Focus 580; The United States Space Program: Whats Next

In the first hour of the program today we'll be talking about the future of the American space program and our guest is Dr. Robert Zubrin. He is an engineer. His academic training is in Nuclear Engineering and in aeronautics and astronautics He has degrees in both from the University of Washington. He's a former member of NASA's Mars Exploration long term strategy working group. He's also editor for Mars exploration of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. He spent a number of years as an engineer at Lockheed Martin astronautics in Denver where he was working on the design of advanced space transportation and propulsion concepts and in his writing and speaking he has been a very strong advocate for some time now for the exploration of space he is the author of two books. They include the Case for Mars how we shall settle the red planet and why we must. That's a book that was published by Simon and Schuster is Free Press division back in 1996 and also the book entering space creating a spacefaring civilization published by Tarter Putnam in the fall or summer late

summer August is to be set to be precise August of 1999. He's joining us this morning by telephone. And as we talk as usual questions are welcome. The number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line and that one is good. Anywhere that you can hear us that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so at any point here if you have questions comments certainly people are welcome to call the only thing we ask of callers is that people are brief and we ask that so that we can keep the program moving along and get as many people as possible but callers are certainly welcome. So again here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 is the number to call. We do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere you can hear us. 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Dr. Sybrand Hello. Hello. Thanks for talking with us. You're welcome.

I guess I should say again because we have talked before. I am sure that we talked about the most recent book about entering space on this program. I'm glad that you could be with us again perhaps as a way of starting out a little bit of an overview about where things stand now with America's space program and it certainly seems that there have been significant challenges over the last few years some achievements as well to point to but it seems that it's it's it's up and down you know the pendulum swings back and forth between people who argue that somehow Nassa is in crisis and that we have periods like that and then we have periods where people are saying well now say his has bounced back and it's reenergized and it's moving ahead and then maybe we have another crisis and it seems that we go back and forth between those two poles or at least half. So is it actually possible to you know give your assessment about where and Nasser and where the American space program is right at the moment.

Well it is it's between those two points. At this point. Look we of course we had the Columbia accident and we had basically a string of gross mismanagement decisions by the former NASA's administrator Sean O'Keefe that led to his removal and his replacement by somebody who is far more capable. The current administrator Mike Griffin. He's actually somebody who really is qualified to be an ass administrator and is not just some political camp follower who got stuck on the job. And so we have the prospect now of a naphtha that can really accomplish something. It. We also have a new. Strategic policy for NASA's so-called Vision for Space Exploration put forth

by the Bush administration in early 2004 which calls for reorienting the manned space program towards human exploration of the moon and Mars. Mr. O'Keefe while he remained in office succeeded in basically wasting time and not implementing that vision remains to be seen whether Mike Griffin will be able to get it off the ground. And then finally there is additional outstanding challenges such as the most important of one is the repair and upgrade of the Hubble Space Telescope. Mr. O'Keefe the former administrator rather than being willing to accept the risk of a mission to Hubble which is no more risky than any other shuttle mission. But not part of the space station program decided to abandon the Hubble Space Telescope which is the only real accomplishment of the manned space program in the last 30 years and but which is a very substantial accomplishment. And

Griffin has stated that it's his inclination to in fact mount the Hubble repair mission. And I think he absolutely should. B. There are those who say that in view of the fact that the data from the recent shuttle mission showed that the problem that caused the Columbia accident was not completely solved that the shuttle mission should be suspended for a significant period of time. I'm not in sympathy with that position at all. The shuttle program it for a billion dollars a year gets a budget equal to the entire US cancer research budget. And if it's important enough to take that amount of funds that could be used for those kinds of purposes to accomplish its goals then those goals are important enough to risk some shuttle crews that 2 percent risk per per per mission which is the documented risk rate assuming that there's been no

improvement to shuttle safety whatsoever. The. That is subjecting say five show crew Thirty five people to a 2 percent risk. If the missions are not important enough to be worth that then they're not important enough to merit it. The whole US cancer research budget so they've got to decide one way or the other if the shuttle program is worth it they got to fly it. Well let's talk about the shuttle. And actually about what's going to come next because I think that there there's there seems to be this idea that no matter what we do to try to patch up the vehicles that we have and to make it possible for them to continue to fly for a while that something is going to have to be designed to replace it. And the big question seems to be well what what is going to be the next thing what is going to replace the Shah. Well the the key question is what is our actual goal.

