Good morning welcome to the 2016 NASA Ames summer series
We are very honored today to have a very special guest today's presentation will be given by the Honorable, Norman Mineta
former cabinet member under former President George W Bush and former, President Bill, Clinton
Mr.. Norman Mineta served as the 14th Secretary of Transportation
Under president george w bush and is the longest-serving secretary in the Department of Transportation's history
as Secretary of Transportation
Mr.. Minetta was the point of contact for all aircraft during the September 11 2001 attacks
Issuing an order to ground all civilian aircraft traffic for the first time in US history
Prior to serving under president george w bush mr.
Minetta served under President Bill Clinton as the 33rd Secretary of Commerce
Between 1971 and
1975 mr. Mineta served as the 59th mayor of San Jose
From 1975 to 1995 he sat in the United States House of Representatives
representing California's 13th and 15th districts
During world war ii the Mineta family was interned for several years at area twenty-four seventh barrack unit B in
the heart Mountain internment camp near Cody, Wyoming
along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and japanese-americans
Mr.. Minetta was a driving force behind the passage of the civil liberties Act of 1988 which officially
apologized for and redressed the incident in justices endured by the Japanese Americans during World War two
Mr.. Minetta is also a former vice president of Lockheed Martin corporation
Mr.. Minetta graduated from University of California
Berkeley School of Business Administration
We are very pleased to welcome mr.. Mineta here today
I'll go thank you very much for your
Wonderful introduction I
Having been born and raised here in San Jose, California. I'm really pleased to be here at NASA Ames Research Center
there were times during my
11 terms in Congress that I came here to
NASA Ames a number of times
Because the center director was Hans mark and Hans, and I were students together at Berkeley
so that friendship carried on from Berkeley to here and then when he became assistant secretary of the Air Force and
and I remember when I was a member of the House Intelligence Committee and
he had told me he was coming as the
Assistant secretary of the Air Force and we were having a hearing
Of the House Intelligence Committee and Hans was there, and I said Hans. What are you doing here? He said well
I couldn't tell you why I was here and in those days the word an hour old
was classified as well as the
National Reconnaissance Office
so outside the committee room we couldn't even say NRO or National Reconnaissance Office and
Found out that he was the head of the NRO
When he came to DC
Well, I am NOT a scientist by background
When I was in high school my dad who had been in the insurance business from 1920
Said you know I want you to join me in the insurance business
And I said no, no pop I want to be an aeronautical engineer
So I started at Berkeley and our own article engineering
Took calculus
And then I decided for the safety of the country and
My own future I better find something else to do
So I ended up in the insurance business
served
graduated from Berkeley with an ROTC
Commission like Korean War was going on and
went straight it overseas to Korea and
Then transferred to Japan and from 54 to 56 and then came back and joined my dad
in the insurance business in
1956
Little by little I started getting active in the community and
In 1967 we had our first
directly elected mayor of San Jose and
So that created a vacancy on the City Council so the new mayor and two incumbent members of the City Council
Came to me and said would you consider putting your name in for that City Council?
vacancy because we're going to interview a number of candidates and
We'd like to have you in that mix
So I said well I better talk to my dad about that first since I'm in business with him
and
so
When I talked to my dad he said you know we can
Decide how to manage the insurance business
But there's an old adage in Japan about people in politics
If you're in politics you're gonna be like that nail
Sticking out of the board. He says you know what happens that nail
It always gets pounded. How do you think you'd enjoy being pounded by your friends your neighbors?
