Fight for Space (1080p) FULL MOVIE - Documentary, Space, Technology

thank you

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foreign

space flight the budget request for a

follow is being reduced by 42.1 million

dollars to

916.5 million dollars

this reduction will be achieved by

canceling the Apollo 15 and 19 lunar

missions

redesignating the remaining of follow

flights as Apollos 14 through 17.

everything is going smoothly here at the

Kennedy Space Center for the launch of

Apollo 17 Man's last trip to the moon in

the foreseeable future

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right away Houston

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foreign

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I believe that this nation should commit

itself

achieving the goal before this decade is

out of Landing a man on the moon and

returning him safely to the Earth

no single Space Project in this period

be more impressive to mankind or more

important for the long-range exploration

of space

none will be so difficult or expensive

to accomplish

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the average taxpayer is entitled to ask

what's in space for me

12 11 10 9 ignition sequence starts six

five four three

Runner

32

minutes

[Applause]

what does spaceflight do for people it's

a philosophical answer

it's exploration it's the human Spirit

of going out there

the the great thing we want to know is

where do we fit in there's two questions

that trouble us all at some point in our

life where did we come from

and are we alone

without the Space Program our economy

would be hurled 50 years back into the

past think of it for a moment GPS

weather satellites telecommunications

the Internet by the exploration of the

moon or by landing on the moon and

walking around that led to a space

program which led to Global Positioning

Systems which led to so-called space

assets which have affected everything

the reason to explore space is that it

can boost our economy

period it boosts our economy because it

changes the culture people think

differently

think about the future think about

inventing things you're thinking about

making a better tomorrow rather than

just surviving the day

you go over the hill you don't know what

you're going to find

and you're not going to go over the hill

unless you're curious about it

it transforms the intellectual Outlook

of a Nation when a nation embarks in

something bold and audacious

such as going into deep space

as it did in the 1960s

a new moon is in the sky a 23-inch metal

sphere placed in orbit by a Russian

rocket here an artist's conception of

how the feet was accomplished a

three-stage rocket number one the

booster in the class of an

InterContinental missile its weight

estimated at 50 tons the smaller second

stage took over at 5 000 miles an hour

and carried on to the highest point

reached 500 miles up the artificial moon

is boosted to a speed counterbalancing

the pull of gravity and released

you are hearing the actual signals

transmitted by the Earth circling

satellite one of the great scientific

Feats of the age in 1957 Sputnik was

launched

and if you ask me what drove the

creation of NASA it was the launching of

Sputnik

the public often thinks of Sputnik as oh

it's just an innocent little satellite

that went beep

part the curtains and you find out this

was the shell of an intercontinental

ballistic missile that had been hollowed

out and a radio transmitter put in the

head

that's what was flying over our heads in

America on October 4th 1957.

booked us to no end no one said oh the

frontier of exploration is breached no

it was the Soviet Union has a new High

Ground they are our sworn enemy we can't

look bad in front of them we've got to

do it too we need an agency to take care

of this

a year later NASA was founded

this special report brought to you by

NASA the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration

what we had was something that had come

out of a very can-do Spirit came out of

the the spirit of winning World War II

it came out of the technology burst that

was going on around the world at that

time it came out of the imaginations of

people like Verna Von Braun and willine

and Walt Disney

in our modern world

everywhere we look we see the influence

science has upon our daily lives

now here's a model my design for

four-stage orbital rocket ship it came

out of the inspiration of people like I

want to see Clark and Robert Heinlein

and Isaac Asimov and silverberg and all

the great science fiction writers at the

time who were inspiring

children and all kinds of people in that

Realm and then we have the spark that

ignited that passion into a fire that

was sort of Sputnik people said what

happens if there's a hydrogen bomb

orbiting head if the Russians have The

High Ground then we could be

outmaneuvered in the next War

the United States too promised to launch

an Earth satellite

but in our satellite program we

Americans got badly bogged down why what

happened we have the money the resources

and the scientific know-how

unfortunately a series of wrong

decisions led us to frustration and

failure this order went out to the armed

services let me read it to you

recent news stories which have described

certain projects as space flight

projects

have resulted in unfavorable reaction at

Department of Defense and Congressional

levels

in any speeches or public releases

planned by you or your staff

avoid the mention or the discussion of

space space technology

and space vehicles

and so by the summer of 1957 space had

become a forbidden word in Washington

in totally realistic terms Von Braun

could have had us there in 1950 we need

to understand

we would have launched a satellite in

1950 the reason we did not is because we

didn't wish to panic set in and after

that people said okay let's regroup

let's do something it was your patriotic

duty to become a physicist a chemist a

mathematician it was for America and for

Freedom that people said yes I want to

become a cold war here for for freedom

and for Liberty

history of human reaction

to the threat of death

knows no bounds

and knowing no bounds includes birthing

an entire Space Program

for the purpose of showing the world

that we will not be bested by evil

Godless communists

such was the mood and the attitude in

the 1950s man had his

chest in space when the Russians pushed

a man Across the Threshold he was Yuri

Gagarin the astronaut the Russians

lionized as the first to orbit the earth

it was the propaganda coup of the year

[Applause]

but why some say the Moon

why choose this as our goal and they may

well ask

why climb the highest mountain

five thirty five years ago fly the

Atlantic why does Rice play Texas we

choose to go to the Moon

we choose to go to the Moon

[Applause]

