This is a transcription of a tele-conference interview with PAT DASCH, Executive Director, The National Space Society conducted on Februaru 16, 2001 by the class members of STS497 I, "Space Colonization"; Intructor: Dr. Chris Churchill; technical aspects of conference call by Bob Jones; location: Wartik 108 at Penn State. Transcription by Dr. Jane Charlton. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geoff Cooper: With a new president and more importantly a new political party in office, do you think this will have a positive or negative effect on the immediate future of the space program? In other words, how do you see American space policy changing under President Bush? DASCH: Going into this election most of us thought that space would do better with a Republican Administration than with a Democratic Administration, the reason being that the Clinton administration has cut monies going into NASA for the civilian space program six years in a row and has not shown a great deal of support for space. And we knew that the Republicans were more interested in the commercial development of space and to be blunt "they got it". The understood that commercial space business was really something capable of beginning to have an impact on the economy. Now that the election is over what we're seeing is we're not hearing so much from the space policy people in the GOP hallways. The shots are being called out of Cheyney's office and what I'm seeing is much what you're seeing in the press which is that space is going to get more attention but it's primarily going to be military space that gets more attention. After that they will be trying to better facilitate the activities in the commercial space arena. Civil space, the NASA programs, humans in space, the "gee whiz" stuff that the public looks at in the NASA programs isn't going to get a lot of attention. It's way down on the priority list. So those of us who live and work on deep space are a little concerned that we are not going to get a whole lot more attention than we did previously. I do believe that the Republican space policy folks do have a better handle on the potential for the future. They see what the space sector is bringing into the economy and if we have more pertinent questions I can address that because a very good governmental report came out last week about the contribution that space is making to the economy. That's a brief answer. Does that give you what you were looking for or did I miss something your were after. Geoff Cooper: Yes, that's fine. Thank you. Chris Hynick: Hi Pat. This is Chris Hynick. The next question goes to Walid Dimachkie. Walid Dimachkie: It is evident that the government does not have the exploration of space on its priority list. It hasn't put any effort much less any funding to any of the programs that pertain to space exploration. Do you think that the public sector is going to take on the task of establishing such programs or is it still premature? DASCH: Well, let's get our facts straight. The government has not made any big commitments like the commitment to go to the moon back in the 60's. That's not going to happen. There isn't the military imperative which was behind the Apollo programs and there are much greater priorities: care for the elderly, sorting out the medical benefits situation, education where the US is quite bluntly falling behind and needs to take action. So you can't expect, and you couldn't have expected it from the Democrats or the Republicans, any dramatic announcements that we are going to go to Mars or anything else. That's just not going to happen. What we do lack is a commitment to a strategy or a policy for the future. The Clinton space policy which was issued in 1996 just does not go beyond the Space Station which is extremely frustrating to someone like me because we are told over and over again that the Space Station is so enormously expensive is all about learning about the future of humans in space. It's about long duration space flight. What is the future of humans in space? It's the Space Station. That's as far as national policy goes. I think we need action from the government in terms of a new space policy as it relates to humans in space. Is it too early for the public to do something? I'll give you a two part answer on that. First, there are directions the public may be able to go and the monied public are going in the [direction of] space tourism, [which] is really just around the corner. There are few things holding it back right now, but I believe that within a few years anyone that wants to and has some amount of money will be able to go to space. So the public will be able to do something in that respect. The second part of my answer is look into what has happened during the last year on lunar development. There has been a series of two conferences, one in Houston and one in Las Vegas and what you have there is a group of people, visionaries, and NASA talking together... When we go back to the Moon or when we go to Mars we're never going to do it the way we did Apollo. It won't be government programs. At one level or another the public will be involved through publicly owned companies. In other words it will be a consortium and NASA will only be one player in the game and a lot of services will be provided commercially right from the word go when we go back and go further with humans. So that's not going to the extreme of completely publicly funded missions to the Moon or Mars. I don't think you'll see that happen. But I do think you'll see a new paradigm when we decide to go further. Chris Hynick: Hi Pat. It's Chris again. I don't think we need to answer the third question because you gave us in the first two questions pretty much the answer to that one. If we want to get all fifteen question in could you please limit your responses to three or four minutes? DASCH: Sure, I'm trying to time myself. Matt Hughes: This is Matt Hughes and I'll introduce Geoff Cooper for the next question. Geoff Cooper: I wanted to know how imperative will it be to bring other nations together to put