Constituents, and I said well, it's only for a two year
Unexpired term
And I can still stay active in the insurance business
And so let me
Let me see if I can if I can do it so he said ok, and I applied and was
Appointed to fill that vacancy
and I did enjoy it so in 1969 I then ran for a full four-year term and
Won the election and then in 1971
The mayor had been elected in 67
decided not to
seek reelection and by that time I had been the
Vice mayor of San Jose and a lot of people said run for mayor so I did and I was elected in 71 as mayor
And I really enjoyed it because we were making that transition
from an agricultural community to high-tech
So when I first became mayor
population was about
320,000 and in that for years had risen to
580 thousand so whenever you would see a city grow
You want to see it grow gracefully and not without warts so you have to make sure that the roads are in place
Sewage treatment system is going to be able to handle the capacity of the community
Parks branch libraries, and it was really an exciting time
and I really enjoyed it and
so
during that
Was really three and a half years, not a not quite a full four-year term and then in
1974 I was elected to the Congress
Now I just give you this as background
Because the what I consider what I like to talk about are the whole issue of
national security
Transportation and civil rights
So this is not going to be a
science
Oriented discussion as you've had in your wonderful summer series
And I'm really pleased to be asked to be part of the summer series talks
But probably the most seminal
moment in my life
Was December 7 1941?
We had just returned from church, and it was probably 12 15 12:30
The radio was already talking about the attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor and
My dad being a community leader
People were calling in to wonder. What's the impact of what's happening in Pearl Harbor?
Going to be on us and people would drop by the house
during that day
And about two o'clock our next-door neighbor
Joyce Hirano came running in the back door of our kitchen
And we had a hedge between our two homes with a little cutout down below so that curving and Joyce from next door or me
We can go back and forth between our two homes
And so she came running in our house saying the police are taking Papa way the police are taking Bob away
So my dad run ran out of our house went next door and by that time
Mr.. Khurana was gone
no, one knew who came picked him up, and so he came home, and he called the city manager and said and
Asked the city manager about this, and we said I know I don't know what you're even talking about he said
But talk to the chief of police
So my dad talked to Chief of Police black, and he said I don't know anything about it
But you want to talk to sheriff amic so he called sheriff and Macon sheriff. Em except. I know what's going on
It's not my operation. It's FBI, and I'll
Talk to the FBI and have them come talk to you
well about 4 o'clock that afternoon the FBI agent actually came to the house and
Said that they were picking up people who they thought might be sympathetic to the Japanese cause
and community leaders
Well my dad sort of felt himself because he felt himself to be a community leader and yet the FBI word
Wasn't talking to him
Or picking him up
So after the FBI agent left my mother and dad
Packed up a suitcase just in case the FBI came back, which unfortunately they didn't
but the whole Japanese American community was pretty much in turmoil after that and there was a
Commanding general of the Western civil defense command by the name of
Lieutenant General John John DD whit
and
that code, Washington, Oregon, California
And he had coined the phrase
once a JP always a JP
And he thought if they could attack Pearl Harbor. They could probably attack the west coast of the United States
And if they attacked the west coast of the United States
What am I going to do with 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in Washington, Oregon, California?
And
On February
12th of
1942 President
Roosevelt signed executive order
906 six
delegating to the Secretary of War
the ability to evacuate and intern persons
He didn't say German Italian or Japanese just said persons
Well generally wit
used executive order 906 six to commandeer
Racetracks and County Fairgrounds in
Washington, Oregon and California and ordered the evacuation of those of Japanese Veck of Japanese ancestry
And I remember when those signs went up there were big placards, and it said instructions to all those of Japanese ancestry
alien and non alien
As a ten-year-old kid I looked at that sign and I said
Well, what's a nine non-alien?
and my brother
was nine years older than me, and he said that's you a
Citizen I said well, why aren't they calling me a citizen?
now
I'm not sure
When the last time any of you stood up
Powdered your chest and said I'm a proud non alien of the United States of America
I don't think you have and that's why to this day. I cherished the word citizen
Because our own government wasn't willing to use the word citizen
In describing those of us who are American citizens?
Born here, but of Japanese ancestry and so all of a sudden here were
120,000 people
Because we look like the people who attacked Pearl Harbor
being forcibly removed from our homes and
evacuated and put into
racetracks and County Fairgrounds
The reason those facilities were commandeered was because they had lived built-in living quarters
Namely the horse stables and so by the time we were being evacuated from San Jose
that was May 29 1942 and
So we boarded the train here in San Jose and went down to Los Angeles to the Santa Anita racetrack
where we were
Where we were interned?
