Well on this date 25 years ago Neil Armstrong walked on the moon President Kennedy and set the goal to put a man on the moon in 1961 eight years later that goal was achieved the first of all we have a documentary from wmfe in Orlando called one small step 25 years since Apollo. It features archival tape from the space mission the voices of Apollo Astronauts Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as well as the first American in space Alan Shepard during the second half hour will be joined during the Studio's by University Minnesota astronomy Professor Robert Pepin first the documentary report.Are banned from the planet Earth First set foot upon the Mariner 1969. This is how the world's first manned moon landing ended in the next half hour will look at how it all began. I'm Pat Duggan's and this is one small step 25 years since Apollo 11 will be talking to the people who made Apollo 11 possible those who walked on the moon and those in mission control on Earth. I didn't expect to hear much at a much out of me when he came up with Houston Tranquility base here. The eagle has landed that sort of surprised me. I I thought that's pretty neat. It's a typical day at Spaceport USA a combination Museum and tourist attraction with inside of a launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center on Florida's East Coast. These kids are Elementary School students from the town of Dade City today. Is there a chance to see rocket space suits and other bits and pieces a man says Glory Days long gone.So long going. In fact, that is a group gathers in front of a bunch of model rocket. The adults asked most of the questions. Murphy was the early flights from one man at the back of the museum sits. What looks like a high-tech motorhome. It's the Astro van that was carried Apollo Astronauts to the Launchpad a white space suits. It's propped up on one of the couches inside the suit never protected an astronaut in the cold of space. It was only used for training and hasn't been worn in 25 years across the chest in small black letters is stenciled the name of the man who wants used it and Armstrong ironically the parents of these children may not have been born in America is pushed to the Moon began. I believe it should commit itself out of Landing a man on the moon and return safely to the Europe 10:9 ignition sequence. Start 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 All engine running what's 32 minutes past the hour get that done Apollo 11. Eagle has been given a go for the side orbit insertion maneuver to occur in 7 minutes 40 seconds. Pandora giant leap for mankind space exploration in NASA was what we live for there was a it was what we truly live for except for our families and a few close friends. That's the only thing that we that was the main thing that we said. We thought about Walter cambrian's hair is wider now than it was back in 1969. That's when he acted as Deputy launch director for Apollo 11 camping and later went on to be Chief launch director for the six remaining Moon missions that put 10 men on the lunar surface Armstrong and Aldrin ever wanted more than 200 feet from there lunar lander nicknamed Eagle. They brought back about fifty pounds of rocks and soil samples lots of photographs and something that seems to be missing these days name like the public Prestige of being an astronaut but if future historians want to see the moonwalk that made Armstrong famous still have to make do with the same ghostly TV images that had millions of you were glued to their scent granted. There were many many astronaut photographs taken during that moonwalk their shots of an astronaut coming down the lunar moth. will ladder bouncing around the lunar surface But you can dig around forever yourself and not find one picture of Neil Armstrong on the Moon. NASA says there's a good reason for this. There are none the first man to walk on the moon didn't get his picture taken there this like a photographic evidence doesn't bother novelist Mickey Spillane. He says he doesn't need pictures the creator of gumshoe detectives like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer says, that's because walking on the moon with old news to him. Even before project Apollo get back. Okay, which they did the real story got underway, July 16th 1969. We're approaching a 60 second month on at the Apollo 11 Mission T minus 60 seconds and counting. We passed T minus 65 years since Apollo 11. Do you remember your summer vacation in 1969? Astronaut Neil Armstrong says he remembers his besides taking like it's lots of pictures most most of us are in our Vacations by something like 11 months of work in our case. We got our vacation because of nearly a decade of work by hundreds of thousands of people to 10 all engine run 32 minutes past the hour late. Going to Apollo 11, Mike Collins and all of the other Apollo Astronauts followed on their missions to the Moon is familiar. Now the crew heads to the moon and the last of their Saturn V rocket Falls away leaving only three compartments or modules for the rest of the trip Fuel and oxygen were stored in the service module while the crew worked and lived in the other two on Apollo 11 astronaut Mike Collins Circle the moon and the cone-shaped Command Module while Armstrong and Aldrin took the bug like lunar module down to the surface competition for a seat on the first lunar Landing was said to be fierce among the astronauts among those who