Good afternoon everyone
Welcome welcome welcome to the NASA Ames
2016 seminar series
It's an incredible honor and privilege for me to introduce our guest speaker today today's presentation is entitled
exploration and the journey to Mars
It'll be given by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
I'm gonna take the opportunity
Here to give you a little bit of his background since I know many of you here are students
And and you may not know as much as we do within the NASA workforce
but
Charlie was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the US Senate as a 12th
administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2009
He earned a Bachelors of Science degree in electrical science in
1968 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Marine Corps
Charlie flew more than 100 combat missions in North and South Vietnam Laos Cambodia
while stationed in Thailand between 1972 and
1973
Charlie earned a Masters of Science degree in systems management from the University of Southern California in
1977 and since I'm a Cal graduate, I often lose our annual bets on football
To USC so it just comes with the territory
Charlie as a 34 year career with the Marine Corps also including 14 years as a member of the NASA
astronaut office
after joining the office in 1980
Charlie flew four times on space shuttle between 1986 and 1994
commanding two of the missions and piloting two others his flights included deployment of a Hubble Space Telescope and the
First joint u.s.. Russian shuttle mission which featured a cosmonaut as a member of his crew
Charlie was inducted into the u.s.. Astronaut Hall of Fame in May
2006
After his final shuttle flight in 1994 he left NASA and returned to active duty with Marine Corps
Operating forces as the deputy commandant of Midshipmen at the u.s.
Naval Academy and retired with the rank of Major General
So please join me in welcoming my friend mentor and most importantly my boss
administrator charles bolden
Thank You
Eugene thanks, thanks very much, and thanks to all of you for boy fulfill in this place the fire. Marshal is not real happy, but
Is the fire marshal still here?
No, it's it's always good to come back out to Ames. This is a very special place
With very special people and since as I look through the audience
I will I will tell most of you since none of you were born
When some of the stuff was going on about which gene just talked
You've now had your history lesson for the week
You you probably still don't know anything about Vietnam, or where it is or what it is and all that stuff, but that's okay
You know when I was invited to join you here as a part of the directors summer colloquia series
I was asked to focus my presentation on
exploration
research technology
technology development
inspiring future generations catalyzing scientific progress sharing ideas
Communicating new and exciting concepts and doing so in a way that would appeal to a diverse audience of researchers students
Scientists engineers and managers oh and and try to think keep things brief
so
Sounds easy enough, but I tell you what I'm going to do
I'm really interested in hearing from you all more than anything else, so so I thought I would just
kind of summarize some of those topics for a few minutes
And then we'll go it right into a Q&A so I do have two rules
And and and they're they're the rules I use everywhere I go rule number one is you can ask questions anytime
I know there's a formal question and answer period afterwards, but if you're like me and you don't trust your brain
You know to hold the question until the speaker finishes
Just raise your hand and and I will try to answer the question
If you feel like it you can come to this mic up here
But if you want to I think they're trying to capture all this stuff, so you may want to do that
But if you can hold it until till we get to that part
But but don't feel compelled to have to hold it second rule is there are no dumb questions
If you're thinking about it, I can guarantee you that there's at least one
Other person sitting in the audience who's thinking about the same question
And all of the people thinking about that question may not be sitting in the audience
Because it may be one that I've been asking myself, and I won't have an answer for you
So I'm gonna get Steve Smith who is sitting out here
And he was my colleague in the astronaut office for a while before he came back home to the Bay Area
And and now he's working as is the Associate Director for ISS. Yeah
So there are enough of us in the room who can try to answer your questions if you if you stumped me
You know one of the things is?
As I've traveled around the country and in fact around the world I've been telling anyone who will listen
That our NASA
And I emphasize the term our since all of you
Particularly the interns you may not identify as being a part of NASA yet
But you are you are already by virtue of the fact that you're here at Ames, and you're working as an intern
It's your NASA and so what I would hope that whenever this period of time is done that you finish your internship
Whenever anybody asks you what you do or what you did you'll stick your chest out proudly and say I work for NASA
Because that's really really really important you are now
Official emissaries and ambassadors for everything we do and I think you gene will tell you and his deputy Tom
All we want you to do is tell people about the experience you had here this summer. It was lousy
Tell one of them first
And then you can tell other people
but I
my guess is you will find that you had a pretty good time here this summer and
You are going to have an experience that that many of your peers will probably never have and so I would implore you to
Share it with them because just in talking about the things that you you did this summer you will
You know you'll serve to inspire some of them to want to do the same thing I always emphasize the word our
For the very reason that I just explained to you, but I say that our NASA is as strong as it's ever been
Back in Washington where people can tend to be pretty cynical
Frequently when I say NASA is as strong as it's ever been they say yeah
But what about the Apollo era and and I said yeah?