Luckily by the time we got to San Anita all the horse stables had been in had been
Occupied and so they had some barracks buildings that were built in the parking lot at Santa Anita racetrack
and
So our family was put into those
into those
Barracks buildings now by November of
42
We were moved from San Anita to heart mountain Wyoming and
Heart mountain is about 20 miles east of Cody Wyoming and Cody is about
25 miles east of
Yellowstone National Park and so
So we got there in November of 42
cold blustery day and
that's that sand was pelting our faces, and oh, thank you and the
The sagebrush was
Tumbling along and being Californians. We just weren't
Used to this kind of California or Wyoming weather
And we didn't have clothing to really help us protect us from that cold
So
We were in in these barracks buildings now in
for the duration of World War two and
In order to keep the young
Girls and boys occupied the camp elders had written to the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts and said come and
Organized troops in the camp, so we had seven or eight Boy Scout troops
And our leaders would write to the Boy Scouts in the surrounding
Community in Ralston Deever Cody and the community saying come on in and join us for our Jamboree
And they would write back and say oh no, no, we're not going to go in there there's barbed wire all around the camp
They're military guard towers every 300 feet with
searchlights and machine guns
Those are POWs. We're not we're not going to go in there and our Scout leaders right back say no. No these are Nam
POWs they're Boy Scouts of America
They wear the same uniform you do they read the same manual you do and they go after the same merit badges you do
So eventually a troupe from Cody Wyoming came in and we had our knot tying contests in our woodworking
Contest and how to start a fire
Without a match and all those things that Boy Scouts do
and then we got paired off with a
with a kid from the
Cody Boy Scout Troop and
So this kid and I put up our tent and then Wyoming who could rain a lot or not rain
And so in order to protect your tent you build a moat around the tent
So this kid and I build our moat then he said
There's a kid from my troop in that temple Louis, and I don't really care for him
Would you mind if we cut the water to exit that way just in case it rained and it was really no
skin off my nose, so I said sure so
We built a beautiful
Moat cut the water to exit that way and as luck would have it it started raining that night
And I worked perfectly water drain down there
During the course of the night that tent
came down tent pegs pulled
tent came down
The kids in my tent with me going hee hee hee ha ha ha ha ho ho
laughing all night long
And I finally said to Alan would you please shut up, so we get some rest?
His name was Alan, Simpson, and he eventually became the US senator from Wyoming
in
1974 I was elected to the House
1978 he was elected to the Senate and our friendship went back as if we were still sitting in that pup tent in
1943 and to this day we're still the closest of friends
in fact last
December we went on a at least once a year we always take a vacation somewhere together and last December we
Took a two-week cruise in the first two weeks of December and we still maintain
this wonderful wonderful
friendship
Well let's fast-forward to
9/11 2001 I was Secretary of Transportation
and I was having breakfast that morning with the deputy prime minister of
Belgium
Who was also the Minister of Transport?
And I had with me Jane Garvey
the head of the Federal Aviation
Administration and
About 8:15
8:30 my chief of staff came in and said mr.. Secretary may I see you so I excused myself
Went from the conference room into my office and at the other end of the office with a TV counsel
Recognisable
World Trade Center building
Black smoke pouring out I said what's all that about so we don't know
We've heard the possibility of general aviation into the building
commercial aviation into the building or an internal explosion
inside the building
So I looked at the TV and did some channel surfing
listening to the commentary
So I said John now keep me posted. I'm going back into the breakfast
So I went back in and explained to mrs.. Duran and to Jane Garvey what I had just seen on TV
7 8 10 minutes later. He came back in and said may I see you so I went back into the office
He said it was a commercial airliner
That went into the World Trade Center
So then I went up and I started
Listening to the commentary and watching the news
And as I'm standing there watching
See this gray object come across the screen disappear and then from this side of the screen this white yellow orange II
billowy cloud
Go holy cow what was all that about?
