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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori

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Speaker 1: with you. Robert Zimmerman back with US. Award winning science

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Speaker 1: journalist and space historian. He has written numerous books and

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Speaker 1: articles on science, engineering, and the history of space exploration

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Speaker 1: and technology, and he of course also reports on science, space, culture,

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Speaker 1: politics at his website Behind the Black dot com. Robert,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back, my friend. How are you. I'm just fine, George,

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Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to

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Speaker 1: come on and talk to you, your vast and most

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Speaker 1: educated audience. Fifty three years since we first went to

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Speaker 1: the Moon. Yeah, where did the time fly? Well? For you?

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Speaker 1: And I? Well, maybe not, Maybe you're younger than I think,

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Speaker 1: but I remember when it happened and growing up at

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Speaker 1: the time, and what was absolutely expected in the sixties

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Speaker 1: when this happened was that by the year two thousand

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Speaker 1: and which by the way, is twenty plus years ago,

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Speaker 1: almost a quarter century ago. But by the year two thousand,

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Speaker 1: we would have colonies on the Moon, on Mars, or

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Speaker 1: at least, if not on Mars, close to getting it

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Speaker 1: on Mars. We would be beginning the settlement of the

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Speaker 1: Solar System. They'd be really exciting things going on. The

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Speaker 1: possibility of a pioneer environment and out of space was

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Speaker 1: on the verge. That's what everyone thought was going to happen.

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Speaker 1: And here we are fifty three years later, and except

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Speaker 1: for those five or six I figured, actually five or

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Speaker 1: six lunar Apollo landings, nobody has been back to another world.

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of disappointing in a sense. I will

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Speaker 1: say that the future is very bright, but it is

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Speaker 1: astonishing that fifty three years later there has not been

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Speaker 1: established in other worlds human settlements and this explosion of

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Speaker 1: the Solar System. Yeah, it's it's bizarre. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: concentrated on the International Space Station and some Shuttle missions,

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Speaker 1: but that was it. That was it. We have been.

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Speaker 1: We have been like the ancient mariners who were afraid

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Speaker 1: to go out beyond the shoreline. They hugged the coast

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Speaker 1: because they feared out there there be monsters and they

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Speaker 1: would be in danger. And of course, fear is always

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Speaker 1: the mind killer, as Frank Herbert said in Dune. If

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Speaker 1: you don't if you have fear, you can't accomplish anything.

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Speaker 1: And we I think have been afraid for the last

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Speaker 1: fifty years, and that, thank goodness, thank goodness, thank goodness,

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Speaker 1: is finally beginning to change and change in a really

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Speaker 1: spectacular way in the last I'd say ten years. We're

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Speaker 1: now looking at what could be a renaissance, not only

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Speaker 1: in American engineering and aerospace. It's aerospace industry, a renaissance

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Speaker 1: in the exploration of the solar system, because for the

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Speaker 1: first time since the sixties, were seemed very great and

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Speaker 1: exciting innovation going on in the commercial rocket industry, and

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Speaker 1: that of course lowers the cost, which means suddenly there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of things going on, and by gosh, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of things going on. For example, George,

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Speaker 1: just a few days ago, a private company who was

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Speaker 1: building engines for planetary missions. They don't then their goal

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Speaker 1: isn't to actually fly planetary missions, but to fly engines

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Speaker 1: and tugs to take planetary missions to other places. They

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Speaker 1: announced that they've hired another rocket startup called Relativity to

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Speaker 1: launch their own private commercial mission unmanned to Mars by

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Speaker 1: twenty four, twenty twenty four. Company is called Impulse Space.

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Speaker 1: The guy who founded it was the head engineer of

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Speaker 1: SpaceX's rocket engine program. He was the key man developing

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Speaker 1: the Merlin, the Draco, the Super Draco, and the Raptor

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Speaker 1: engines the SpaceX users on its rockets and capsules, and

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Speaker 1: he left SpaceX a few years ago to form his

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Speaker 1: own company, and their goal was to build tugs that

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Speaker 1: would provide planetary missions, transportation to and from various places

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Speaker 1: and sol system. But in order to establish himself that

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Speaker 1: company and get some publicity, they announced they're going to

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Speaker 1: do their own planetary mission. And I think that's just

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Speaker 1: whether they as goes or not, I don't think it matters.

