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captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 well, to back up this, he was not just an astronaut. he had a breadth of knowledge and a lot of interests way off from one corner to the other. he was an amateur historian. primarily the history of science, but not entirely. when he got to a particular capital, he had done his homework. about that place, he knew some

of the local problems, had a feeling for the local kind of ambiance, and he would make a very short, impassioned, but a very short, effective speech. when he was through his five or ten minutes, those people felt like they were ready just to crawl right onboard with us and go on into space. he was remarkable that way. so that was when i first became aware in a small way of some of the ramifications of this thing that we called apollo 11. >> once you told me a story about a toast that neil armstrong gave mentioning tesla. >> i'm sorry. what? >> you once told me a story -- >> yeah. yugoslavia. >> yes. and i was wondering if you could share that with the audience. >> yeah, yeah.

of course the man, the general ishimo i think he was called, he ran yugoslavia with, if not an iron hand, close to it. and he hosted a formal dinner for us one night. and his wife was in her own way well known. and as the small talk got smaller and smaller, things kind of slowed down, and i could see madam brose totally frozen. she had picked out a spec maybe on the islands and she was looking at it with all the intensity of -- well, i'm not quite sure what. but of one of those monoliths that look out to sea that they keep on the south sea islands. she was doing a good duplicate of that duplication. so things were not well at this formal dinner. about that same i saw neil go

over to his chair and he went over and bent over and started chatting with her just about the distance from here to there. and all of a sudden she brightened up, a big smile, and marshall tito noticed. and that changed the entire complexion. from then on, we were all big buddies. the next day i cornered neil and i said, geez, neil, that was kind of odd. what the heck were you talking to her about? i heard you were talking about electricity and the invention of the bulb. and he came right back and said, yes, well, her ancestor was one of the first nicolai tesla -- the reason i erased tesla from my memory is -- is tesla's too much today.

so anyway, neil says, oh, nicolai tesla, well, she, she's related to him. but that was nothing that had been in our briefing, something that neil had produced on his own. very well received. and that was the way it was all the way around the world. >> are there any other meetings with foreign leaders that stand out in your memory? i know you attended the shah of iran's birthday party. >> the queen of england. >> yes. the queen of england and her husband, prince philip, i believe. and that was very -- well, there were a couple reasons. first was we got a briefing. and we were told, you must never turn your back on the queen or the prince. now, don't worry about it. they're very practiced in this sort of an arena and they won't

make any awkward moments. well, we had to ascend the staircase. there went the queen and there went the prince. and you tried to not turn your back on somebody. i got over in the prince's side and, god, i really -- i really like him. i really admired him. i mean, with all the pomp and circumstance of england, great britain, london, the whole kit and caboodle of it, there he stood with great dignity in a frayed collar. now, that's my kind of person. i liked him. sorry. >> oh, that's perfect. so i read that in your conversation with queen elizabeth, you mentioned to her that you wish you could bring leaders around the world into space and to see the earth from

that perspective to see that there aren't political boundaries and also get the sense that the earth should be protected. and i was wondering if you have a sense of why is it so difficult for people to get that optic, to see the earth from space without actually going there, or what needs to be communicated about that experience of seeing it from that perspective? >> i think the thing that's impressive about flying from here to the moon is the closeup look you get of the moon and the far away view you get from -- of the earth from the earth, the moon thing, on our way to the moon, we had heat problems because of the constant sunlight upon us. so we had to rotate our spacecraft to keep the heat

evenly distributed so this didn't boil or this froze. as a consequence, we didn't get to see the moon until we were just practically at the end of our trip to it. and when we rolled out and looked at it, oh, it was an awesome sphere. it really was. bulbus, it looked like it was trying to climb into the cockpit with us. the sun was behind it. it was illuminated by a rim of gold, which made the strangest appearances of the craters and the crater pits, a contrast between the lighter than light and the darker than dark. and, so, as magnificent as that was and as impressive and as much as i will remember that, that was nothing, nothing compared to this other window. and out there, there is this

little pea about the size of your thumbnail at arm's length, blue white, very shiny. you get the blue of the ocean, the white of the water. there is a streak of rust that we call continents. such a beautiful, gorgeous, tiny thing nestled into this black velvet of the rest of the universe. and of the two, that was, to me, the whole show and what i will remember. and i think in terms of what other people may see, think or remember, different ways of looking at it, but i remember one day i said to mission control, hey, houston, i've got the world in my window.