OK. We shouldn't be designing things we should be designing plans. OK. Now if our plan is to go to the moon and Mars then we design systems that are suitable for that. But the problem with the shuttle is not that it's unsafe. I mean it is uncertain but spaceflight is going to be on say. I mean when you fly to orbit you know you put an amount of energy into each person and each not in bulk equal to that person's weight in excuse me not that person's weight almost 10 times that person's weight in TNT. OK when you instill that kind of energy into any person every object that's dangerous and it's going to be dangerous. It's going to be dangerous when we go to the moon it's going to be dangerous from going to Mars. The question is to be actually doing missions that are worthy of the kind of danger that spaceflight requires. Now that's why I brought up the Hubble repair mission. OK. The Hubble mission is clearly we're flying.

You're talking about the greatest Astronomical Observatory in human history one that is changed our notion of what the laws of the universe are. It is worth the 4 billion dollars of U.S. taxpayers money that went into it. That's as much as we spend for a new nuclear powered aircraft carrier. OK to abandon a sinking aircraft carrier rather than expose seven volunteers to a 2 percent risk would result in a court martial of the officer who made such a decision. So abandoning Hubble the same thing. So clearly if you have something which is worth doing that much worth doing then it's worth taking a risk for. And of course the astronauts are all volunteers. Now whether or not these other shuttle missions to the space station are really worth the money we're paying for them which is to say. Because if they're worth the money we're paying for and then they're worth the risk of 2 percent to the crew that flies of course. We're paying almost a billion dollars each for these missions. On the other hand if they're not really worth what we're paying for them if they're not worth anything then they're not worth any risk

at all. And so that said if our goal is the moon and Mars then we need to design a set of spaceflight systems that can achieve those goals we need a heavy lift launch vehicle a heavy lift launch vehicle could in fact be readily created by taking the shuttle launch stack and getting rid of the orbiter and replacing it with a hydrogen oxygen ever stage and we can get a Saturn 5 equivalent vehicle. And that is the most convincing argument actually for preserving the shuttle industrial infrastructure at this point because it can be converted for heavy lift. But that said then that's what we should do. There are plans right now to just keep flying the shuttles for five years on and off whenever we can break through these launch holes that will reoccur. And just to pay a certain amount of money to create to preserve the shuttle industrial infrastructure and then start developing a heavy lift vehicle in 2010. This is in fact the Bush policy. But it doesn't make any sense you're basically wasting

five years of the manned spaceflight program which is to say 30 billion dollars to stay in place. If we have a different objective than what we had when we initiated the shuttle and station programs. Which was to experience space flight if we understand that space is simply not something to be appreciated by being in you know encountering zero gravity health effects but rather space is a medium whose chief importance is that it is something that you fly across to reach worlds on the other side. Then the currents said a system should essentially be abandoned immediately and we should develop a heavy lift vehicle. We should develop a small crew capsule like the one we used in Apollo to allow for a crew re-entry at very high velocities from return from the moon or the planets. We should develop habitation modules that we can use to live in on the moon or on Mars or on the way to Mars.

Let me just introduce very quickly our guests to reintroduce our guest with us part of folks 580. Dr. Robert Zubrin he is an engineer and trained in astronautics in the aeronautics and nuclear engineering he worked for Nassa. He's a former member of the exploration the Mars exploration a long term strategy working group. He's also worked on the design of advanced space transportation and propulsion concepts and has been as you probably can tell by listening to him for some very strong advocate for the exploration of space for going back to the moon and also to Mars. He's written about this in a couple of books I just mentioning in the most recent which is titled entering space creating a space faring civilization that actually have another one that's more recent than that. Oh I am. My apologies then what's the title of that. OK. The first book was Mars and I was the case from our time second book was entering space and the third book is entitled Mars on Earth the adventures of space pioneers in the High Arctic.

