I am trying to marry a girl and

I am remembering a school of
international affairs and.

Policy what kind of reality
THEY LIKE I'M NORMAL we

were.

Human spaceflight and national Really.

I was part of that we've been
able to get it done and you may.

Say we're very excited about.

A little bit of introduction throughout
the city and some of the things that

you've done and then I'll turn
it up over to her throughout.

Her.
Life in Africa working with

a face full of.

Doctors and you may or may not be
executive director of American is that

when I say I don't like the world's
largest coal fire a good music global

aerospace the aerospace profession
is bordering Illinois and

handling very diverse view of science and
technology ready for

the degree in physics and I mean with
a master's degree and I like the way here.

She also in one eye on Dorothy's house
where she's going to get her Ph D.

in your real science and.

I may ask what is it that our
war in ninety six through for

you on the on one well shuttle mission and
on the final shuttle mission

was one through five and twenty Well she
also when the International Space Station

on the F.B.I.'s one twenty six
November two thousand and eight and

served the plan here I mean are there
exhibition in returning home.

One night after four months on
the International Space Station.

Or time patience and NASA headquarters
exploration mission directorate.

And are laughing again after
after I guess what every five.

Astronaut.

Now I mean when you see
it I mean here really.

So we've.

Got.

More details OK All right thank
you very much thank you so

this is a little bit different than talks
I usually give which are all about my

experiences of flying in space was
a space policy conversation and

what I thought I would do is kind
of take you through my career and

talk about how space policy influenced
practically everything that I did and

even to the point of how I lived my
life it really is amazing when you

take a big level policy and
start to implement and

get it down into the weeds it was
dictating while I was travelling so

much on space station I would like
to make this a very interactive.

Conversations and I'm not just talking
to you the whole time I've got two big

kind of topics to go through Number one
I was in the class that really sort of

spanned the host space station assembly so
I started in one thousand

nine hundred sixty were just gearing up to
start launching and I spent a lot of time

in Russia helping to get hardware
ready to launch the very beginning and

then of course my class was a class that
started flying on the space station and

of course in one thirty five the last
shuttle mission which I was a part

of was the final assembly mission for
the space station so

the policy involved in the space station
is one of my topics that I'd like to

to go into a little bit of detail and
talk about that and then related to that

is the accident which occurred in
the middle of part of my career and

then the policy implications of what came
out of that what drove where we are today

so that's a lot to cover in an hour so
I don't know how far we're going to get so

I'll let you guys pace the conversation
based on what you're interested in and

where you have questions from and

we can just go from there like is that
I would like to keep it very informal

Don't be don't be shy it's always tough to
be the first person asking a question but

don't be shy if there's something
that you want to know about so

no order to set the stage for what
happened when I joined the office in one

thousand nine hundred six we have to go
back about if you guys covered the big.

On the station program yeah and
glass I don't think you have OK.

The space policy that affected my
life really started with regen and

all the way through Barack Obama
in today's world you know Reagan

announced the space you know United States
is going to build the space station in

Space Station Freedom it made a big deal
out of it mention it was going to be

international and Space Station Freedom
did start as an international project

with the Japanese and
the Canadians and the Europeans and

like every other space program project
that you hear about budget became an issue

we have a very recurring theme in space
policy where the United States except for

the Apollo program actually the United
States makes this big announcement

we're going to do this project and
then the funding typically does not follow

the path that you needed to to
sustain a program like that and

that's a reoccurring theme in our space
program which we can talk about but

they had to do several redesigns
of the Space Station Freedom over

the course of a seven or eight year period
because the budget kept shrinking and and

the the capabilities of the station kept
changing this is a very tricky thing

to do when you have international
agreements Congress supported it

because it was a jobs program for various
space industry to time when they're

a space industry was shrinking because of
the Cold War ending and so it had a lot of

initial positive aspects to it but because
of just the nature of the beast and

in the space program as the Congress
has a very short term attention span

the administration's change every four
years space programs you know projects

take ten years you know to build a rocket
and to field things that's hard I mean you

look at Virgin if you like the Virgin
Galactic guys they flew in two thousand

and four and they were claiming they were
going to suborbital flights just a few

years later it's ten years later they're
not there yet it's hard it's hard and

so sometimes it's hard to get our
government focused on the long term and

that's a constant challenge
that we even have today but

freedom was announced they got started
on it they redesigned it several times.

In one nine hundred ninety
three several years.

Before I joined NASA they
reached a crock the because of

the funding the budget projections
the station was designed with less and

less capability people were
getting frustrated and

it really only passed by one vote in
the House that year they hung the station

program as freedom hung on by a thread
now at this time Clinton Clinton

ministration was coming after they
years of Reagan Clinton came in and

things in Russia were starting to get
very tense the the Cold War it and

they were you know they did
that step function change

from a communist system to a democratic
system and it was very interesting I

started going over there nine hundred
ninety eight and I was still seeing.