we choose to go to the moon in this

decade and do the other things not

because they are easy but because they

are hard because that goal will serve to

organize and measure the best of our

energies and skills because that

challenge is one that we're willing to

accept one we are unwilling to postpone

and one we intend to win at the time

that President Kennedy made his speech

we had never been to orbit

uh just a little bit over a week before

the Kennedy speech to the U.S Congress

we had lost island Shepherd

all right left

we'd never been to Albany and we were

challenged to beat the Russians to the

moon so to a great extent that initial

challenge was one that I believe was

geopolitical but it also had the

economic benefit to basically generate

the enthusiasm and the passion within

the American public

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the spirit of Education

very very important I think that's

almost as is a significant as our actual

flights themselves because it gave all

the young people something to look

forward to and excitement something that

they could live up to every day I meet

people now in their 50s who said look

when I was a little kid you know you

inspired me to become an engineer or

become a scientist to become a doctor

and that gives me sort of a sense of

satisfaction that I was in a program

that helped other people form good

careers

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foreign

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I think one of the greatest moments of

the last century

in the space program was the flight of

Apollo 8 I was on that flight

at the time that we did it I don't think

we fully understood the significance of

the very first flight to the moon the

whole 240 000 miles we were the

Pathfinders we didn't land

but we checked the navigation to check

the communication

circled the moon and looked at the far

side the side that we never see from the

Earth

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foreign

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of the Earth from the Moon

we called earthrise

which I think in just one picture

told us how insignificant

we all are here on Earth

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the Earth is merely a small planet

that just so happened to be at the right

distance and the right Mass to sustain

life

going around a rather normal star and

that star

is in the outer edge of a galaxy called

the Milky Way

just one of millions of galaxies

in our universe

and maybe just for uh

a small amount of time in December of

1968 everyone kind of felt a closeness

that we had not felt before

for the first time in history today man

got a long distance live view of the

planet he lives on transmitted and

described by the first three human

beings to travel to the Moon your heart

rate astronauts sent back those pictures

this afternoon and we'll have more along

with the first story later in this

broadcast I think what happened was

Kennedy wanting to demonstrate to the

Soviets that we were the biggest bat as

Kids on the Block that our technology

will kick your Technology's ass anytime

and it worked and it was glorious

but it wasn't sustainable because it was

a crisis project if it was actually

about exploration and about the

scientific Frontier being pushed outward

if we were actually about that maybe we

would have had a scientist on the first

mission to the moon but no there was no

scientist on Apollo 11 nor on Apollo 12

or Apollo 13 or Apollo 14 or Apollo 15

or Apollo 16.

the first scientist was on Apollo 17 and

Apollo 17 was the last mission to the

Moon

there was not a statement man that we're

going to go to the Moon

and establish a human community

we're not going to go to you know the

moon and then on to Mars we're not going

to go do this and then that it was

simply we're going to put a human being

on the moon

and we achieved it

you wish

the first Apollo Mission hadn't reached

the moon although we hadn't gone on to

Mars and then to the nearest star

that's like saying you wish that you

still operated with scalpels and sold

your patients up with cat gut like a

great great great

grandfather used to ever since the time

of Sputnik and President Kennedy I think

our dedication to the space program has

been high higher than most countries and

I feel like probably over the past

decade it's weighing significantly

I feel like we should be doing more in

space because I think there's a lot of

learning to be done as far as vaccines

and a lot of things that can help the

American people even though it's not a

sexy program like it used to be with the

moon landing I think it's more important

now than it has been in decades I know

that it's not really doing much anymore

since the space shuttle program was

closed down so I don't know what they're

up to

be cool if they were doing something

soon

you know when I see them building robots

you know to go on mars or I see what the

Rover and curiosity and opportunity and

Spirits are doing

we basically just

it excites me to know that we're doing

that

to me a culture that's not doing that is

stagnant and a culture that is doing

that is Progressive and moving forward

in a positive direction

back in the 60s when we first you know

when the space program was in full swing

I fully expected us to have colonies on

the Moon by this time where are they

I'm disappointed to see that they're

that we're that we're not putting more

effort into something like that I think

it's just absolutely essential that that

we maintain this program and Advance it

all those who think it's a problem that

we haven't been outside of low earth

orbit for four decades

can only say so because they think that

going to the moon was the first step of

this great adventure where we explore a

space and somehow we've failed on the

expectations we had for ourselves

but once you realize we went because we

were at War

and then they're not going to the Moon

they're not going to Mars and the Cold

War is Over

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what's your motivation

the Moon

a lonely world in the absence of man

but here we have left our mark

a signature attesting a legacy to Future

Generations

we stood on the shoulders of giants and

touched the Moon

the decision what to do after Apollo was

driven by a desire to limit NASA's

spending

to only a fraction of what it had been

at the height of the Apollo program and

in order to reach that lower budget you

couldn't continue to use Saturn V they

were too expensive per launch so the

program devolved back into a low earth

orbit program Senator Edward Kennedy

urged today that spending on the Space

Program be cut back after the goal set

for exploring the moon have been

achieved Senator Kennedy said a

substantial portion of the space budget

should be diverted to what he called

pressing problems here at home going

into outer space is very expensive it

costs ten thousand dollars to put a

pound of anything just into near-earth

orbit that's your weight in gold

now to put you on the moon costs about a

hundred thousand dollars a pound and to

put you on Mars what cost over a million

dollars a pound that is your weight in

diamonds

back in the 1960s the great superpowers

didn't care spending so much money on

the Space Race because it was a matter

of national pride and National Security

but now that the Cold War is Over The

Great powers are not willing to spend so

much of their National Treasure because

national pride and National Security are

no longer at stake

imagine if you and I climbed in a plane

right now

and wanted to fly to New York City and

back and along the way all of its pieces

are going to be thrown away so that when

you arrive in New York if you make it at

all

you'll arrive in a little capsule and

land now the only way you get to come

back

is for them to rebuild the entire rocket

upon which that original capsule stood

climb in it and fly back and by the way

you're going to throw all the pieces

away again

but that pretty well assures you is that

very very few people are going to make

that trip

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if all goes according to schedule it

seems like this a reusable space shuttle

making its Final Approach to land will

be a common sight beginning next fall

the space shuttle was promised to us in

the 70s as a vehicle that would fly over

50 times a year

the shuttle was going to bring the cost

of going into orbit down to a hundred

dollars a pound it looks like a jet

plane will lift off like a rocket and

will return like a glider commuting to

space every two weeks is the plan

if you measure it by that metric the

program was a complete and utter failure

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the basic drivers were low cost reliable