And that's about the work of the Mars Society private organization setting up a simulated Mars Station up 900 miles from the North Pole they set up a simulated Mars Station there and have been conducting Mars missions in the polar desert to learn how to explore that indeed Well if people are interested they can head up to the bookstores and look for those pranks and questions are welcome here 2 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well to talk a little bit about going back to the moon and going to Mars as far as the moon is concerned we've been there. Guess my understanding would be that we know how to do that that's the technical challenges aren't quite so great there. When we talk about going to Mars it's something else. It's further that low. I guess the actually working on Mars is not quite as difficult as working on the moon but it is the is the brig big problem here is the big problem here Technical are the issues technical or is it more a matter of deciding that first of all that we want to do it and then we have to decide how we're going to

pay for it. Well first of all the the big problem is political. OK it's a problem of having a political leadership that has the guts to take on this challenge. I mean I have to say that in comparing President Bush's announcement of his vision for space exploration to Kennedy's announcement of the Apollo program in 1961 it seems like we've become a nation of Lilliputians compared to whom we used to be. Kennedy committed us to the moon in eight years at a time when this country had 15 minutes of human space flight experience we didn't even know people could eat in space let alone whether they could go to the moon. OK. But he had the guts to commit us to that and do it within the decade was you say within eight years of his speech President Bush. In January 2004 you know wave the flag and said I

have a vision and it was to return to the moon by 20 20 16 years twice as long as it took us to go the other first time when we didn't even know how to do it and Mars which is the proximate challenge and we are much better technologically are ready today to send humans to Mars than we were to send men to the moon in 161. So if you're going to Mars today it's a smaller challenge than going to the moon was in 1061. And that's postponed for the indefinite future so what will you have here is a real lack of courage and it's a costly lack of courage because for example the way they position the vision so-called was as I mentioned to spend the next five years essentially accomplishing nothing continuing business as usual with the shuttle on the station. Neither of which have any role in a moon program. And. And 30 billion dollars out the window in five years. And then after that starting on a 10 year moon program which is even then longer

than it took to go there. So basically cowardice is costly. You know and I think this is a real question of social values you know I saw on the news yesterday these these female people cutting and running on evacuating people because a few shots were fired at them by looters in Louisiana. So they did it. So to preserve their own safety they want tens of thousands of people to die. And that's unacceptable we we have to have values in this country that celebrate courage. And we have to have a space probe the space program should be the epitome of putting out that. Well I'm not sure in New Orleans where the point where tens of thousands of people have died but no they haven't died yet but they're going to if they are allowed to stay stranded in those houses and on roofs. But I guess that we're and I'm for we have a couple callers here ready to go and I'm fully expecting whenever we talk about a subject like this to hear from someone who says it's it's not worth spending even a dime

on it. And that what we really should be doing is working on addressing the needs of people here on the. The earth and why spend our money on such a foolish thing as going to Mars. I'm sure we're going to hear that so that that gets at the question. You know perhaps one question is why do it at all but but also get this question well if we if we re allocated the money that we're spending now on space would that be sufficient to do it. How much more would we have to spend really what what kind of money are we talking about. Well number one yes we could do it by reallocating the money we're spending now on space between shuttle and station spending 6 billion a year that's more than twice as much as we need to mount a competent humans to Mars program. All right so it's and so it's not it's it would not mean an additional expenditure. No no. Not unless you also chose to keep in place the current wasteful programs. But the but. No you could do this within the budget that Massa currently has now. So the. The other question that we're left with is the why do it at all question.

Well there's a lot of reasons. I mean the you know first of all this is science we're going to find out whether we're alone in the universe with a life as we know it on earth is the pattern for all life everywhere or whether we're just one branch of a much more vast tapestry. We're going to talk about developing. I mean the intellectual capital that would be developed would more than pay for the program if you want to think in dollars and cents terms. That is you know during Apollo in the 60s when we had a real space program the number of science graduates in this country doubled at every level high school college Ph.D. and that produced millions of scientists engineers inventors doctors medical researchers that have advanced the country in every way from medical cures to defense systems to new industries. But. It's about creating the future. I mean look you know humans are going to expand into space. OK. And there's a question here what people will those be what values will they celebrate Will they be people who separate celebrate the values of western human ism or