Issues from this which I can
talk about in a minute but

there was a lot of concern at
the national level the policy level and

in the State Department in the deferred
depends Defense Department about

what's going to happen with all these
unemployed Russian scientists and

engineers they're going to go to
countries that don't work or and

give them technology we don't want them to
have we need to do something to stabilize

the Russian technological base let's
invite them into the space station program

and so there's a piece of space policy
that was really foreign policy implemented

in the space realm and so that brought the
Russians into the space station program

and there had been some informal
conversations going on before that but

the Clinton administration really pushed
it and that's a point was renamed

the International Space Station Now the
interesting thing about the way the space

station program was conceptional eyes
implemented is that the agreements between

the countries that are in the space
station program are all State Department

level treaty kind of they're called
memorandums of understanding so

these were not just agreements that were
made as the head of agencies the but

the foreign policy community was involved
in negotiating these treaties so

it's kept the program really
stable over the ages.

Regardless of what the politicians of
any particular country are doing any

particular time related to their
particular economic situation

because these ammo uses memorandum of
understanding where the implementation

tool used to define the program it created
a very very strong partnership and

that was something that I ran into a lot
when I was working in Russia because

the memorandum of understanding that
defined the International Space Station

stated and I'm going to go
ahead to a slide real quick and

I'll come back maybe not this is
this is basically what it defined is

what country is going to
provide what equipment.

Who's going to build what and so you get
from what you put into the station you get

out of the station so if you're supplying
sixty percent of the hardware you get

sixty percent of the current time you get
sixty percent of the power you get sixty

percent of the science cap capability
if you provide twelve percent of

the employed you get twelve percent
etc and so everything that we do to

this day in the space station is defined
by this what are you putting into it and

then will define what you get out of it
everything from the amount of science

equipment that you can launch to the crew
time you get to deploy the science to that

how many crew members from your country
shows up and lives on the station it and

it what frequency that happens that's
all defined by these M O U's and

everything that happens in
the context of these agreements

it's kind of funny it's an old
fashioned barter system so

let's say we want to launch some
extra equipment progress vehicle.

We barter with them OK if you guys
take one hundred kilograms or

ten kilograms of science equipment for
us you know we'll give you ten

kilowatts of power whatever or an extra
two hours of current time and so there's

this constant bartering system that goes
on in the context of these M O U's But

this is basically sets up how the station
wasn't initially conceptualized and

these memorandums of
understanding with the blue.

Being the U.S. the U.S. provided most
of the space station the launch and

the U.S. provided launch capabilities for
most of the space station and

that was also done in a barter agreement
Russia you can see the green parts Russia

is still they have a little bit of a
different viewpoint they're still actually

a couple modules they're slowly working on
that may still make it to the station we

kind of did all of ours that at one time
and just lined them up and launch launch

launch they kind of have a little bit
of a different approach can a decided

to do the robotics that's their expertise
that's the expertise they're leveraged off

their shuttle experiences Japan has
a host science module as well as an X.

turtle platform where they can do people
can put experiments out in the backyard

of space Europe was kind of interesting
because you're provided a module and

then it only as a subcontractor directly
to the station program also was involved

in participating so
that was a unique situation but this is

basically how the program was set up in
the context of these barter agreements and

these memorandum of understanding so
now it's nine hundred ninety six I enter

the office and we're at the point I
have to go through my basic training and

then you get technical jobs my first
technical job was in Russia and

so we had to go to Russia there was
a bunch of us that went to Russia and

our job was to help.

Basically translate everything Russian and
English we did a lot of that just because

operationally you have to have
the same language but also

work on helping to get the first module
said because the first modules are they

have to be was supposed to be launched
in one nine hundred ninety eight and so

we ended up serving as lies on a lot of us
from the operational world astronauts and

flight controllers and things like
that we're not serving as liaison's

to the Russians for the rest of
the program and trying to help people

understand how to work together because
we lived there I lived in Russia for

a month and then I was in Houston for a
month and I was in Russia for a month and

I was in Houston for run and
I did that for several years.

And so the M.O. use were driving these
memorandums of understanding were

driving everything that we were doing and
everything that we could do or

we could not do as far as how
we interacted with the rush.

And what kind of testing we would do
what kind of training we would do

what get translated into English what
didn't get translated into English and

this all came down from these barter
agreements from the from the very

beginning it was it was very.

It was a very entertaining job.

They had we had started at NASA
program with the Mir station

to fly us astronauts to me here in order
to start understanding how to interface

with the Russian system because you know
the Russians had a program of forty years

old US had a program was forty years old
we all knew how to do everything and

we knew the other guys didn't
know anything you know that's

standard operating procedure if you've
done something for decades and so

we had to learn a lot from each other we
had to learn how to work together and

there were some of the older people in
the community on both sides still remember

the Cold War and the competition that we
had back in the sixty's and seventy's and

so there was a very interesting mix of
experience that's very instrumental of.

Prejudice is that one way or the other
variants to mix of levels of enthusiasm

about the station so we had to go over
there and and make that all work in

the Russian sent people to Houston and
they were doing the same things they were

trying to understand issues that was
all about building relationships and

building trust and it was all driven by
this you know we got to get the Russians

involved and stabilize their technological
community and now they're going to be on

the space station program so I was very
very entertaining I learned a lot.