i was trying to tell them which way i was pointed. but at the same time i was mesmerized. i had the world in my window. and i don't know why. i knew it was made of rock primarily, third rock out. but beyond that, it projected a feeling of fragility. why? i don't know. i didn't know then and i don't know now. but on the trip back, i got thinking about that. and lo and behold, that's a very accurate word, if you are limited to one word about what is the earth like. the earth is fragile. and i saw that. when i had the world in my window, somehow that fragility got its way to the forefront, and i remembered it more than some of the other beautiful aspects of it. and as you think about our planet here, the planet earth, fragility is paramount in many, many ways. it's a very important idea that

we are on a fragile surface doing things to this fragile surface. that was the world in my window. but that's not an exclusive view or point of view. you all can have the world in your window if you want. i mean, look at what you see. when you think of the world, you think about putting your vision out through a pane of spacecraft glass. but the point is, you see this little thing. you see it in its entirety. you understand walking on it daily. is it fragile? or lordy, lordy, yes. can some of those -- some of those manifestations of fragility be corrected? yes, they can if we put our mind to it. so the world in my window, that's an important concept to me, and i hope it can become one to you as well.

[ applause ] >> thank you. >> so you trained with neil armstrong and buzz aldrin for a number of years and you traveled to the moon with them. was there anything you learned about your crewmates on the diplomatic tour that surprised you or seemed new or did you already know them so well? >> well, on our around-the-world trip, buzz was good. he was okay. i was all right. neil was really, really good. as i say, neil is very intelligent. he had the ability to see a situation, to understand not the american point of view, but the

the guatemalan point of view, for instance. he was our spokesperson, and he would make a short speech and just have the locals saying, as we found everywhere, we did it. we, humans, finally left this planet, not you, americans, did it. >> and what is the significance of that sense of "we" or that sense around the world that it was something that humankind did in terms of u.s. foreign relations or the relationship between the united states and the world? >> well, i think the united states has to be a power in the world, but a very friendly power. and not an overbearing power. and not a power that tries to be dominant. i thought -- [ applause ] >> that's state department talk.

so where was i about power and the various aspects of that? i think when i saw the united states flag, the american flag planted on the moon by neil and buzz, i was thrilled and i was very proud to be a citizen of the united states of america. and i continue to be very proud to be a citizen of the usa. on the other hand, that trip around the world kind of changed my -- opened my vista a little bit. yes, i wouldn't swap the u.s. for any other place, but i think when we're in the business of foreign policy, the technology that goes into a foreign policy, the use of that technology, how it manifests itself and how we

treat other countries, i think it's important that we try not to be -- i don't mind being the leader, but not the dominant leader. i think we ought to bend over backwards to have a unified worldwide approach to the things that we are trying to do in space. it may slow us down a little bit in some cases, but i'm not sure speed is the paramount goal. i think getting the job done and getting it done by all inhabitants of the globe is more important. [ applause ] >> yeah, thank you. >> i have one more question, and then we'll invite the rest of the panel out. but i would like you to say a little bit about why you decided to become assistant secretary of

state for public after fairs after you were an astronaut and a bit about that decision and what you did at the state department. >> when i left nasa, what i in my mind thought about was a clean break. i didn't want to stay within the space program because i felt like that would be like a little bit of a demotion. so i wanted to just have that be part of my past. again, maybe i go back to my heritage, my mother, my father, my father was not a professional diplomat, but his tour in roechl as defense attache i carried things like that with me. and i decided that to do something totally different. and at that time, i was in and

out of washington, d.c. and one time, neil, buzz and i were fortunate enough to make speeches to the joint session of congress. william p. rogers, secretary of state at the time, apparently liked the speech that i made. and he started talking to people here and there, including -- including president nixon. and the next thing i know i was offered this job as assistant secretary here, assistant secretary for public affairs, which was really strange. i mean, i was -- my knowledge of public affairs was just about zilch. but i liked the time that i spent here. i found that the foreign service officers are -- i don't know how it is today, but they used to be much maligned. you know, they went to cocktail parties and stuff, and that was about it.