will they celebrate Islamic fundamentalism OK or the Chinese can totalitarianism that you know what what is the nature of the human future. We speak English because the English went forth from their little island and spread their culture around the world and which is then evolved in different ways in different places but which on the whole has been a very positive development imagine what happened if the Ottoman Turks had been the one to settle the new world. Oh I meant you get some arguments from some people about whether or not that would necessarily have been worse than theirs. Better still if they think that living in a purdah is prefer a bowl to the kind of life that Americans have today then they don't know anything. Well put your flak jacket on we're going to take some calls now let's go to the line one. It's a cell phone caller hello. Oh yeah yeah we try to be very very high. Yeah

dime is too much in every question. But the guesses rather mean that I don't need a me answering those questions you brought up about. Is there anybody out there or is there a life out there and we can we can learn from him. I build the I don't need to answer the question. And the amount of money we're spending there. Just look around this country and somebody can we spend that money more wisely somewhere else. And I really have a problem here. You can let me answer it. Number one I'm actually partly in sympathy with you. Because the way the space budget is being spent now they certainly are wise replace We could spend it somewhere else. OK. So actually you don't have an argument from me on that. OK. Frankly the way the shuttle and space station budget has been spent I would just assume spend it on highway repairs or armor for the troops or. You know

you name it any any program at all practically would be certainly more worthwhile. However just because the money is being wasted on the space program in the way it's being spent now doesn't mean that it couldn't be spent and that they're in a wise way and that there is a goal worth pursuing that in fact is is very important and that goal is the shape of the human future. And yes there are very real needs in our society today in this country and around the world. But just because there are people hungry today does not negate the need to save seed corn for next year. Well no caller there probably doesn't satisfy your that your concerns that the five I think they slashed the budget I'm a can do do with what they can you know or you know they should cut the budget back for the space program because at this point in time that's not going to be any anything to anybody down there in the states that are fighting. With the with the hurricane it's not a fire

anybody around here with $3 gas it's not it's not going to matter. Well actually you know I don't know that that's not true sir. In fact it is oh no no no no wait a second. 80 percent of the people in New Orleans were saved by the space program because those satellite pictures that let us know the path and strength of that hurricane and when it was coming that allowed the mare to make the announcement evacuate the city which was an extreme announcement which no one would make without certain knowledge of the danger that was coming. OK but we got 80 percent of the people out of that town because I don't and will never have a good line to buy this space and walk it off or walking on Mars is going to make a difference if you go down there right now and tell the people that you want to increase the budget it's been more money I'm asked to do different things. See what happens. Well OK I appreciate the comments of the caller. Obviously you have strong concerns and so does the Gaston and. Think I'm going to jump in here because I think it be profitable for us to go much further. Let's go to another caller here Chicago

and this is the next person in line number for yellow color there in Chicago. Question of values that are certainly prominent there know all the discussion now and interface conditions on earth need remedy and we want to maybe perhaps put a colony on the loan and maybe venture out to the edge of our capacity to my you know we have a need to be signed again or pursuit that can exist in the atmosphere of Mars as I understand it but the neighbors are fortunate to deal with that situation up to the moon. But they actually have not developed a suit that they ask not for the wear on the environment and the wind forces that I think I've heard Can year around online for I understand it now may be a factor mitigate the strength of that wind velocity. But exactly you haven't got an amount of that. I respect that. Resign or no pursuit at which we stand under those conditions and. I think we have to develop a lot of rope can we recover

her power and I'm prepared to play from New Orleans for some hundred planets read a longer think of a colony moan before we do much else thank you. Well let's let me ask you to just answer the first part. Yeah do that answer. Yeah we certainly have spacesuit. Think can operate on Mars and know the wind forces on Mars on the surface of Mars are not that great it does get sometimes to very high winds aloft on Mars and those create dust storms that obscure solar energy so you'd need nuclear power on the surface of Mars if you want to reliable power. But the suits that we used in Apollo would operate on Mars the problem with Mars spacesuits right now is not Do we have a suit that would do we quibbling things on Mars that we did on the moon. What we need are space suits that can be used again and again and maintained by a small team of people on Mars rather than a staff of 100 people at Johnson Space Center. We fitting them after being worn three times. So yeah there's some technology development to be done there to create a space suit that would be

