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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 Norry

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Speaker 1: with you. Robert Zimmerman joining US Award winning science journalist historian.

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Speaker 1: He has written a number of books and numerous articles

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Speaker 1: and science engineering, the history of space, exploration and technology.

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Speaker 1: Some include Genesis, The Universe in a Mirror, Leaving Earth,

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Speaker 1: The Chronological Encyclopedia of Discoveries in Space. His website is

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Speaker 1: Behind the Black dot com, and of course he also

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Speaker 1: reports on space and science news at his website Beyond

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Speaker 1: Behind the Black dot Com. Robert, welcome back, my friend.

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Speaker 1: Have you band George. It's always a pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's been too long. It has been a

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Speaker 1: while since since we talked. They're talking more about the

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Speaker 1: Space Force. Congress's past laws, the Senate's past laws. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna get funding for What do you think of that?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's about the Space Force. That was Everyone

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Speaker 1: makes a big deal about how, oh my god, Trump

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Speaker 1: wants to have people in uniform with guns in space,

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Speaker 1: firing lasers and phases. The real reason he proposed that

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Speaker 1: was to get the military space bureaucracy reorganized. The military

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Speaker 1: has been trying to get this to happen for about

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Speaker 1: ten years. It's spread over, it was spread over many

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Speaker 1: different agencies. It did not have a voice in the

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Speaker 1: Washington bureaucracy. The Air Force ran it mostly and they

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Speaker 1: have their own interests that have a separate from space.

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Speaker 1: And so there's been an effort in the Pentagon to

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Speaker 1: get it reorganized, and they couldn't get it off the ground.

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Speaker 1: And Trump, being very clever about these things, announced We're

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Speaker 1: going to have a space force, and of course that

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Speaker 1: gets a lot of press discussion, and the result is

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Speaker 1: that they got they got the thing off the ground.

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Speaker 1: And so what's really happened here is that bureaucracy has

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Speaker 1: now been reorganized. Now I don't know if long run

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Speaker 1: this is going to work, because Washington bureaucracies tend to

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Speaker 1: grow and not save you any money and don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: make things more efficient. But the concept, the idea was

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Speaker 1: to make things more efficient and to give give that

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Speaker 1: the needs of the nation in terms of military space

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Speaker 1: a focus. And so we will see if that transpires

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Speaker 1: over the next few years. But at least it was

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Speaker 1: where I see it coming, and I think I think

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Speaker 1: the concept was a good one. We'll see you once

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Speaker 1: again how it plays out. Well, if we don't do

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Speaker 1: it another nation, Well Robert, well, yeah, you know what.

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Speaker 1: The fact is that the Chinese, who are an undeniable

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Speaker 1: threat to the United States, trying very hard to become

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Speaker 1: the next superpower. They want to literally replace the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union in the world competition for power, and they are

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Speaker 1: part of the way they're doing that is to have

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Speaker 1: a very aggressive and well planned space program. And it

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Speaker 1: is a military program. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not

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Speaker 1: paying attention. They their military runs the entire operation, and

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Speaker 1: that's what their goals are. Anything they do in space

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Speaker 1: is specifically even if it's a civilian effort, a man

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Speaker 1: civilian effort, it's a scientific probe to the far side

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Speaker 1: of the moon, a rover. They have. All the technology

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Speaker 1: that they develop there is fed right back into their

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Speaker 1: military industrial complex, and so they are something to pay

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Speaker 1: attention to. They in a sense, already have their space force.

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Speaker 1: One of the things a lot of Americans don't know

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Speaker 1: about China to talk about this is that they have

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Speaker 1: been using their space industry as a training program for

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Speaker 1: their political leadership. So they're provincial governors. At Semifou state governors,

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Speaker 1: they're not elected, they are appointed. It's a it's a

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Speaker 1: it's this is very confusion in concept. They have a

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Speaker 1: management arrangement how they run their country as they have

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Speaker 1: the thousands of years. In the past, they used to

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Speaker 1: have this test where you had to take a literature

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Speaker 1: test in Chinese and anyone could take it, no matter

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Speaker 1: how poor you were, and if you succeeded in passing,

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Speaker 1: you would in line in the track to become a major, important,

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Speaker 1: powerful bureaucrat or manager or even leader within the Chinese government.

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Speaker 1: Thousands of years. Well, it didn't really work. It got corrupted.

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Speaker 1: You know, passing a test on literature doesn't necessarily make

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Speaker 1: you a good manager politically, especially when you start to

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Speaker 1: have to compete against technological countries from the west, and

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Speaker 1: they lapsed in the nineteenth century. They couldn't compete, and

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Speaker 1: so they now instead use their space program as that test.

