Press Reports

[Music] thank you [Music] hello again I'm Chuck Todd and welcome to another edition of Meet the Press reports it's been 54 years since we first landed astronauts on the moon and today America is in another space race not just back to the moon but using the moon to then go to Mars it's a rare moment that also means bipartisan support big budgets and a mission to go big but while the first space race was with the Soviet Union this one is with China and there's even a third player in the mix SpaceX founder Elon Musk and he aims to beat both countries to Mars Tom Costello covers space for us here at NBC News he's done a ton of reporting on China's space ambition so Tom NASA thinks it can get astronauts human beings on them on Mars in less than two decades a is it doable and are they going to do it before China doesn't NASA says within 17 years and that's the big question NASA and Elon Musk believe it is possible outside experts are skeptical China is now focused on Landing its astronauts on the moon for the first time maybe one day Mars is Mars doable NASA says yes and we were stunned to find out to get to Mars NASA plans to go nuclear great Boca Chica Texas April 20th 2023 cheers of SpaceX staffers Starship clears the tower as it Roars off the launch path producer after chamber pressures a critical first test of the biggest rocket ever built with twice the thrust of the Saturn V rockets that lifted Apollo Astronauts to the moon going through the period of Maximum aerodynamic pressure they'll need the need them or if Starship is to send astronauts to the Moon Mars but only three minutes into flight the rocket booster failed to separate then four minutes into flight ground controllers hit the self-destruct button the crowd cheered that Starship had gotten this far seated in the control room Elon Musk had warned the chances of success were really only 50 50. Starship just experienced what we call a rapid unscheduled disassembly not only did it disassemble the force of the rocket destroyed the launch pad itself yet despite a bad start both SpaceX and NASA insist they're committed to Starship first two land astronauts on the moon but ultimately to carry astronauts to Mars as soon as 2040 eventually building human colonies in 2021 Elon Musk told me Humanity must Reach For Mars and Beyond if we are to survive I think it's important that Humanity become a multi-planned species and that we extend Consciousness and Life as We Know It beyond Earth and there's another motivator China U.S generals warn China appears determined to create a military presence in space starting with the lunar surface it's already built a robotic base on The Far Side of the Moon with plans to land its own astronauts by 2030. on Mars Only the U.S Russia and China have successfully landed robotic Rovers but the U.S has had far more success Washington state democratic congressman Adam Smith is the ranking member on the armed services committee is it imperative that the U.S gets to Mars before Russia or China you know China's a major power we're a major power if we stumble into conflict that has huge negative implications for the entire planet and for space as well but in the short term yeah we we need to be competitive Here China I think is very aggressive president Xi Jinping has made it clear that he thinks that the U.S is a disappearing power and he wants to replace us so that competition is real in a lot of places and certainly it's real in space it's real in the race for the moon and in the race from Mars now NASA is preparing to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually Mars but faster a round-trip Mission to Mars could take two to three years just keeping a crew fed would be a massive challenge then there's the risk of prolonged exposure to fatal doses of space radiation so to cut the travel time America Is Going Back to the Future this project was called nerva nuclear engine for Rocket vehicle applications to the 1960s and a government program most Americans have never heard of to develop nuclear-powered Rockets someday a manned trip to Mars and return may become the mission assignment it turns out they made big progress back in the 60s running big expensive tests these tests will complete the technology for a nuclear rocket engine DARPA fast forward to today and NASA and a pentagon Department called DARPA the defense Advanced research projects agency are going back to their grandfather's programs 50 plus years ago three two one booster's indignation and liftoff of Artemis one the goal sending astronauts to the moon and Beyond on nuclear rockets look at the the clarity of this look this is a Star Nursery this is the cosmic soup that creates Stars NASA Chief Bill Nelson future missions will have international astronauts we go openly back to the moon and then to Mars the Chinese government is very secretive and a lot of their plans involve their military preparations and so there's a reason for us to get there first and that's what we're going to do why go nuclear because from the earliest days of mercury Gemini and Apollo to Artemis and SpaceX Rockets have relied on liquid fuel which burns up quickly when the Apollo Astronauts went to the moon they needed five of these massive F1 engines just to get them off the Earth and escape the Earth's gravitational pull seven and a half million pounds of thrust here at the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville they've got an exact replica to scale of the Saturn V 363 feet tall huge restaurants will need that kind of lift but once they're in space they can use a much smaller engine a nuclear engine to go all the way to Mars and back a fraction of the size and that engine could last 20 years wow this is a big place it's happening now at the Marshall test flight center in Huntsville it's not just Theory so what is this here this is this is a nuclear test chamber this is where they put components of nuclear thermal Rockets such as this fuel element here and like the one that you're holding these