And it was something I used the whole
rest of my career actually that to your

experience in Russia we launched the first
crew on board in November of two thousand

and now the way the Memorandum of
Understanding was set up with numbers

always no matter what going to be a
Russian at least one Russian at least one

American on station and so what we're
only doing a three person crew which

was all the station have the capability to
do early on that meant only Russians and

Americans were launching So
the international partners the rest.

Of the countries were not able to fly crew
members to station until we were able to

go to a six person crew which
didn't happen until nine years in

to the space station project so for nine
years it was two Russians an American or

two American a Russian and we would trade
that and we had dual ways to get to

the station some people launched on so use
some people launched on Shuttle of both

nationalities it was completely
it was completely mixed.

And that was partial into the memorandum
of understanding as well that up to

a certain point it was up to a six person
crew I believe don't quote me that we

would have these intermingling of
capabilities but after we got to a six

person crew theoretically things would
get a little bit more segregated and

and there was different opinions in
the community whether we wanted to be

a little bit more segregated in operations
or not the reality is today it's still

very much intertwined people are worried
about what's going on in the Ukraine right

now and how that affects space station the
space station program is very very very

tight partnership now and it's because of
this we've of treaties in this we have

a balance of contributions in this we've
of bartering that continually goes back

and forth you know the Russians provide
transport we pay for it they provide cargo

services we have cargo services
we give them power they.

Give us courage time I mean
there's meetings every quarter and

actually probably more frequently
with some other teams to figure out

what the next plan is going to be for
the next crew with an Internet there's all

these international working groups and
they're constantly working on this balance

of contributions back and forth and who's
going to get what time on this increment

what science experiments going to go and
who's going to launch it and

how the how it's the barter for that and
so this is a very very complex system and

today that's such a strong team that
you know the United States committed to

twenty twenty four Europe is debating
that right now in the context of

either building a new space a launch
vehicle or station or some in between and.

Russia is starting to make noises about
going beyond twenty twenty four as well so

the station program is a really strong
international program now started

really with an idea from Reagan which
was dwindling because of the budgets and

then refueled by the Clinton
administration because of the former

foreign policy needs the United States so
that's kind of where the station is.

And then what happened to what
happened and I'm going really fast so

we have time for questions but
then what happened we were building

the space station you know we launched the
first piece in one thousand nine hundred

eighty eight the launches took place some
on the Russian rocket some on the shuttle

again that was weave through the barter
agreements where people were doing

with three people up there we had dual
redundant strings of launching people on

Sawyer's a launch of people on shuttle and
then what happened we had the Columbia

accident and that was a shocker you know
in the Astronaut Office viewpoint we were

always a little worried about launches
because that's when Challenger blew up and

everyone was really not thinking about
the return it's actually pretty benign

even though it doesn't seem like it with
through all the friction of the atmosphere

but returns are not really not that scary
launches actually went out scary there but

it's not some think about and so
Columbia really startled everybody.

Even though the foam had been
falling off for a while but

what happened was that took us down to one
string and where we are today we only have

one way to get to the station with humans
which is the Soyuz so that's not really

a good position to be in because it's
not easy to launch people into space and

the Soyuz has a problem or you know
we're in trouble as a community so

the community itself wants to have another
launch capability which we'll talk about

in a minute but after the Columbia
accident we were relying on the Russians

to get people to station we took
the station down to two people instead of

three to conserve supplies and
make sure that we were.

Maintaining the right amount of cargo and
water and

food and things onboard because the
shuttle was a big asset from the viewpoint

of taking lots of stuff to space it takes
a lot of different smaller cargo vehicles

put together to make one shuttle so
we were two people and they.

In the United States what we did was we
had a Columbia there was a commie accident

investigation board that was
assigned to investigate why

the Columbia accident happened and to keep
it from you know make recommendations for

how to go forward this was a big
deal this committee decided

to look at sort of the shuttle program and
a whole and not just the particular

technical aspects of why the shuttle
you know why the foam came off and

why hit the wing and why that would damage
the wing and why it wasn't detected and

things like that they decided to look
at the shuttle program as a whole and

look at all the sort of causal factors
if you will that might have led

to the investigation going all the way
back to the design of the Shuttle which

was compromised by a lot of different
communities having different desires for

what the shuttle might do the Air Force
wanted to be able to retrieve satellites

and bring it down into classified areas
which is why you had to land on a runway

there were certain way constraints which.

Cause the Shuttle be put on the tank
instead of on top of the tank which is

where you would want it so

there are all kinds of compromises made at
the beginning of the shuttle to satisfy

all these different communities which
Accident Investigation Board studied and

made recommendations and pointed out how
the program was probably not optimal and

you can go back and study the budget and
the policy that was related to

again you know you get a long term
project the shrinking budgets you have to

compromise your engineering designs when
that happens and there's a whole we have

a conversation about that but in the end
they came out with this report and

so what they recommended was that.

You have to in two thousand and ten the
shuttles you know somebody completely for

the space station was supposed to be and
twenty times it was actually in two

thousand and eleven we were a year late
but the Accident Investigation Board said

hey you know what these shuttles in twenty
ten will be fine for thirty years and

so we're going to continue to fly
the shuttles this is way beyond what we

thought we were going to fly the shuttles
were going to continue to fly the show.