reusable let's call it a space bus

that was the motivation 1969 a bus up

and down under all conditions at the

shuttle program did not turn out the way

it was supposed to was supposed to be 10

million a flight and ended up 1.2

billion a flight

so you know we missed my 1200 times over

shuttles kind of all things to all

people originally from NASA's point of

view it was going to be a supply vehicle

to go to a large space station

and NASA in 1969 proposed building a

space station and having it supplied by

the shuttle the Nixon Administration

decided not to approve a station and so

the reactional for shuttle had to be

kind of reinvented and it became a

launch vehicle for everything that's the

theory of Dr John logsdon a George

Washington University political science

Professor who has written extensively on

the space program for the last Dozen

Years NASA got used to the luxury of the

extra money the public attention the

importance to the general public that

came with Apollo and the excitement and

the challenge and wanted to do it again

what do we need a space shuttle floor or

a space station

well some people said that we need a

space station to be the Terminus for the

space shuttle well then why do we need a

space shuttle to be the way to reach the

space station now I think that's a bit

circular isn't it you know at first you

look at the space frame oh that's so

cool the space shuttle that's amazing

you know this is great and then you

really look at it and you realize

hold it they're not going anywhere

they're not doing anything John logsdon

says the shuttle could turn out to be a

classic mistake it's a pretty good space

truck for taking things up and down but

for doing anything once you're in orbit

say it's it's a very inflexible and

underpowered vehicle the shuttle is the

most complex space vehicle man has ever

built it is a result of nine years of

compromise negotiation and cost overruns

soon we'll begin to find out if it was

all worth it John Dancy NBC News at

Kennedy Space Center so the shuttle was

designed to be reusable and and

therefore much less expensive in the end

there was no way to maintain the flight

rate that was projected for it it just

didn't work out that way because it was

too complex too expensive and then we

had the accidents

the worst disaster in the history of the

American space program and President

Reagan has declared a week of mourning

for the Seven astronauts five men and

two women who lost their lives on their

way into space this morning yeah the

Challenger really changed everything

it was one of the it was a priority in

the nation to get every payload onto the

shuttle to get its usage up to make sure

it's um utilization was as high as it

could be there was a lot of attention

focused on and it was a terrible tragedy

we played over and over again on

television and there had sort of been a

feeling in the space community that if

there was a tragic accident with a

shuttle that would never fly again

there was 32 months I think it was

before another space shuttle flew but

there were changes considerable changes

to the nature of the space shuttle

program after that for example

originally the shuttle was going to be

launching just about every satellite

that the United States wanted to put up

and instead they said that no you only

are going to use this for things you

really need to have people involved in

if you can just launch it on a rocket

launch it on a rocket you don't need to

launch it on the space shuttle to take

these highly skilled amazing people

called it astronauts and put them in

charge of driving this this truck around

in circles in orbit

instead of doing something really

exciting and important

you know that that's where the problems

came from and that came from a lack of

leadership uh down the street from NASA

in Congress and in the White House

the shuttle did mature us though it was

so difficult

new scientists new technology so

difficult to operate it made us good we

had to be good to operate that system

well at the end of the shuttle program

we were a massively good space-faring

Nation we the U.S now we're fantastic

now we are good now we're excellent in

the space fair in business

the difficulty of the shuttle made us

good

but after that space station was a

massive strategic error

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Skylab was the first test of our ability

to endure weightlessness and astronauts

found that they could effectively work

exercise eat and sleep in their

Temporary Home

more recently the space shuttle has

allowed us to fly into orbit conduct our

business and return

in addition to providing a laboratory

for carrying out experiments in

microgravity the shuttle has also

benefited us commercially and

scientifically through the deployment

and capture of satellites

but the shuttle was designed with a

larger goal in mind to transport

astronauts and materials to a proposed

base a permanent manned space station

they stationed with NASA's primary

objective after Apollo it's what NASA

hoped to get approved was a 12-person

space station launched by Saturn V and

supplied by the shuttle in the 6970

period

the White House did not approve that

program and instead we went ahead with

the space shuttle but the shuttle was

designed to launch modules of the space

station it was clear in 1971 or 72 that

once the shuttle started flying NASA

would go back and ask approval to

develop the space station and indeed

they did that in 1983 and finally

President Reagan announced approval

space station in the State of the Union

Address in January of 84.