couldn't go astronaut Charlie. Duke says, he has the least reason to complain Duke would walk on the moon V missions later during Apollo 16, but he says a greater honor came with both Armstrong and Aldrin asked him to be their link to the ground during the critical Landing. So I was really proud and pleased humble actually inwardly proud but the guy couldn't believe that I've been asked to work on a mission and the job is officially called Capcom or capsule Communicator. Do we have his own seat in Mission Control in Houston one of many in a room full of computer screens and technicians watching every system on Apollo 11 while the world watched the moon mission only Duke would talk to the astronaut. He already served as Capcom for the moon mission the flu just before Apollo 11. So he says he knew clearly just how temperamental on Apollo spacecraft could be. I we had a major setback when Apollo one burned up on the on the pad kill grass and white and Chaffee that set us back for 18 months and yet we recovered quickly from that but each flight at its own little Problems in Apollo 11 went well in my recollection up until we started The Descent. Velocity down now to 1200 feet per second. It was so thick the tension areas in mission control that I just feel like you could cut it with a knife and it got quieter and quieter and quieter in Mission Control at times. You can hear this hubbub in the background people talking on different Hoops in this and that the other but the closer we got the quieter it got alarm Buzz Aldrin starts talking about, you know, we never seen anything like that. 2005 controllers there who knew what they were doing and had seen it before it Steve Bales is a young guy said that we're go on that flight and I hollered up with your go on that alarm and not really understanding what why we were go but I knew we were go 47 forward or so above the Moon Neil was still going. Like crazy lickety-split across the surface at like 40 50 feet per second Ford velocity and I couldn't figure out what was happening and I said what see flying it like this for, you know, when we getting out of gas, he's got to slow this thing down and then then land. replace door knob down Call forward and I was trying to keep up this running commentary with the with the Neil and Buzz started giving them, you know, encouragement, you know from the sidelines type deal and I remembered Deke Slayton who was then the director flight crew operations were sitting right next to me and he was on a loop and he saw two reached over and tap me on the side and said I think he said shut up Charlie. Just let him land and I got real quiet. Yes, sir, boss. Okay engine stopped at a decent. Pandora later on Neil said I guess you guys wondered what the problem was. We were the guidance system was taking us into a big boulder field and we couldn't land in that so we had to overfly so that three hundred feet or so, they just level off and sort of zip code over this Boulder Field and in braked it and then landed. collection of just about every variety of babe angularity granularity Fly Me to the Moon let me play Among the Stars. The mission of Apollo 11 also topped off an 8-year space race with a u.s. Against the Soviet Union winning that race cost us taxpayers over 24 billion dollars critics complain. If you're all that money the astronauts brought back mostly moon rocks, but what rocks Apollo Moon samples aren't legally for sale. But if they were it was once estimated that NASA would have to charge around $100,000 an ounce that price tag would cover the cost of sending astronauts to collect the rocks in the first place. It's also 250 times the going price of an ounce of gold or even platinum the worldwide impact of Apollo 11 was clear to see long before Lift-Off Howard Benedict is a retired Associated Press reporter and co-author the book moonshot. There were over a million people in Brevard County to see the government from Washington to move down. Here you at vice-presidents you had you had something like two hundred Congressman. You would 69 or 70 Ambassador for the first time. A Peruvian woman named her infant after Neil Armstrong and millions of TV viewers watch every move is the astronauts Bounce Around the lunar surface 25 years after Apollo 11, it's clear that at least a few of those story on young people did more than just dream about flying in space. This is the first flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour. The Seven astronauts have the job of catching a cripple satellite and boosting it to the right orbit. The crew spent days unsuccessfully chasing the satellite until three astronauts put on spacesuits stepped outside on a spacewalk and grab the satellite with their glove hands. The mission also gave NASA a much-needed dose of good widespread publicity news agencies being reports of endeavor around the world since Apollo 11 those first steps on the moon have been the yardstick for NASA successes and failures on Shuttle Endeavor astronaut. Through. It was the spacewalker in the middle of the 25th answer of anniversary of Apollo 11, and I can remember still this day exactly where I was what I wear I sitting in front of the black and white picture of Neil Armstrong coming down the ladder and step setting foot on the moon and still get chills when I think about it today. I think that's the thing that really got me excited about becoming an astronaut in and put that seat in the back of my mind to pursue that Isabel. Where were you when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. We asked a few people about that including one man, very familiar with going where no one has gone before after all he played the character. Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Hello. I'm Leonard Nimoy. I make films and I remember distinctly the night that there was a moon rise. I was in Los Angeles. I stepped out into my backyard and look up at the moon and talk to myself. There are human beings standing on that orb up there and it looking back at us and it was a great thrill. It was a new perspective on now on the whole idea of the existence of mankind where we exist and how we exist and what we're capable of accomplishing your lost in space and celebrating this 25th anniversary of Neil Armstrong. I remember vividly I was at the Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles and we all came off of the 4th and came out the course and went into the clubhouse to watch the landing on the moon are philanthropists. Yes. Where was I when Neil Armstrong walk on the moon? Overworked that's right. I was actually I was we were still working on Batman and my lighting stand and a guy named Bill Dyer came in and say hey guess what? I just heard and he told me that it is and I was terribly impressed. Of course. I am Van Williams TVs Green Hornet. Yes. I remember when Neil stepped on the moon. I was out in front of the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki Beach in Hawaii having a tall one. Quite an experience strong hit the ground up there. I was in a nightclub watching some friends of mine put on their show and I wondered why there was nobody there and then surely I realize my golly this is a big hotel all of the TV sets around in the lobby and the moon landing is not so I got out by the TV show to try to get hours in the back row of everybody nobody the entertainment field had any what is when I looked around cuz I was sitting up front in that theater. I looked behind me. There was nobody there. They're all out in the lobby is watching them come down at the ground and give it a straight line don't want to try and stuff around or what. Well, I really remember Neil from a long time ago because I fluid Edwards on several maybe projects when he was out there America's first man in space astronaut Alan Shepard. A quiet reserved a hero maybe in the mold of it of the Lindbergh in Olympic was fairly quiet reserved individual. The Edwards was referring to is Edwards Air Force Base in California. That's the spot where test pilot still try to fly faster and higher in America's newest and most sophisticated aircraft Shepherd would walk on the moon in his own right during Apollo 14, but when Apollo 11 flu he was chief of the astronaut office. He admits that with all the fame of Apollo 11 comes the problem keeping fact separated from fiction. For example, one story goes that Neil Armstrong wasn't the unanimous choice is the first man to walk on the moon some thought. It should be his co-pilot Buzz Aldrin when Armstrong was pick rumor started that the reason behind that decision wasn't Armstrong was a civilian in Auburn with military and the NASA wanted the moon landing to look like a peaceful trip that notion draws a chuckle from Alan Shepard Once Upon a Time. Fairy Stories. The real reason was that one. The lamb cabin was depressurized. The suits were pressurized bulky cumbersome the door with hinges on the right hand side and we just physically impossible for all going to get around Armstrong and out the door. So who is pure and simple as either spend millions of dollars to change the hinge on the door or let me go out first. Apollo 11 did more than just generate stories and provide signed as with moon rocks. It also paved the way for five more successful moon landings. Apollo 14 is the flight Nazareth critic seem to remember most taxpayers. They say spent billion so that astronaut Alan Shepard could try to make a crater and one with a makeshift Golf Club in to golf balls. Shepherd says he paid for the club in the golf balls out of his own pocket, but when it comes to Future missions to the Moon, he says it'll take more than a golf game to get astronauts back there. There has to be I think now there has to be a legitimate. Economic reason for going back to the moon and there were several things being considered. So reasons for going back from mining specific elements that are found there that in abundance was your not found on the earth. So there has to be some kind of a viable reason before we go back there again. This may be the closest twelve-year-old Kristen Dean will get to a real moonwalk. She sitting in a lunar simulator at the US space camp in the town of Titusville, Florida that means being stranded with chair with heavy Springs attached to a track High overhead. She bounces up and down like a weightless astronaut while trying to grab fake moon rocks with a pair of plastic tongs project Apollo successfully put a man on the moon. But what happened after that is left mostly the conjecture NASA opponents compare the moon landings to a stunt designed to put America one up on the Russians, but nothing else but too many that leaves the question of what really happened astronaut Pete Conrad command of the Apollo 12 mission that followed up Apollo 11, he blames President Lyndon Johnson for causing the downfall of project Apollo that was not made a lot of press up for