After twenty and you really need to stop
and do some major maintenance on them for

example the wiring in the Shuttle which
was wrapped by kept on was starting to

crackle and one of the shuttles actually
had a complete rewire because of that

the insulation coming off and there were
other things that were showing up here and

there in the structure that the Columbia
Accident Investigation Board recommended

if you're going to fly the shuttles after
twenty time you've got to do a deep

level is the Navy will put in a deeper
level overhaul make sure they're still

structurally sound make sure they're still
ready to fly updated so you continue to

fly him and so now this became
a decision point for the United States

wow if we have to overhaul the shuttles
and twenty ten of that's a recommendation

in order to keep flying them safely
that's going to cost a lot of money.

Do we do we want to invest that money in
the shuttle's a thirty year old technology

or do we want to do
something different and so

President Bush was the guy on the spot
when the decision had to be made and

they decided that they were going to use
the shuttles you know as their policy

change was all right let's use the
shuttles until we finish some with station

because that's what we need the shuttles
for that's what they really excel at and

after that instead of taking all that
money and applying it to continuing

the shuttles to fly the shuttle safely
beyond two thousand and ten we are going

to invest in a program that will take take
human beings beyond low Earth orbit and

he announced the Constellation program and
so all the money that would have been used

to keep the shuttles flying was
was going to be reallocated for

this new program that would be
called Constellation I would take

us to the moon some of you guys may
remember that at the same time there

was an acknowledgment the hey with the
retirement of the shuttle we are going to

be losing a cargo carrier and capability
to the space station and we have to have

a way to come up with a new cargo carrying
capability and that's when a commercial

that's the actually the first onset of
a commercial space program was why.

The cargo program back in the mid two
thousand two thousand I forget the exact

year of two thousand and five two thousand
and six somewhere in there so let's let's

build out the idea of a private
company creating a cargo vehicle so

that was the very first start of what you
would call commercial space these days

in the meantime NASA was given
the go ahead to build a capsule and

a rocket that could take
us beyond low Earth orbit.

The idea being they were going to
get to the moon to twenty twenty So

what happened so people started working on
that what happened the funding went down

so this is this is a reoccurring thing and
I just pains me to have to say it but

it's a reoccurring theme in space policy
where we have these big projects and

ones yes yes go and then as soon as the
political attentions you know it's turned

once they made the announcement
because really fundamentally.

Space Policy is kind of
an afterthought right now for

our country you know it's sort of a.

It's not on the list of to do's that
presidents usually get are are because

you're worried about Social Security
you're worried about taxes you're worried

about the economic environment so space
tends to take a second order backseat

to major policy issues it's not something
you get elected on and so a lot of if you

look at the trend I guess this is my
personal opinion but that's why I'm here

you know look at trend presidents pay
attention to space policy when they have

to Congress is interested in space policy
from the viewpoint of it pays it pays for

jobs in their districts right and so our
space policy world a little bit murky so

the minute president for the nonce the
Constellation program and then the funding

started not not being adequate to
what the goals of the program were.

And it's just the way it goes
unfortunately So what happened so

that that program is continuing they've
they've they're making progress Don't

get me wrong it's just going to
take longer than they expected and

usually when you delay the funding it
makes it more expensive as well so

what happened President Obama
comes in in two thousand and ten.

And they don't like
the Constellation program.

There was another study another panel that
was put together to decide OK we have this

constrained budget because we do have
a constrained budget United States we have

to deal with that we have a constrained
budget how are we going to make all

this work is the moon really the right
goal there's a lot there's in the space

community there's the the Moon
enthusiasm there are the asteroid.

And there are the Mars enthusiasm.

And then there's a few others that just
kind of want to go do some other small

things but those are the three groups and
so in a given time when you're making

policy you have proponents of these
three sort of destinations if you will

coming together and trying to say hey
you know what we got to do this or

hey we got to do this or hey we got to do
this and that's that's just our community

of very passionate people having very
specific ideas of what we should do

next so when Obama comes to power
you know budgets are still an issue

the Constellation program is behind where
the target because it wasn't funded

in the Obama administration
decides hey you know what.

We're not going to do this moon thing as
a matter of fact this commercial cargo

thing's going so
well let's create and foster

a new industry for human spaceflight
you know this was Loveridge and

off the Virgin Galactic and the X. PRIZE
that happened in two thousand and four and

all the excitement about access
to space for more people so

let's do that on a bigger scale and so
leveraging off of what we learned in

the commercial cargo industry about
public private partnerships and Space X.

and different appropriation methods let's
try this this commercial spaceflight.

Human Spaceflight thing and so
they change the plan now what's

interesting about how they change the plan
is they just overnight change plan

normally when you're contemplating policy
and you're trying to work things through

Washington you kind of grease the skids
a little bit if you're smart you're kind

of work in the back rooms you're talking
to people you're socializing your idea.

You're testing the waters a lot of that
that goes on up there it's really kind of

amusing but these guys they just said
hey you know tomorrow we're canceling

the Constellation program Congress had no
word no advance warning whatsoever people

at NASA didn't have advance warning
whatsoever they made the announcement and

Congress just went nuts like wait a minute
you can't do that without talking to

us this is basically the reaction and so
then there became of there was a battle

going on for quite a long time about
what should the Space Policy be because

the administration wanted to
this Congress was married to

the Constellation program even though they
have been funding that appropriately.