Well, what about the height of shuttle and I say yeah, and those were all phenomenal times?
But I don't think the agency has been as strong
As it is today for a variety of reasons if you look at the portfolio today
You know NASA was established way back in 1958
When we were we found out that there were other countries in the world that we're interested in putting things in space specifically splitting
Sputnik went over here and everybody panicked and the president and the Congress decided that we needed to do something and so they
founded NASA
with the National Space Act of 1958
And it was founded to replace an organization that was called the NACA the National
Advisory Committee on aeronautics which happened to come into being a little bit more than 100 years ago
when and shortly after the Wright brothers invented the airplane and
The Wright brothers could not convince anybody in the u.s.
particularly the Army Air Corps that they should invest in this new thing called airplanes and
while the Wright brothers were failing and we weren't doing anything the Europeans took the Wright brother's airplane and ran with it and
and so
aviation and Aeronautics began to develop in Europe
And I mean it bolted off and the first thing the next thing you know we looked up
And we were way behind and again the president and the Congress said wow
we need to do something to catch up and so they established then the
National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics to help us get caught up, and it was through NACA
Acting as a an expert advisory committee if you will for the nation
But mainly for companies that would become aircraft manufacturers answering critical questions that the companies just
Didn't have the wherewithal to answer for themselves or didn't have these dancers
So they would typically be asked to answer a a probing question and and so they did that
Until NASA was established, and then what happened was over time
We gradually began to forget about our heritage our heritage is Aeronautics
That is the strength of NASA everybody gets excited about human spaceflight because that's exciting stuff, but it is not
the area that leads the world or
Causes the the nation
It's not what brings about the largest balance of trade item for this country the largest balance of trade item is airplanes and aircraft
systems and the like and we
dwarf everybody else in the world in doing that and so
NASA still is called upon to play a critical role in the development of new aeronautical systems
And thus you'll see that
recently
We were fortunate enough to get President Obama to support us and asking for increased funding for
aeronautics so that we could work our way back to
Building explains again experimental airplanes, and then the work that we do in science is just I call it off the page
We have now visited every single planet in what we call the classical solar system
We have now found thousands of other planets with an instrument out of here
That's that's called Kepler now
We call it Kepler 2 because it died and we rebirthed it if you will the smart people here at Ames along with other
Scientists and engineers around the agency found a way to take a a crippled instrument and make it work and so
Since it's been
Repurposed. We've discovered thousands more planets orbiting other Suns in other solar systems and other galaxies and
It now
Has just opened up our eyes to things that we didn't even know existed before and all this has happened in your lifetime you
Know the reason I talk about NASA though
And how good it is is because of all of you some of you will choose to come back here and work with us
some of you will go off and do other things, but you'll still have NASA in your blood and
The lessons that you learn this summer, I think will stay with you
Hopefully forever and you'll use those lessons as you you go off to be productive in other place
You know it's the employees and I count you as employees
It's all of you here at Ames
and it's our colleagues at other NASA centers and facilities around the
Country and actually throughout the world because we have NASA personnel
In in many nations around the world that are doing our work for example
We've got a whole team of people about 30 people in Moscow
Day in and day out who work in the Mission Control Center there?
They're called the Houston support team and they have a similar team that comes from Moscow to Houston
And they're the Moscow support team and they together they collaborate and run the International Space Station day in and day out
It's because of the work of our NASA employees contractors and partners in classrooms boardrooms
Laboratories and even garages across the country. That's why I say NASA is better today than it's ever been before
Andrew Carnegie once said and I quote take away my people but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floor
But take away my factories and leave my people and soon. We'll have a new and better factory. It's you
It's not machines
it's you and it's the stuff that you do and what is so exciting about standing up here and
Looking out at all of you and all these young faces is it says our future is incredibly bright
You know it's um
I just came back from
Israel and Jordan and the UAE and where we we signed two agreements with the UAH UAE Space Agency
It's been in existence two years the average age in the US UAE space agency is 28
almost every single one of their leaders has at least one degree from an American University and
The one of the agreements we sign with them is to work on an orbiter that they want to build and launch in
2020 to get to Mars in 2021 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the UAE
and that's because they want to be like us and
And so they want to partner with us, and that's that's really important
What's the most important thing that that that we need to send American astronauts to Mars in in the 2030s people?
simply put people
What's the key to making aviation greener cleaner safer and quieter it's people?
How will we succeed in unlocking more and more secrets of the universe it's our people?
