Will Humans Be an Interplanetary Species?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Well, this milestone initiative offers a glimpse into the future of space exploration. And no one is more qualified to speak on this next era than NASA administrator, Bill Nelson. The former senator and house representative is one of just a handful of members of Congress ever to travel to space. And here he is talking to our Walter Isaacson.

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WALTER ISAACSON: NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, welcome to the show.

BILL NELSON, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Thank you, Walter.

ISAACSON: Congratulations. This was a very inspiring thing that happened this week, the launch of the commercial crew, the four civilians that went into space, lived up to its name, the Inspiration4. But for the first time, NASA was a little bit of a spectator in this. It was done by a private company, SpaceX. Tell me why that’s better than having government just do it itself.

NELSON: Well, we are promoting commercial activity in space, and I can go into that. But let me tell you, NASA wasn’t a spectator. To get that to vehicle ready, the vehicle being the Dragon Spacecraft, so that it is safe for humans, NASA has been all over that, partnering with SpaceX. We’re doing the same with Boeing now as they try to get off the launch pad, to make sure that the vehicle and the spacecraft are safe. And certainly, SpaceX is proving that that is the case because this now, they have sent three crews to the International Space Station. We’ll do the fourth coming up the end of October. And then, in the meantime, they send this crew out not attached to the space station. It’s showing that vehicle is reliable.

ISAACSON: You described how NASA has helped design that Dragon capsule we all saw on TV. That wonderful thing with the open dome so they can see out. Tell me about working with SpaceX to design that amazing 21st century space capsule they are in.

NELSON: SpaceX and Elon are an amazing success story. Now, they will tell you what I’m about to tell you, that they started out thinking that they could do it themselves. And finally, they realized that they really needed NASA’s help when it came to humans and the loop. NASA, likewise, has learned a lot from commercial companies like SpaceX. And indeed, we now purchase the service of delivery of crew to the International Space Station. And it’s now come about as a cost savings. And I would be quick to point out that no less than the U.S. Air Force has admitted to me that because of SpaceX driving down the cost of launches, because primarily they reuse the rocket core of the first stage, they have saved just — the Department of Defense has saved $40 billion over the last several years in launch costs. So, you see there is synergy here between the private sector and the public sector. And it is all to the good of mankind.

ISAACSON: There is a great competition between Blue Origin run by Jeff Bezos and SpaceX run by Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell. And of course, Blue Origin is suing NASA, I think, or is part of a lawsuit because you awarded a contract for the moon landing capsule to SpaceX. Tell me, are you confident that that contract was awarded correctly? And what do you think of that lawsuit?

NELSON: Even though the contract was awarded before I came here, the answer to your question is yes. And in part, it was awarded because before I came here, Congress did not give NASA enough money. And therefore, the decision was made in NASA, they only had enough money to award one for the first demonstration flight. I am now all over Capitol Hill trying to get them to understand that we need competition going forward. Because competition will keep us on time. It will also bring the cost down. And if we’re going to have that competition with other companies, like Blue Origin and Dynetics and others that have now put in the bids, if we’re going to have that, we got to have some more money. And I’ve made that argument to the White House and I’ve made that argument to the Congress. And we’ll see if they honor that.

ISAACSON: SpaceX is currently the only way that the U.S. can get astronauts to the International Space Station. It will be a public-private partnership in some ways, because the lunar landing you will do in partnership with SpaceX and you are looking at other companies to help with that. How long will this Artemis program take? And when are we going to get to the moon again?

NELSON: Well, the first two are entirely NASA. The first one is mandate as we always go through and test a vehicle without humans on it. The second one, which is sometime in 2023, maybe early ’24, that one will have a crew, and they will go way beyond the moon and then come back to the earth. And then the third one is what you’re talking about, where the NASA spacecraft, Orion will go into lunar orbit. It will be, more or less, one that goes way up and comes down close. And it will rendezvous in lunar orbit with the commercial landing craft. That will take the astronauts to the surface and back. That’s the first demonstration. To finally answer the rest of your question, it’s going to be over a decade with about a landing a year, and that is what we are preparing for the future and that’s why we need that competition to keep it on time and keep it as economical as possible.

ISAACSON: When we start doing one landing per year on the moon, when will that be and what will the goal be? Will it be to have a permanent base on the moon?

NELSON: The goal for the first demonstration, assuming that all of this is not reversed in the court of claims where Blue Origin has now contested the previous decision, and that will be a demonstration. But then, overtime, those landings will do all of the above. It will be a habitat. There will be science. There is going to be a lot of that starting next year, by the way, in commercial landers having NASA payloads, university science payloads all in preparation. And here is something that’s really exciting. We’re sending three missions to the South Pole. It is the South Pole of the moon that we think has the water. And if you have water, you can make fuel, hydrogen, and oxygen. And that could be very important for fueling future missions to Mars.