said he came in a 1967 and he said you boys stay on schedule and you go to the moon but you not cough while this way out stuff people don't want to do that. I've got my problems but can't afford it. Dead. And so the guy that was really behind space in the very beginning. How long was President Kennedy was the fellow there really killed the future after the Moon by thank you can probably judge Richard Nixon more harshly. He did more damage to the to killing the Space Program than Johnson did retired Associated Press reporter for better to cover the Apollo program. You also co-wrote the book moonshot. It was really next time. I think that was the one who really gutted the space program, but he was just reading the public mood wasn't his fault. He was reading a moonshot co-author is NBC reporter J Barber if he says the Press has to share part of the blame for the slide in public interest in Project Apollo. I can recall is working journalists being with NBC. I would get a call from New York from the New York desk and they would say anything going on and that's out now. They just going around the Moon again. You know any of you stopping you think about that? They're just going around the Moon again. We had gotten that blase about it at the time. Perhaps the most unusual charge comes from Howard Benedict. He says that NASA's partly to blame for its own problems. NASA sold. The Apollo program is a race to the moon with the Russians and National Prestige. And once the race was won the public received it was over and why go on any further and that was really I think that you can really Mark that as a turning point when the program really started going downhill whatever happened to America's man space why program in the past. Where it stands now? All right. Now if you would for me, please I scattered he's around to refresh your memory. Would you please eat school going on if plugged into it 9 egg of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida 6 NASA astronauts are undergoing emergency drills before they're playing mission in space. Today's Grill will be their last chance to practice before launch day. start rocket ignition and Lissa As I mentioned, this is the president of American man's face flying business, maybe the future. I can write down there. This is last year's Test Flight of the so-called dcx. It's a prototype of a spacecraft nicknamed the Delta Clipper the kind of Technology also known as single-stage-to-orbit or ssto the man at the controls of this flight is former Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad. We absolutely have to get this thing going whether the government gets it going or whether somebody who's smart enough for the outside world to do it commercially gets it going because that's the thing is going to open up space SST. Are we supposed to take off like a rocket orbit the earth like a Space Capsule and then touchdown on a landing pad the point is to make flying and space cheaper bear in mind. This is only one idea on where space point should go next assuming Congress wants to spend the money to make it go anywhere at all. While some Engineers are looking for new ways to get into space others are looking for ways to living space. Once the trip is over one idea is being tested in an unusual setting. Epcot Center was part of the Disney World tourist Park about 30 miles west of Kennedy Space Center part of the show on high-tech farming includes fish farms in hydroponic plants growing without soil and something maybe even more futuristic plant pathologist. Andrew sugar shows us a tray of weed plant growing in a dark gray soil as you can see, it's it's a grayish powder very very fine soil. And what's unique about this rock for Minnesota is that this ground up material has almost the same Elemental composition as soil samples from the Apollo 11 moon mission and Disney researchers say they're serious. These experiments are being conducted in concert with NASA's Kennedy Space Center and the Ames Research Center in California, Dr. Sugar admits the test look like something out of a Disney film, but he says with the right conditions plants on the moon could grow as high as an astronaut. I Carbon dioxide and a water the whole point is to find ways for people to live on the moon. And even the planet Mars. That's why doctor sugar says NASA will find a use for his research. If not now maybe later I think eventually whether it's 20 years or 50 years or a hundred years. We're going to be going back to space permanently. We're going to explore the solar system and me working working on this with the Sciences now, it'll be used. Are man from the planet Earth just how long doctor sugar in outer space fans will have to wait on the world's future Among. The Stars is uncertain NASA first wants to put them on the Space Station orbit building part by Russia support for that in the US Congress is lukewarm it best if and when humans Return To The Moon astronaut Charlie Duke says, there's something waiting for them for 5 and 7 when I was going to go to the Moon almost 5 and 7 and I wanted to include them and in some way in this in this fly and also my wife and so will we have a family picture taken and I'll take it to the moon. I got permission to take it to the Moon from NASA. And then I said I'd leave it up there and they said fine. We don't care. Do you sign the back of the photo wrap it in plastic and left it on the moon Your Plum crater, ironically. It may be