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Speaker 1: And of their provincial governors, about half came out of

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Speaker 1: the space management, the management of their space program, and

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Speaker 1: they so they're governors that ruin the rule. Their provinces

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Speaker 1: came out of their space program. Would be like in

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Speaker 1: the United States. You want to become a governor of

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Speaker 1: New York State or California, you've got to be a

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Speaker 1: successful manager at NASA and have successfully run a program there. Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't necessarily agree with that approach, but what it

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Speaker 1: means twofold in China is they have found a way

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Speaker 1: to develop an effective management system in their government in

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Speaker 1: the modern technological world. That's one, and that makes them

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Speaker 1: a definitive threat, or at least competitive with US. And

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Speaker 1: the second thing is it means that their space program

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Speaker 1: is going to be treated probably by their government because

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Speaker 1: so many people came out of it, and you don't

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Speaker 1: go into a space program without a little bit of

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Speaker 1: get space cadet in you. And so there's twofold what

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Speaker 1: to think about. And those same people are going to

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Speaker 1: see are going to favor keep using this space program

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Speaker 1: as a way to keep feeding good people into their

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Speaker 1: governmental management structure. And so that means they are going

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Speaker 1: to be a space force. And I'm not using it

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Speaker 1: in terms of the Trump As, but they're going to

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Speaker 1: be a force in space that will have to be

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Speaker 1: contended with for probably a very long time. What do

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Speaker 1: you think of the privatization of space? I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: got all these companies popping up already, you know, launching,

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Speaker 1: and what's your take on that. Well, let's use little history.

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Speaker 1: I'm a historian, so let's look at history over the

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Speaker 1: last half century. When in the and this is what genesis,

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Speaker 1: my book Genesis, Story of Palaway basically talked about how

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Speaker 1: we won the space race in the sixties, but it

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Speaker 1: taught us all the wrong lessons. We won that space

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Speaker 1: race to prove that freedom, private enterprise, capitalism, and competition

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Speaker 1: are the way to make a great society and to

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Speaker 1: achieve great things. But to do to win a space race,

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Speaker 1: we built it on a space program, a Soviet model,

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Speaker 1: and the lesson the nation took from that is, let's

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Speaker 1: have more space programs, let's have big government, let's do

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Speaker 1: let's become the Soviet Union. Literally, that's what became. And

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Speaker 1: so the last fifty years we have not done very

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Speaker 1: much in space. We really didn't accomplish very much. Government

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Speaker 1: doesn't achieve these things very well. They're not a capable

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Speaker 1: of it. And what's most interesting is how quickly when

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Speaker 1: you allow private enterprise to be your team here to

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Speaker 1: make things work, you suddenly get incredible innovation and you

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Speaker 1: disrupt the industry and you suddenly get things happening that

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Speaker 1: for years we're not happening. And then example, I always

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

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Speaker 1: show before, but it bears repeating. Is that for fifty years,

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Speaker 1: and I'm been a historian on this subject for decades,

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Speaker 1: and I've been following space since I was a teenager

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Speaker 1: in the sixties, four decades. Managers and engineers at all

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Speaker 1: the major rocket companies repeatedly told said, and they told

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Speaker 1: me personally repeatedly as a journalist, that it is impossible

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Speaker 1: to reuse any part of your rocket. You can't learn

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Speaker 1: landed vertically. You can't. Even if you could, you'd waste

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Speaker 1: so much fuel, you couldn't get your payload into orbit.

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Speaker 1: And even if you have successfully landed and gotten your

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Speaker 1: payload into orbit, the first stage is just not going

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Speaker 1: to be in a usable state to launch again. Wrong?

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Speaker 1: How wrong could they be? Right? They couldn't be farther wrong?

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Speaker 1: And the reason it happened is that SpaceX is being

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Speaker 1: run by a private individual who had dreams of his

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Speaker 1: own and decided to take risks and innovate and not

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Speaker 1: accept that accepted wisdom and because he thaw a way

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Speaker 1: to make a lot of money, he saw that if

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Speaker 1: he could reduce the cost of launch, he would pull

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Speaker 1: in a lot of business that others weren't trying to get.

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Speaker 1: And the fact is that SpaceX and the Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: in the last decade has literally stolen the entire market

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Speaker 1: share of rocket launches that Russia had about a third

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Speaker 1: of what Europad and I would say about twenty percent

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Speaker 1: of what the other American launch companies had. Isn't that dramatic?