Our people are the keys from entry systems to wind tunnels
supercomputing to lunar science next-gen airborne science low-cost missions
biology
Astrobiology for the young lady back there from bifel ona
It's people
exponents autonomy robotics human systems integration and human capital these are all driven by the creativity imagination innovation
Curiosity drive and ingenuity of the women and men of Ames and of NASA as a whole
Just last week I saw a tremendous
demonstration of the work of the folk here at Ames in
aeronautics I was at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with US Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and
Friends from American Airlines and the FAA and we were there to cut the ribbon on a new lab that will host air space technology
demonstration to or ATD to
Anybody in here happen to work on a td2, it's full of interns so there may not up. There are two people back there
I want you to give them representing their whole team a round of applause because they
Now you don't have a clue
Probably what a td2 does so let me try very
Succinctly and quickly to give you an idea of why it's important how many of you
traveled here on an airplane and
sat on the ramp after they backed away and
Just sat there and sat there and sat there for
sometimes hours before you take off or you land, and you sit out on the tarmac waiting to get to the to the
You know to the terminal
The tool that was developed here at Ames
That's that's called airspace technology demonstration - is intended to try to avoid having people sit on the ramp
for hours and hours or minutes and minutes waiting
To take off in it it allows you know it allows us to integrate data from over here at air traffic
From all around the region from all the airplanes on the airport and everything such that a dispatcher or whoever it is
That's gonna. Tell a pilot. You're okay to start your engines and back away
it
doesn't tell them to do that until there's a slot overhead that they can back out start engines taxi takeoff and
Fly up into that slot and keep going and so that's just one of the many tools
That have been developed out here at Ames. Did I get it close? I?
Got it close okay that that's good enough for now all right
Anytime you can develop a technology that makes life better for airline passengers and carriers air cargo business
Pilots air traffic controllers and managers alike all while reducing the pollution. That's emitted into the environment
It's a really good day
ATD to really has an opportunity to be a game-changer
in terms of reducing airport
Congestion by putting real-time information into the hands of all the major players in air traffic control and management
And it's being made possible by the hard work of Fokker. It aims for those of you. Who are working on aeronautics
it's really an exciting time to be a part of the NASA family as you may know President Obama is proposing a
3.7. Billion dollar investment in green aviation
among the things that's making possible is our new aviation horizons initiative and with it the development of
Revolutionary new explains we have five explains that we want to begin to build over the next ten years or so
One of them is already underway it we gave it a the air force gave it a designation the x57 and we call it Maxwell
And it's a funky looking airplane. It's about the size of a Cessna, but it's got a really long slender wing and 14
Propellers on the wing and it's an electric airplane
So it's a hybrid electric airplane that we're looking at the sort of revolutionize the way that we do air travel
It'll fly 175 knots now for some of you some of you who fly your jets around you know now and then
That may not sound fast, but if you're getting into the air traffic flow and you're you're going where you want to go
That's that's pretty good speed so and the fact that it's no pollution
No noise other kinds of things makes it really great, so we're excited about that
Sometimes as an organization
I think it's healthy to just take a step back and
Think of what all this means in terms of the impact it will have on our own families and our neighbors
So let me invite you all to close your eyes. Just bear with me play along all right
Just close your eyes for a moment and imagine with me gotta close your eyes
You know it's like when mom looks around and close you okay, don't cheat over here all right now imagine
Imagine being able to travel to most cities in the world in six hours, or less
Imagine the aircraft you'll take there flies faster than the speed of sound and it does so over land which it cannot do today
with hardly a hint of a sonic boom
Imagine what it will mean to our environment if our children and grandchildren travel on planes that consume half as much fuel
That emit only about a quarter of what aircraft emit today that make use of green energy sources
Imagine living near an airport and not being bothered by noise
Because aircraft are operating some 42 decibels quieter thus allowing noise to be contained within the airport's boundaries
Imagine what it will mean to our economy if more of our neighbors are working in good jobs
Building those aircraft and marketing them across the world
It's okay to open your eyes now. I appreciate you all playing alone
When I brag about you and and your fellow NASA employees contractors and partners
I like to talk about the fact that you are making the impossible possible
That you are turning science fiction into science fact with the work you do every day
You're not only searching for life on other planets you're improving the quality of life for our fellow human beings
Right here at home on earth in this sense
NASA's journey to Mars will not only send human beings to the Red Planet
It will also put people to work all across our country and in fact
It already is doing so
It will and is already producing spin-off benefits that are revolutionizing the way we protect the health of
Both the people we love and the planet on which we live