Neither had the administration
recommended it but

it was you know it was there was a big
battle there for quite some time and

now what we have is sort of a compromise
if you will where the commercial crew

program is very important and that remains
because it's very important that we create

another way to get humans into space
to support the space station and for

the administration it's very important
to do that in a way that encourages

new market and allows more access to lower
the orbit so those are very good things

those are very proper goals and so at the
point where in two thousand and ten where

all this was going on it became clear that
the quickest path to getting humans in

space again was using leveraging off what
was going on in the commercial market but

there was still a very strong
desire in the policy circles and

in the Congress especially and
in parts of the administration does go

to build the capabilities to go
beyond low Earth orbit and so

what they did was they took some of the
components that were being built as part

of the Constellation program the capsule

the rocket and kept those as part of
the you know this asteroid redirect

mission you probably heard about these
are things that are being used but

these are tools that you'll be able to use
for any particular mission and so now the.

The catchphrase if you will are they
approach is a capabilities driven approach

where you know regardless of whether
you're going to an asteroid or

you're going to the moon you're
going to Mars you need a raw.

That's big and you need a way of
supporting the crew and so that's what's

being created right now and that's the
beyond low Earth orbit programming that's

going on it doesn't have a name
like constellation like that but

there's a kick capsule being built that
should be able to support beyond low Earth

orbit there's a rocket being built that
should be a support the Earth orbit and

the commercial program the commercial crew
program is ongoing they're actually going

to be naked make an announcement sometime
in the next few weeks of which commercial

crew companies are going to get
a go ahead to build their service

what's also happened actually in
the last few months after the N.R.A.

the National Research Council was asked to
do a study of human spaceflight and they.

Released that report earlier this
year called Pathways of X. and

they were really focusing on Mars and
so now it's interesting to see

you know the what I'm hearing in
the community is there a lot of people now

whether you're an asteroid person or
moon person or Mars person there's.

Increasing consensus that Mars
is the place that we want to go

now there's a lot of commerce you know how
to get there I mean to get there by going

to the moon first to get there by
bringing an asteroid to the moon and

hanging out the moon and doing stuff or so
there's still a lot of conversation but

everyone's sort of coalescing that yeah
yeah we know we want to get to Mars and so

there's a little bit more broad
agreement on that than I've seen so

far in my career but quite frankly
we've always been twenty years

from Mars my whole career as an astronaut
so it's a matter of a commitment you know

just putting the five dollars hey we're
going to do this so that's kind of where

we are today and I think that was my last
slide so that's so that's kind of the span

of my career and the things that
I've seen and you know and when the.

The everything that I've done in my
host sixteen years as an astronaut

I was heavily influenced by all these
decisions that were that were being made

in Washington or in Moscow or
you know one of the heads

of agencies get together I mean the point
where that you know part of the M.R.U.

is we all are going to have training
of the astronauts in our individual

countries so I traveled from country
to country to country and I.

So there was really no aspect of my career
that wasn't touched at some point by these

decisions as they went down into the to
the worker bee level where I was so it's

been pretty fascinating I've learned a lot
just sort of sitting on the sidelines and

watching the tennis ball go back and
forth you know from country to country and

Congress to ministration and it doesn't
matter whether it's Democratic or

Republican and you know that it's it's
this constant battle between the executive

branch of the legislative branch about
who's leading who's following and

who's setting the priorities and

it's been really really excite
interesting to watch all of that.

Anyway I'm going to stop because nobody
interrupted me questions on to make sure

we have questions but I was kind of on a
roll there you guys have any questions you

want me to elaborate on anything
that I talked about yeah.

You know that's a really
good question because.

There are some thought there's some people
who think that's a really good idea and

others who think it's not and

I think it would be a good idea
because Dick Decadal Survey is for

those who don't know it's there's a group
of scientists who are on a council and

they do a ten year survey and they updated
periodically of the science that we should

be doing in the exploration of the solar
system for example what telescopes should

we build what kind of measurements should
we do at different planets you know things

like this so it's a group of
scientists who are guiding the robotic

telescope kind of exploration and so
human space flights never have that

why not is the first question why not
well because human spaceflight is very

political because you get back down
to jobs and districts and there's and

you know as a as a president
you know to have a dream and

have a vision for
a human space flight is a very.

Kind of marks your legacy right and

you don't necessarily want to give that up
to a bunch of scientists in the corner and

so there's there's a little bit of
pushback for those reasons and then.

The other one is.

The way the appropriations work for
NASA is they can they only can appropriate

in year chunks Congress has to
reappropriate every year the NASA budget

The only exception to that was when
Challenger blew up and they built endeavor

that actually built that I think on a two
or three or four year appropriations that

actually came in under budget on schedule
go figure right I know that when you have

to plan things in a year chunk it's hard
to make good engineering decisions and

we can talk about that but so
the idea of having a Decadal Survey for

human spaceflight means that you're
taking that budgetary power a little bit

out of the Congress's hands because this
group and it's a different level of budget

you know taking a sixty million dollars
decision out of Congress hands is much

different than taking a two billion dollar
decision out of Congress' hands I think

it would be a good idea I think
it would be very hard to.