i had a different take on it. i thought at that time the foreign service exam was the most difficult exam, entrance exam that the government applied to any of the departments in any of the other services, whatever you had. toughest one was the foreign service exam. people who came into the foreign service, i thought were very bright, motivated, hard working, all the good words if you want to pile on someone that you really admire, and i really did admire them. now, i left fairly quickly, and it wasn't really that i was tired of my job. it was rather a couple of factors. one was the -- was that i was offered another job equally intriguing, and that was to be

the director of a new air and space museum, which did not exist. but if we got the money appropriated, we were going to dig a hole in the mall and fill it up with a beautiful museum, which eventually did happen. and the other thing was, you know, i wasn't -- i didn't really feel i was pulling my weight at the state department. and the object of diplomacy, the end result, i wasn't so good at things that i couldn't touch. you know? how fast can diplomacy go? how high can it go? you know? so i thought it was perhaps time for me to move on when i was offered this other job to be director of the national air and space museum, part of the smithsonian. another important factor was that growing up here as a kid, i loved the smithsonian. i used to spend hours watching nothing.

i mean, watching seashells, big ones, slightly smaller ones, medium, baby seashells. there would be like 46 seashells and i would stand there as a ten-year-old being mesmerized by it. how do they look all the same? no, they're all different and so forth. that took me away. so i left -- i left state and joined the smithsonian. and i stayed at the smithsonian for longer than i worked for nasa, about six years. our mantra at the -- at nasa when i was there was a man on the moon by the end of the decade. and then i had a similar mantra at the state department. it was museum on the mall by the bicentennial. so that was our deadline and lo

and behold, we opened on july 1th of our 200th year. so i enjoyed that time as well. >> wonderful. thank you. >> oh, thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. [ applause ] >> so now i'm going to welcome the other panelists to join you. >> oh, certainly. >> you can just remain comfortable there. >> thank you so much. >> and i'll welcome them up the stage. and you can come and take your seats. [ applause ] >> hello, john. >> how are you? good to see you. >> this conversation will be moderated by dr. john modston. he founded the space institute and is an emeritus professor at george washington university.

joining him are major general charles bolden, u.s. science envoy for space and former nasa oopgs administrator and space shuttle commander as well, as well as dr. allen. [ applause ] >> mike, i'm going to let you sit back and catch your breath a little bit and start with the other two people here. first i'm going to show off my socks. [ applause ] >> i just got back from the celebration at the kennedy space center, where this was one of the door prizes for one of the dinners. who else has saturn 5 on their socks?

probably in the back and you can't see. let me start with you, charlie. you recently completed a term of duty as the state department's science envoy for space. what does that mean? what did you do? >> i asked the same thing when i was invited to do that. i said, in fact, i want to thank cita farrell. she is a career professional states department person, and she was my planner, my guide, my everything. the two of us traipsed around the world. i said, why am i being asked to become the state department science envoy? they said, well, we want to make you the envoy for space, and you're the only guy we can find. but all kidding aside, i was actually brought aboard to spend a year, along with several other people. i think there was six of us this year who went abroad to talk about our particular fields of

expertise. mine being space. we picked four regions of the world, eight different countries that we visited in ten months. and i had a three-prong message. and it was the u.s. is still considered -- we still consider ourselves to be the leaders in science and technology and anything else you can imagine, but as mike alluded, we need you. we really need partners. we are open for business, and we want as many of you to become a part of what we're doing. we want you to be the family of space faring nations, if at all possible. and if there are students who want to come to our country to see how we live that may change the way that you think about government and governance, we really welcome that. and we visited with students, national leaders, people in government, if they had a space agency, visited with them, if

not science ministers and then industry. and it was a tremendous time. i came away unbelievably inspired and motivated, to be quite honest. >> is the program continuing? >> the program we hope will continue. i probably shouldn't say this, but it started in the obama administration and it continues. >> good. >> and it is a tremendous program that the state department runs. >> ellen, you're mike's successor how many times removed? four times removed? >> i'm not so sure how many were between you and i. >> anyway, and you're in the midst of re -- >> long list of men. >> indeed. [ applause ] >> so lots of the visitors to your museum are not u.s. citizens. they come from all over the world. do you view the museum as an restaurant of diplomacy? if so, how do you do it?