With this in mind, let's take a break from our regularly scheduled programming and do some audience participation
we're gonna play a little game and
Some few of you have probably played this game with me before if you've seen me speak other places
It's called Mars matters
so
Even though we here recognize why Mars matters hopefully most of you do, it's important every now and then to remind ourselves
So that we're will be more effective in reminding our friends and neighbors
So what I want you to do is I want you to repeat after me when I point to the audience
I just want you all to yell out Mars matters. Okay, got it, try it one time
All right, you're good
Because it's formulation and evolution are comparable to the Earth's
Because the journey to Mars is already creating and supporting jobs and economic growth here at home
Because it might just help unravel the age-old mystery about whether life exists beyond Earth
Great job great job. You're all hired. I take you along with me when I go speak places
Frankly had you told me that we'd be this far along on this journey to Mars
When I first became the NASA Administrator seven years ago
I would have been flabbergasted you may recall you all won't
This was this is for jag Boyd and in in you but most of you won't Eugene and Tom
Some of you will recall
But they will recall
that
It was not too long ago. When there was not even a real consensus around Mars as a destination
Sure many of us in this room
And I do include the students there many of us in this room had long dreamed of sending humans to Mars
But as an aerospace community Mars was really just a broad horizon goal
There was no realistic or sustainable plan in place for getting there there was no timetable
Today, there's a new consensus forming around NASA's plan timetable and strategy for getting humans human beings to Mars in the 2030s
our plan is available online at
WWE
To Mars
For anyone and everyone to read it's clear. It's affordable
It's sustainable and it's attainable and it's dependent on the hard work of teams
Today we're closer to sending human beings to Mars than ever before
for anyone anywhere at any time
I'll tell you this one of the great indicators of progress is
That that I see is that when it comes to the journey to Mars
It's quite frankly that people don't smirk or they don't laugh or look at me strange like I'm from Mars
But when I tell them that we're headed to the red planet
Less often a folk asking. Why aren't you doing this or why aren't you doing things my way, or is Mars the right destination?
Rather they're asking and this is around the world they're asking how can we be a part of this and?
What if some areas in which we can work together?
So as we open the floor for discussion. I want to just ask you once more to imagine
Imagine a future where human beings are living and working together on Mars and kids just view this as a fact of life
Much like the International Space Station today any here 15 years a younger 16 or younger
There's one over there
One here. They are the Mars gym. They're part of the Mars generation President Obama calls you all the the Mars
You're part of the the space generation and President Obama calls you a part of the Mars
Generation and the reason I say that is because there has not been one second of your life
Or one second of your life you have not breathed one breath
When human beings have not been living and working off this planet on the International Space Station
In your lifetime, you're how old
16
16
And we're still going strong, and you think about it. I mean Steve Smith and I were talking about it earlier this morning
I'm a big fan of recommending the International Space Station for the Nobel Peace Prize
Because the principle partners are Russia in the u.s.. We can't even talk to each other down here
I mean we have a hard time you know with the secretary of state and the foreign foreign minister sitting in the same room and
Yet, we work. Collaboratively on the International Space Station day in and day out Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko
Just came back from a year in space as partners
We've got you know an American astronaut getting ready to launch Kate Rubin is getting ready to launch with her Russian counterpart and a Japanese
astronaut in a week
It's just incredible what we do
250 miles above Earth so it's really really really important
But imagine a world where NASA and our international partners are using Mars as a stepping stone to the rest of the solar system
imagine a world where a robust private space industry is launching human being's cargo and satellites of all sizes to space at a
significantly lower price point a
World where more Americans are working in good jobs as a result of this and all our efforts on Commercial Crew and cargo
And the goal of building a robust commercial market in low-earth orbit have been attained
Imagine a future where our grandchildren's children are drinking cleaner water
breathing cleaner air and
Making use of cleaner energy. Thanks to NASA technology
Imagine a world in which girls and young men young people of color are more excited about pursuing education in science technology
engineering math and
the arts and and I'll just
Kind of stray here for a second. I just came back two weeks ago from a a back-breaking trip
Through four nations we started out in Israel
we went to Jordan then we went to UAE and then we came back to Paris France and
I had lived in the in the Middle East region back when I was still an active-duty marine it from
1997 to 1998 and
When I went back this time I was just blown away by the way the cultural changes that have taken place
in stem-related courses and colleges and universities across the region
In Jordan and UAE more than half the students were women in
An and of the graduates and people taking jobs in the region more than half of them were women
We met with King Abdullah of Jordan and his science advisor is a young woman who?