tonight I am directing NASA to develop a

permanently manned space station and to

do it within a decade

despite problems with recent missions

NASA is still pushing hard for a

permanent space station someday many

scientists and politicians say it is not

clear what purpose the space station is

supposed to serve we're doing it

backwards we're saying we're going to

have a station and by the way what can

you do if you have a station yes it

costs a hundred billion dollars yes it's

a Cooperative effort of many nations but

a lot of the space station I think was

wasteful because the science done on the

space station was actually minimal

Skylab 73 was a massively successful

space station it already had 200

experiments built in all those things

matured Us in terms of unopened space

Ops and long-term space flight

we already did that

so I'm not criticizing Space Station

what I am saying is what the space

station do for the man on the street

they don't know

go out and ask them

um I honestly don't know and they make

no effort to like tell normal people so

I mean I don't actually I don't know

what's going on at all you know I really

don't know what they're doing they don't

really say anything all you hear is they

bring supplies back and forth so I mean

what are what is the object of it

I have no idea what they'd be doing up

there honestly I I don't pay that much

attention to this kind of stuff

unfortunately we don't know not now no

if you have a program which costs 150

billion and you ask the person on the

street what are you getting for this and

they don't know

you've missed a vision sir

we actually didn't finish building the

space station until 2010 it was supposed

to be done in 1994. well it did in fact

basically suck the life out of the human

spaceflight program for 25 years and so

it was very hard to get approval for new

things going forward not that people

didn't try we must commit ourselves Anew

to a sustained program of manned

exploration of the solar system and yes

the permanent settlement of space is

George H.W bush came into the White

House he indicated he wanted to do

something to revitalize the space

program and his advisors prepared for

him an announcement called the space

exploration initiative

back to the Moon onto Mars it's time to

stay great stuff but NASA came back with

a program to do it in 30 years that

involved building floating space ports

and and giant interplanetary spaceships

and all kinds of things that were never

going to happen

and of course the architecture meant

you'd have to have a launch system and

you'd have to have all the other pieces

of what it would take to do an entire

mission to the surface of moon and go on

to Mars

where you total up all those assets

necessary over a 20-year period and the

total was 500 billion dollars

well that figure got leaked to the to

the hill and the way the hill looks at

money is 500 billion dollars with a B is

in like today's money

and so it was Dead on Arrival they never

even bothered to look at it

let me introduce to you

our speaker for this afternoon Robert

zubrin or Martin Marietta

Astro he's a senior

engineer there on the moon and Mars

initiative missions work that Martin

Marietta is doing

Robert come talk to us

Mars Direct

plan for sending units to Mars with

present-day technology it's a plan that

could be implemented within eight years

of program start this was developed by

myself and another engineer named David

Baker while we were working at the

Martin Marietta astronautics company a

Circa 1990.

what Baker and I did was design a plan

that would allow us to do a human Mars

mission in just two launches of a Saturn

V heavy lift booster okay like the one

we used during Apollo

and before you know it you've created

the beginning of the first human

settlement on a new world there's

nothing in this that is beyond our

technology

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around 1993 Mike Griffin was appointed

associate administrator for exploration

and he liked Mars direct he had us go

back to Johnson Space Center and talk to

them again with this time the people at

headquarters telling them they had to

listen and they listened and they came

up with a variance of Mars direct as

their new Mars mission plan and

according to their analysis it cut the

cost of a human Mars exploration program

by a factor of eight

now unfortunately by then Clinton was in

office and he wasn't interested so he

told him to just shut up okay

um you know but the the problem is is

that we've never had a situation where

both NASA and the administration were on

board at the same time except during

Apollo

my name is Michelle Stellhorn I am a

teacher in the gifted education program

of the Rockwood School District and I

teach a unit called Mission to Mars and

we cover the Congressional space debate

and the importance and future of space

exploration do you want to be an

astronaut

um no because I like Earth and I want to

stay on it but I think that space

exploration is really cool

it's too expensive we have national debt

we have the job deficit

do you think that we should be spending

more money and effort in space

exploration

well

I think I personally think we should but

I think that since there's so many

people around the world who are

struggling to just put food on the table

I don't see how we can I mean we could

but there's so many other problems that

are major focuses that the government

should be studying that should be

working on we should need to get our

national debt paid off before we can go

and play around in space

would you go

me I I think

it depends how much they pay me

don't want to be asked not what are they

going to fly there's nothing to fly

there is no Mars program there is no

astronaut program this casual talk about

it I know what a program is I know when

a man says you're going to the moon and

you're coming home eight years from now

I know what that means all right

the space shuttle pulls into port for

the last time its voyage

at an end

you know there's a lot of people that

think that the end of the shuttle

program was the end of America

going out into space

it's absurd

it's ridiculous

flying a shuttle in circles around the

earth is not exploring

it's not pushing forward the human

Frontier

You're simply making work you're simply

funneling taxpayer money into certain

people's pockets who are working in

different areas politicians aerospace

companies people who run space centers

that that's not what this should be

about

but that's what it's become

because there's no leadership

because there's no vision

everything

in Columbia Houston we see your tire

pressure messages and we did not copy

your last

Columbia Houston Comcheck

Columbia Houston UHF Comcheck

Columbia Houston UHF comp check

February 1st 2003 Columbia re-enters

tragically and breaks up over Texas

the notion that we could continue flying

the shuttle

for a long time went away

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the commission that investigated that

accident said if you're going to be

risking human lives you really need to

explain what it is that you're trying to

accomplish in him as space flight

consistent with safety concerns and the

recommendations of the Columbia accident

investigation board

the shuttle's chief purpose over the

next several years

will be to help finish assembly of the

International Space Station

in 2010

the space shuttle

after nearly 30 years of Duty

will be retired from service the first

shuttle tragedy made everybody stop and

think exactly what it was we were using

the shuttle for and did you really need

to have humans aboard in a spacecraft in

order to launch satellites and the

second tragedy Colombia really brought

it down to a real focus on why are you

doing human space fight at all

using the crew exploration vehicle we

will undertake extended human missions

to the Moon as early as 2015.

with the goal of living and working

there for increasingly extended periods

of time

see I was I was there

I was literally in the room when

President Bush

announced we were going to go back to

the moon and onto Mars and I'm a Texan I

was close enough to where I could look

at him and we're fairly good at spotting

BS in each other

and I think he really meant it President

Bush to his credit said

you know we're not going to just do this

anymore we're going to do something

different

and we should go back and we should

explore

a powerful argument was made that what

needed to happen was we needed to start

making economic use

of all the things that we had found

by all this taxpayer-funded space

exploration

if we want to start going back to the

moon but this time for economically

useful purposes

how would we do that

and they came up with some really

interesting ideas all of which were

affordable

all of which were executable all of

which were quite reasonable paths that

we could have gone forward

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none of which looked like Apollo and

then he hired a new NASA administrator

who said he was absolutely dedicated to

carrying out the president's vision

and that was Dr Michael Griffin

and Griffin came in and said I know how

I'm going to do this

he had a plan he had a way of getting

America back to the moon and then on to

Mars it is very Apollo like it may have

a different shaped heat shield it may

have a different surface contact system

but the outer mold line is very Apollo

like except larger think of it as Apollo

on steroids

everything was Tanked

all of the ideas were dropped and

ditched because Mike Griffin had his own

plan for dos program

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NASA's new program for human space