are the building blocks for America's future nuclear ocean going to space yes DARPA program manager Dr Tabitha Dobson has pulled out the old blueprint scent dusted off the test engines from the 1960s but in the early 70s the government canceled the program amid public concern about nuclear safety fast forward to today and an added geostrategic imperative we need to look at what does the United States have which gives us that leap ahead advantage over our adversaries in our near peers the Chinese the Chinese and and others so we don't want to be on par with with our with our adversaries we want to be ahead of them we're and we have the means to do so this is it nuclear yes energy from fission and it turns out the U.S appears to be light years ahead with nuclear Rockets today Dr Stephanie Tompkins leads DARPA created after Russia's Sputnik satellite caught America by surprise well the technology from the 60s never was given a chance to achieve its full potential so a lot of amazing work went into it when I go back and I read the reports from those days I am continually reminded that we all get to stand on the shoulders of giants for the first time men from Earth will set foot on another planet today's nuclear rocket program called Draco is different inside the rocket a small nuclear reactor with graphite elements rather than using weapons-grade uranium it uses high assay low enriched uranium common in research reactors and capable of generating tremendous heat liquid hydrogen moves through the channels in the core heating to 4 000 degrees that gas is then shot through a nozzle to provide thrust 330 000 gallons of fuel to fire for 30 minutes for a mission to Mars a nuclear Rocket's much smaller propellant tank able to carry much heavier cargo traveling faster and further using nuclear thermal propulsion it'll cut down travel time by at least a third of the time so that's cutting days out of the trip to the moon and months out of the trip to Mars yes exactly that's valuable time it is can we sustain human life in a crew all the way for two years the first time we go to Mars that's pushing it so if we can get there faster then that's what we need to do and that's what this nuclear propulsion will do and it's safe NASA and DARPA insists of the Rocket's nuclear thermal reactor will never be tested here on Earth so the Draco test will happen in Space the first since the 1970s scheduled now for 2026 at a safe distance from Earth if there were any sort of an a nuclear accident in space when you're testing this could that radiation come down to earth no so we have chosen our altitude such that we are far away enough from the earth and the farther away you get from the earth the longer you stay in space that we will stay put in space long enough such that those radiation products will never make their way back to Earth for hundreds of years it could stay in space yes okay but How likely is it that humans Americans will actually travel to Mars by 2040 as NASA suggests and do we really need to send humans to Mars as an astrophysicist we figured out some decades ago that I I could send you or I can send a robot to this destination America's Best Known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is skeptical I'm all for people in space but to accomplish scientific goals the robot can live off of sunlight and you can't robot is not going to cry because we ran out of money we can't bring it back you don't see this happening in the near term correct unless there's a geopolitical force operating such as what happened with Sputnik okay what would that be China says leak a memo saying they want to put military bases on Mars we're there in 12 months three months to fund design build the spaceship nine months to take it there but Elon Musk is all in we need to get Starship operational in order to have a base in the moon and be able to send people to Mars musk has plans to build a colony on Mars back in 2021 he talked about his hope for his Starship to carry humans to the moon and then the red planet because gravity on Mars is just a third of Earth's gravity a rocket would not need as much power to return to Earth musk's plan is to reuse Rockets just like airplanes the risk is is not zero this is a it's a hard it's hard thing to accelerate put so much energy in something and then take it out on the return it's a very hard thing so it's one of the hardest things so you just can't get to zero risk we'll do everything we can to get as close as possible to zero risk just as Sputnik lit the fire for America Space Program China's Ambitions may be having a similar effect today fact that we now have a very aggressive competitor I think all the more makes it a space race you know Tom the whole premise of a show you and I both enjoy uh fictional show alternative History For All Mankind it's sort of the point the show makes the same point Bill Nelson is making same point that Neil Tyson made to you which is you know we lose the race to the moon in that show spoiler alert and suddenly it motivates us to do even more yeah sounds like we wouldn't be doing any of this if China wasn't interested in going to space uh they they clearly are a presence uh in that space already between the Moon and Earth it's called CIS lunar it's almost like the highway to the Moon right they've already got a robotic base on The Far Side of the Moon and the concern is if they were to somehow gain a foothold in CIS lunar and they become the gatekeeper and decide who goes to the moon that could be a real strategic concern now that's a big reason why we are so intent on going to the moon and then maybe to Mars and the whole point to get to Mars we've got to essentially win the basing Race to the Moon right like where work colonizing the moon because that's the only way we're going to get to Mars right yeah it takes such tremendous amount of energy of Rocket thrust to break through the Earth's gravitational pull once you get to the moon which has a very very minimal amount of gravity from there you create