Happens to be an engineer and scientist when we went to the UAE
They have a member of their
House of Representatives if you will that the Speaker of the House is a woman elected by popular vote and then
Further elected to be the Speaker of the House
By the vote of her peers in that in that house so in many ways I mean they've got a lot of work to do
There's no mistaking that
but in many ways
There are examples of things that we only wish we could do you know at NASA we pride ourselves and being a very diverse workplace?
I'd give my eyeteeth to have 50% of my engineers
Be female we're a long
Way from doing that and it's not because we're not trying so I think there are important lessons to be learned everywhere Ames
Plays a critical role in having played a role in helping to promote that because we've had
international interns for years now who have been coming here to the Ames Research Center in the
Summertime just to get a look at how we do things at NASA and we met with
eight former
international interns and
incoming
Students while we were in Jordan with King Abdullah who all had studied had worked here at the Ames Research Center
And they gave glowing commentary about what an experience it was for them to work here
alongside
Us scientists and engineers where they had a feeling that they were trusted that they were
Given open access to everything that was going on and they had an opportunity to really learn so
You know think about what's going on. Just imagine the way the world can be
Imagine a future in which maybe just maybe
Humanity finds the a the the answer to the age-old question a question that the ancient Greek philosopher
engineer astronomer
Daley's of millet mellitus might have thought to himself as he stared up at the night sky of whether we're alone in the universe
When I imagine this future I can't help
But think of all of you
The people who are making that future
Possible who as I said a moment ago are making the impossible possible by turning science fiction into science fact
We're now embarked on an absolutely incredible journey unlike any that humanity has ever undertaken in our lifetime
It's a journey that many of our international partners are clamoring to join and much of the credit for where we are today
Goes to each and every one of you
Who works here at Ames or who is now here as an intern?
I want to thank all of you for what you're doing to make our NASA as strong as we have ever been
For the interns, thanks so much for picking us
To spend your with whom you are spending your summer
And hopefully you'll find us so attractive that you'll want to come back and spend more time so with that
I think I will move over here, and and we'll try to answer some of your questions if I can thanks very much
Thank you very much
So if you have a question, please line up and back of the mic and ask one question only, thank you
Thank You administrator bolden when did you know that you wanted to go to space Oh late lead late in life
What would you do me a favor when you come up
Would you just give me your name and and where you go to school if you're an intern or?
Something like that and so if you can give us your name in your school
Then I apologize
My name is Jenny. I go to Stanford
Whoa?
Jenny at Stanford
Great, I am one who never dreamed of going to space. I never dreamed of growing up
I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, so there are a lot of reasons why I never had that dream
I grew up in the segregated south and
So for me becoming an astronaut or going to fly an airplane or something else that was just inconceivable
You know my mom and dad were teachers
And they had told me and my brother all our lives that we could do anything we wanted to do as
Long as we were willing to study really hard and work hard and I believe that to a certain extent
But but the thought of being an astronaut just that didn't compute
What happened was I placed that I did want to go was the United States Naval Academy, and I ended up?
after a lot of
difficulty and struggled I ended up getting an appointment to the Naval Academy, and I went there and I and
Graduated in 1968 but my first year there. I met a young man
Who was a major in the United States Marine Corps so here?
I was being influenced by a guy in the Marine Corps
And the only two things I knew when I left CA Johnson High School in Columbia, South Carolina was
never
Never ever would I be a Marine they were absolutely crazy and?
Under no circumstances would I fly airplanes?
because that was inherently dangerous
So those were the only two things I knew coming out of high school
And my first company officer was Major John Riley loved a person who?
Continued to influence me until until the day of his death several years ago
but when it's time to graduate I look back and I said I want to be like him I
Want to be marine and I want to be an infantry marine that's really stupid
But, but I was so impressed that I said I want to be like him and some of you interns
When your time is when it's time for you to make up your mind
Four years from now or two years from now or three years from now you're gonna look back on your experience here
And you're gonna say boy. I sure would like to be like Tom or I'd like to be like doctor like dr.