Duke's youngest son who brings it back. He's an Air Force jet fighter pilot and he wants to follow in his father's what's Has an astronaut probably for him, even it will be space station and maybe his son will be the generation that goes back to the moon or on the Mars if that picture ever comes home. It may stand as one sign that Apollo 11 one small step won't be the last I'm Pat Duggins. Our executive producer is Dale spear one small step 25 years since Apollo 11 was produced in the studios of wmfe FM in Orlando. Thanks for joining us. PRI Public Radio International This is midday coming to you on Minnesota Public Radio joining us now in the studio to talk about the space program is University, Minnesota physics Professor. Robert happened who for the Apollo 11 fly to your dug through some of the moon rocks. They brought back. He spend some time training astronauts are my professor. Well, they might not call it that I accompanied them on on field trips. They told me I'd never be a geologist anywhere science adviser to the last three last three Apollo missions, wherever you speak you were obviously more interested in a while. I don't know if you were more interested you had a special interest in me in the moon landing was here in Minneapolis along with almost all of the rest of the world looking at a black and white TV set and remember being very glad that they made it. I had a little appreciation then for the difficulty of the landing since I had known that Neil Armstrong had to take manual control of the Lander, which is very unusual step in one that I don't think Much practice. He was lying in a Boulder Field and head to assume manual control to steer the craft away from that. So I was everyone else was by sheer pioneering adventure of this whole thing. But I was also very interested in the rocks and dirt that they were scooping up with their little spatulas and putting in the plastic bags because by that time I knew that I was going to be one of the people who got samples when they return for analysis in the lap, so I had an extra degree of excitement lot of concern at the time that the that the Rocks might be contaminated that the evil bugs could be released in the world and I'm not sure anybody ever seriously thought that was a possibility but just in the name of prudence, there were elaborate quarantine facility set up for the first three many missions are pretty convinced that under the conditions on the lunar surface full solar side light ultraviolet sterilizing radiation. No water that it would be impossible for anything. Surly anything in them a couple to us one of my colleagues volunteered very early in in the in the analysis program to eat a half a gram of lunar sample and then he could be observed for a week. And if he didn't die, they should drop the quarantine had a ultimately did after Apollo 13. Now you're a scientist in the whole Apollo program was criticised at the time for not being enough being oriented to science enough that it was kind of a grandstand engineering operation. Just to beat the Russians is that legitimate? Not sure I would have chosen as the word it was it was a common it was only politically driven. There was a certain amount of national pride National Spirit competition with the Russians driving it and it was a great engineering Adventure really true that in the first two or three missions particularly, the engineering considerations were the ones that really dominated the science was not as fully integrated into the missions as it was later the last Emissions though. The engineers have a more less exhausted everything they wish to learn about at least this particular for a into space or pure science missions. And those are just a Norma's Harvest Harvest of information about the moon not necessarily more so than the first three but add to a much higher degree of an intensity how dangerous was that? For those of us who don't know anything about spaceflight looked at this and there were the commentators would mention that this was keep reminding us of the historic nature of it, but it seems a cut-and-dried really that that they I don't recall there being a lot of danger to it. It would lie. The more I'm going to Swan was I believe was John Glenn wasn't who went around the moon or Frank Borman. I'm sorry Frank Borman went around the Moon on Christmas Day and that was kind of a scary deal because we never been to the back side of the moon. Right and they're worried about communication and such interesting question from it from the perspective of today the whole the whole seat. Incredibly dangerous where the night at Nasa is much more risk risk conscious today safety of all of the astronauts the shall we say the public perception of failure in any way is grown in masses and that's his mind to the point where it almost controls much of what they do that was not the case in the earlier days. This is a great pioneering Adventure. This is expiration. Chris was dangerous. I think the people inside the program knew exactly how dangerous it was the Saturn rocket had seven and a half million pounds of thrust. It was a rather new development much of the hardware much of the belt was brand-new had never been tested in any comprehensive way and to me it's amazing looking back on it knowing something about the degree of risk that the only accident serious accident in space. There was something I could have catastrophic one on the ground for Apollo 1, but in space