Implement in with the way our government
works but having a you know objective

scientific thoughtful
well reasoned long term

stable look at what we should be doing as
a country makes We're all engineers and

and logical people we're at Georgia Tech
you know this makes sense to us right.

Not so much out there but

I think it's a good idea and I think
it would be extremely hard to implement

who controls who controls who
goes on the Decadal Survey.

That would be a lot of very
interesting conversations.

No they're not but but

there are a lot when you talk about
the non-human exploration science

have the logical people have a little bit
more scientists were very passionate you

know about our widgets you know
you got to fly my way so that So

there's a still emotional but there's
an easier way to come to a consensus

there because you can do more first of all
because the price tags are smaller but

no it's not it's not definitely definitely
not a political Nothing is a political.

That's a human so human thing right

yeah.

Yeah I think it doesn't affect efficiency
of what we do want to day to day

basis I think if you if you can talk about
efficiency it affects organizational

efficiency because it's really a lot
of rule by committee right when

a program like this where you've got you
know sixteen countries you know five or

six I forget it heads of agencies that
have to come together where no one is kind

of in charge now you have to negotiate
everything and that's an extremely

inefficient system but yet that's
probably the only way it's going to work

when you when you get a jury of peers
together right because who's in charge

are we in charge because we contributed
the most I mean we can be a leader and

United States is a leader but that doesn't
mean that we're in charge you know people

like people tend to follow what we do in
space because we're we do we we typically

have the vision we put the resources to it
but that doesn't mean that we're in charge

so there's a difference but it's very it's
not very efficient you know it is a post I

mean think about it you know a form of
government that's really fission is

a dictatorship right because you just
make decisions and poof everybody goes or

company C.E.O. that makes decision and

poof everybody goes that's efficient but
is that the right way.

You know it's really.

Trying to get out of it but
it's not very efficient but

it doesn't really affect operations
because by the time I fly to the station

you know I flew the station I had a
schedule every day of what I should do and

that was all negotiated out way
ahead of time by lots of people

planning years in advance and then there's
flexibility in this they build flexibility

in the operational system so that if
something broke I could go do something

else because you have to take advantage
of that valuable crew time so efficient.

These are kind of in the backend and
not in operational and

you know it's an organizational structure
and how you work out problems and

things like that not so
much on the operational side but

on the planning side because one thing the
space community does well no matter where

you are in the world if you have
an operational issue that's burgeon that

needs to be addressed it gets
addressed efficiently and correctly.

That is that's going to be a truth no
matter where you are because you have to

because lives are at stake acquittance
at stake things like that.

That's kind of the nature
of the community.

Yeah.

How do I what.

Yeah you know that's a good question
because I was able to contrast both

approaches like I said they had you
know forty years of doing it one way and

we have forty years of doing
it another way and and

actually getting to live in Russia and get
absorbed in their system and understand

how they approach things my conclusion is
they do a lot of things really well and

we do a lot of things really well and
if you take the things that they do well

the things that we do well you put them
together you've got this awesome approach

we compliment each other it's amazing
how well we complement each other

in our project sniff and if you are if
you're watching the space station

program we're learning from each other
everybody so they've absorbed some of our

bad habits we did with some of their bad
habits they've absorbed some of our good

habits we've absorbed some of their good
habits but things that they do well for

example they have a very evolutionary
approach to hardware you know they don't

they don't change their hardware
much you know if you if you look

at a piece of hardware on the space
station it has a legacy from mirror and

from sell you their first stations and
it looks almost exactly like and

it's chunky and it's big and it's hard and
you can watch it snow storm and

all survive and it's really spectacular
However the downside to that is

they don't incorporate technology
as much as we do you know we

the problem with us is we tend to put
technology in designs because it's cool.

And we can so sometimes our designs
are a little more fragile and

sometimes we put technology in
designs that don't need technology for

example our communication panel on station
we had a communication panel is about

this big I swear it had twenty seven
buttons on it just to call the ground

I need three picture channel but
the volume push to talk you know so

I could make private calls from this
module that Mulder why would I do

that I'll just float over and
talk to the person right so.

It's like yeah so so
those are some examples so

if you take you know a nice evolutionary
design approach but you incorporate

technology smartly at the right times
you've got a really good answer and so

I found it rather interesting when people
were trying to make it a one in a zero

they do everything wrong we do everything
right regardless who they are it's not

true they had things that they did well
we had things that we did well and

they're slowly kind of learning from each
other and the Europeans the Japanese

the Canadians are all kind of jumping in
their different stages as well it was

a lot of fun to work across all the
different cultures I really enjoyed it.

Yes.

Which.

We put astronauts don't
get involved in policy

where where the victims
of policy we don't set it

you know the daily I actually have
more involvement now it's an.