too or I'd like to be like Jack Boyd or somebody that you have worked with here and has really impressed you and so and
similarly
Young people with whom you work today
Whether you're a camp counselor or a scout you know leader, or it doesn't make any difference
Somebody's gonna look at you and say I want to be like him, so you're a role model
Whether you like it or not so keep that in the back of your mind and also as you're thinking about what you want to
Do so I became a marine and and I married my wonderful wife
and she did not like the idea that I had become a marine and
she did not like the idea at all that I wanted to be an infantry officer and go to Vietnam and
Try to defy the law of averages on the life expectancy of a second lieutenant infantry officer
And she kept saying why don't we go to Pensacola, and I said, but that's late school. She said I know
but we need to go to Pensacola and
During my time training as a second lieutenant. I found I did not like crawling around in the mud
And she said that's why I said we ought to go to Pensacola so I said okay
as I learned over the course of my 48 years of marriage when my wife says we ought to I
Now generally say yes dear because she is probably right and so we struck it off for Pensacola
First time I got in an airplane and lifted off. I could not believe it
I mean, I just fell in love with it right away first flight
And then things happened one one thing after another I I had an instructor pilot who was a test pilot
And he talked about how difficult it was how challenging it was not about
No scarf hanging out of the you know out of the cockpit or any of that stuff
But how demanding it was and that really intrigued me, and I so I said you know one of these days
I think I'd like to be a test pilot, and so I started trying as soon as I got my wings
I started applying to be a test pilot
I took me about six or seven years of applying
and if I only got accepted to the navies test pilot school and
While I was serving as a test pilot in a place called, Patuxent River, Maryland
NASA had selected the first group of space shuttle astronauts and among that group was they had
Two three-act african-americans were selected Ron McNair
guy Bluford and Fred Gregory the first people of color ever in the space program and one of them
Ron McNair had grown up just like I had he grew up 42 miles from me in a little bitty town
Named Lake City, South Carolina. He was a little bit younger than I was but unlike me Ron had determined
He was gonna be an astronaut from the moment
he
Doesn't ever remember not wanting to be an astronaut and we sat and talked for a weekend
When he got ready to go back to Houston. He said are you gonna apply for the program?
I said not on your life, and he said okay. I don't get it. Why are you not gonna apply?
He said then I said they never picked me and he looked at me
And he said you know that is the dumbest thing I ever heard
How do you know if you don't apply and and he made me feel about that bit?
Because I had forgotten what my mom and dad taught me growing up
and I've run left and I got my pen and paper, and I applied I was 33 years old I
Was about to be a major in the Marine Corps
and I decided I'd do something that I said I would never do I decided that apply for the space program and
Sure enough I got nominated by the Marine Corps
Got selected by NASA to come interview, and I remember going from Patuxent River to Houston. I told my wife
I don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of being selected
But I just want to go down there and meet astronauts, and I said I'm gonna
Have a good time when I go down and I did Steve will tell you
You can either go down there and decide to enjoy yourself and take advantage of the
Opportunity, or you can go down and get all uptight and probably just mess yourself up. I decided I was gonna
Have a good time
and I did and and I ended up being selected in the second group of space shuttle astronauts, so
Very long answer to your very short question, but but but the lesson hopefully for you
All is if there's something you want to do ask for it
You know don't don't let anybody tell you that you can't do anything but
Particularly don't let yourself limit yourself
Three things I tell students all the time I study really hard you all know that
Work really hard. I mean focus on whatever it is
You're doing in the class and the most important thing is don't ever be afraid of failure
You know I put the limitation on myself. I was afraid that I would not be selected. I just didn't want to be embarrassed
By applying for the program and not being selected don't do that particularly women
Whatever you want to do go do it
When you get into a job, or you in a class you're in an office
And people are trying to inquire as to why are you there?
Don't don't waste your time trying to explain
Your presence just do your job and do it well, and if they don't understand pretty soon. You'll be their boss and
Then you can get rid of them, or help them understand. I don't know question
My name is Ann Sophie
I work in the space bioscience branch and so you know men were the first on the moon
So you take it's time time and turn for woman to maybe be the first on Mars
What's wrong with that then I've been seriously
You know we selected
Out of 6800 applicants the class of 2013 of NASA astronauts we had a first ever
In anything I've ever been associated with we selected eight
eight people in the class of 2013 out of 68 hundred applicants and the top eight were
50% men and 50% women and
And I'll tell you every single one of those eight is just they blow your socks off
they're absolutely incredible and and I am hoping that out of the
18,000 applicants that we got for the class of 2017 we we will be so fortunate
But I think one of the reasons I told you the story about traveling through the through the Middle East is that?
We cannot afford this nation cannot afford
To shirk half of its population. We just won't we won't survive. We won't win
If we choose to do that, so I I don't see anything wrong with it besides
I have three granddaughters, and I've already promised them one of them is going to be on there on the first crew Tamar
So I'm in trouble if they don't make it yeah
Hello, I'm Roberto Catalina. I work for tests Villa on mission
Oh, Kepler, and I'm also one of the organizers of the early career Network here at Ames
So one question that arose some time ago, it was
Considering all the people retiring at Ames at oz in general
How we gon like pass down all the knowledge and experience to the early careers great great great question
not enough people are retiring fast enough to be quite honest because
We all and I like that now let me explain that ok
We because of because of the way that budgets operate
You know we're really
Eugene has a lot of you he would like to hire
But but his ability to hire is very limited because you know he's got a ceiling that he that he can't exceed and so
The other thing I mentioned the fact that while you need an experienced workforce
but you also need
Fresh blood that's coming in
To replace that experienced workforce the reason we need the experienced workforce is because they are the wisdom that
Passes down to to some of you sitting around here
Let me tell you I I can any of you ever sit down and talk to Jack boy
Why you been here anybody everybody know who Jack Boyd is you sit and you sit and talk to him for?