exploration is called constellation

for the first time in a generation we

will be traveling Beyond low earth orbit

returning to the moon and expanding

human presence to Mars

exploration must be taken in steps

because we learn from every Journey

there is a link between every place we

go

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very quickly the Bush Administration

started to cut back on some of NASA's

hoped for Budget increases

that brought you to the Obama

Administration in which they said I

understand that some believe that we

should attempt a return to the surface

of the Moon first

is previously planned

but I I just have to say

pretty bluntly here

we've been there before

will American astronauts return to the

moon in the foreseeable future NBC News

has learned that plans to travel there

and Beyond May in fact be scrubbed the

White House was willing to support the

vision of returning to the Moon by 2020

and going on to Mars

verbally but not when it came down to

the nation's pocketbook it had been

known from the start that constellation

could not be executed on anything like

NASA's current budget the Assumption was

made

that NASA would receive a very

substantial budget increase in order to

do something like constellation

when President Obama came into office he

set up this committee to take a look at

the constellation program and that

committee determined that technically

the constellation program was doing

quite well but that there wasn't enough

money

the budget for the that program had been

reduced substantially every single year

since it started and as a result our

look at the constellation program that

we were then pursuing was that it was

not executable the program was on a

trajectory to fail we did recommend that

either NASA's budget be increased rather

substantially

or that they should be given some other

mission that they can do within their

current budget everyone agrees that

there's a three billion dollar

shortfall in what we need to accomplish

our goals uh

of what you have suggested as

Alternatives other options

are any of those

accomplishable without that shortfall

do you want to deal that no okay there

you go the White House was not willing

to invest that kind of money in it

Congress is not willing to invest that

kind of money in it so the constellation

program was canceled the reason we were

unable to sustain Humanity in space or

on the moon after Apollo was there was

no decision to do so

and there was no technology that was

designed to allow us to do so because

the decision was not there

interestingly in the constellation

program and under President Bush

he said we're going to establish

human permanence beyond the Earth

unfortunately the people in charge

were unable to understand what that

meant

and instead redesigned a bigger badder

version of the Apollo program

it was doomed to failure from the

beginning

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September of 2011 NASA proposes a new

capability for human exploration a

massive rocket the largest ever built

for a variety of missions Beyond low

earth orbit

when President Obama announced that he

was canceling constellation what he

wanted to do was to wait five years and

invest in game-changing Technologies and

after that period of time a decision

would be made as to what new rockets or

spacecraft were needed to go wherever it

is the nation was going to go next in

human space flight and that presupposed

in five years you can do something that

essentially obsoletes chemical

propulsion we will increase investment

right away in other groundbreaking

technologies that will allow astronauts

to reach space sooner and more often

well there was nothing in the pipeline

at all that would do that I mean there

was discussion of what might be there

was some hypotheses of what could be

done but now we're five years later and

there really was nothing in the pipeline

that was even remotely mature enough and

Congress hated that idea Congress felt

it was really important to have a

destination and a time frame within

which to meet specific Visionary goals

for human space flight and so Congress

wrote into law directing NASA to build a

new big rocket which they called the

space launch system and to build a

multi-purpose crew vehicle which we know

as Orion in order to provide the

capabilities to keep a vigorous human

space flight program going so

constellation was canceled

but Congress promptly reinstated all the

expensive parts of it under new names

but did not give NASA the budget

increase that would be necessary to fly

missions with them do you know what the

budget for the SLS launch system is

uh I we don't know so you don't know

either quite frankly that was a leading

question all right and if that money was

going to be taken out of your budget to

develop the SLS launch system rather

than go where the launch systems that

we've already got would you be

supportive of that

no right

we really don't have a lot of momentum

and a lot of Vision on what space launch

system is going to do it's been pegged

the rocket to nowhere when they finally

get it upgraded to 130 metric tons which

may be 20 25. it will be equivalent and

almost equal to a Saturn V

which we will have had 60 years earlier

we're talking about after proving one

flight that we might do an orbit around

the Moon

called Apollo 8.

you're keeping space station alive

you're supporting the various NASA

centers you've got two pieces of

Hardware you're developing but they have

no destination and they're like what we

did 60 years ago

I always call it a rocket to anywhere

because it's just like the shuttle when

the shuttle was designed

it was designed to be a shuttle

capability

it didn't have payloads identified all

those missions were non-existent on the

day of the first shuttle flew

if space is a frontier

and I shall hereby declare it to be so

and your goal is to settle the frontier

in other words for people to live there

like they do here in what used to be a

frontier

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then you have to create

a means for that to occur

no Frontier has ever been opened based

on the development and operation of a

single giant government vehicle

they can launch two to three at least

two in the possible potentially three

sls's per year

they can build that many and they can

launch that many that's the way the

design of the infrastructure and the

vehicle and the assembly plan is set up

to do

but they need more funding to date

unfortunately the budget has not been

increased and that's a major concern

it's been a major concern since day one

and uh

put if there's anything our commissioned

emphasized it was that we have to have a

budget and a space program that are

consistent with each other and

unfortunately throughout the human space

flight history for a couple of decades

that's not been the case

tonight NASA announced further Cuts have

been ordered in its new budget and one

effect will be a delay in the timetable

for the space shuttle fifty thousand

employees are not looking forward

they're looking elsewhere if this

country really needs another expensive

piece of Hardware in orbit when here on

the ground we can hardly get the mail

delivered Congress cut the shuttle's

budget by 234 million dollars already

there have been some cutbacks and there

could be others it is without question

the biggest waste of money I've seen

since I've been in the United States

Senate today President Clinton put in

his latest bid he outlined 13 billion

dollars in savings at four federal

agencies more than half the cuts at Nasa

the bailout the bank bailout that sum of

money is greater than the entire 50-year

running budget of NASA wow I think we

have to be realistic when it comes to

the budget if we need additional funds

for heavy lift rocket we're going to

have to set priorities and have to shift

funds from other parts of the program I

don't think think that that NASA or our

space program is somehow going to defy

budget gravity and be the only agency to

get an increase when other every other

agency is really going to be flatlined

or be subject to the budgetary

constraints so I think we're just going

to have to be smarter we're going to

have to make sure we don't have cost

overruns and we're going to have to set

priorities and use the money that we do

have better and then we can get the

funds safe or heavy lift rocket if we

started today how long do each of you

estimate it would be before we could

place a person on Mars with the current

budget yes give me a date with the

current budget and a date with Apollo

era budget

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with the current budget bear with me I