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Speaker 1: And the result is he's making a very lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Money that he see that he of course he keeps

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Speaker 1: himself he should, but most of what he pumps back

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Speaker 1: into the company to do more innovation, to keep himself

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Speaker 1: ahead of the game. Give an example, this week they

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Speaker 1: launched they made their forced launch for the year, and

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Speaker 1: when they did, they launched sixteen new satellites in they

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Speaker 1: have stall linked constellation. This is SpaceX trying to do

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Speaker 1: a constellation to provide worldwide Internet capabilities. And now they've

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Speaker 1: already put up one hundred and eighty satellites of that

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Speaker 1: and within less than a year, they because they've leapfrogged

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Speaker 1: every other satellite communications constellation company in the world, and

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Speaker 1: they now have the biggest constellation. It's only begun. They're

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Speaker 1: going to put a lot more satellites up before the

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Speaker 1: years over. But their goal is to provide internet services

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Speaker 1: for the world at of a cheap cost, and they're

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Speaker 1: using the Salcon nine rocket to launch it. And all right,

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Speaker 1: so SpaceX has the satellites and they now have the rocket.

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Speaker 1: That rocket um the first stage of the rockets that

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Speaker 1: they launched. This was the fourth time they'd used it.

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Speaker 1: You realize how they have another customer, they reduced the cost,

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Speaker 1: but they don't have to bring the cost down a

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Speaker 1: lot because no one else can match them. So they

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Speaker 1: make a lot of profit when they've got other customers,

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Speaker 1: but when it's their own payload going into orbit, that's

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Speaker 1: a lot of money they're saving, which means when they

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Speaker 1: get their constellation launched, they'll be able to provide that

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Speaker 1: worldwide Internet service almost certainly at a price much less

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Speaker 1: than any other satellite constellation. And there are others trying

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Speaker 1: to do the same thing. And so you see how

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Speaker 1: this builds upon itself, and so competition and private enterprise

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Speaker 1: creates innovation and reduces the cost for everybody. And so

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Speaker 1: this is what you know. We're back in the Cold War.

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Speaker 1: You've got a Chinese space program, centralized run by the government,

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Speaker 1: competing now with the American concept of competition, freedom and

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Speaker 1: private enterprise. I'll put my money on the private enterprise

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Speaker 1: thing any day of the week. But where it's the

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Speaker 1: same Cold War as before, and we have to fight it,

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Speaker 1: we have to be aware of it. What would you say, Robert,

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Speaker 1: has been over the last few years the most dramatic

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Speaker 1: thing you've seen for space? Well, it depends on whether

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the science and the actual exploration going on,

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Speaker 1: or if you're talking about commercial space and the ability

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Speaker 1: to get into space better. I mean, to me, probably

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Speaker 1: the most exciting in terms of rocketry and getting into space,

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Speaker 1: the most exciting moment in the last oh I would

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Speaker 1: say forty years since the landing on the Moon. Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe there's other things in between, but one of the

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Speaker 1: most earth shattering exciting moments was when SpaceX successfully landed

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Speaker 1: its first stage for the very first time. Because once

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Speaker 1: again I had been hearing that this was impossible for decades.

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Speaker 1: I you know, and what can I say, I'm not

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Speaker 1: an engineer. I got accept on face value what people

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Speaker 1: were telling me, but they said they were going to

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Speaker 1: do it. And when I was at the speech where

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Speaker 1: land Musk announced he was going to try to do this,

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Speaker 1: and I said, gee, those teams told me that wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to work. He made it work. And then they

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Speaker 1: proceeded to reuse the first stages and then they proceeded

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Speaker 1: to land it on a barge out in the ocean,

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Speaker 1: and they said, oh my gosh, and this is earth

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Speaker 1: shattering because it changes how you look at rockets. We're

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Speaker 1: no longer looking And this gets back to the first

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Speaker 1: stage of the Falcon nine launched this week. They had

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Speaker 1: used that stage four times. It is no longer a

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Speaker 1: rocket that's expendable. It's a ship. It's a ship that's

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Speaker 1: being reused like an airplane now, if not yet at

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Speaker 1: the stage of airplanes where they can fly, you know,

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Speaker 1: millions of miles and last for forty years and endless flights,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's getting very close. In fact, SpaceX has

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Speaker 1: two different first stages right now that they've launched four

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Speaker 1: times and they're going to use again. So that's eight

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Speaker 1: launches where they didn't have to build a new first

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Speaker 1: stage with new engines. They could reuse those engines once again,

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Speaker 1: the savings and cost this gigantic. Another way to look

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Speaker 1: at it is they have developed technology that makes it

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Speaker 1: possible to reuse the first stage entirely. They are trying

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Speaker 1: to develop a technology to reuse the fairings that protect

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Speaker 1: the payloads during launch, and they've had some success with that.

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Speaker 1: Those two combined is about seventy percent of their rocket.