useful to a crew that would be on Mars for a year year and a half at a time. But it's not like that's something we can't do I mean it's something that we need to do. Sure. B The question that keeps coming up OK. Is this question of the needs of the future versus the needs of the present. Well as I mentioned before. First of all those are those are hard to to put against each other. But been along the needs of the present are being met by the investments that we made in the space programme in the past. If you look at CNN you know and use this in the days before Katrina hit and you constantly saw that graphic of a color whirling hurricane approaching the shore where did that image come from that came from our space program. That's where that came from and that's what allowed 80 percent of the population of the city to be evacuated. Now furthermore f I also

mentioned the intellectual capital created by the space program is tremendous. But the wealth of a nation is dependent upon its intellectual capital V. The space program has been a tremendous generator of intellectual capital especially during the Apollo period somewhat not as much during the recent period because it hasn't had the same kind of bold character to it. But if we have a humans to Mars program that would say to every young person in this country learn your science and you can become part of pioneering a new world and out of that we get millions of scientifically educated people that will create industries that doctors inventors engineers. These are the people that make our country strong whether it's for economic purposes military purposes for the purposes of finding medical cures that advance the human condition. OK. I'd be very surprised if a lot of those doctors that are treating those people down there in the South and elsewhere or the medical researchers that develop the cures that they're implementing were not

encouraged to go into biology by the excitement they had over science because of what was going on in our space program in the 1980s when they were growing up. Well let me introduce Again our guest we have some other callers. We'll get to them. Our guest in this hour focus 580 Dr. Robert Zubrin he's president a pioneer at. Strong Nordics He's a former engineer from Nassa has degrees in aeronautics astronautics and nuclear engineering from University of Washington while he was at NASA. He was a member of the Mars exploration long term strategy working group. He's also editor for Mars exploration of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society also worked at Lockheed Martin astronautics working on the design of advanced space transportation and propulsion concepts and is the author of three books all very strongly advocating the human involvement in space and going out into space. His books are The Case for Mars entering space and the most recent Mars on Earth the adventures of space pioneers in the High Arctic. And you can look for his books in that book store questions are welcomed 3 3 3

9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 1. Next caller is in nearby community Belgium. Why number one. Hello. No more commentary. It seems there are a basic problem with what where we're not being able to go where we want is that we have an administration that is made nothing but improper decisions from improper energy powers from improper decisions after 9/11 and there are very few improper decisions after this. We need to move on. Thank you. I know you want to say anything make any comment on that Dr. Zuber. Well gee I'm actually politically independent I have criticisms of both parties but it's certainly the case that the current Bush space policy is only half a step in the right direction and it basically says we're going to continue to have the wrong space policy for the next five years and then we'll start a better policy

in 2011 should the people in power at that time choose to do so. So you know yeah I think that the strategic direction of the space program is inadequate. And but I wouldn't describe this simply to a problem of Mr Bush it was also inadequate under Mr. Clinton as well. Let's go to the next. CALLER And this is someone in the in. Ogden Illinois line number two. Hello. This is important to me very. I look at our world from many years of being here on Earth. And what I see is that we are becoming over populating all the areas of the air. And if we don't continue Arnason research and go in to pay them fine their planet and

our earth is going to die from us. And I feel that this is a very important project. And if it's not continued we can see our our what's happening now our farmland is taken over from working on the farmland to do putzes. And I'm very frightened of our future here on Earth and I think if we move on into space. And gaining some knowledge of how to live in days and have maybe a basin from one planet to another from one spot to another. It might be a wiser idea to do that in this day on earth and watch our children go hungry and want the old

guy. It's really important to me on this subject to go ahead and to Mars and to other planets. That's all I well all right I appreciate the comment Dr. Zubrin you want to respond though I think the comment is fundamentally well taken. It's really a question of whether we have an open future or a close future. You know you know odd since it could be said that humans are not really made of to the earth were native to Kenya. I mean that's where we originated in the Kenyan Rift Valley where tropical animals who actually have these long fin arms with no fur on them no human being could survive a single winter night in Illinois without technology such as clothing fire houses. These are inventions this is what allowed us to leave our natural habitat which is the African tropics too. Colonize the earth but think how limited the human prospect would be if we