would probably say never hey

China

can we borrow some money to finish our

Mars trip

you know with constellation Mike Griffin

and now people with the SLS just assume

that if we develop the SLS it will fly

forever

we had the Saturn V

it worked

it was flying humans to the Moon

and we canceled it

when did we last leave low earth orbit

you know a couple hundred miles up where

the space station Space Shuttle orbit

to go somewhere interesting with humans

when did we last do it 1972 Apollo 17.

it's been more than four decades

since we've left Earth for another

destination

what's the problem

what are we missing

is it political will is it motivation is

it money is it is it are we distracted

are there other issues

we went to the moon

in the 1960s

what we didn't have problems in the

1960s

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we're at a hot war in Southeast Asia a

cold war with the Soviet Union the Civil

Rights Movement was fully underway there

was campus unrest there were riots in

the urban centers

shall be the policy of this nation to

regard any nuclear missile launched from

Cuba against Any Nation from the Western

Hemisphere

as an attack

by the Soviet Union on the United States

we had the greatest problems the country

has seen since the Civil War

and in that climate on that landscape we

went to the moon so don't turn around

and tell me that these past four decades

we've had challenges we couldn't

overcome that's why we're not going into

space no that's not the reason we're not

going into space

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to say

you know if you're a young person in

this country wait a second

we were on the moon

American citizens were walking around

jumping around on the moon

they were driving a golf cart on the

moon they brought back hundreds of

pounds

of specially selected Rock samples to

see what the geological history of the

moon was

and you stopped

why did you stop

are you people nuts

my read of History tells me there's only

two maybe three motivations forever

doing something so Grand now one of them

is war

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the other is money

let's do it from money

if you can do it for money it'll happen

I've never seen anyone do it

to explore

there is a growing tendency to think of

man as a rational thinking being which

is absurd there is simply no evidence of

any Intelligence on the earth wait

why do we stop producing

Saturn V Rockets

it's one of the great Mysteries to me

the Saturn V rocket can be more mass

into low earth orbit

than our shuttle

it had been a natural to help build the

International Space Station

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the Saturn V is a really unique rocket

in the sense that it was really the

first rocket designed for exploration

the Mercury projects launched on a

redstone which was an intermediate range

ballistic missile that was modified then

the Gemini went up on a Titan which was

an ICBM so the Saturn program was really

the first rocket that was never designed

to be launching missiles on other people

it was actually the first one that was

designed to launch people to new

destinations so the Saturn 5 was a leap

beyond anything that had been seen

before

it had five million and a half pound

thrust engines on just the first stage

the second stage had five quarter

million pound thrust hydrogen engines on

it and had a third stage with another

quarter million pound thrust it was a

massive rocket it was something that had

never been done before and it worked

very well and it was able to do things

that nothing could been able to do and

nothing can do today

we have a tendency in this country

like The Tortoise and the Hare

we are the hair we build something we do

something we go back and try something

else

the Russians in the meanwhile

are the tortoise they build something

they keep it going do you know that the

booster the rocket that put Eureka Garen

up in space in 1961.

is basically the same vehicle that's

putting our astronauts and their

cosmonauts into the International Space

Station today

the same vehicle

and yet

we don't keep ours the Saturn V could

have been improved that had been a good

stepping stone towards going back to the

Moon

we could have improved the lunar module

we could have done lots of things to the

Saturn V to upgrade it and we would have

had it still a viable lunar program

going

the tragedy and I'll mention that every

time that someone tells me it's a

tragedy that we've stopped building

the Saturn V rocket

the decision to stop production of the

Saturn V dates back really to the Lyndon

Johnson Administration the space agency

facing severe budget restrictions has

decided to cut back Apollo moon landing

missions to two flights a year Asa has

stopped ordering long lead time items

for the Saturn V in 1968 and announced

suspension of of its production there

were 15 built and then there weren't

going to be any more then there were

ambitious recommendations to Nixon in

September of 69 to use Mars as a

long-term goal of the program and build

a space station

those recommendations were rejected in

the fall of 69 and then there was no

need for the kind of capability

represented by the Saturn V so it was in

the the budget cycle in December of 1969

that the decision finally was made to

suspend production

basically shut the program down

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thank you

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who was not particularly interested in

the space program

we had a

Vietnam war that was picking up a lot of

money

and uh

so as soon as the

NASA budget for Apollo began to drop off

a little the White House looked at it

like a great place to get money

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thank you

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Thomas Payne administrator of the space

agency said today that 50 000 people

will be dropped in the space program

stretched out as a result of what he

called fairly stringent budget cuts

ordered by President Nixon most of those

who will lose their jobs work for

private contractors the rest for the

space agency among other things Payne

said production of the Saturn V rocket

will be ended the last one will be used

to launch an experimental space station

the rocket was designed at the Marshall

space flight center in Huntsville

Alabama

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the idea of going to Mars was not