together a mission to the Moon or Mars? Of course we've had the US and Russia paired up in the Space Station in the past couple of years, and a few other countries at that, but how much of a part are other countries - first world countries like Japan, Germany, England, Australia, etc., how much of a part are they going to play with the US in getting to the Moon or Mars? DASCH: I wish I knew the answer to that because I do know we have seventeen partners working on the International Space Station. And you have to say right up front that the US has not been very good at leading an international team. So our track record is not good. We tend to act like we're in charge and they are lucky to be aboard. Not really a partnership. So we need to get better at international relations in the space environment if we are going to do things jointly in the future. Having said that, in space science the partnerships seem to be working better. So if you get engineers working together and scientists working together they speak the same language and share the same enthusiasm. If you get governments working together there seems to be a problem. So we need to learn a lesson. The cost of doing things in space almost certainly implies to be that we will be doing things on an international basis in the future. And again a bit like looking at when we return to the Moon, people who are thinking about that are thinking about a different paradigm in the future. I think we will see it start out on a different foot. In other words don't use the International Space Station as a model. Our overseas partners were brought into that for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way and that is why it is such a nightmare now. Yes, there will be international partnerships and they will be better based on clearer governmental agreements as we go into them. Matt Hughes: This is Matt Hughes again. Just an extension of the last question. In the press they said that Russia was not holding up their end of the bargain by not paying for a lot of things they said they would pay for. Are you saying that this is a result of America's lack of international affairs? DASCH: Russia was brought in to help us out of a tight spot. The project was over budget. And to be pretty honest we did not have all the technological knowhow. The Russians have had a space station up there for twelve years (it's about to come down). They have much more knowledge in the area of space station management and operations than we do and we needed them. The problem was that their economy was in a bad fix. It was a poorly made agreement in the first place - having paid for services when the whole strategy was to pump money into the Russian economy. And then their [goals were] in disarray and they could not always deliver. That is why I think it is important to have the international partnerships on very clear footing and know what they are going to do, and do it with a space policy mandate and not with a foreign policy mandate. Again, I would not allow your [views] to be colored by our experience and our mismanagement of the International Space Station Program. Matt Hughes: Now we are going to move on to the commercial segment: What do you think is the most critical current barriers for commercial enterprises sending people into space? DASCH: Really, the fundamental barriers are the lack of an affordable space reusable vehicle to get us to space. The major barrier to commercial enterprise and certainly to sending people into space is the cost. We have to get the cost per pound down. Hand in hand with that goes reusability, reliability, frequency. If you want an additional barrier, going to another level, that is evidence for a market. People say that there is a large market for space tourism. You know about studies done in Germany and Japan indicating a substantial market. There is not a good US study. And basically the investment community don't feel they have sufficient evidence to get behind this, and at the same time there is not the vehicle that would really fulfill - there have been discussions over the past three years about possibly sending people on the shuttle Columbia (the oldest shuttle). We can't spare Columbia. We need every orbit that we've got for assembling the Space Station. And the new vehicles aren't there so it is a bit of a "chicken and the egg situation". Solve the space access and cost space access problem and you'll be 80% of the way there. Chris Churchill: Can you describe the long term economic benefits that will flow once NSS goals are achieved. I guess I'm talking about humans living and working in space. Address some of the economic benefits and especially our growing energy needs and our energy budget. Discuss how these benefits will be provided equally to all peoples. I know that is one of the major "space bill of rights" statements that are in the roadmap for NSS. And I was curious if you could just comment on that. DASCH: Let me see. We are talking about benefits back here on Earth? Churchill: Yes, and distributing them as equally as possible across the globe. DASCH: OK. And the question of distributing them equally is one that we contemplate very frequently here in the US. I find it extremely difficult and not always helpful to try and project benefits because whenever you do something innovative you find spinoff benefits resulting that you just would not predict. I'm going to talk about this in a somewhat [indirect] way. Obviously, you have more benefits for the environment. If you really have people moving out in to space you have a way to relieve the overcrowding here on Earth and all the problems that [result from] overflow from desperate overcrowding later on in this century. So you have the simple possibility of improving the environment here on Earth by simply removing people. In terms of resources, the one that excites us most here at National Space Society is space solar power. There was a big study done about space solar power generation about 20 years ago which just technologically we weren't there at the time, and it was exciting