Or words to that effect
and so then I really started listening to the commentary and watching the news and
so
after doing that for five seven minutes
I went back into the conference room, and I said, I don't know what's going on in, New York City, but Jane
You've got to get back to the Operations Center at FAA and mr.. Durrant
I'm just gonna have to excuse myself and because I know I'm gonna have to be dealing with this
Well by the time. I got back into my office someone from the White House had called and said get over here right away
So, I grabbed some government manuals and some
Papers and put them in my briefcase and went over to the White House, and as we're driving in
People were running out of the executive office building and out of the White House
And I said to my driver and security guy. I said is there something wrong with this picture
We're driving in and everybody else is running away
So I get out of the car went into the White House
And they said you have to be briefed by Dick Clark the security adviser
So I went into the Situation Room and got briefed then he said
You got to be in the peoc. I said peoc. What's that? He said the presidential Emergency Operations Center?
I said I have no idea what that is where it is
And there was a Secret Service agent standing there, so he said I'll take you so this is that bunker
That's way under the White House
That's supposed to be a nuclear bomb proof and let's hope we never have to test that
but
anyway, I went down there and
Got there in the vice president and mrs. Cheney were already there
and
so
There's a big table there probably 3040 feet long
12 15 feet wide which airs all around it and between each of the chairs our phones
so I set up this phone here to the
Department of Transportation said don't hang up keep the line open
this phone here, I set up to the
Operations Center at FAA I said keep it open
And stayed there the balance of the day between those two phones
And
So
Military assistant came in to the vice president, so there's a plane coming towards DC
So I said money
What do you have on radar plane coming towards TC?
Money had been a started at FA as air traffic controller, and it risen over the years now was the number two person
within the FAA
and
So he said well, we're tracking one plane
But the transponder has been turned off
So all we're doing is following the blip on the radar. We don't know anything about the plane
well on my desk on my credenza behind me there was a
monitor I had and it has an outline of the 48 states in the last time why
It would be peppered with dots if I took my mouse and put it on one of those dots
Then a flag would come up and say you
a one two or three
United Airlines flight one two three
B7 five to Boeing
757 series 200
Then it would say
PVD
Number of navigational points or D so that meant left Portland
Flying these navigational points
Final destination O'Hare I had Chicago, then on the second line it would show
compass direction of the plane speed how much fuel in the plane a lot of other things about the airplane
So here in this instance that transponder
Had been turned off, and they were just following
The blip on the radar screen, and it's hard to look at a radar screen and relate it to a point on the ground
So when I asked Monte. I said well. Where's the plane?
well
somewhere maybe in the middle part of Pennsylvania
So every so often I'd be asking him. Where is the plane?
Well probably north of Baltimore now, or is a plane now?
Probably near Rosslyn, or is the plane now somewhere between Pentagon City and National Airport?
Where's the plane now?
Monte where's the plane now?
Mr.. Chia, we just lost the the bogey. Where'd you lose it somewhere between Pentagon City?
and National Airport
And then about that time someone broke into the phone and said the secretary we just got a phone call from an Arlington
County police officer who saw an American Airlines go into the Pentagon
And I said money, that's the third commercial airliner
Used today in the last two hours
as a missile
Now in the military they have something called a stand down
Where they bring everything to a screeching halt?
And then try to figure out what's going on try to eliminate some element one by one
So I said Monte. We've got to do our own stand down and we're going to start it by bringing all the planes down
At that point we had
5138 airplanes in the air over the US
and so money said
Being an air traffic control. He said we'll bring all the airplanes down
per pilot discretion as a mic screw pilot discretion
I want all the planes down because I didn't want to pilot over, Albuquerque or Phoenix
figuring well, I'll just keep going into LA my
Destination I wanted all those planes down as soon as possible and in two hours and 20 minutes
We had
5138 planes down on the ground safely and without incident
Now
That morning Tuesday
September 11
And I had pulled three people out of ACS
aviation civil security of the FAA and move them over to my office
and said start working on a new security regimen, so
That we can allow the airlines to go back into the air
So I brought them all down on Tuesday morning, and we weren't able to get the regulations out until late Friday afternoon
on the new security regimen
On Thursday
We had a
cabinet meeting with the House and Senate
Democratic and Republican
leadership
and
towards the end of that meeting
Congressman David bonheur
From Michigan Detroit Michigan said mr.. President. We have a very large population of air of Americans and
and Muslims
And there are a lot of there's a lot of rhetoric in the print media and the electronic media about
prohibiting Middle Easterners and Muslims from flying
and
So when I had checked with our ACS team putting together the new
Security regimen the one right at the top of the list of things
and they were looking for
First one was no racial or ethnic profiling
And so during that meeting after president after
Congressman
Bonheur had expressed his concern about
the rhetoric about
banning
Middle Easterners and Muslims from flying or even about rounding them up
President george w bush said david you're absolutely correct. We're equally concerned
About the rhetoric we're hearing and seeing
But we don't want to have happen today
What happened to norm in?