selling

putting a base on the moon was not

selling we weren't going to get the big

space station we knew we weren't going

to get the nuclear rocket but the Apollo

program doing so well we thought we

would be able to at least continue with

the sort of budget support that we had

had for Apollo which had been terrific

and didn't happen

and so we were pretty depressed group

for a while

Saturn Vibe Saturn 1B Command Module

they're all disappeared

and there would be a mission to Mars

someday but I don't know when

50 years from now maybe

this time vote like your whole world

depended on it

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when I look at the present direction of

our space program today

I feel disappointed

I feel that our leaders don't really

have a good reason for continuing it I

think that that it's not their desire to

really have a first class first-rate

program that they could be proud of

and we look at ways that we waste money

in this country when we could put it to

good use in a program that everybody

really the average individual really

wants to see done then it kind of makes

me feel sad

you know today we stand on the shoulders

of giants

and we have to honor those people I know

a lot of Apollo Astronauts

they're pretty pissed off

because they did their job they did what

they were asked to do they put their

lives on the line they went out and they

did something incredible

and then nothing happened

can NASA mount a project

can they do a project anymore or does

the project be succumbed so politicized

and so wrapped up in Washington that it

gets strangulated and can't happen

unfortunately I come from the 60s

I'm not cynical I come from the 60s

the greatest project management the

world has ever seen on any project and

we did it

we did it urgently

we did an on-cost on schedule and we did

it right even with 45 years of hindsight

history we did it right

I

believe that when we landed on the moon

in 1969 as a flight director my children

would see an American back on the moon

I'm starting to lose that belief

I had hoped that I would see it myself

that is now

impossible

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ironically

going to the Moon

could have been a natural continuation

of the westward migration that began

with the 13 colonies and and

continued uh to the end of the 1800s but

we didn't we didn't do it that way we

had a government planned crisis project

instead of opening up this opening up

space like a frontier you realize during

the entire golden age of space

exploration that we generally associate

with the 1960s and The Voyage to the

Moon

we remember ourselves as Pioneers in

that era but in fact we were reactive

to the statements made by the Soviets

rather than proactive in fulfillment of

dreams we had

they put up a satellite we got to put up

a satellite they put an animal non-human

animal in orbit we put a non-human app

they put up a first human we put up a

first human

this went on and on and on with Russia

beating us in practically everything

then we get to the moon before they did

we say we win

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if that's how we look at it we didn't

understand

who was

pioneering that race

so

we are better at reacting than proacting

given that fact we may have to sink

deeper into economic

poverty

as a nation before we wake up and say

we got to do something about this

it's an unfortunate fact of how we

function

you know there's a generation out there

right now that doesn't believe we've

ever been to the Moon

now that's not because the Shadows from

the flag fall the wrong way or the lens

flare is wrong or you can't see the

stars but because of the contrast ratio

or this or that or the other or anything

like that the real reason

that any of that

sticks at all

is that we're not there now

and it's incredibly hard to believe that

if we ever did something that

magnificent that exciting that

inspirational

why did we stop

that's the reason there's people who

believe we Never Land

why aren't we there now

peace time Jim the government isn't

making that kind of Appropriations or

they lead the rocket one of these days

and if it's not ready the government

will do the job and they'll turn to you

to Private Industry to do it government

always does that when gets in a jam it

has to this time I figured we might be

ready for the government

the British government explored Hudson

Bay

then the Hudson Bay Company was created

the U.S government explores the moon

then the lunar

go find lunarocks.com company will get

created we have companies now SpaceX

leading the way

bringing cargo to and from the space

station that should have been happening

decades ago you don't need astronauts to

serve as truck drivers hauling cargo

back and forth

an unmanned vehicle can do that and let

the commercial Marketplace take care of

it let them bid for that they can do it

faster cheaper better than any

government program could do it for sure

when airplanes were First beginning a

very smart group of people decided that

they were not going to America was not

going to own its own its own Fleet its

own Airline it said what we're going to

do is help build the airline industry

and the airplane industry and they did

that by simply guaranteeing a certain

amount of mail that was going to be

traveling on on airplanes and what

happened was that an industry developed

where America became the leading country

in the leading technology developer of

what we now know as modern Aviation

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people should be able to come up with