but we just couldn't make it work. NASA did another study which you are probably aware of, I'd say about 3 years ago. That study was a whole lot more attractive. We're still not there but it is certainly going to be a factor in the future. The views that really appeal to me are ones where you would have massive collectors and power generators out in space and you would beam that energy back to Earth. Really, our energy needs are going to be enormous. I was lucky enough to attend a conference in China three years ago and when you see their booming population and the fact that all their power comes from very lower grade coal (which they will have completely excavated pretty soon anyway when they finish completely polluting their cities). The demands just for China are going to be enormous. And so for me generating electrical power from space is a tremendous potential opportunity in terms of resources. The lunar enthusiasts point to rare elements that are available even on the moon where we will be able to replenish our resources when we have completed depleted them here on Earth. And that is the sort of thing I look to as the Earth becomes more and more depleted we will be able to replace those resources from mineral ?, asteroids, and other planets. Beyond that you can get into detail on specifics, but in an overview sense that is the way I look at it. Let me just address the issue of how to spread those benefits to everybody. The world seems to be very divided - the poorer non-space faring nations at the UN are saying basically, "give me give me, what is the UN going to do to bring me remote sensing so I can do disaster management? to bring me TPS capabilities?". And the answer I'm afraid from the developed worlds is that we'll introduce you to what space resources can do for you and you'll see at that point it is too valuable for you not to find the money to buy these resources commercially. So there is an education process going on at the moment and the developing nations are being asked by other nations to get up to speed on what they are missing and reprioritize their resources so that they can bring these capabilities to their nation. Sometimes at a very much subsidized rate, but basically from the commercial marketplace. That is how resources are going to be made available. Broscious: Do you feel that if space colonization becomes a reality this will open up a whole new market for the commercial sector? Specifically can you comment on the law such as international space and liability and how this will affect the insurance fields also? DASCH: Clearly, if / when space colonization becomes a reality it is going to open up all sorts of possibilities. Just look at what the company Space Cab is doing right now. Even with the shuttle going up regularly and the space station up there there is an enormous need for resupply and transfer of stuff just as we saw at Mir. So yes, there will be a whole new set of opportunities. In terms of international law, the big question that arises of course if you are on a planetary surface or the surface of a body is what rights do you have to reap benefits. The whole property rights issue. I don't know that we can go into that now but it is a fascinating area that NSS specializes in. Suffice it to say that the legal interpretation of space law right now says that you can own the resources that you extract. What you can't own is the acre of the Moon or wherever or asteroids that you extract it from. You can't lay claim to property in space but you can lay claim to the resources that you extract. So that's an interesting situation. But the basic problem with space law and commercial enterprise in space is that the status that command how we act in space write now were written for a period when it was anticipated that only governments would do stuff in space. Looking back at the major space treaty of 1967 you had Russia and the US in competition and maybe some other nations starting to look at space exploration. No thought that companies would start to do business or that you might have a consortium of governments and commercial enterprises doing stuff in space. So what we need to do is some updating of the statutes or introduce some subsequent statutes to make relevant today. Most of what is there is very good in terms of legislation development and they can be amended or added to. The Moon treaty is really the one stumbling block and as you know the US is not a signitory and most people tend to think that that is a dead letter. It still remains a stumbling block because of the six signitories and the fact that it is cited by non-space faring nations sometimes. I got off on the legal issue. Insurance. That's an issue until we can do it more cheaply and more safely. Once it becomes routine like sending packages via Fedex or putting valuable stuff in the mail then it will be routine coverage. It is the failure of launch vehicles and the newness of the technologies that has been an inhibitor up until this point. I think it will fall into place once we are in a colonization situation. Hughes: Back to Laura Yingling for our first science question. Laura's not here so I will ask her question. According to the NSS roadmap for space settlement the first step in colonizing the Moon is having robots find ice there? Realistically, when do you think such a mission will be implemented by NASA? DASCH: And I come back to you with the question, why are you asking when will it be implemented by NASA? Since the question originates there I'll make that a rhetorical question. I don't think in the future you will see NASA initiating everything. There are other nations very interested in exploring the Moon. The Japanese have an orbiter going as I see you noted in a later question. The Europeans have plans for the Moon. So don't think so narrowly. If NASA were to choose to go to the Moon and do this mission, Carnegie-Mellon University's robotics folks have been working on a rover robotic vehicle that could hunt for ice at the south pole. They've been working on that for the best part of 18 months. I