>> i really do because as charlie was saying and as mike was saying, space is something that provides international inspiration. when i look out and think about the struggles we face as a global community, things like climate change, to me space is an inspiration to the next generation of innovators and explorers. that crosses boundaries. our visitors come from all over the world. we try to have exhibits that talk about that international cooperation in space like we do every day at the international space station. and we really want to get that message across. we started with competition in apollo. we have ended up really being an international space community from how we do science to how we do exploration. that's an important message. to me it's about inspiring. we will have a gallery called one world connected that on a different sort of theme talks about how observing our planet from space and the fact that we can travel with aircraft all around the planet has really

changed our view of our own planet. >> great, great. >> quoted a memo that went to john kennedy on may the 8th, 1961 which led to the decision to go to the moon. and i want to quote it also. the memo said it is men not merely machines -- didn't say women. it is men, not merely machines that captures the imagination of the world. as we look towards space diplomacy now, is it still human space flight that has a special role? you have programs for a lot of the developing countries, surveyor, programs like that that are built around robotic programs and their use. we have kind of animated rovers on mars. i mean, does it have to be human still to really have impact?

>> is that a question for all of us? >> that's a question for all of us. >> it does not have to be humans. humans are necessary, i think, because as i tell kids everywhere i go, machines are really good. computers are really good. robots are phenomenal. but today robots can't reason and they can't look at the piece of rock that mike may have picked up to take back and say, they didn't tell me to get that but i'm going to get that because it looks interesting. i point out to people who has held the imagination of the world between the time that we closed out the shuttle program, although humans have still been orbiting the earth for 18 years now on the international space station, most people of importance don't realize that. everybody knows about curiosity. the world was -- i mean, time square, you name it, everybody was there when curiosity landed. everybody is aware of new horizons going past pluto. robots have an important role in capturing the imagination and helping young people understand

they don't have to be an astronaut. they can continue and bring the world together by working with robotic operations or airplanes or science. >> you mentioned sur veer. a lot of people don't know what it is. it's probably our favorite program at nasa. nasa partners with the u.s. agency for international development. there is offices around the world where we work with local communities to work on problems like climate resilience to say, how can you in your country help solve your problems whether it's agriculture, drought, too much rain. how can you use this data to help address and make your country more resilient. it is an amazing program i think is a huge demonstration of the importance of space diplomacy. >> mike, i know you were recently at the paris air show. >> i missed the paris air show, yeah. >> you didn't get to europe at all? >> no, no.

i missed it. i was under -- >> too bad. >> sorry about that. >> any time you don't get to go to paris, it's a loss. >> oh, that is true. that is certainly true. but i liked your question about people versus the robots. i mean, it will be really exciting when we can put some robots up on mars, won't it? we've already done it, right? okay. i don't hear -- now, when you put -- when you put -- [ applause ] >> when you put joe blow and jane doe up on mars, then i think you will see true excitement. that may not be -- [ applause ] >> you know, that may not be the way the world should be because charlie points out things that

are of more importance than whether it is a machine or whether it is a human being, they each have their place, but the public, i do think, has a special little corner in the back of their brain reserved for people who go to these places and i don't think that will change. >> i mean, you see the reaction you still get 50 years later for having been part of the grand adventure of apollo 11. in my feeling, it's still something special. there are only 570 humans that have been in orbit, so there is something there that maintains potency in sending a message. you know, there's a panel on space -- event on space diplomacy. have we defined space diplomacy? you just did it, charlie. what would you say it is? >> i think any kind of diplomacy is going out and trying to reach as many people as you can and give them a message of hope, to

give them a message of importance, but to let them know what is available to them to inform them of what kinds of things they can do. and i find in working with kids, a kid -- you can't inspire a kid if they are not informed. when i grew up in columbia, south carolina, and i tell people all the time i grew up thinking that the only engineer i knew was the person in the front end of a train. >> right. >> but that was my -- that was my culture, my society and i later learned what other engineers were that made things, that took science and turned it into things. so i think diplomacy is helping to inform and then to inspire once we've done that. >> it's also advancing the interests of this country. >> it is. >> so how do you shape that message? you said it at the start, kind of -- u.s. is still the country that --