creative beneficial things that they can

figure out how to afford to do

and if there's science involved that can

benefit the the country and the federal

government can get involved if there's

technology that needs to be developed

that can help people the government can

get involved there we could have

Partnerships and we can move out you

know we can have the 21st century

equivalent of the Transcontinental

Railroad which by the way was built by

private companies

without a government Department of

railroads telling them how to do it

we did it with land grants well we could

do the same thing in space we can do the

same sort of innovative Partnerships in

space we just have to get away from the

sort of bureaucratic mindset that it

needs to be a government program to do

it for us

the vast amount of brains talents

special skills and research facilities

necessary for this project are not in

the government nor can they be mobilized

by the government in peace time without

fatal delay

only American industry can do this job

the way Frontiers have been opened and

the way that they should be opened is by

an interaction of the private and the

public sector working for the good of

all so that the government is providing

a Lewis and Clark function a Magellan

function a drake function

and then those explorers are returning

and telling us about what's over the

hill what's across that ocean and then

the private sector moves into that realm

and begins to turn what it is that's

been found

into

new land New Wealth

and that's how you open a frontier

you don't open a frontier by sending a

few highly paid government employees out

there in a large and expensive

government vehicle

and throwing most of it away on the way

there and back

well I know one thing if they do build a

space station in my lifetime or send a

ship to the Moon I'm gonna be ready to

go what courses are you taking next year

oh my schedule's already made out in the

ninth grade you have to take mathematics

and English and history no science

provide my choice of taking General

Science this year and next but I've put

it off for years and you put your trip

off a year science is the engine of

prosperity all the wealth we see around

us comes from science but science is

made by scientists mainly young people

young people have to be inspired they

have to look in the sky and say wow I

want to be part of this great Endeavor

to explore the universe the real

spin-off that matters

out of the Apollo program was a

generation

that saw that and in their mind they

mixed here's the Apollo program and

people really doing something cool out

there in space

Here's Captain Kirk and and these kinds

of shows and movies 2001 Space Odyssey

and if you put this all together in the

mind of a child or a teenager what

begins to happen is a synthesis that

says I want to do that

somebody's done it I can do it I'm going

to figure out how to do it the biggest

spin-off of the Apollo program was a

generation who stayed in school who

studied and now they want to do that

they want to give back to civilization

in the way that they were inspired to do

as children my son looked up at me one

night and asked me sorry it still breaks

me up uh you know Daddy is it really

true that they used to fly to the moon

when you were a boy

I was really disappointed that we had

not sent anyone to Mars that we'd not

progressed Beyond Apollo and I kept

waiting for when we would and it just

didn't happen year after year I submit

that if we engage in another bold Vision

like we did in the 60s this time not

motivated by War but by an understanding

of the impact of that Adventure on our

culture

what people want it to be when they grew

up I am a child of Apollo

the greatest influences I had growing up

were NASA and Star Trek I didn't just

believe we were going into space I

expected it it stimulates an entire

generation of scientists and

technologists and it's the 21st century

you need them if you care about the

health of your economy tomorrow you need

folks like that around you I went to the

NASA website to just see when are we

going to Mars and I can find find that

out

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so that then I thought well perhaps this

is a question of of will is there

sufficient will to do this

the reason I fight so hard for this

cause is because I believe we are here

to expand and grow and carry the light

of life into space

if we don't Embrace space as a frontier

what are we

as a species we have the power to do it

we have the know-how to do it we know

what it can bring us

culturally economically

militaristically to not do it is to

simply not have the foresight

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in these Final hours before Apollo 17

some people are gloomy about the future

of space exploration not among them is

Dr Werner Von Brown the retired rocket

expert to develop the big Saturn launch

vehicles and used to send men on their

way to the Moon I talked with Dr Von

Braun earlier this evening I think

all good things have an ending and I

consider Apollo a little bit as it were

as the ceiling ship and dog sled area to

the South Pole well next time we'll go

to the South Pole we'll go by Turbo prop

airplane we doubled the number of

science graduates in this country during

Apollo at every level high school

college PhD what force was operating to

make everyone want to become scientists

we were going to the Moon

so our motivation was militaristically

driven but we benefited economically

from it because scientists and

technologists invent the economies of

tomorrow

we used to invent new things with such

frequency that you didn't fix something

that was about to break you'll put in

something completely new that took you

to a new place

you didn't have to worry about the old

thing breaking because you just replaced

the entire structure

the better materials lighter materials

more durable materials

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these are the things that come out of an

innovation Nation

you know how you get an innovation

Nation you put a bold project in front

of them that inspires people to want to

innovate in the first place and I know

of no greater force of nature than what

going into space can do

for the next generation of people who

are tasked with taking us into the 21st

century

I believe that we can carry this battle

and basically

address it articulate it is an economic

challenge to the nation a technological

challenge to the nation a spiritual

challenge to the nation that we have to

believe

as a nation we are capable of doing

difficult things and move forward and do

it we need to bring America's character

to bear

on America's Frontier

and if we do that

there is no limit

to what we can accomplish

we were given the Apollo program because

of a set of challenges that a very young

president faced

we're fortunate at that time we had the

articulators we had the Von bronze and

the lows and the gilros or people are

going up and basically talking to this

President and talking to the U.S

Congress and sewing this program we need

the people who have that fluency that

belief and are willing to expend

themselves in that cause during the

Apollo era you didn't need government

programs trying to convince people that

doing science and engineering was good

for the country

self-evident

maybe we need a department of future

thinkers

who aren't thinking well I get reelected

this November who aren't thinking can we

afford this now

of these other problems I have to solve

no we need like a new presidential

cabinet position the future the futurist

they can help set priorities for how we

invest

ORS the return on that investment later

on

that's what we need

we don't have that

and I've been trying but I've been

failing so I basically I gave up

I was going back to my lab

I'm tired of screaming into people's

ears

what we got paid back for were millions

of scientists engineers Doctors medical

researchers inventors okay who are the

people who created the economic boom of

the 1990s these 40 year old techno

billionaires who built Silicon Valley

these are the 12 year olds of the 1960s

Apollo worked because John F Kennedy

said in 1961 we are going to be on the

Moon by the end of the decade and while

administrations change in early 1969 we

were practically to the moon and they

weren't about to cancel that at that

point if instead Kennedy had said I

think it'd be a good idea to go to the

moon and we should do it by the year

2000 we never would have made it to the

moon it's not about the rocket equation

it's not about physics we solve those

issues every single day

we have built a cage around our ideas we

have built a cage around our future that

says you cannot

we are telling the generation that

exists today that they're going to have

less

that they should give up their dreams

that their job is to save a planet that

we've screwed up what really matters is

that someday there's a kid living on the

moon there's a kid living in free space

there's a kid living on Mars who looks

back at the Earth and says that's where

we came from as soon as their head looks

the other way and says that's where

we're going

it will be a human endeavor it will

bring out the best in humankind space

exploration has changed your life

and it's made your life better the food

you eat your communication systems your

your transportation systems are all made

better by space

but deeper and bigger and more

importantly

your view of your relationship to the

cosmos your place in space is

fundamentally influenced by people who

have insisted that we explore space that

we go over the horizon that we look

beyond what we can see

and that is all to the good and it is in

everyone's best interest to support it

we cannot allow ourselves to settle

for the condition and the state that we

are in today we have to become the foot

soldiers in the fight for space and it

has to apply to every person who lives

works and dreams of space and it's time

to do it now

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thank you

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thank you

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laughs

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thank you

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thank you

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[Laughter]

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thank you

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I got fired

yes sir out the door We're Not Gonna Fly

you again we're doing a good job for you

they get tired of hearing this stuff and

when you're jabbing them the bureaucrats

you're jamming them

they've had enough