think you could mount a mission to go do that roboticly in the next 5-6 years. I think that NASA will not choose to do that because the Moon is not high on its agenda of priorities for planetary exploration. So realistically, when would NASA do it? I would like to see it in the next 20 years but I don't see it anytime really soon. Militarization of technology and robots might help accelerate that if we could bring the cost down. We might just see a group of other nations with some commercial enterprises aboard. You know Radio Shack just stepped up and funded a lunar rover some months ago. So there is some interest, not just from the aerospace companies, in getting in on the act on space stuff. So don't necessarily wait for NASA and don't think it is so far away because technologically we can do it. Broscious: We are going to skip the next question because you pretty much answered that in your last one. And Dr. Churchill has a question for you next: Churchill: It is very related. It has to do with artificial intelligence and robotic missions. Given that those are stepping stones in the way of forging manned missions, what do you think are some of the high priority mission that should be undertaken by robotics and artificial intelligence, and what are their objectives? DASCH: I'm going to address robotics in the broadest sense. I think if we are going to send humans out to other venues in space, let's say the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, probably what we want is a system of orbiting satellites so that we get daily data and we can build up a very good picture of the atmosphere and the environment and good imagery of the surface. In one of NASA's plans this is a next step in scientific investigation. In terms of what robots do, I think you put them on the ground and you let them investigate the neat places where you would want to land where you would want to do scientific investigations and really check out the territory for you, so that you know exactly what you are going to. Probably you would use robots to do some experiments in creating fuel for your return because the greatest load you have to carry tends to be your fuel. So I would expect that both on the lunar and on the Martian surface to see robot experiments about fuel production so that you don't have to carry all the fuel for your return with you on the way out. That is my high-end take on what robots would do for you. They might also do some initial work on the projects that you want humans to follow through on. So as to get you a head start. You use robots as human helpers to do the difficult stuff, do the dirty stuff, do anything that doesn't require the human interface and decision making in real time to have an effective output. And we're getting better and better with our robots, although robot geologists are still a bit disappointing. So expect us to push that threshold so that humans are really doing the high end most useful work and robots do as much as possible of everything else, including construction when you want a fuel production plant or when you want to put down a small habitat site, expect to have robots that do the heavy work on that. Hynick: Having Pluto being the current mystery it is, the public and many space experts are divided on whether or not we should attempt exploration of this planet. Do you favor the sending of a space probe to Pluto? DASCH: I do. I feel quite strongly about this. When NASA started into planetary exploration they set a basic goal which was reconnaissance of all the planets in the solar system. And when we got to looking at some planets and found they are really fascinating we seem to have lost sight of that goal of going to Pluto or at least looking at Pluto. And we keep putting all our money into Mars and now Europa and the Jovian system. I think that is misguided. We should complete at least reconnaissance of our entire solar system and the additional arguments besides sticking with the plan you made and seeing it through, which I think the government and NASA owes that to the taxpayer. Don't tell us we are paying our tax dollars for one thing and then change it because, hey, Mars is the color of the week. But beyond that you have to consider the very eccentric orbit of Pluto. If we miss this opportunity to send something to Pluto. OK. Our technologies are improving at such a rate that we could go when Pluto is more distant, but from today's knowledge it is going to be 214 years before Pluto comes around to our neck of the woods again, so let's not let that opportunity slip away. Secondly, the atmosphere of Pluto. There is this big debate going on. It appears that Pluto has an atmosphere when it is closer to the Sun which collapses when it is further away. It would be very interesting to us to understand that dynamic. What drives the change, or at what point it comes? For all we know that could have all sorts of implications for us as we increasingly pollute our own planet and drive ourselves toward global warning not to mention implications for when humans are living off the Earth - a fascinating phenomenon. And finally, if Pluto is a captured asteroid or object from the Kuiper belt rather than a real planet, we are fascinated by all that ancient debris out there. It could be an absolute field of information for us. So let's not let the chance pass. Pluto's out there a long way out there. It is different. It is a binary system with its captive moon. Let's go and find out what it is all about while we have the chance. That's what I would say. Hughes: That was the last question in our science section. And now we'll go to the miscellaneous section which is the fourth of the four sections. The first question is asked by Brock Pronko. Pronko: My question is on the human aspect of space settlement. Brave, independent-minded test pilots were the "Right Stuff" for the early space program. With the ISS, long duration missions, and I should add scientific missions, and cohabitation with international crews requires a different kind of "Right Stuff." What do think the "Right Stuff" will be