Executive director than I did as
an astronaut when you're an astronaut your

focus is down and you are training you
are learning stuff you are dealing

with operational issues and then you're
flying and then you're recovering so

you don't really interact with the broad
world in that sense we know we go out and

we you know I'm sure guys of all rationals
talk about their experiences and but

that's that's kind of public relations
work as opposed to policy work now they'll

have a secure usually they would have us
go up on the Hill and meet with members

of Congress and sort of advocate for the
space program but that was still kind of

more of a P.R. than a really thoughtful
tell us what you think kind of thing so

a lot of us get more involved in it
when we're not astronauts anymore.

As opposed to being an active astronaut

because you're very involved in the flying
of the operations is an active astronaut

Yeah.

That is a very good question and
that's some of the debates that are going

right now because everybody recognizes
the NASA budget the century flat more or

less and that's what drove some of
this approach to spaceflight as

a capabilities approach to let's
figure out what capabilities we need

let's figure out how we can build those
capabilities within the budget if it

takes five years it's great if it
takes six years and it's great.

When the Constellation program was
initiated one of the approaches they took

was to say all right you know what we're
going to create a commercial off the shelf

capability we're not going to
we're not going to try and

bring new technology up to speed we're
going to just take everything we can

off the shelf we're not going to reinvent
the wheel and we're going to put this come

this the system together as fast as
possible and fly as cheaply as possible.

Now.

That has positives and negatives the one
thing that the government does that

companies don't do and this is a role of
the government I think is to invest in new

technologies because the government
doesn't have to make a profit right that's

not what the purpose of the government
is companies have to make a profit so

they have to be very strategic
in their research and

technology development vestments if
they're going to do it at all and so

then the balance for the government is how
much do you do exactly what you're talking

about how much do you drive
the economic engine by researching and

developing new technologies versus
trying to keep your costs down

in order to bring programs to fruition and
that's a tightrope.

That we still walk on but you're right in
the sense of Nasa's budget is constrained

and what's interesting and I've had this
conversation with some people in the hell

is you know you can't keep constraining
Nasa's budget expecting them to do

the same things and not giving them the
capability to manage their infrastructure

they can't control their costs they
can't manage their infrastructure so but

that goes back to the jobs problem so
it's kind of a conundrum.

But that's a balance that people
are still trying to figure out constantly

how much do we invest in new technologies
how much do we use off the shelf stuff and

it really needs a strategic there's
a lot of discussion no up in D.C.

about strategic investment you
know as a country what kind of

technology is strategic for
us to have as a capability like Canada for

example has decided that robotics
is a key strategic technology for

them they've invested heavily in robotics
that's their niche that's what they that's

what they chose from a strategic viewpoint
no United States I don't think we have had

a really thoughtful discussion about that
people are starting to talk about it but

we also have the problem United States
is that there's a lot of research and

development going on at NASA but

there's also a lot of research and
development going on the Air Force

you know the space plane that they've got
up there that's all Air Force you know so

there's different kinds of investment
that's going on across the government and

trying to bring all that together when
you've got coming out of different budget

parts is really challenging and
then DARPA does some stuff as well so

it's a challenge that's a very challenging
question I don't have a good answer for

you people up there don't have a good
answer for you either unfortunately

yeah.

She's my plant.

You know you know one thing that brought
me to a I double A was the fact that

as a professional society and we all
have them in our different fields and

regardless where your field is
professional societies represent

the profession we represent
engineers with a case of bad.

The engineers scientists Technologies
Program managers the people who work in

our space so we're kind of what you
I would call a neutral platform

you know if I was a trade organization
there's an organization called the A.I.A.

which is their Space Industries
Association companies belong to it

it's a trade organization so
you go to the A.I.A.

if you want to talk about legislation
that affects the industry from

a business viewpoint you come to a Double
A If you want to talk about legislation or

policy that affects from a technical
viewpoint or a strategic viewpoint or

from an from a generic kind of neutral
platform because we can't have an agenda I

have members of my constituency who are
academic government industry and then all

across industry so I have the people who
are building the last like the people that

are building commercial space flight the
people are going cargo the Virgin Galactic

since so I can't give you an answer
as an executive director and says

this program is better than that program
but I can advocate for the industry and so

that's the power of the professional
societies because they have a cape for

the whole industry if
they're doing it right and

I think you're going to see there's
a lot more collaboration is going on

across the aerospace
industry that are obvious.

You know just like Sierra Nevada is
than working with Virgin Galactic and

you know there's there's there's it's
an interesting world because people

collaborate remember I worked on a twelve
program as an aircraft program a long time

ago over to Redondo this aircraft company
we were teamed with General Dynamics for

the A twelve program we were competing
with General Dynamics on the A.T.F.

program which became the F.
twenty two and so

some of the people I was working with the
General Dynamics I was working with and

then their next door neighbor was
working with another company on the F.

twenty two that we were
teamed with Northrop on so

you can really kind of we were competing
with Northrop on the twelve so

the aerospace world is a really
connected community and they've gotten

in the habit of understanding how
to do this kind of collaboration

it's really it's kind of weird but
you get you get used to it but that's what

a professional side does is advocates for
the industry and is that new to.

Ground for for questions and that's
what we've been doing a lot lately at.

The back

yeah.