had stayed in our natural habitat of the canyon Rift Valley if we had remained if we had survived it all in such a limited domain. You know a collect a small collection of tribes in a local area. How diverse could human culture today be. I mean we certainly wouldn't have a worldwide civilization with a hundred and fifty languages and you know literatures and histories and the whole human story would be a much poorer affair and am I without all those different nations they wouldn't be the different inventions that came from those nations I mean we'd be impoverished in every sense. So the idea of an open human future with new branches of human civilization coming to be on new worlds offers a much more optimistic prospect for the human future. Well certainly people have been imagining this humans going out in numbers into space for some time and humans have done it in small numbers but I guess it seems to me to be a pretty big leap from the idea of a stablish being some sort of

small permanent settlement on Mars on the moon and perhaps going to Mars. The big leap from there to the idea of people in any significant numbers going out and establishing some kind of permanent colonies in space. No one can imagine that but if you try to think or in a realistic sense given all of the various challenges technological and otherwise whether you could really imagine such a thing happening with the within even the next few centuries. You know it could be done. Actually in my book The Case for Mars I address exactly this question that you know if you had really for once you establish a Mars base and it develops its own agriculture and greenhouses the ability to make local materials steel glass plastics and so on and you start sending people to Mars if you send on the order of 100 people here to Mars which really could be done for a budget

comparable to NASA's current project V. Natural population growth would increase the population of Mars at about the same rate that the European population increased in America in this 16 and 707. Now it doesn't run. I'm not talking about relocating a large population from Earth to Mars. I'm not talking about some people talk about but I don't. Solving the earth's population pressure by taking large numbers of people from Earth and putting them on a dozen other world I don't think that will happen at all. Just as the large majority of Europeans by far stayed in Europe only a tiny minority came to America. Nevertheless America was colonized in a new branch of human civilization emerged here lets off with some of the folks will go in. Next to Coal City line or right here a line for Hello. Well yes OK. You know I agree with her 100

percent on space exploration. The only trouble is during 1062 and under Kinney administration we was feeding upon ourselves. Now what we're doing is we're taken like their robot arm that they got on the space shuttle that's made in Canada and done this country no good in it but people who work in a snow you know in this country we're building up other countries. We're we're get no work outside the country which don't do us no good and if it don't do this no good it's no use having it because we're not putting Americans to work. We're not used to American ingenuity we're not used American minds and we're not using American math. We're just about like all the gown Microsoft then imports these workers from India and place a get in college students from India do to be computer scientists. Bill Gates I mean what good would to space program do for us if we're exporting all our work to get it done.

Well looks beat up on yourself if we feed upon ourselves. I would be 100 percent for it but we've got too many people in this country and need help. I think the caller makes an interesting point and I'm interested. Having you address it's poseur and I guess the way my way of thinking about it is is it would it actually be possible for the United States to do what it is you're talking about. Go back to the moon go to Mars and just do it and have it just be an effort by the United States or would one way or another this have to be an international effort. No the United States could do it by itself. But I favor an international effort although constructed somewhat differently from the way our current international effort is constructed. The caller is partially correct although only partially. The there is a certain fraction of the US space budget that is going.

And I'd have to argue in an improper way out outside the country and I'm talking about in particular to prop up a corrupt Russian government that has a lot of the space station budget is shipped over to Russia and. And you can see the half million dollar Deitch is going up around the Russian state space centers and that's all the money gets crafted by these Russian officials and then the whole thing was done to prop up the Yeltsin government and it's even propping up the Putin government and. And that's wrong. But back. Less than five. Percent of the NASA's budget it's a it is a scandal and shouldn't happen but that the large majority of the budget is in fact spent in the United States and it does help support US aerospace industry which is of course a critical part of our national defense absolutely critical part of our national defense. Now there is another problem though with the current internationalization of the