for manned missions to Mars? And for colonization? DASCH: First comment. We talk about human missions, not manned mission. This is the one question that caused me to pause and I'm not sure I have a good answer for you. It does seem that the era of the test pilots is over, or there isn't the call to limit ourselves to people like that. And I know you all know the joke that is going around: "who do you send to Mars? you send old people because they don't need to come back". What you need I think are very fine scientists who share the vision of what space offers and how much we can learn from visiting other planets. When we move beyond that to colonization then obviously you need a lot of conditioning for people who may never come back to Earth or who may live on the other planet for their entire lives. The only thing I would say about what is the "right stuff" is that we need a change from what we are doing now. As you are aware, right now JSFC continues to recruit astronauts into the current shuttle program every two years. There are just too many astronauts right now. The morale in the astronaut office right now is at rock bottom because so many of those people will never fly. They will never have a chance. So I would say that the right stuff would be drawn from a team which flies, where the members do go to space routinely, where they have experience. And I believe that what we need is to have a lunar base or a lunar outpost where people can train. I know you can send people to Antarctica but the conditions are rather different. I would like to see a training base on the Moon where you can cull out the people who have any problems with isolation for long periods because that is going to be a big factor for going to Mars. You are going to be cut off. So obviously you've got to be fit and healthy and you've got to have one person along who can help with medical emergencies. But you've also need people along who are motivated and expert in the field they are planning to address. Hughes: My origin question I think you already answered, but I have another question. When we asked you about the commercial barriers for sending people into space you responded with "the cost". If companies did have the money, what would stop them from sending people into space? DASCH: So, if there were companies that had the vehicles and the backing to go to space, what would stop them? The biggest inhibitor now is that we don't have standards for qualifying for going into space and that is a issue of some concern. The FAA is looking into how you qualify people who are not members of an astronaut core to go into space. And of course the applicants for space tourism say they want it to be as simple as getting on an airplane. And on the other end you have people who are very concerned that significant health risks can result from micro-gravity and that you are going to have to screen out a certain percentage of the population. So that's one problem right now. Another problem is the question of space traffic control. Again something that FAA is looking into. Most people were willing to tolerate the shuttle going overhead and being in their "space-space" as opposed to their "air-space" periodically because it is one of the wonders of the world. But now we are talking about vehicles like the X-33 and reusable vehicles that will routinely go into space and come back and lots of non-space faring nations are complaining and saying they don't want space vehicles over-flying their territory. So their are space traffic control issues that are going to have to be entered into as well as the whole safety and reliability issue. Is everyone going to still have to launch off the coast? Where are they going to come back to? What are the over flight protocols? And before I get too carried away with thinking in those futuristic terms, a big problem that they've got to deal with is launch sites. There is a big launch range modernization plan being addressed by the government. The commercial sector right now, the people launching communications satellites for the most part, but the commercial industry right now can't get on the pad when they want to. We can't turn pads around fast enough. Our launch pads are not commercial user friendly. So we'll need to do a lot of work at that end as well. Broscious: Our next question is from Geoff Cooper. Cooper: What percentage of the colonies on the moon will actually civilizations with people living there verses colonies being used for research stations only? In other words will the moon primarily be used just for research or do you think there is actual chance of people wanting to live there or being able to live there? DASCH: I think it is very speculative as to whether people would want to live there long term. In large part I'd say it is up to you. And by "you" I don't me you individually, but you the taxpayer. You are the people who can influence the government and tell them what you want to see happen. You are the people who can invest in space companies and space-related companies and help drive the economy. I think we'll see a progression. I think you'll see a lunar outpost almost certainly for the purpose of scientific research even if it includes research into the future of humans in space. Then you may see a permanently inhabited base. But I think spinning off from that you will see a community for the reasons I said before. I don't think you'll see us return to the Moon entirely as a government enterprise. I think there will be commercial aspects to it right from the start. And anywhere you have a community you have a service industry. These people have to be fed. Trash has to be removed. New habitats have to be in place as you outgrow the size of your base or outpost. New scientific instruments are needed which means you have to take people up and down. There is a whole service industry which is going to grow up around any base and I think that would also include a tourism industry. Will people live there long term? I look at Antarctica as a guide. You see people down there who over winter or go through