>> if you don't believe that your country is the leader, is the greatest country in the world, then you probably shouldn't go out to try to be a diplomat. i happened to believe that. i spent 34 years of my life as an active duty marine, and i tell people today i now understand the value of soft power. and that's what institutions like the department of defense, like the state department, like nasa, i tell people all the time i think nasa is probably this country's greatest soft power tool because we have a way through things like mike talked about, like people who have done things that attract the interest of the world and make them want to be like us. and when i said i was inspired and motivated as i went through this ten-month tenure, i was inspired because in spite of everything that's going on here, first thing people ask you is what the hell are y'all doing? and then they say, but we want

to be like you. how do we get to the u.s.? how do we get to be a part of nasa? and trying to explain to them that you don't have to be a part of nasa, you can have your own space program and then you can collaborate with nasa and cooperate with nasa. the biggest thing is to tell them we are here to help, but we want you to do things on your own and we want you to join the family of space faring nations as soon as you can. >> mike, at the start, ellen now, you ran an institution called national air and space museum. how do you put the national in the message, in the design of the museum? or what is it self-evident? >> well, we tried as hard as we could. i forgot how many square feet of floor space divided into so many galleries and they all -- i won't say all, but almost all of them had some international

importance, as do the marines, as, charlie, i think the marines have got a big job in diplomacy, more than the other services. >> thank you. i will accept that. >> they get out and about and they can do good work. >> my son is out there somewhere and he will agree with you. >> okay. [ applause ] >> and in putting the air and space museum together, if i understood your question correctly, we tried not to overemphasize, but to emphasize certainly the international things. we had aircraft in there built by dehaf lon and so on and which did the best we could to even -- even out the historical -- >> but you are still celebrating american accomplishment. >> what? >> it's a museum to honor what the united states has done. >> yeah, it's a national air and space museum, not the world air and space museum. >> right. >> well, just like with apollo, we hold that collection, but i don't think of it as holding it

just for the nation, we hold the apollo collection for the world and we loan artifacts out to museums around the world. to me a big part of it is this inspiration piece, again. we're trying to inspire the next generation, and we do it through telling this american story of aviation and space. >> with the hope that other countries will be impressed and want to join that leadership crowd. >> yeah, it's inspiration, again, because a kid -- what more inspires a kid than meeting an astronaut, than thinking about maybe i could invent something that would hang in this museum some day and i think that's -- it's that awe-inspired look on a kid's face when they walk into the museum and look up at chuck jaeger's plane and the lunar module and think this is a story i want to be a part of, and those kids come from all around the world. >> i think that's one of the great things about the museum, is the icons of american achievement that all can see and all can share.

i wrote an article recently about the skilled word crafting of the message that neil and buzz left on the moon. we came in peace for all mankind. >> sure. >> and i think that's still the message. >> sure. >> what about explicitly s.t.e.m.-related diplomacy? could this country be doing more to stimulate science, technical, engineering, mathematics education around the world, or should we focus on our priorities at home first? >> in many ways i think we do better around the world than we're doing here at home and we need to focus more on getting our kids interested in steamed, science technology, engineering, the arts, math and even design. i will give kudos to members of

the state department. one of the things that impressed me in my travels was with bings like the american corner and different ideas that state department employees have used to attract students who don't have computers, don't have access to the internet and make it possible for them to be able to come into a place in ethiopia where it's packed because they now can join the rest of the nations of the world by using capabilities that are there in the american corner. i would love to see us emulate that in the kbrats where we go into some areas less fortunate than others that may not have access i know people say everywhere in the world there's internet. that's not true, not even here in the u.s. we could do a better job in getting kids engaged and inspired to do the kind of stuff to be a buzz aldrin or a mike

collins or a neil arm stopping or an ellen stofan. >> well, i would just add -- [ applause ] >> i traveled a lot around the world when i was at nasa. what struck me is inspiring kids in countries around the world to go into s.t.e.m. fields is going to help those countries in the long run. it's going to help them build their economies. it's going to help them be more resilient to climate change. stronger countries around the world make it easier for the united states. so to me it's a win-win. >> mike, as you look back at apollo 11 in 50 years, what two you think was the biggest international legacy of the mission? >> well, i would guess that it's somewhere in the world of a vision.