1942 and
So
That was a real signal to me to say and President Bush didn't know what we were doing in terms of aviation
Civil security, but for me it just gave me a great deal of confidence that we were on the right track
then on
Monday the
17th of September
the president met with a large group of Arab Americans and
Muslims at the Islamic study Center in Washington DC
And he said we know who did that last Tuesday?
They weren't loyal Arab Americans. They weren't faithful followers of Islam
they were terrorists, and we're going to go after them and
Then towards the end of September
there was a
shooting in
Arizona
and the person who had been killed was the owner of a gas station with a mini-mart and
When they apprehended the killer they asked him why'd you kill the the owner of this gas station mini mart?
Said because he looked like the enemy
He was a Sikh
And he had turban
facial hair leg bindings
and his sole explanation was he looked like the enemy and
So again here we saw traces
Of people making judgments on their own
based on
What I had experienced in 1942 the fact that I look like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor
So what we have to do is to make sure that as we're doing
as we're doing
things to ensure our national security that we also are doing things to
protect our own civil liberties
All of us have to be vigilant
in the protection of our constitutional rights
We don't have to be vigilantes
But we do have to be vigilant in the protection of our constitutional rights and so
when I think of
December 7 1941
September 11 2001 and
Then with all the tragedies
that we
see and hear about in the in the
print and the electronic media
it just
Makes me sick about what's happening?
So all of us have to be protective about our
Constitutional and civil rights, but we also have to make sure that
We're not making
judgments about others
Wrongfully or put them in a adverse
adverts
Light
So maybe at this point dr. Jake
going on -
I'll stop
My talk and open it up to questions that you may want to ask
and
Saga are you going to and moderate this to a nature so we want to thank you mr., Minetta for that fascinating
They're giving us that fascinating viewpoint especially from the inside
So we don't we wouldn't have normally gotten that so appreciate that and now we have time for questions
so if you raise your hand
Someone will come and bring you a mic
Thank you very much for that presentation and
I
Thought it was very interesting what you just described because if we listen to the Republican convention yesterday
It was similar in this kind of xenophobia. That's being discussed and
discussion about building walls and
Exiling people for their religious beliefs. How do you feel about this and what do you what are your opinions about? What's going on?