your base you go on to Mars so it is a much more efficient way of doing so but importantly if in fact the moon has water nice like we believe they can use that not just for drinking water but for Rocket Fuel and from there you're Off to the Races but that's before we're talking nuclear now we're talking nuclear it seems like we're so in a hurry to get to Mars but isn't there a lot to be done on the Moon I mean you could argue there's there's we could spend decades trying to frankly exploit the resources of the Moon oh and I think we will and you didn't ask me but do I think we're going to be in Mars 240. I think it's unlikely that we'll be on the surface of Mars by 2040. we'll have more robotic bases and probes unlikely we will be there but when we hang out at the retirement home in 2060 down in down in Florida are we going to be watching these Rockets go to the moon so they go to Mars if you and I are blessed to live that long I think there's a good chance that by maybe 20 60 or so maybe we'll get the first human on Mars all right that's my gut that's my gut Tom Costello the best beat at NBC good to see you buddy it is coming up why the U.S believes it is so important to get to Mars first especially when we haven't even finished exploring the moon stick with us thank you [Music] welcome back in 1969 it was an enormous source of Pride for the United States that the first person to set foot on the moon was an American but was that mission worth more than bragging rights and are we racing to Mars more for Pride than for science so let's discuss all this Adam Frank is Professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester and he's author of the upcoming book the little book of aliens and Gianna maleko Smith Senior associate with the Aerospace security project and strategic Technologies program with the center for strategic and international studies so let's start with that first basic question here Professor Frank let me start with you uh getting to Mars is it simply for bragging rights or is there is is is there a For All Mankind type of mission here yeah I think we want to step back a little bit and and ask ourselves you know put this into history 200 years ago right no human being had traveled faster than uh you know 40 miles an hour on a horse unless they were falling to their death from a cliff right and now there's a million people at any moment in on airplanes right going 500 miles an hour the profound transformation in human culture culture that happened because the technology starting with the rail is an analogy to 200 years from now no matter who gets there the transformation of becoming really a solar system-wide species you know it's within 200 years it's easy to imagine Millions tens of millions hundreds of millions of people living in space and so really when they look back they'll look back on this moment the way we look back on the first railroad lines being put down so this is really this is the direction Humanity will take if we get past climate change and all the other crises and John look it does feel as if the real imperative to do this now is we're thinking in terms of National Security as much as bragging rights correct there is certainly a geopolitical competition aspect to this thread and that the United States is leading the the frontier at The Cutting Edge and developing technology to help support exploration of Mars and also be demonstrating what does it mean to be a good Steward of space this is an opportunity to work with allies and partners to promote responsible Norms in outer space addressing other tangential issues such as orbital debris simply known as space junk so that is one component but the other aspect of that is also the scientific exploration here to help unlock some of the Mysteries of the origin and evolution of life and also Mars potentially being a future planet that could help be the key to survival of humanity let me uh ask this why why the focus on Mars genre when we haven't you know you hear this actually sometimes we've we've explored more of space than we have our own oceans but let's stick with the Moon versus Mars we've barely explored the moon and it feels like we ought to spend the rest of this Century doing that no that's a fair point I would walk us back to looking at some of the history around the policy of this particular issue specifically space policy director one issued by former president Trump that directed NASA to develop a Innovative and sustainable program for lunar exploration and also Mars and other deep space exploration efforts so the language of that space policy directive also helped inform NASA's National space exploration campaign and the report that was published in 2018 has five pillars the fifth pillar of that expressly references the need to promote exploration for Mars the fourth pillar of that talks about lunar exploration the third as well the speaking to robotic missions and then the second about space operations Beyond CIS lunar space and the first component of that five pillar strategy is looking at the transition of human space exploration how to work with commercial Partners in this area to help promote NASA's exploration because the International Space Station it's aging and the Biden Administration has pledged to extend the technical lifespan of the ISS through the end of 2030 and that leaves a void and it's important that we're strategic in thinking how we fill that void now in partnering with the private sector look I I get on that front Adam to get to the moon but we're spending an awful lot of money to try to figure out how to get humans to Mars when as Neil Tyson sort of made the point you know we're probably better off it'd be cheaper to get more robots there cheaper to do sort of that kind of exploration while we wait for the technology to catch up so that it does become safer to get humans to Mars that would that seems more logical but it's not as sexy um well I also think there's another reason to Mars that we haven't talked about there's no