“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

For the 100th episode, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine discusses the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing as NASA continues to move forward towards an exciting future with a sustainable lunar presence. This episode was recorded on June 28, 2019.

Check out the Houston, We Have a Podcast Apollo Page for all of our Apollo 50th anniversary episodes.

Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the 100th episode of the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center. Today kicks off another special series, this time to celebrate 50 years of the historic Apollo 11 mission that put the first humans on the surface of the Moon. I’m Gary Jordan. I’ll be your host today. If you’re familiar with us, this is where we bring in scientists, engineers, astronauts and leaders all to let you know the coolest stuff about what’s going on right here in NASA. And, truly, we are in one of the best times. We’re celebrating an exciting past and working hard towards an exciting future of human space exploration and landing on the Moon. So here to talk about human landings on the Moon both past and future is our very own NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Jim runs the show here at NASA. He’s leading our ambitious goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a sustainable presence there, which will ultimately help us answer questions on getting humans to Mars. What does sustainable presence mean and how exactly will it help? Today we go over some of NASA’s history all the way back to Apollo to discuss NASA’s mission, direction and leadership and what has changed for this exciting future in human spaceflight to make that sustainable presence possible. So let’s get right into it. Episode 100 of Houston, We Have a Podcast celebrating the Apollo 50th and looking forward to the future with Jim Bridenstine. Enjoy.

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Host: Jim, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. This is a very exciting day for you to be here at the Johnson Space Center.

Jim Bridenstine: It is. The Mission Control Room, of course, is now open for business from a visitor’s perspective, and what an amazing day to be here with Gene Kranz, of course, the legendary flight director who was, of course, made famous with the movie Apollo 13. But even before that he was made famous by, no kidding, being the flight director that helped us get to the Moon.

Host: Right.

Jim Bridenstine: What an amazing opportunity to be part of this historic day.

Host: Historic day and historic time, really. We’re coming up on 50 years since the launch, the landing on the Moon of Apollo 11, the entire mission, really. This is a great time. What is — what did the Apollo program and the Moon landing really mean for NASA, thinking back on it now?

Jim Bridenstine: It wasn’t just for NASA. It was for the United States of America and, in fact, it was for the entire world. So I think it’s transformative in the history of the world and, of course, my generation. I wasn’t around when it happened, quite frankly. I’m the first NASA administrator who was not alive when we landed on the Moon on the first or the sixth time. So I don’t have a memory of where I was when that event occurred because I wasn’t around. But here’s the thing. We need to make sure that we don’t want another 50 years go by, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re moving forward to the Moon, this time sustainably. But when we think about the history because that’s what really here to talk about, 50 years of Apollo, we have to think about where we were as a country at that time. We were in a contest of great proportions with another superpower, the Soviet Union. And this was a contest of political ideologies. It was a contest of economic ideologies. It was a contest of technological prowess. And in this great contest of great powers the United States of America was determined to win. And the objective was to get to the Moon. Interestingly, we were able to achieve that victory July 20, 1969, with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and of course 400,000 people that were working on the program at the time. And when we achieved it we moved into a new era where we, in fact, now partner with Russia. You know, a lot of people say, well, the Moon landing, that never occurred. Well, it’s interesting. The people who had the most to gain from, like, exposing the fact that it might have been faked were the Russians, and what they do? They congratulated us, they commended us, they joined us and then we partnered on the Apollo Soyuz Program. So I find that very fascinating. But it’s also true that it was about 12 years after the last person that walked on the Moon, the Cold War did not end in 1969. And 12 years after that Ronald Reagan announced what was called the Strategic Defense Initiative which, of course, got belittled by a lot of people. They called it Star Wars program in order to belittle it. They said it wasn’t technologically achievable. It was too expensive. Think of a missile defense shield so that ICBMs would not ever come near United States territory. And here’s what’s interesting. We spent very little on the Strategic Defense Initiative. But the people who spend a lot of effort both politically and financially trying to work against the Strategic Defense Initiative was of course the Soviet Union. And why? Why were they so interested in spending money to mitigate the Strategic Defense Initiative? Well, it’s because they knew that just, you know, a dozen years prior we had humans walking on the Moon. So SDI was built on the credibility of Apollo. And so, when we think about what great powers do like go to the Moon and we think about the impact that has on generations that come after that, it was a piece — it was a small piece but it was a piece of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and a new generation of freedom for millions of people that previously were behind the Iron Curtain.

Host: Yeah. Is that truly the impact that Apollo 11 and the Moon landing had on, like you said, generations afterwards?

Jim Bridenstine: Absolutely.

Host: It really did change human history.

Jim Bridenstine: Right. So right now, I mean, you have young kids growing up in elementary schools looking at the Moon landing and thinking, wow. That’s an amazing — it’s a monumental achievement. It was science and discovery, exploration. But you think about the geopolitical impact and how it resonated not just in that day but decades afterwards, and it set the foundation for really a new breath of freedom throughout the world.