was Apollo 13 when the when the air tanks exploded in the bay. And the agency was able to recover from that. They use the lamb has a Lifeboat went out around the Moon came back. Did everything just right to get the crew back safely? Of course it never landed. So the one serious accident was one Theory coming from but in retrospect it was dangerous is NASA still good enough to pull something like this off or I think so. It's a much more conservative approach. Now, it's much less adventurous Chris. One of the reasons for that is is that that that first step into space which is always going to be the one that will attract attention though. The pioneering step is over but NASA has a great deal of capability where it shows perhaps most profoundly is in the development of unmanned robotic explorers of those horses in the spacecraft such as Galileo and the the Viking Landers Pioneer Venus, incredibly sophisticated and getting more. So with the new generation of robotic spacecraft that coming online now, we're going to number to callers on the line with the questions for a professor Arc. What is a Robert Pepin who teaches physics the University Minnesota member of the physics and astronomy department at the you let's go to our first call Robert from Shoreview. Hi. This is a marvelous program guide to question. Someone would have happened if the lunar module have not been able to take off with NASA have decided to do modular been stuck up there and not in not able to get off exhaustion when surface into all the shuffle of this importance anniversary is the Discovery series of the until of the space probe. I wonder if you know anything about what happened to them. Are they still operating still functioning and ours. Is there going to be any more rain projected for for future Drake curious to know about the discovery Series, so if you have any information, I appreciate it. The first question that what would have happened if the lunar module not been able to take off I shudder to think there would not have been time. I'm sure to repair a new Apollo Rescue Mission before their life support systems right out. So it would have been an extremely agonizing National tragedy the four years and it's actually a reaction on the part of the scientist and the NASA itself to the long delays that are intrinsic to the very large scale Mission such as Galileo which take 10 or 15 years to develop and build and buy that by the time they're launched. They they really have old technology. They're also extremely expensive and it's it's an enormous investment loss of one is lost. The discovery series is essentially a return to the philosophy that we had in the 1960s 1970s the small sophisticated limited pelo. Relatively inexpensive frequently launched series of spacecraft with very specific targets we can do it better now because the instrumentation is so much more so much more sophisticated. These are our spacecraft which are designed to cost a hundred 250 million which sounds like a great deal of money, but was much less than some of the big Cadillacs we put into space. They're also designed to be developed built and launched within a three-year. So that a graduate student for example coming fresh into one of these programs has a chance to build an instrument in actually analyze some data that the instrument has son's back from whatever its Target is I personally am involved in a couple of these very shortly. There will be a proposal to NASA from about fifty different groups to begin construction of Discovery series spacecraft. NASA will not be able to fund all 50 of them will probably select three or four two Targets is very does Venus and Pluto Saturn to the Sun for measurement of the solar wind is it it's a very exciting Concept in one that promises to give us much more finely tuned shall we say rug tier strikes? Into various outstanding scientific questions that we have without a long long time delay in building and launching a spacecraft got a question from David who is calling us from the air base in Grand Forks. Hi. Hello. My question is, you know, you never hear much about what sort of minerals are up there. And I was wondering what the lunar composition composition of the lunar surface is You know, it's astonishing like the composition of a piece of rock that you would pick up in some volcanic Province like Iceland or the Columbia River Plateau. The minerals with a couple of exceptions are the same as the minerals we have here on Earth. The exceptions are minerals that on Earth react very vigorously with water but since there is essentially no water at all on the moon. These minerals are stable and we find them in the lunar samples. Your question really has pretty profound implications because having answered it that way it became clear that there was a fundamental chemical similarity between the Earth and the moon and this is led to the modern theories of the origin of the Moon where the material that formed. The moon was largely splashed off the Earth by a giant impact much much larger than the fragments now pummeling Jupiter. I very early in the history of the earth and materials splashed off the Earth and and formed the hit probably in a fairly rapid time the moon so there's a great chemical similarity between Rocks on Earth's rocks and that has essentially led to this to this modern theory of how the moon got there in the first place, you know, right after we went to the moon there was some talk