i usually say that you want to get away from earth some distance. i don't know, the moon is i think 236,000 miles away. i don't think you have to get -- maybe 100,000, is that okay? if you could get the political leaders of the world out at that distance and let them look back at their home, hell, they can't even find their country. there's no borders. so if you have a border dispute, well, you have to do something else about it. i mean, you can't fight about it. and the idea of this tiny little fragile, again, thing, and i'm hoping they're going to look at the world in my window and find that it's fragile. when you get these guys talking to each other, i think you're going to come out with some very surprising conclusions about antipathies.

particularly as manifestsed by borders and individual countries. i think those individual countries will become less important in the totality of all -- how ever many there are, 139d or something. that's what i hope is the legacy of apollo, is the view from afar. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> you have some closing remarks because one more piece of the program that wasn't announced yet. >> i will close with just one comment. it's kind of using what mike just talked about. he's one of a few people who ever saw our planet from that vantage point where you see the blue marble. i was asked earlier about what do i think is the most iconic image from the apollo program. i think the questioner was

expecting i was going to say something about buzz or neil coming down the ladder or something from apollo 11. i said, that's a no-brainer. it's earth from apollo 8. that to me is the most iconic photo for humanity, because it shows our planet as one with no borders, no boundaries, and it gives us the sense of responsibility for preserving that planet the way they saw it back then. >> yeah. it's bill landers who took the photo who says, we came all the way to the moon to discover the earth. >> i was the capcom for apollo 8 and then of course flew on 11. i can recall this was the first flight to exceed escape velocity. this was the first time humans were leaving their planet and going elsewhere.

apollo 8 in my mind was of extraordinary importance. it was about leaving. apollo 11 was about arriving. okay. 100 years from now you put these historians like john. john would have a symposium, a nine-day symposium to figure out which of those two is more important. [ laughter ] >> leaving or arriving. you know, the older i get, the more i get tilted toward apollo 8 rather than apollo 11. i think the concept of outward bound, i think, it was alfred lord tennyson he wrote that in poems. that's always rung a bell with me, outward bound. apollo 8 was the epitome of that. past escape velocity, off you go. so i agree with what you're

saying about it. >> i'm just going to close with an advertisement, because that was so beautiful. for probably some in this audience who were too young to be around for apollo, we are trying to recreate it for you on the national mall. so if you haven't had a chance yet, please come out after 9:30 tonight through saturday night and take a look at the saturn 5 rocket on the washington monument. it is beautiful. it is awe-inspiring. i cried when i first saw it. >> but you cry all the time. >> he knows me. >> we got two criers. >> two criers. >> me too a little bit. >> okay. great. let me release the panel. >> yes. we have a special guest, a surprise guest for all of you. >> we should go. >> i'll let john release the panel first. [ applause ] >> off we go.

[ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. [ applause ] >> so we made this program a little flexible at the end. there's a gentleman here who had some ideas about the next steps in space diplomacy. so let me bring him on stage. he's back there schmoozing. sir? [ laughter ] >> i don't think he needs an introduction. [ applause ]

>> work from here? >> no. >> so buzz, you are working on some ideas for a next stage in space diplomacy and we thought it was an appropriate way to end a program for you to present those ideas in a few minutes. we've got to be out of here at 6:30. so my job is to -- >> get me out of here. >> get you out of here. >> yeah, yeah. >> well, i missed the plane in huntsville coming up here, so we had to get a private jet. >> ah. >> we're still a little late. i'm drawn to the stars, you know. i'll find anyway to get there. >> you have the ability to talk to people. >> i haven't seen mike in a long time.