five minutes
And you're drooling you're just I mean the richness of the experiences that he has had in his time in this agency
You could talk to Tom or Eugene. They're not you know they're not young chickens
And they've had a lot of experiences
I know they look like they're new but but that's the way that we do exactly what you're talking about that we passed down
The wealth of knowledge that we have one of the things that that we're trying to do is trying to
Do what we call knowledge capture?
Usually when we have an accident in NASA
It's because we forgot something we forgot a lesson we learn years ago, and so we repeat it
I tell students a lot of time they ask me. What do I need to study to be an astronaut math and science?
That's a no-brainer. You know you got to do that
Language skills being able to read write
Communicate so that you can let people know that you're competent and you want to do something the other thing is history
Because if we do not study history. We are destined to repeat it
Nowhere is that as important as in the work that we do in
Space and Aeronautics research and exploration if we don't know our history if we don't remember when we had a bad day
we will repeat that bad day and
You know we don't have accidents very often. Thank goodness
But boy when we do we look back and we go man. How did we how do we forget that?
You know we've we almost never have a brand-new type of accident
we just forgot something and that's the value of having the turnover the the
experience the wise
person's talking to the young people and passing it on they can't pass on any more to you though than you're willing to ask for
So that's that's where the onus is on you
Eugene can teach you all kinds of stuff if you're willing to listen
But you've got to go up and say doctor to what when did you come to NASA you know?
How did you happen to decide that you wanted to do what you do instead of going off and being a planetary scientist or something?
You've got to ask so that's that's on you while you're here
That's one of the reasons that you come here that we bring you here for an internship
Is to give you an opportunity to be around people that we think are some of the?
brightest and best in the world not in the country in the world and have an opportunity to rub shoulders with them and
Ask them questions and and make sure that you're smarter than we were so that's important the question there
My name is Matthew I'm from the University of Utah and
I'm in the Aero mechanics branch. I guess you sort of already answered this but
What what do you look for in astronaut candidates and what can I do to make?
My resume a little better, yeah
And I'm you know considering joining the military and stuff, I'm
Steve actually probably has a lot better idea than I do because he left the office
Much later than I did you wanted you want to try it. What are we looking for today?
I've had several people ask me this some are already the same question and what I usually tell them is to pursue something you love
If it happens to help you and your journey to become an astronaut
That's great, but there's a lot of obstacles to becoming an astronaut
So you really want to enjoy what you're pursuing so that's the kind of the number-one rule?
Be diverse do different things try different things don't be afraid to fail as general Bolden said
But the most important thing is to enjoy what you're doing so if you have multiple choices among what you want to pursue
You're tempted to produce the one you think that improves your chances the best don't take that one take the one that you really love
No, I you know. Can I echo and what Steve said? I am frequently accused of being too passionate I cry a lot
But I I have loved life, I you know I I don't have a
What's considered to be a conventional?
Career for a marine and it's just because I did things that I wanted to do and I thought I would enjoy
And people would frequently at every step that say you know if you do that then that's it your career is done
I said that's okay
You know this is what I want to do because I and so I would say like Steve did follow your passion
That's that's the number one thing if you don't get it. You've had fun
Hi, my name is Jason I go to a school at UC Irvine
You talked a little bit about Mars during your talk, but you
Didn't mention SpaceX at all and SpaceX wants to be on Mars about a decade earlier than NASA. I was wondering
What do you see NASA's role working with SpaceX and if they beat us to it? Yeah?
What what what? We're doing right now is we're a partner with SpaceX
you know we recently signed an agreement with them to work on something called red dragon and
We think red dragon is critically important because it's while it's not a human mission
It'll be the first mission. That uses supersonic retropropulsion
To get on the surface of Mars there, too
Giant challenges right now to putting humans on Mars one is just understanding better
Radiation and its impact long-term impact on the body we think we're okay, but we need to know more
The second big challenge is what we call introducing landing
How do you get 20 metric tons on the surface of Mars Curiosity weighed a ton and?