ISAACSON: This Inspiration4 launch has sometimes been called space tourism because it is for civilians. In fact, they are actually doing a lot of work. But I still want to ask you, when we call it space tourism, is that actually a good thing? Do we want to encourage space tourism?

NELSON: Yes. The more that we can get commercial ventures out there, it is — and they are successful and they build one success on another, learn that much more, the more that that occurs, then the more we are able toward the end of this decade to turn over low earth orbit and the space station to commercial ventures so they can manufacture in space, they can research in space, and NASA can get out of low earth orbit and go on and explore the helix. And that is what we’re doing. Back to the earth and then on to Mars.

ISAACSON: On the Mars, tell me how you are going to do that.

NELSON: Well, right now, we couldn’t sustain human life all the way to Mars. You are talking about millions and millions of miles. Not 250,000 miles to the moon. So, we want to use the lunar habitat to learn more about how you sustain life. What can we do to keep our astronauts from being fried by a solar explosion, which is in effect radiation? How can you grow enough food so you can sustain them? Because it is possible, depending on the alignment of the planets. Once we got to Mars, it is possible you would have to stay six months a year on the surface before you’d come back. We don’t have that capability yet. But we’re researching and developing all of those capabilities.

ISAACSON: What drives Elon Musk is making humans an interplanetary species, to be able eventually, and by eventually he means, you know, within a few decades, to live on other planets. Is that a mission of NASA as well? Is it important to make sure that sometime in the foreseeable future humans can live on other planets?

NELSON: NASA’s mission is to venture out and explore. This is the new frontier, Walter. The frontier is upward. It used to be westward in this country. And as we explore, we learn new things. We adapt to new things. Very likely, we could create civilizations. At the same time, all this is happening, let me remind you, we’re putting up a telescope in December that’s going to be a million miles out from Earth and it is going to look through a key hole and it is going to look back, if the you can believe this, 13 billion years capturing light from that long ago almost after the big bang. And we’re going to be able to discover those early, early galaxies, and we’re going to be able to discover those suns and sea planets revolving around those suns. And then, we’re going to be able to look for a planet that has a habitable kind of atmosphere. When you think of the universe how big it is, there are unlimited possibilities out there. This is the mission of NASA to explore.

ISAACSON: How will exploration of space help us in our fight on climate change?

NELSON: Well, any time we have technological breakthroughs, it immediately does. Now, having said that, look at what NASA has already done. You know, you think of Noah and the National Weather Service? Who do you think does those spacecrafts? We design them, build them, launch them. Noah operates them. But what about all the others? There are some 30 up there that is measuring the Earth’s climate. What about the four or five that are to go in the future that when we have the combination of all them talking to each other, we will create a 3D composite of everything that is happening climatically on the Earth because we’re going to look at the land, the seas, the ice and the atmosphere and collate all that information. So, our ability to effect climate change today as a nation, as a people of Earth is because of the NASA instruments that are up in space.

ISAACSON: Up until your partnership with SpaceX, you were depending some on the Russians to be able to get American astronauts to the International Space Station. I know you have met with your Russian counterpart. And you and I can remember back in the old days, in the early 60s even, when Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn were all flying through up, there was a mix of competition and cooperation with different countries when it came to space. Tell me what mix of competition and cooperation we’re going to have with the Russians and Chinese in the future as we explore space?

NELSON: This partnership, that is almost a marriage between the Russians and the Americans in the civilian space program, started back, as you noted, 1975 in the midst of the Cold War when an American spacecraft and a Soviet spacecraft rendezvoused and docked. And the crews lived together for nine days in space. From that time, we have always cooperated in the civilian space program. And we still rely on the Russians. They have major components on the space station. We worked it out where we are still sending, occasionally, an American astronaut on the Soviet Soyuz and we’re going to work it out where they have a Russian cosmonaut that is going on our spacecraft. So, that partnership is solid. I believe that partnership is solid through the end of the International Space Station and we are trying to extend that until the 2030s.

ISAACSON: What is going to replace that International Space Station?

NELSON: Well, eventually, in the 2030s, we hope it will be a commercial space station. Because NASA wants to get out of low earth orbit. So, we can get out and explore.

ISAACSON: You have had the amazing perspective that very few people have had of looking at our small blue planet when you went up on the shuttle mission as an astronaut. Tell me, what did that inspire you to do? And did it also help you want to make sustainability, climate, this ability to shepherd our planet part of the mission of NASA?

NELSON: That was clearly one result. When you look out at Earth, and it is so beautiful. And yet, it is this fragile creation suspended in the middle of nothing. But, Walter, even though I became more of an environmentalist and wanted when returning to become a better steward of what we have here on Earth, as a public servant, I saw something else as we orbited the Earth every 90 minutes. I did not see religious division. I did not see racial division. I did not see the political division. What I saw was that we are all in this together, as citizens of planet Earth. And that has informed my public service for the last 36 years ever since I flew on the space shuttle.

ISAACSON: NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, thank you so much for joining us.

NELSON: Thanks, Walter.