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Speaker 1: It's it's just symbolic of what I expect to happen

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Speaker 1: more and more in the coming decades. We're going to

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Speaker 1: have a private commercial Luna Landa launch in November. We

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Speaker 1: have two rovers on two rovers, one private and the

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Speaker 1: other one financed and built by the United Arab Emirates. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: so private, and this is just the beginning. It'll get

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Speaker 1: more exciting as we go. So we're looking at a

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Speaker 1: renaissance about to appear. It's a little late in coming,

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Speaker 1: but I think the Apollo mission in sixty nine, no

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Speaker 1: matter how delayed it has been, it's set the stage.

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Speaker 1: It set the rose the curtain on word route. We're

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Speaker 1: about to see now, how dangerous was the Apollo eleven mission.

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Speaker 1: I mean by the Apollo eleven mission, they probably considered

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Speaker 1: their odds better, but as a general rule, they considered

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Speaker 1: those missions to have a success possibilities of about fifty

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Speaker 1: fifty season and two. That's right. Yes, the odds were

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Speaker 1: probably actually better than that, but at the time, they

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Speaker 1: haven't done this before, and especially with the first mission.

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Speaker 1: I wrote the book Genesis Story of Apollo eight about

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Speaker 1: the first mission to go to the Moon, and there

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Speaker 1: was no doubt in anyone's mind at that moment that

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Speaker 1: the odds of this mission succeeding is no more than

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Speaker 1: fifty fifty. And they flew anyway. They went anyway, and

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Speaker 1: the later Apollo missions they went with the understanding that

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Speaker 1: the odds were probably very very low, and you had

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Speaker 1: to go with the understanding you might not come back.

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Speaker 1: I remember a Paulo fourteen astronaut edgar Mitchell was a

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Speaker 1: friend of our show Robert, and he talked about all

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Speaker 1: kinds of incredible things. I remember buzz Aldron they couldn't

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Speaker 1: launch the lunar Lander back up because his gloves too

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Speaker 1: were too big to reach into the button. They had

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Speaker 1: to use a big pen. The number of stories about

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Speaker 1: that went on in all of space history are pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty astonishing, both American and Russian. Uh, the fact that

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Speaker 1: when Neil Armstrong landed that thing on the Moon, there's

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Speaker 1: a there's the quote that came out of miscontrol right

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Speaker 1: after he landed was there's a whole bunch of guys

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Speaker 1: turning blue here. And at the time there was no

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Speaker 1: explanation for why they said that. It was assumed, are

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Speaker 1: they're just nervous? Nervous? Yeah, wasn't that. It was that

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Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong, being as cool headed as he was, was

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Speaker 1: searching for a good landing spot, even though all the

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Speaker 1: data on the ground said he was about to run

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Speaker 1: out of fuel. They figured later on that he probably

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Speaker 1: only had about fifteen seconds worth of fuel left when

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Speaker 1: he put the thing down, and the ground control they

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Speaker 1: had censors. They knew that was going on, and that's

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Speaker 1: why they were turning blue. And Neil Armstrong, you know,

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Speaker 1: being the cool headed is an amazing buzz Aldren still

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Speaker 1: with us. If it is quite amazing and bless is

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Speaker 1: hard He's going to put that they have an auction

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Speaker 1: of a lot of his lunar artifacts from his own

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Speaker 1: collection in the near future, and I hope he makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, because you know, it deserves it,

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Speaker 1: and that's a good way to save and protect a

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Speaker 1: lot of that stuff. Actually, what do you feel, Robert

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Speaker 1: about these people who say we didn't go to the moon? Oh? Well,

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Speaker 1: having been a historian who has interviewed a lot of

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Speaker 1: astronauts as well as a lot of astronaut wives and

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Speaker 1: children and employees, people who risk their lives to get there,

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Speaker 1: the people who risked all watching their husbands go and

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Speaker 1: later on by the way their wives go as well.

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Speaker 1: I've interviewed a lot of astronauts in my time and

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Speaker 1: their families, and I always get kind of and you

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Speaker 1: probably you might remember how indignant I've gotten in the

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Speaker 1: past when people bring this up. But I know people

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Speaker 1: who died to do this, and I know the people

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Speaker 1: they left behind for after they died do this, and

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Speaker 1: it's kind of shameful. And it's also shameful from another perspective,

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Speaker 1: which is this was one of the great achievements of

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Speaker 1: America of all time, of all time and of all time,

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Speaker 1: but of our nations particular, and for Americans to try

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Speaker 1: to denigrate that great achievement speak speaks really badly of

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Speaker 1: the people who are doing it. It sounds all right,

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Speaker 1: So what that's really telling me is you yourself don't

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Speaker 1: think you can a group achieve great things, So rather

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Speaker 1: than trying to do something great, you'd rather discredit the

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Speaker 1: great things that others in the past have done. And

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Speaker 1: I find that's kind of shameful and unfortunate. Um Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: I think most people don't don't buy into that, and

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Speaker 1: they they recognize how great an achievement this was. They're

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Speaker 1: proud of it, and they would love to see America

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Speaker 1: do more things like that. I do too. What's going

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Speaker 1: on with China these days? China has right now, in

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Speaker 1: many ways, the most robust manned space program in the world.