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Speaker 1: What's the remaining thirty percent, Well, that's the upper stage

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Speaker 1: that gets into orbit. They right now have to discard

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Speaker 1: that first stage. That second stage. Well, you know, when

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Speaker 1: you look at it, the Space Shuttle essentially recovered its

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Speaker 1: upper stage. That was the Shuttle itself, So the technology

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Speaker 1: exists to recover for a second stage as well. And

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Speaker 1: so what is SpaceX doing. They are developing Starship and

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Speaker 1: super Heavy, which is their next generation rocket. The first

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Speaker 1: stage the Super Heavy is much bigger than the Falcon

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Speaker 1: nine first stage, but it's essentially using the same technology

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Speaker 1: that they have and they know how to do so

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Speaker 1: they'll be able to make that first stage heavy work.

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Speaker 1: I have no doubt about it, because they have the

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Speaker 1: knowledge and that the technology. In the fact, they've already

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Speaker 1: done a launch a test flight with the engines for

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Speaker 1: that to show that they can control it and bring

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Speaker 1: it back vertically and landed. The second stage of Starship

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Speaker 1: super Heavy. Starship is a reusable ship, basically taking advantage

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Speaker 1: of the knowledge that we have from the Space Shuttle

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Speaker 1: and applying their engines to it and their ability to

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Speaker 1: land vertically, and they're going to be able to have

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Speaker 1: a reusable second stage, and the two combined will cost

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Speaker 1: per launch if Elon Musk's predictions are right, and he's

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Speaker 1: been pretty good. If his predictions are right, the launch

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Speaker 1: cost will be comparable to what you pay now for

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Speaker 1: like a Falcon heavy launch, about one hundred million dollars reusable,

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Speaker 1: and it will be putting into orbit equivalent to a

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Speaker 1: Satin five rocket one hundred plus tons. When do we

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Speaker 1: go back to the Moon or Mars with astronauts, Well,

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Speaker 1: you see, now that's the interesting question. This is what

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Speaker 1: his company is developing. This ties right into what I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying now, George. So his company is developing this

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Speaker 1: and they're hoping to start to launch this within the

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Speaker 1: next three to five years. Meanwhile, for the last twenty years,

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Speaker 1: NASA has been trying to develop its version of a

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Speaker 1: new Saturn five rocket, called the Space Launch System. I've

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Speaker 1: written about this. They have spent they're going to send up,

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Speaker 1: spending close to sixty billion dollars to develop it. It

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Speaker 1: maybe could launch once every year. Each launch is going

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Speaker 1: to cost, depending on how you want to amatize the

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Speaker 1: development costs, anywhere from two to fourteen billion dollars. They've

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Speaker 1: spent twenty years developing if they're still three years away

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Speaker 1: from launching. This is the rocket that the Trump administration

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Speaker 1: is depending on to get back to the Moon by

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four during his can term assume any wins,

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Speaker 1: It is to my mind, highly unlikely that will happen.

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Speaker 1: If it does happen, it doesn't really get us very

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Speaker 1: much because the cost of the rocket and the cumberson

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Speaker 1: nature which it's designed makes it very difficult to really

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Speaker 1: have a long term a space effort. You all you'll

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Speaker 1: do is what we did in the sixth teas. You'll

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Speaker 1: do a stunt launch or two and that'll be it.

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Speaker 1: So maybe they'll get back to the Moon with that,

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Speaker 1: with people on a mission or by twenty twenty four thereabouts,

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Speaker 1: But that's not getting us to the moon. I think

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Speaker 1: what needs to happen to get to the Moon is

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Speaker 1: exactly what SpaceX is doing. Private enterprise competing to come

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Speaker 1: up with good ideas, and I think that SpaceX will

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Speaker 1: probably be able to achieve that based on their track record.

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Speaker 1: You know, things cannot go wrong, but based on their

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Speaker 1: track record, I think they could probably do it almost

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Speaker 1: as fast, and they'll be doing it with something that

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Speaker 1: will cost pennies. In comparison, when was the last manned

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Speaker 1: Moon launch? That was in the nineteen seventy three So

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Speaker 1: if we had continued, if we had continued and not

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Speaker 1: stop then in seventy three, what would the Moon look

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Speaker 1: like now? Would we have bases there and everything else?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's a difficult question to answer because the

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Speaker 1: assumption has to be that Americans would have been continued too,

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Speaker 1: willing to spend the money with the Saturn five rocket

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Speaker 1: to launch many missions. And even though one of von

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Speaker 1: Brun designed that rockets as a vehicle four colonizing the

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Speaker 1: entire Solar System, and it had the capability because it

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Speaker 1: could put one hundred tons into orbit, much like SLS

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Speaker 1: is trying to do, and much like Starship is trying

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Speaker 1: to do, it costs a lot. It costs too much,

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Speaker 1: and since Americans have always looked with skepticism on the

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Speaker 1: idea of using government coerced tax dollars, the political will

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Speaker 1: was just not there. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more