Yeah it's everybody believes it will
be critical there's actually NASA

has an international I forget the acronym
it's an international working group to

make a long story short and it's more
than just the station partners India and

China and I think Korea is a part of it
but it's they've built this road map so

they meet and they talk about you know
where should we go next one thing that

happened when the Constellation program
was cancelled was that Europe and

Japan and some of the rest the world were
really focused on the moon because you

know United States said hey we're going to
the moon so it was like OK we're going to

the moon and then we cancel the program
that threw them kind kind of for a loop

they're still interested in the moon the
international community is still in but

this international working group it's
a global They have a global exploration

roadmap that they work on and
then that road map they talk about

you know these different paths you can
take everyone again kind of is coalescing

Mars is the ultimate We're
going to get there someday but

how do you get there what can you do for
example of the United States wants to go

get an asteroid to bring it back to the
moon Le Grange on Point maybe we could put

a station there and some people can
use that to get down to the moon and

some people can use that to do stuff with
the asteroid we can use that is jumping

off point for Mars and other mapping
out these scenarios in this roadmap.

And trying to figure out how to
make that work now the question is

At what point do you take that roadmap and

you turn it into an implementation plan
right now it's a plan that's got a lot of

different pastors different ways you can
go with it there's different ideas of

different countries are contributing
as far as who does what you know what

what's that next step and I don't think
anyone's thought that far out but

they are working internationally to
develop the plan and ignition that

you're going to Mars is likely going to be
an international effort and whether the.

Take this M O U level approach that we
talked about which isn't so efficient but

it's the stablish and people understand
it or whether they come up with a new

organizational approach remains to be
saying I don't know I mean the thing about

the station program is it does give us
a model on how to do an international

project in a very complex environment and
it's clunky and it's not as

efficient as you might hope but everybody
is comfortable with that they understand

it and that's very important because it's
a context that people can operate and

so I have a hunch it'll look for another
international project will eventually

look like something like that but
I don't know what will force the decision

to make the plan into the process
I don't know what's going to force

that.

OK So one of these.

Issues really.

So if you're something.

You guys want the next exploration.

That's a very popular question to a lot of
people because you know the here's what I

find about space people are passionate
about spaceflight even if

they only you know I go to a community and
I'll talk to the people the audience and

they're just fascinated with that
they're excited about it they want to

they want to keep doing it but you know
they go home and what happens next

day they're focused on getting the kids
to school and doing your homework and

going to soccer practice and
so it's hard to sustain.

That kind of you know
the support is out there but

it's out there I don't say passively but
not.

You know it's all march on Washington and
tell them what to do so

that that's a bit of a problem so you've
got that kind of sustainability there's

here because people
are marching on Washington and

you know we need a space program there's
a perception in some circles in D.C. but

nobody cares about space program
which we all know is not true right.

So you have that kind of political
sustainability then you have the economic.

Sustainability I know which
one you're asking about.

As far as the economics and

ability they're trying this
capabilities approach to see.

If they can.

Make it more sustainable that way
there's also discussions about

public private partnerships that's
seem to work well with the commercial

cargo thing it seems to be
working well with the human.

Commercial part I think that's an effort
at sustainability as well because some of

the government acquisition processes
are very much mired in bureaucracy and

that raises the cost of programs and
you've got to meet all these bureaucratic

needs and so people are seeing that maybe
public private partnerships are a way

around that because reforming the
acquisition process is just you know so

that's another option people are trying
I think there's some hope out there

that when these commercial crew.

Providers have their vehicles there's a
market that's created in lower earth orbit

that gives a little bit of a pull to
space lives oppose the constant push that

the government is doing so I think that's
a thought you know whether that's viable

or not it's hard to say because people are
holding their business cases pretty close

to their chest because they should
because that makes them competitive so

there's a bunch of different
factors that are out there

that people are trying constantly you know
from a professional society viewpoint it's

something we constantly are advocating for
and other societies like ours

that this is important you know you've got
to show the economic value you know so

there's a it's a constant battle but
these are things that are happening

you know whether they're all each one
probably is a piece of what's needed but

the final magic formula I
don't think anybody has.

There's hope yeah there's always hope I
don't have hope you guys aren't depressed

I'm not going to marry you know I
mean the thing that is really amazing

about the space community is we're
all very passionate is why it came

to Adebayor we're all very
passionate about what we do and

we have achieved wonderfully great
amazing spectacular things and.

The last fifty years in the same
environment that we're living in now so

yeah those guys make a lot
of noise up there and

they kind of go here there were over with
their policy in the funding goes up and

down but because we're so committed as
a community we get it done and that's not

just United States that's around the world
and we're going to continue to do that

they can make it easier or
harder on us but they can't stop us.

We've already shown what we can do and
if they can make it easier on us we'll

just do it that much faster but then we're
a kind of we're not going to stop they're

not going to stop us it makes a lot
more entertaining from time to time but

we're we're we're doing this because we
care we're passionate we're energetic we

believe in it that's why people work in
the space industry and that's the heart

and soul of the industry all this other
stuff just gets layered on top but we

are the heart and soul of the industry and
we're going to continue to make it work so

that's what I want the message to be going
away you know all this stuff going on

we're going to continue make
it work whatever it is but

it's going to be something so
that's what you should take away.

Thank you.