Host: Yeah. Now, going back to, you know, you were saying we have new generations growing up honestly in a world where the moon landing has always been there. I think the statistic I heard was I think two out of every three people now don’t even — have never lived in a time before we landed on the Moon.

Jim Bridenstine: That’s right.

Host: It’s truly fascinating. And, actually, you’re one of them. So what are some of your memories of learning about the Moon landing and even just getting interested in space?

Jim Bridenstine: Yeah. So I remember in first grade we had an assembly where we brought in — back then we had the tubes, television sets. A big television was rolled in and we watched the Moon landing in first grade. And, of course, at the time, the shuttle was brand-new. And so we were all inspired by the shuttle program. The International Space Station wasn’t even a thought in that era. We’re talking about 1981. Actually, it might’ve been a thought, just not implemented. I think Ronald Reagan announced that the Space Station Freedom would become the International Space Station in 1984. So I guess it had probably been a thought of somebody. But, anyway, we were inspired, of course, by those beautiful pictures of the space shuttle and — but watching somebody walk on the Moon with kind of a different level of enthusiasm. I will also say that one of my earliest memories of spaceflight in general was in fifth grade. I was in Ms. Powers fifth grade English class, and she came in the classroom crying. And I remember thinking what’s going on here, and then the teachers all huddled up and they were all just kind of like flustered. And then they brought in their own television, and we all watched the space shuttle Challenger incident. And, of course, that was a big deal because Christa McAuliffe was on board and she was a teacher. So this was something all teachers were involved in. This was an effort to inspire children all across the United States. And on this mission, it ultimately was a failure. I remember that like yesterday. It was — there are certain things that happen in the course of your life where you remember right where you were, and that’s one of those things. What we have to do now, though, the shuttle program was amazing. The International Space Station is amazing. We need a new monumental achievement, a new stunning achievement where somebody remembers exactly where they were when that achievement occurred, and it’s a positive achievement. And that’s why going back to the Moon with the next man and the first woman under the Artemis Program is so important.

Host: And that’s actually kind of leading up — the last time we talked, I think, was back in August on this podcast, and we were sitting the scene based on when Mike Pence was here saying this is what we’re going to do. This is the future of NASA. He talked about commercialization. He talked about going back to the Moon. A lot of progress since then. Where are we now?

Jim Bridenstine: So we have now amended the President’s budget request to accelerate the Moon program. There’s two risks. One risk is technical. NASA can deal with the technical. The other risk that is more important at least initially is the political risk. The President adjusted his budget to include an additional $1.6 billion for the Artemis Program to accelerate the Moon landing. And the reason we accelerate is because it reduces the political risk. The longer these programs go, the more administrations change, Congresses change, priorities change, budgets change; and they get canceled. So we retire the political risk by accelerating. So we have now got some new money in the budget request for an accelerated lunar program with keeping our eyes on Mars. The reason we go to the Moon, that is not the destination. It is a waypoint on the way to Mars. We’re going to learn how to live and work on another world so that we can eventually go to Mars. But it’s important to note that this new budget did not take any money from the Science Mission Directorate. It didn’t take any money from the Space Station. This is new money. It doesn’t come from anywhere inside of NASA. That’s not been the historical precedent when we try to go to the Moon. So this is I think a very positive development. It should receive strong by partisan support. I’ve talked to a number of members of Congress on both sides of the aisle that are very strong supporters of this effort. And now we just need to work hard to make it materialize from a budgetary perspective. I think that right now that’s the biggest challenge is the political risk, and we’re working through it.

Host: All right. So, schedule-wise, what we looking at? What does the program sort of look like? What are some of the elements that we’re focusing on?

Jim Bridenstine: Right. So, you know, for years now we’ve had under development. The space launch system, SLS, which is the biggest rocket ever built; the Orion crew capsule; and the European service module, we are at the five-yard line about to punch those programs into the end zone.

Host: All right.

Jim Bridenstine: And we’ll be ready to fly astronauts all the way to the Moon at that point. Now, here’s the important thing to remember. There’s enough energy in that system to get to low lunar orbit, but there’s not enough energy in that system to get out of low lunar orbit. In other words, to get to the position where you can land on the Moon, we need to have not just enough energy to get there but enough energy to get out. We want to bring our astronauts home. So we need to find more energy. Where do we get that? We are now building — we’re under contract for the first element of what we call Gateway, which is a small space station in orbit around the Moon where our astronauts can use SLS, Orion, the European service module, go to the Gateway, that small space station in orbit around the Moon. Think of it as a reusable command module that will be there for 15 years. It’s maneuverable, solar electric propulsion. It can go to — it can orbit, it can change orbits at the Moon. So we’ll have more access to more parts of the Moon than ever before. And we want to aggregate at that Gateway a lander by the year 2024. So when we send the first Artemis crew to the Moon, they’re going to first go to the Gateway where they’re going to get into a lander and go down to the surface the Moon and then back to the Gateway. So given the new direction from the administration to accelerate the program, the key elements that we need to quickly develop are the Gateway, which we now are under contract for; and then, of course, the landing capability. And the reality is we’re not going to procure any of these elements in the traditional way. The way we — you mentioned commercial earlier.