life on the Moon right there's no question of astrobiology on the moon the moon's a dead World Mars was a blue world four billion years ago talk about climate change right this was a world that had an atmosphere um for for you know at least probably half a billion years so I I don't think robots can do what human astronauts can do when it comes to asking like what maybe the most profound question ever are we the only time that life has happened so Mars is the place with the best place in the solar system to look for the possibility of life and that part of scientific exploration so that you feel like has to be human it has to be human I think that robots can do a lot but probably unless we get really lucky you know that the robot is able to hit the right place um you know you're really going to need boots on the ground to sort of make these sort of decisions on the Fly and do things you know at Hawk uh not guessing here but what do you think is something that you know Mars is going to teach us um we'll on a couple different levels I think actually Morris is going to teach us about living in space as I've said you know the the long-term future for Humanity is trying to build biospheres right our artificial biospheres um and Mars is going to be the place uh asteroids are another I think we haven't really talked about the possibility of building space might we just published a paper on this that you can turn asteroids into space cities but Mars will be the first place we really learn how to um use a planet that has the right amount of gravity that you know will actually be comfortable for humans to build artificial ecosystems that we can live in with you know maybe you know thousands of people and this is the near term is there anything else in our solar system besides what you just said there which is the idea of where we might have floating cities on on is it on comets or not on comets on uh unaster asteroids that um and I don't want to get into that but it sounds like if what if they don't have a gravitational pull how do you how do you not just float away well what we showed was is that you could take an asteroid Hollow it out and then spin it up and then you live on the inside on the spinning inside and there's thousands of asteroids and each asteroid you could have Manhattan basically the same size of population that Manhattan has so there's a lot of real estate potential out there all right Shana there's another part of this whole uh Space Race that it does seem like look I understand from a geopolitical sense why we're competing with each other but it does seem like a waste of resources that the private sector NASA and China are essentially competing against each other I do think Elon Musk and NASA are probably as much Cooperative as they are competitive but are we holding ourselves back by competing I I don't see it that way in that this being a novel form of competition and I'll explain what I mean by that that since the the early 1960s there's been a a competition to pursue space exploration and I'm thinking uh specifically of Mars with the United States Mariner 4 spacecraft which was the first to take photographs of Mars and uh in 1965 and shortly thereafter the Soviet Union being the first nation to do a soft Landing of their spacecraft Mars 3 on the surface of Mars losing transmission shortly thereafter but if we look history is a very helpful guidebook here to look at the the Space Race competition that we're seeing Play Out playing out now and how other how that has been that's been present at the very beginning but there's two ways that we can look at it that we can either bemoan the competition aspect of it or also see areas of potential collaboration here to use a popular adage by Abraham Lincoln we can either Rejoice that Thorns have flowers or lament that flowers have thorns so I see that here and how the the United States is working with allies and partners to help build relationships to pursue deep space exploration NASA's Artemis program the global space initiative is a huge component of that Adam I want to close with this which is are we um should we have already been where we are right now meaning you know we we went through this Dead period of the space program at least publicly I think the Challenger accidents the obvious inflection point that happened uh in 86 and it seems as if everything it didn't technically grind to a halt but it felt like it did you think we lost two decades three decades um of you know where should we which should we have been Landing a Rover 20 years ago uh yeah that's a really interesting question because there's two answers to it one is absolutely right yeah 50 years what were we thinking people dreamed of going to the moon since the Greeks and then we got there like yeah we're done right yeah but on the other hand the technology in some sense by waiting this long we allowed computer technology we allowed um uh understanding of materials to get to the point where we could do things that we couldn't do back then right so right we could bemoan it but I also see that um the private sector which we really need to talk about the commercial exploitation so to speak presence in Space is really what's going to drive a lot of the long future and that probably required waiting a bit and getting these new technologies well as genre just pointed out you're so what if your flower has a few coins you two were terrific that's all we have for Meet the Press reports this week thanks for being here next week we're going to explore the art of the grift from billion dollar startups that scam investors to lying about well just about everything to win a seed in Congress grifter Nation that's next week on Meet the Press reports and of course I'll see you this Sunday on Meet the Press thank you [Music] thanks for watching our YouTube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app

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Length: 27min 20sec (1640 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023