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Speaker 1: They are building their own private, their own private, their

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Speaker 1: own governmental space station. In fact, this coming weekend they're

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Speaker 1: going to launch the third module on that station. They

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Speaker 1: will launch the next module later this summer, and that

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Speaker 1: will complete the construction of the station itself. They hope

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Speaker 1: to have it up there for a minimum of ten years.

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Speaker 1: That launched this weekend is going to be interesting from

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Speaker 1: a space junk perspective. The rocket they used to put

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Speaker 1: that that these big modules up to the station. It's

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Speaker 1: called the long Launch five B. In the previous like

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Speaker 1: four launches that this rocket did. The core stage, which

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Speaker 1: is basically the central stage. Get that the first central stage.

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Speaker 1: It actually reaches all of it, and it's big. It's

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Speaker 1: big thing. When it comes back down to Earth, it's

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Speaker 1: big enough. It reaches the ground, it crashes. They did

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Speaker 1: not have engines on that course stage that could restart.

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Speaker 1: So once it reaches orbit and turns its engines off

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Speaker 1: and deep and releases the module or the station, the

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Speaker 1: thing basically is going to fall back to Earth within

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Speaker 1: a week or so. And when it does, it's going

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Speaker 1: to crash, and it's going to do it uncontrolled. And

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Speaker 1: that happened like anywhere, crash, any place right, any place.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the last two, the one of the last

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Speaker 1: two came within fifteen minutes of landing over the Metropolitan

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Speaker 1: New York air Oh my god. Yes, absolutely, it ended

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Speaker 1: up a little crashing in the Atlantic off of Africa.

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Speaker 1: But if it had been just a little bit later,

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Speaker 1: it would have come around and it could have landed

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Speaker 1: on New York. It was right, or with its orbital

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Speaker 1: path would have taken and right over it. So that's

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Speaker 1: the question. This next launch is going to use the

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Speaker 1: same rocket, and if the Chinese haven't made any upgrades

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Speaker 1: in about a week or so, you're going to be

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Speaker 1: reporting in your in your first news report about how

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Speaker 1: this court age is tumbling an orbit and could come

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Speaker 1: down anywhere anywhere. The question is whether they have upgraded

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Speaker 1: the engines, and I've gotten some source information that suggests

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Speaker 1: they have, But stand by because we won't know until

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Speaker 1: next week whether or not the Chinese will be sending

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Speaker 1: something to crash down on someone's head somewhere. Would the Chinese,

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Speaker 1: if they continue to go to the Moon, try to

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Speaker 1: claim it for themselves. The Chinese claim that they would

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Speaker 1: not do that, and they won't claim the Moon the

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Speaker 1: whole thing. But the Chinese have made it very very

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Speaker 1: clear that any territory or base or thing they put

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Speaker 1: on the Moon or anywhere else they are going to

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Speaker 1: possess it. They were going to own it now. Actually,

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Speaker 1: be honest, that's not unreasonable. No. I mean, if they

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Speaker 1: build a little slip, a private company did it, we'd

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Speaker 1: want to own it as well. True, the Outer Space

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Speaker 1: Treaty doesn't allow anyone to own anything, but everyone who's

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Speaker 1: going to go is going to claim and control what

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Speaker 1: they put down, and the Chinese have made it very

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Speaker 1: clear they intend to do that, and they are made

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Speaker 1: it very clear, and they without question have a very

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Speaker 1: robust space program that in many ways is ahead of

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Speaker 1: us for getting back to the Moon. And because of that,

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Speaker 1: it's very likely that you're going to see Chinese astronauts

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Speaker 1: on the Moon, sometimes in places such as historic Apollo sites,

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Speaker 1: and we will not be able to do anything about that.

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Speaker 1: They are mostly going to be aiming for the south

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Speaker 1: pole of the Moon, where we think there's ice. Everyone

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Speaker 1: wants to go there. That's the beachfront property on the Moon,

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Speaker 1: so the first people who get there are going to

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Speaker 1: be able to get DIBs on it. And the Chinese

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Speaker 1: are ahead of us at this point. Would they be

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Speaker 1: tacky enough to pull our flags out of the moon soil?