Host: Yeah.

Jim Bridenstine: The way we normally procure is we create thousands and thousands of requirements. We, in essence, design everything in the requirements process, and then we get requests for information. We evaluate all the information. Then we put out Requests for Proposal. We give people months and months to respond to the Request for Proposals, and then they respond and then we take months and months to evaluate. And then we do a source selection and then we let the — you know, everybody wants to contest the decision. That takes another year with a bunch of lawsuits. That is not going to accelerate the program to the Moon. So what we’re doing is we’re saying, okay. Who out there can get us to the surface of the Moon by providing a service? We’re not going to purchase, own and operate the lander. We want to buy the service. Who can take our astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the Moon and back to the Gateway? And when we procure in that way we can go much faster. The other thing is, when we procure in that way, industry makes their own investments. So we’re looking to be a partner, public-private partnership. We want them to make massive investments, and we will invest as well and then the goal being that they would have customers that are not us. It could be foreign nations. It could be tourists. It could be industry. It could be universities wanting to do research. So the idea is long-term we want to be one customer of many customers, and we want to have numerous providers that are competing on cost and innovation. So, if we can put all that together in this architecture, I think it will be sustainable for the long term.

Host: And I think that’s the key word right there, right? Sustainable, is building that robust economy. And I think the International Space Station right now is a big part of that just based on this policy change.

Jim Bridenstine: Absolutely. We’re able to do what we do based on what we learn from the International Space Station. For example, commercial resupply of the ISS, we’re buying a service, who can resupply the ISS. Commercial crew. We’re buying a service. We’re not purchasing, owning and operating the rockets. Now we’re going to have a commercial habitation module on the ISS. We’re going to have commercial industry going to the ISS. So we’re learning how to do these activities so that we can apply it ultimately to the Moon. But you’re absolutely right. We love Apollo. The problem with Apollo is that it ended. We want a sustainable program. This time when we go to the Moon we’re going to stay. That’s what we’re looking to do.

Host: And that’s huge. And, you know, reflecting 50 years after Apollo, we have this exciting time thinking about sustainability, actually talking about it and making it happen. I think really it brings up the question, and I want to kind of end with this: Why is human spaceflight important? Why are we putting so much effort into all of this?

Jim Bridenstine: We can do more with science, with humans than we could ever do with robots. It’s not even close. And so human spaceflight, if we want to get as much science as fast as possible, human spaceflight is the investment we need to make. It is also true, you know, the robotic missions are amazing. Because of Spirit and Opportunity and Curiosity and Phoenix and Insight, all these different robots that we have had and currently even operate today on Mars, these robots have changed how we see Mars. We now know that Mars had an ocean in its northern hemisphere that constituted two-thirds of the northern hemisphere. We know that Mars currently has liquid water even today, even though the ocean has been gone, under — 12 kilometers under the surface of Mars we know there’s water. We know that in its history, Mars had a magnetosphere that protected it from the radiation of deep space, and it had a thick atmosphere. In other words, Mars was habitable. We know just this year we’ve made discoveries that include complex organic compounds on the surface of Mars. The building blocks for life exist on Mars. They don’t exist on the Moon at all. Zero. Nothing. But on Mars complex organic compounds are prevalent. And, of course, also on Mars we have the methane cycles that we now know are commensurate with the seasons of Mars. All of these things collude to say that the probability of finding life on a world that’s not our own is going up, and it’s going up rapidly. If we really want to delve into it, if we want to get the information as quickly as possible and as much science as we can get, sending humans is the way to do it. So we go to the Moon with the purpose of learning how to live and work on another world using the resources of that world, and we take all of what we learn and we go onto Mars with humans so that we can ultimately do more discovery than ever before.

Host: Fantastic and exciting time. Jim Bridenstine, thanks for coming on.

Jim Bridenstine: Thank you so much for having me.

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Host: Hey. Thanks for sticking around. This episode was released just four days shy of the historic launch of Apollo 11 which took off from the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969. If you want to know all things Apollo as we’re right in the middle of our 50th celebrations, NASA.gov/Apollo50th is the place to go for all of that. Check out the Houston, We Have a Podcast Apollo Page for all of our episodes about the 50th anniversary as we’re going through all of them, or you can learn about our mission to the Moon and Mars and beyond at our Moon to Mars page on NASA.gov. Just go to the topic sections at the top of the page and you can see some goals for our Artemis Program which Jim was going over a little bit today. Otherwise, if you love podcasts and want to see more about what we’re doing, especially in terms of the 50th, go to NASA.gov/podcasts. They’re all being released and promoted on our social media pages, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, those NASA pages. Go check them out. Use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platforms. Submit an idea for the show. Make sure to mention it’s for Houston, We Have a Podcast. We might bring it on. This episode was recorded on June 28, 2019. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Norah Moran, Pat Ryan, Stephanie Castillo, Katherine Brown, Matt Rydin and Megan Wenrich. Thanks again to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine for taking time out of his very busy schedule to speak with us.