And we we really sweat
Curiosity's entry and landing, but you're talking about 10 times that much 20 metric tons or more
To sustain a human, so we're looking at everything we're looking at
parachutes pollutes
Just plain old barn. You name it and we're doing it, but we are not doing any work on on supersonic retropropulsion
SpaceX is and so we've supported them on every one of their attempts to return their first stage vehicle
Not because I think it's important about reusability
I'm not the the you know the courts still out on on whether or not reusable systems or any cheaper
But boy the data that we're getting when they come back and and go through this period of from supersonic down to stop
That's that's valuable data. I don't I don't look at it being a contest
You know if if they can get humans on you got to remember what Elon said? He's not coming back
That is not that is not our plan so we may take 10 years longer if he's able to get there when he says
But but ours is gonna be a round trip
So I just promise people that and I think that's not trivial
You know if you're willing to go and and not come back. Maybe you want to won in that risk
We just think it's it's going to take us a little bit longer to make sure that we've got
You know robust systems that we think we need and that's not just the spacecraft itself
But it's the systems that give us clean drinking water
Bathrooms that work all those kinds of things that we have stuff that breaks on the International Space Station
It's eight months one way to Mars
So you've got to have much more robust systems, and we have today, and I'm not sure everybody's thinking about that part
Yeah, okay. I am Miguel. I'm from Mexico City I
Came here as an international student on behalf of my school the metropolitan Autonomous University and the Mexican Space Agency
And we at our project we here at at Ames. We're actually working with these two
Jordan students that you talked about a bit earlier, and I just wanted to ask if there's some possibility of you know
Making their paper work easier to to get their basic here, so really eager to have them on our team
They've been doing great work. I think they even showed you the the things that they were doing
We just so I don't I don't want to bore everybody but but essentially what he's talking about is
You know everybody most people have to have a visa when they come here
And and we have we have two organizations that work to enable the international intern program it took years to
Get clearance to conduct the international intern program because post 9/11 it's just hard to get
international people, but you know anyone any foreign national aboard a NASA installation
And so we've got all kinds of things we have to do we're looking Eugene is working with our folk back at NASA headquarters
We've actually got the Office of International Relations Office of International and interagency relations
And then the Education office and so the two of them put together the international intern program
And we're looking at a more effective way to
handle the paperwork part the visas so
That when they get here the Office of Education can just boom work with Ames or Johnson or whatever Center they happen to be on
And get them right to work so that we just hadn't I guess we hadn't thought about it. We're working on it
Thanks for the question anybody else. I think we've got time for one if before. I have to leave one more question
They're worried, because I got a plane together
I'm Jessica's contractor from the SETI Institute
And you made um you talked about your plan along a decade-long plan for a trip to Mars
And we've heard long-term plans from NASA before and you can make them as administration how can we brace against changes in government?
Administration's and congresses to be able to keep some of those plans going forward in the multi decade
time span I would say there are a couple of things we have done and are doing I think we have a
viable remember I told you before when I became the NASA before I became the NASA Administrator my in my confirmation hearing I made a
Promise to the Khan same promise I had made to the president
I would never bring in a proposal of them that wasn't reasonable something we didn't think we could really achieve that
It wasn't sustainable it could last over multiple
Administrations and multiple congresses and that it was affordable the affordable part is what kills stuff a lot of times so we recognize
you know about where our budgets are gonna be we made a decision several years ago that we would we build a strategic plan and
Then price it
tell people what it was gonna take to do that so the budgets that we are getting here of late will will sustain us and
Will allow us to afford sending humans to Mars in the 2030s so that that takes care of those three things the other thing
We've got to do the onus is on us is to constantly
Tell people in Congress in the White House and OMB and everywhere what it is
We're doing and we've got to give them little progress markings all along wait. We fired
We did the last test firing of a solid rock a five segment solid rocket booster at Utah this morning it went
I think flawlessly as far as what I've heard
We flew Orion on its first test flight back in December of 2014
We're gonna fly SLS and Orion together in 2018 so I mean unlike programs that were designed to carry people to
distant places in the past
We're a good little bit farther along. We are we we really kind of pared down the program
We decided we would use where we had to we'd use existing
Technology and as new technologies come along we'll fold them into the program, so it's an evolved Abul
Mars program some of the stuff that we we will fly to Mars if your first crew member
That hasn't even been invented yet, so that that's kind of the way
We're doing it and you all have been great, and I apologize for having to run, but you know if you're an intern
Really, just kind of suck it up this summer take advantage ask for the world
All they can do is tell you no
But if there's something you want to see here say I heard
That you all have and I'd like to see it, and if we got it. You'll probably see it
and the other thing is just just
Said your goals really high and and try not to not to give up on them and you'll get there eventually
But thanks so much and good luck to all of you
You