program which is that we have become emissions with the Europeans in the space station program in fact the excuse that the Bush administration uses believe it or not as to why they can't break off the space station program and start immediately on the moon and Mars which is their stated goal which a space station has essentially no relationship to is because we have obligations to our European partners. To continue the space station program. Now you know it it does ring a bit hollow coming especially from the Bush administration that they should let their policy be determined by the French. But the Nevertheless that's how they're conducting the baby space program with respect to its strategic objectives not in accord with American objectives. But in court with some sorts of international agreements which do not correspond anymore to American objectives and I don't like that. Now that said United States could fully

afford to send humans to Mars on its own. I think though we should encourage the Europeans to form their own program and fly to Mars in convoy with us and the Japanese and Russians as well. Everyone can bring their own ship and that way instead of having one crew of five on Mars will have four. And you know we can go and visit the European crew at Christmas and have drinks together and but Or more seriously the crews can back each other up if they get into trouble and we and different crews can make different discoveries in the program as a whole will be richer for it. But we don't need to depend on them and we certainly don't need to give them our money. We have about 10 minutes left in this part of focus 580 Our guest again Dr. Robert Zubrin He's president of Pioneer astronautics. Has his background in aeronautics astronautics nuclear engineering. He worked for Nassa. He was part of the working group that was interested in developing a long term strategy for Mars exploration He's also worked for Lockheed Martin on the design of advanced space transportation and propulsion and is author of three books about space exploration including the Case for Mars

The second book entering space creating a space faring civilization the most recent is titled Mars on Earth the adventures of space pioneers in the High Arctic. We have other callers. Next we'll go to someone in Chicago I believe in this should be line number one. Hello. Good morning. I sort of want to reflect again about what the last caller said and perhaps put it in another way is someone who at best has this interest in the space program. It comes from two reasons. And the first one is that you may use the example that this space program has helped 80 percent of the people in New Orleans but what is distressing is that there was no plan for 20 percent of the people. And I guess what always happens when I look at the space program and the proposed benefits from it is that I see a hundred percent. Public funds going into programs that were unlucky if they help as many as 8 percent 80 percent but usually such as the space shuttle program. I'm not even

sure that's affecting 1 percent and that's the first part. As a taxpayer is that some how these programs never seem to be visualized in any way to help maximum people and support our society in any way. The second problem that I have is that the problem of simply pollution it seems like every time we do something like this I'm looking at the exploration we're having in the Arctic. We simply pollute and I'm off. You know when they said that the last space show they thought it was being hit by space debris I almost jumped out of my chair is like what. How in the world do we think we're going anywhere when we seem to be polluting our new frontier almost faster than we've polluted the old frontier. So I guess those are the two problems the almost cavalier way in which we do it. And the fact that there doesn't seem to be

a real lot that if you're using 100 percent public funds you need to have programs that will affect eventually 100 percent of the population. When you want to respond Well yeah I have two actually one of the things about Massa that is better than the mass of the 1960s is in attempting to address the slightly this question there has been a tremendous effort at Massa to recruit female astronaut's Afro American and Asian astronaut's and also not just astronauts but personnel running missions the unmanned program. Astronomers managers engineers that the Natha today really does reflect America. And when you know. A woman astronaut speaks to you know a high school or

you know a black astronaut whatever. They show people who in previous generations might have considered themselves excluded from the advanced technical professions that they really that they can do it. And indeed they can I mean and Nafa right now. Be percents of these groups that are hired are fully representative of their percentages in the American public. And so so it's not just a few examples for show at all. So I would say that Nath actually is doing a lot to open up the scientific professions to women and minorities that it's not just a white boys game anymore. And. I think that's good that means that a humans to Mars program today would actually have a much bigger social impact that the Apollo program did in the 60s because in the 160 you know adventure going to the moon excited excited millions of young white

boys to want to become scientists. Now it would excite not only them but also the girls and minorities and everyone else so. So I think actually match being. That was a real problem but that's being addressed and being a little bit that. And lessness us also funding money into our poor public schools. You won't have an African-American or a woman scientist to choose from. Well no actually I mean I did a hundred a month. Look I got to tell you I mean right now. The thing you know I used to be a teacher actually and I taught in black high schools and I also taught in white high schools of various quality some good and some really not very good. And the and I can tell you the thing that determines success in education is the morale of the students. Anybody can teach students who want to learn and nobody can teach students who don't want to learn. And that's the bottom line it doesn't matter whether you're