about having a Taurus go up there eventually if any reason to believe that that people will be living on the moon or any time in our lifetimes. Who's lifetime guarantee for scientific reasons for several decades? I wish that were not so because there are there's much we don't know about the moon and the Moon is also useful platform for other kinds of science for example radio astronomy. We certainly will return there. I think humankind has taken the first step off the surface of the Earth and I think that's in a revocable step. But the the the pace in the scale of human exploration of the solar system is going to be set by factors other than simply our scientific curiosity. It will be set by the financial and economic situation will also be sent by the reasons that we would like to go. Now the purser's the pure exploration reason and sort of like finding the headwaters of the Nile. You liked it. You'd like to explore something because it's a frontier you don't know very much about but traditionally what's happened in the expansion of of humankind. Across the surface of our own planet is it there has to be some sort of a driver for expansion and largely entrepreneurial or economic. There's something out there that we need and it's worth going after so we will have frequent access to space in a n n Cherry St. Pilot admissions if if two things happen, when is some relatively cheap way to get off the surface of the Earth and in this space is found and secondly if there's a real motive probably an economic one for going out there. I'll give you an example of an economic motive. There are some asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that are solid iron and ask her a few miles in diameter made of this material contains more iron that's ever been. Mine than has ever been mine from the surface of the Earth. And so if we run out of iron, we have a source of raw material there other raw materials out there to know oil, unfortunately, but other things and so once there's a good enough reason to develop the technology to go and get these things we will do it. I don't know what the time is going to be the new Iron Range. Ron from Saint Paul is on the line High. I've been listening to my question was almost answered. I was wondering aside from a new Iron Range. What would be a viable economic reason for returning people to the Moon? I heard something on the documentary about weed being able to grow in soil similar to The moon rocks but provided of course, it was covered with some oxygen, but I was wondering viable reasons to do this. Certainly not now. I would hate to think of the cost of growing weed on the moon and then and then re importing it back to Earth to be consumed down here and make sense. If you're if you're going to support a lunar Colony, but your question is actually much deeper than that. Why would he want to set up a lunar Colony 10 and for the moment? I can't think of a single good reason except one of sheer Adventure on a new frontier, which is probably not enough to counter the enormous expense of doing that just now as I said before I think this eventually will happen in a and in one of her variety of context, but at the moment I can't think of a single good economic social or political reason why anything here on Earth now is driving us toward a lunar colony in any substantial way same old true for a space station. Well, there are no other words, why not put the instead of building a space station why not just set up operations up in the moon if we need the space station cost. Is it is there anything look on his a weigh station to space in other words? It's it's it's the first toehold in low earth orbit to exploration outward from that point one could do it on the moon if it would be more hazardous. It would have a much larger Communications Gap with the Earth in the sense that it would take longer to get there and back in case there an emergency the cost of supplying a lunar base would be much larger than those attending and maintaining a space station the space station itself, but you have to you have to search pretty pretty comprehensively for the reasons why it's being built again. Largely. They they are at the moment political there. It's a matter of national pride and Prestige of there are certainly jobs connected with it, which is also a driving matter the the scientific aspects of the space station in the short-term and not very profound. Neither are the industrial ones at least so far in the long term though, if you're really serious about exploring Is the space station is important because of the biomedical experiments. They're going to be done on that infect scientifically. That's probably the prime reason for its existence. Human beings do not react well to the space environment. The body is Right clever in such matters if it has no gravitational forces on it and ask yourself why it needs all this bone structure and it answers will I probably don't understand the bones begin to decalcify and become very weak. And so it takes constant exercise and even then is the Russians have found out there's a deterioration of the bone structure which does not appear to be arrested for so there's a great deal by medical work to be done before we venture off on voyages to take years and years to even tomorrow's or to some of those slightly more distant places in the solar system. So the space station does have that as a as a driving scientific motivation. We need