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Speaker 1: I suspect they wouldn't do that. I suspect, once again,

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Speaker 1: going to aim for the south pole where the resources

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Speaker 1: are probably located, claim control of it and then prevent

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Speaker 1: any wils from coming in if they went to an

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Speaker 1: Apollo site. The goal would be to establish good public

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Speaker 1: relations and good publicity for their nation, and so to

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Speaker 1: do any harm to those sites would not reflect well

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Speaker 1: on Chinas. I wouldn't expect them to do anything, but

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Speaker 1: that they are doing things like that they're on the

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Speaker 1: moon and where not is going to be, from my perspective,

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Speaker 1: distressing and somewhat embarrassing. What I'm amazed at, Robert, is

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Speaker 1: we were fifty years ahead of people, fifty years ahead

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Speaker 1: of other countries, and they've all caught up with us. Now.

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Speaker 1: That's our own fault. And it's changing now, and I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you how it's changing. It's changing remarkably. And I've

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Speaker 1: talked about this on your show, and I've written about

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Speaker 1: it in my books, and I write about it every

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Speaker 1: day on my website. I keep track of launches. What

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Speaker 1: the US did for the last fifty years. We copied

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union after the Apollo Mission, and I have

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Speaker 1: to make a government program which everything is run by

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Speaker 1: the government. Their government dictates everything. And the result was

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Speaker 1: innovation died, creativity died, competition died, profit disappeared. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: a motive anymore. And so what happened. We didn't accomplish anything,

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Speaker 1: just like the Soviet Union, didn'tccomplish anything, just like Venezuela's

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Speaker 1: going bankrupt, such like every communist nation has ever gone.

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Speaker 1: If you do a Soviet style government up down thing,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work. What's happened in the last decade and

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Speaker 1: a half, and I have documented this in both my

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Speaker 1: books and my writing, is that the United States has

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Speaker 1: finally transitioned away from my government program. What instead is

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Speaker 1: happening now even if NASA has a program such as

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Speaker 1: ottomists to go back to the Moon and elsewhere, NASHA

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Speaker 1: is not building or designing or creating anything to make

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Speaker 1: that happen. Instead, they are hiring private companies to do it.

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Speaker 1: And so what ends up happening then is that there's

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Speaker 1: competition in the private sector to come up with cheaper

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Speaker 1: and better ways to do this stuff. And SpaceX of

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Speaker 1: course led the way with the rocket industry because they

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Speaker 1: came up with a better rocket that was cheaper to launch,

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Speaker 1: and it made everybody else look bad. And it also

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Speaker 1: what it did is it encouraged innovation. It brought innovation

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Speaker 1: into the industry, and so that has resulted now in

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Speaker 1: a reborn space in rocket industry, and that has resulted

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Speaker 1: in a reborn American space industry because now you've got

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Speaker 1: creative new projects going, such as the one I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 1: George that Impulse Space Relativity Mission to Mars launches are cheaper.

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Speaker 1: There are companies now trying to make it even cheaper

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Speaker 1: than SpaceX does. And so what ends up happening is

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Speaker 1: there's new achievement and we're going someplace. And so right now,

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Speaker 1: at this moment in time, SpaceX has matched the number

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Speaker 1: of launches it accomplished all of last year, and it

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Speaker 1: did it in just over half a year. This year

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Speaker 1: going to probably double their record from last year. And

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Speaker 1: American private enterprise at this moment in time has more

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Speaker 1: launches at this moment this year than the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world combined. Remember when we were kids, Robert, we

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Speaker 1: all wanted to be astronauts, all of us. Yep, yep, yep.

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Speaker 1: Are they doing that anymore? Do kids, younger kids say

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Speaker 1: they want to be astronauts? I don't think so. I

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Speaker 1: think I think you yes, or you do have people

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Speaker 1: who do that. Yes, I think that's absolutely the case.

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Speaker 1: I do think however, you're going to have you don't

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Speaker 1: have as many kids doing it. It is not marketed

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Speaker 1: any longer. As the thing to do for every kid everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and it's not the number one thing in the society,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I think without question, kids today, a lot

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Speaker 1: of kids today, a large percentage of the population among

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Speaker 1: the younger generation, wants to do this. Remember, space still

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Speaker 1: represents the future, and if you're young, that's your future.

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Speaker 1: And so kids are going to be attracted by the

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Speaker 1: possibilities of getting into space and this new renovation in

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Speaker 1: American rocketry and space is only encouraging that. Right now,

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Speaker 1: without any doubt at all, Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and

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Speaker 1: go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more