a season. You see some who stay rather longer. But I think you will see comings and goings as you do throughout the world and I think you will see throughout outer space. I don't think there has to be a decision to go there and stay. But I still see people there for long haul trips. After all we are sending people to the space station for 90 days and then they are going to stay longer because we don't have the vehicles to bring them back. And that gives you an example. There is going to be basically cars or buses coming and going if you have a permanent outpost. So, yes, there will be a service industry and there will be people staying long term. Hughes: This is the last question in the miscellaneous section, but we are going to have approximately ten minutes left so we will open it up for a question and answer session. This question is posed by Walid Dimachkie. Dimachkie: This question is along the same lines as the previous ones. How far do you think the space program is from reaching and exploring Mars? Do you think we will ever be able to actually live on Mars? DASCH: I have to admit that I did not complete my homework on this. You know that the new NASA strategic plan is now available at NASA's web site. And I did not check it before I got on with you about what they are saying right now. They have been saying that they could coordinate a mission going to Mars, going out in 2012, probably a 3 year round trip. So the question is whether the government is going to give them a mandate to do that. As I mentioned earlier, the current space policy drawn up by Bill Clinton does not go beyond the space station, so NASA is a bit cagey and hesitant when talking about this. By contrast you have someone like Bob Zubrin with his Mars Direct Project who says we could go in 2005 if we committed tomorrow. Not too many engineers that I've talked to think that Zubrin's plan is viable, but more and more you see NASA's planning people taking elements from what Zubrin has suggested, so he is making a very valuable contribution. I think the only way we are going to go to Mars, quite honestly, is if we stretch the funding out over a number of years so that we are investing so much in that project year after year for quite some time. You are not going to see the government suddenly turn around and say, "OK, this year we are going to ramp up to 20 billion and go to Mars". It just won't happen. I don't believe it will happen. One thing that may well provide some imperative to getting us Mars is a ramp up in the military space program that you're going to see under this government and which I'm hearing does include some items which require a human presence in orbit way above where we take humans right now, low earth orbit. If you've got to take humans out to the Clark orbit, for instance, or somewhere in between, that is going to push the frontiers of what we do with humans so it reduces the great leap out to Mars. So stay tuned. I think you might see some new developments that really help this agenda coming out of the military side of the house. There is a lot of money in the next budget for development of space suits on the military side for, presumably, going further. That is all I know, which is probably a lot more than you know. And we are going to have to watch this develop over the next few months. Will people ever live on Mars? Again, I think you will certainly see researchers on Mars for extended periods. Whether anyone actually lives there is right now dependent on our ability to master the problems of radiation. Even a trip to Mars is going to deliver a tremendous radiation dose, and that for me is the biggest inhibitor to us going to Mars right now. We do have the technology to take us there. If we committed financially we could go there in the next few years. It is the limitations of human endurance, of that harsh environment, that is the biggest impediment to going right now. And I'm not saying that alone. The best people in space flight medicine will tell you the same thing. It is our human adaptation to planet Earth and having to re-adapt to life beyond low earth orbit for an extended period which is our biggest limitation. If you want to look at the long term - well then you have people talking about Terra-forming Mars and making it make more like Earth. That could be a real paradise to go to in the longer term. So, sure, there is every chance people will live on Mars, short or long term. Broscious: Thank you. That ends our scheduled questions. But I think we do have other people here who want to ask questions so I'm just going to open it up and let them ask what they would like. Cooper: I was wondering about exploitation of space for defense purposes. That is a big issue on the agenda for President Bush right now and I was wondering what you thought of it. DASCH: Geoff, this is a very pertinent question. And I'm a little undecided on this. I'm glad to see more emphasis on space, period. On the other hand, one of the things that the space law community prides itself on when you go to meetings at the United Nations is the fact that we've been in space for 50 years, we've been sending humans to space for 40 years, and we've never had a space war or any sort of space dispute. And so I worry about that aspect. On the other hand, the space frontier is the next frontier and I suspect its got to be the military high frontier for us. It is going to lead to all sorts of legal problems for us internationally. And I don't really like to contemplate that. On the other hand if that is what it is going to take to drive space technology development and stop us from being in the doldrums of languishing and not pushing those frontiers in the way that people like von Braun thought we were and expected us to do, so be it. We do need an impedance to space development. We have languished for too long. So exciting on one hand, scary on the other. It is going to raise issues. I do think it is going to develop some technologies that have amazing implications here on earth. Pronko: In the space enthusiasts communities, the question is not