to know a great deal more if we're talking about human exploration of space about how the body reacts So that environment Steve you're on the line of the question about the mineral composition on the moon the piece just before the show. They were talking about economic reasons to go to the moon and so on and someone mentioned that there were elements. I'm not sure they're taking my minerals elements that were in much greater abundance on the moon then here and there might be one reason to go there and then kind of related but a different planet also Mars. I've always been affected. Apparently, it's red because it's all iron oxide. Doesn't that make it fairly easy if we did want to colonize Mars. I mean don't you have the sense of all the oxygen you need if you just extracted Good question Steve. Yeah, I had actually forgotten the one element actually. It's a it's a bigger isotope of an element of the Moon does having greater Supply on the earth. It's the rare isotope of helium helium 3 and it turns out to be a virtually perfect fuel for nuclear fusion reactions a great deal has been made about the economic Advantage possible advantage of mining helium-3 from the surface. The moon actually comes from the summit's implanted into the lunar dust grains By Radio particle radiation from the sun and it may be that that a helium-3 manufacturing plant on the moon might in the future say times going to 50 or a hundred years might be economically feasible to power Fusion plants here on Earth that's being looked at in something much more so than any other possible economic use of the Moon as far as the red color does come from oxidized iron. We think we actually have meteorites now that we think we're knocked off Mars and so we have a little bit A little bit sharper perception about the chemical composition of the planet oxygen. There may be a simpler solution. However, there's a lot of evidence than in there. It's early history. And this is one of the reasons that Mars is my favorite planet, they will be yours to from from the way you spoke that very early in its history. It was rather like the Earth in terms of having a much denser atmosphere in a much warmer climate. There's evidence today that there was a one-time abundant water on the surface of Mars and we think that that water is largely still there. It's under the surface as ice, but there may be as much as half a mile to a mile of ice in the upper say 10 Mi of the of the of the Martian surface and that could be mine. And of course that would not only give you oxygen as iron oxide would but it would also give you water which is the one thing that we doubt exists at all in the moon probably exist in abundance on Mars and is the one essential thing we have to have or have to make if we're going to colonize time for mini. What is on the line with what I think it's unfortunately to be our last question about a time time. My question was about the movie For All Mankind. Have you seen it? No, I don't think I have tell me a little bit about it and call the unexpected things that happened but it is just a great film. But my question was was there was a there's a time which I'm not sure which Apollo mission where the oxygen start squirting out the side of the capsule and they had to repair it and what they did is they had a bunch of car batteries. They look like car batteries. I was wondering if you knew what they were. I haven't the foggiest idea of completely forgotten list leave it to a former student find a nail me with a question. That catches me off base. I'm sorry. I don't know Tom by the way, that was probably a position now. Play good luck to you and we lost our sense of curiosity. Do you think I mean, obviously they are the public interest in Space Program. So it has declined dramatically certainly from the days of Apollo. But what about our sense of curiosity do we still care about the great Frontier always certainly do and it's just that our perception part of it. I think is due to the reduce press coverage of what's Happening Now in space Emmit actually become routine. For example, there's a shuffle Mission up now how many people remember that there's a shuttle mission? Of course, it is true that we have the 25th anniversary today and these fragments pounding in the Jupiter. So there's a bit of competition and the space news front but the curiosity is there and all one has to do is go and talk about space and what we learned the last 25 years to buy 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th graders in high school and they're absolutely fascinated by some of the concept of space. They know a little bit about it there there the first space Generation, but they are not fed a great deal of information about it in any of their curricula. It isn't yet that well-established in the public Consciousness when they were spacefaring Nation, but they're intensely curious and intensely interested. And and and in fact I find this is true for every audience I address about space at the curiosity is still there. What are you doing? What can we learn? Isn't that interesting? What does science need to know? So it's there it just needs to be stimulated. Thanks so much for coming in. Really appreciate it in Minnesota. He did a lot of work with the Apollo space program analyzing a some of the material. I was brought back from the Moon work with the astronauts and then served as the science adviser to the last three Apollo space missions.