>> yeah. so you have this idea for a strategic space alliance. >> well, yes, because to go way back and i'm sure mike talked a little bit about this, but neil's words of a small step, a giant leap, i think a number of us are still waiting for that giant leap. but when we were at a quarantine after we came back, air force one, at least we called it that, picked us up and flew from new york, a parade to chicago, mayor daley, a parade at century plaza in l.a., a state dinner. mike keeps asking me what this is, and i have to tell him

because he has one, too. it's a presidential medal of freedom. very top door. [ applause ] >> but now what happened after that? well, we changed clothes. air force one picked us up again. now we went around the world. houston to bogota, colombia. argentina. >> if you name every stop, we won't get out of here. >> i won't. brazil, madrid, london, paris, india, thailand, tokyo, seoul, australia and then back. and i thought when we came back, we had clippings in a big, fat notebook.

it was called giant step. we all thought that was pretty appropriate. coming back from doing things out there, we felt that our trip around the world was logically a giant step. well, you know, we went through the apollo sky lab, the soyuz, the shuttle, the station and international ventures like that. and then it was constellation, back to the moon, journey to mars. neither of them quite gelled.

they didn't quite make it. so now i think and i think the public would like to know what is the next step. space alliance. this is not just nasa, just the u.s. we have an alliance of nations that need to venture out on this next step, space. and they're not just space agencies, but if nasa were to try and bring together the commercial guys, the ones that love government money, it would have to be with maybe the aerospace corporation as an overall advisor to nasa.

you remember, bellcom was in apollo and nobody is right now except congress. so if nasa and esa, russia, an united an alliance, spacex, and blue origin, these are all capable agencies, entities that can carry out future space. and to that list we may add india, a combination of saudi/emirates, maybe, australia, possibly the koreas. so this next step space alliance

can be a rallying point for not just returning to the moon or re-establishing a presence, a permanent presence on the moon, in a way that logically builds forward to mars. because we make it happen that way. we look at what we might want to do at mars, and then i think we'll do that at the moon. a little detail is that there's ice crystals at the moon and with a little power, a nuclear reactor, maybe, we get water. water we can separate into oxygen, hydrogen, fuel.

why is everybody focused at mars on methane? just because they're a bunch of global warming guys that want to use up the co2 and atmosphere on mars? do you think that's the reason? look, the best fuel, oxygen and hydrogen, high performance, works at the moon, we should use that at mars. i analyze things too deeply. >> i know you do. >> yeah. >> you also wear a lot of watches. so i can see what time it is and we're supposed to be done in two minutes. >> uh-oh. they're the first three elements of the gateway. if we got those as a team, we

could use those in lower orbit, or they could become a part of a trans-craft for an adaptation of gateway. trans-way goes from lower orbit to lunar orbit and back again, and reuses things. but nothing stays in lunar orbit and nothing stays in earth orbit. sure, there's a space station, one that's getting older and older. >> like us. >> that costs a lot. and what we need to do is form iss laboratories in lower earth orbit with the elements of the gateway. now, here's where diplomacy comes in. what is china going to do about

this? >> well, that's a subject for the next discussion. [ applause ] >> thank you, buzz for the efforts you made to get here. but let's honor our sponsors and stick to the timeline. >> you got it. >> let's exit stage left. thank you. >> okay, thank you! [ applause ] thank you all. that concludes our program. thank you so much for coming. i would like to take just some

last moments to thank my co-organizers. they've been extraordinary partners in this process. the smithsonian, and the state department and the diplomacy center, as well as the george washington space policy institute. so i would like to thank all my colleagues. they're too numerous to name. but thank you for all your contributions. and i would like to reiterate that we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of apollo 11 over the next few days. please join us on the mall. there are events inside the smithsonian air and space museum and hopefully you'll get to participate in those as well. thank you so much for coming and enjoy your evening. weeknights this month we're

featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. february is black history month and tonight we feature programs hosted by the history makers, the largest collection of oral-taped interviews with african-americans. we start with founder and president juliana richardson, who marks her organization's 20th anniversary with a look at its founding, history and current projects. watch tonight, beginning at 8:00 eastern, and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. next, on american history tv, former nasa flight director gene kranz talks about his life and career, culminating with stories about apollo 11 and apollo 13. this was part of the american's center veteran conference in