whether to colonize planets, but which planet to colonize. You have Jim Burk of the Moon Society* wanting to colonize the moon first, and you have Bob Zubrin and the Mars Society** wanting to colonize Mars first. I'm wondering where you stand on this issue. The Moon or Mars? * http://www.moonsociety.com/ ** http://www.marssociety.com/ DASCH: I'm going to let them argue and just give me a nice asteroid where I can grow things. Seriously, I and the National Space Society think you need to go back to the moon before you go on to Mars and that you test a lot of the hardware you'll use at the moon. You can use virtually identical habitats for the moon and for Mars for example. You go back to the moon and you test and you go on to Mars when you've got that experience. Remember, we only had twelve people on the moon and they weren't there very long. We don't exactly have a lot of off planet experience. And with the passage of time you have less and less of the gray beards around who actually can give us the lessons from that experience. So back to the moon, then on to Mars, and don't forget the asteroids. They may be the most exciting game out there. They are resource rich. You hop on and off. The regolith is rich. And you can harness your energy with solar pointing sails and panels. So don't forget them. Cervin: Hi, my name is Rachel Cervin. I have a question that relates to what you were talking about the colonies on the moon. You talked about the idea that there would be communities developing. How long do you think it would be before there would be communities that would include families and children and that would entail schools and growth in space and ownership. How many people would be unsatisfied at not being able to own the land that they live on? DASCH: Theoretically, Rachel, people are not even happy now about not being able to own the land. In fact there is one congressman who is actually contemplating introducing legislation in this session to develop a land registry for the moon just to set the international debate going. So you don't have to wait til you get there to get these discussions going. When do I think it will happen? Well, von Braun thought we'd be there now. We'd have colonies, we'd have families out there. I think it is so hard to call because we've been on such a slow pace for the past ten or fifteen years. But I would be very surprised if that is not the case by the end of this century. And I'd like to think people will be living in space in families in established colonies within fifty years. That will take some government impetus and maybe even an impetus to get off this planet. Churchill: I have one last question before we wrap up today. I'm sure you are familiar with O'Niell habitats. I'm curious if you have any comments about what you see in the future with O'Niell habitats. Are there companies who are beginning to really take this seriously as an investment apart from hotels and the entertainment industry. What is buzzing around out there about O'Niell habitats and where do they fit is with the roadmap for space for example? DASCH: Well, I was lucky enough last week to see the revamped version of 2001. And they've got a spinning habitat in there, for those of you who haven't seen that movie in the new or old version, which certainly puts you in mind of the O'Niell habitats. No one is thinking in those terms right now apart from the visionaries. And no one investing money or thinking of doing business in space is thinking that way. Indeed there was talk a few months ago that Hilton was thinking of doing things in space and it turned out they were just thinking of using it for an ad campaign for their hotels here on planet earth. So, no, it is very costly. There isn't an absolutely demonstrated marketplace, and you've got to get the government out of your way. You've got to establish a commercial space industry. And that is one thing that we are really looking to this government to do. In one of the early questions you sent me, there was a question about whether I favored a council to run space activities as President Bush has talked about or running it straight out of the president's office as Al Gore discussed. And I favor a council on two counts. You need to have the commercial element at the table. This can't just be a government activity anymore. And we've got to open up the whole approach to space so that the commercial industry is a player. When you do that you might be able to start talking about hotels, habitats, even O'Niell colonies. But that is a long, long, long way away. The other reason that I would favor a council approach is that you all see how low down the list of priorities space is. Can you imagine a president ever getting to it. That's the big danger we saw with Al Gore. Nice in theory. You're telling us that space is cool and you'd like to be involved but when you get into the job you're not going to have time. So let a council of experts, from civil space, from the NASA area, from military space, and from the commercial sector sit down together and sketch out a map for the future. O'Niell habitats are a great idea. We do hear talk our of NASA. You may have seen something about moving to a L2 colony or an L2 space station after we've had some experience with the current low earth orbit space stations. That's a step along the way. But, dream on. No O'Niell colonies anytime soon. But they are as viable as when he designed them. Great idea. Hughes: We'd like to thank you for spending your time with us. We found your answers very informative. And we wish you luck in trying to make some of the things that we've talked about today a reality. DASCH: Thank you. I'm so sorry I couldn't join you by video conference. It has been interesting and inspirational for me and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks for inviting me. Churchill: Again, Pat. I say thanks for the class. It has been a joy setting this up and carrying it out with you. On behalf of the class we wish you luck as Matt said. Anyway, all we have to say is thanks and good luck with your mission.