dealing with a chalk on a blackboard or an LCD projector all these knick knacks. There are entirely secondary to whether the students want to learn or not. And if you have something going on like a humans to Mars program that is offering science as an adventure to these kids you have the potential to draw much more of them into it. And this in fact you know two billion dollars a year would be a drop in the bucket spent in the educational system. But if it it it cost a million kids a year to major in science. And that would be across the board now lots of girls lots of minorities would go into it. Not just boys. Then the educational impact in fact would be superior than direct spending in the educational So you're saying that Nephi is putting 2 million to A.R.. No no what I'm saying is this. OK you've got. 100 million next season that's not correct. You got around 50

million kids in school right now in the I think at one level or another from kindergarten through a college senior. And then over the next 10 years will be another 50 million so that's a hundred million. If over those 10 years a humans to Mars program was to cause one percent of them to go into science that wouldn't have gone into it before that's a million extra scientists inventors engineers doctors medical researchers. OK that's huge. And you could do that OK at a cost say of two billion a year or really not at much of cost at all costs if you did it by redirecting the shuttle money. But we'll call it a cost two billion a year. That's twenty billion dollars two billion a year scattered among 50 million students is what like 40 dollars a student that would pay for

an extra textbook or something. B that's not very much in other words that this space program has the potential to actually affect students lives by inspiring them. And sometimes the indirect approach is more effective than the direct approach and I think the space program if it's properly directed that money will do more for education than simply distributing it to schools. And again the caller will forgive me for jumping in because we're almost out of time we have a maybe a minute or two left I would like to try to include at least one more caller and so we'll go to the next person in line. It's a listener in Chicago on line 3. Hello hi. I basically agree with you with with your position that much of NASA's being bundled on many of its programs are being bundled and has been over for a long time now. My position is based on the information I've gotten from

from a person who was with Nasser for over 30 years and basically his feeling goes that and I says to carry that sense since it. Johnson since the Nixon administration when emphasis was placed on making the whole operation controlled by commercial enterprise and commercial interests. And from that point on from the Nixon administration on the nationalism the administration has been deteriorating and he felt that after the first five or six years with no assets he was wasting his life. He got very few assignments and so you see people who are running. Nasha Eventually one of the industries and they were running it for a profit they weren't interested in scientific accumulating scientific knowledge primarily. And as a result. Problems are obvious and we're outside trying to at this point and I guess.

Got to get a comment here from the guest because we're almost out of time what do you think about that argument. Well you know modify a word here or there but he's right. V. There was a drastic change in the direction of Nassa at the end of Apollo at the Apollo during Apollo we had a mission driven organization. The agency had a goal and it conducted its activities to the purpose of achieving that goal. After Apollo without a goal it became a constituency driven organization whose purpose was to serve its vendors. Kate it's it's like the difference of imagine two couples that each want to build their own dream house. And the first couple has a plan they hire an architect to design the house and they go and buy the parts that build the house. Couple a couple be they go and they pull their neighbors and local store owners on what House parts they might have for sale that could plausibly be used as part of a house and they buy

those that are most convincingly marketed to them and they accumulate the junk in the back yard that's been Nafa since the end of Apollo and in order for Nasser to accomplish anything it have to have a goal it's got to be a mission driven organization not a vendor driven organization. All right there we're going to have to leave it. And once again our guest Dr. Robert Zubrin who's president of Pioneer astronautics former engineer at NSA. If you're interested in reading some of his writing about space exploration you can look for his most recent book Mars on Earth the adventures of space pioneers in the Arctic or the one before that entering space creating a space faring civilization published by Target Putnam in 1999 Dr. Zuber thank you for talking with us. Thank you and one more thing. If they want to know about what they can do to help advance the space program there's an organization called the Mars Society to get involved with. And the Web site for that is Mars Society dot o RG. All right thank you.