next question
Well I think really first of all I don't want to get into any partisan politics, but I
Sometimes wonder after hearing a lot of this
Hearing the rhetoric and reading the press I wonder what what progress have we made
Are we reverting back to the 50s and 60s today, and that's why I say that we have to be very careful about
protecting our own constitutional rights and
Making sure that what our judgments are are don't reflect negatively
This country to me is a great country and it was
Put together
From even from the Constitution remember it says to form a more perfect union
So democracy is not a static
Event
It's something that's evolving
something that's growing and
We we make in our democratic society
with a small D
we make a
we make progress and
That whole progress is to form a more perfect union and so
It does
Alarm me in terms of some of the rhetoric. That's going on and
so it makes us have to be that much more careful about what we're hearing and and
seeing and
So
it's
All elections are critical, but it seems like 2016 even becomes even more critical
Good morning, what would you consider to be your greatest achievement? You've had such a storied life so far
I
Really enjoyed my term as mayor of San say of setting the groundwork for
the city that
was 580,000 population at the time when I left and now at about 1.1 million and
But I think from a legislative perspective
I
think
of
the
legislation I authored
in
1991 called the intermodal
surface transportation
efficiency act is te a and it got to be known as ice-t and
It was the first rewrite of
highway law
since
1956 when President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Highway Act of
1956
So in 1991 I had the opportunity to be the principal author of this ice-t legislation
The first word was intermodal and for the first time I had introduced
Transit as part of the whole
Discussion about transportation in the past that have always been roads and bridges
So in 1991 I had
introduced
Transit as part of that formula
also in that legislation, I included one billion dollars for highest e
intelligent transportation systems and
So
Again
it was
trying to
encourage people to look at new and innovative ways to
work on transportation issues
The American Society of Civil Engineers have a like told us
Tell you this little side story
the American Society of Civil Engineers
Had designated that as landmark legislation
And made me a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers
And when I boarded the train in 1942 to go off to camp I was in a Cub Scout uniform
Baseball baseball glove and a baseball bat as I got on the train the MPs confiscated my bat
And I went running to my father crying saying the MPs took my bat away. That's all right. We'll get it replaced
Well there were no stores in Santa Anita the racetrack so I never got my bat replaced
But a fellow from Los Angeles. I wrote and said congratulations on becoming a fellow of the ASCE
I was very touched by the fact that you lost your bat when you boarded that train
And I'd like to share with you a bat from my own collection
So I opened up this box and here's a bat signed by Hank Aaron
homerun King of the United States and
Sadaharu OH the home run king of and
So I wrote a letter profusely thanking this person for this wonderful gift
And a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News
Heard about my getting the bat wrote about it being an enterprising reporter went to a sports
Memorabilia shop found out the bat was worth fifteen hundred dollars with a gift limitation for members of Congress was 250
so I had to pack up the bat and send him a letter saying I can't accept it because
As wonderful a gift as it is the gift limitation doesn't allow me to
accept the gift
so anyway
I sent a copy of that letter to
The reporter and on that his letter I wrote on there the damn government's taken my bat again
So I think of ice-t as significant in my life as a legislator and
then the other was the Civil Liberties act of
1988 which was to redress the
Unconstitutional evacuation and internment of japanese-americans during World War two
Thank you for presenting today my question is why
My question is why is high-speed rail, so difficult to implement here in this country
I'm not talking about across the country, but let's say between the Bay Area and Los Angeles area. Thank you
The whole concept of high-speed rail
a
national high-speed rail system
Would be a very very costly proposition. I think what we will have are
regional high speed systems
let's say San Diego to
San Francisco
Portland to
Vancouver British, Columbia through Seattle probably
The Midwest in terms of Detroit Chicago down through st. Louis to a New Orleans
something in Texas something in Florida
But I don't think we'll have a national high-speed rail system
But we will have regional high-speed rail systems the other thing is that we have got to
Educate ourselves and
Also from an engineering perspective
the us definition of high-speed rail
Varies, or is very different from what our
Friends who have high-speed rail
Our definition of high-speed rail is 150 miles an hour
in Japan, it's
250
And they're now building a maglev system to go 350 miles an hour system
It'll go from Tokyo to Nagoya
And it'll take 45 minutes at 350 miles an hour
France has 250 miles an hour and Germany Switzerland
as their standard and they run their high-speed rail on
dedicated tracks
Our high-speed rail
Will be Amtrak running on freight rail so freight rail when they do their maintenance?
They build it to 79 miles per hour
So right now where we say to them
build it
We run our right railroads on your tracks, so please maintain them to be able to go
150 miles an hour and
What we will have to do is to have our own
dedicated high-speed rail
system
apart from
from the
reliance on freight rail
So until we get to that point of having our own
High-speed rail as we're building here in California
And it will eventually be San Diego, LA LA
up the Central Valley, San Jose to San Francisco
But right now. They're building the
Bakersfield to Modesto portion of it
mainly I think it was done because of the
Two things one
The quickness with which were they would be able to get the rights of way between Bakersfield and Modesto
and the cost of
the cost of building and getting the rights of wave
through Los Angeles
Would be a very expensive proposition
But I think we'll still see it
probably in the
2025 timeframe
Hi, I speak as a fan of high-speed rail myself
I love taking the train in Europe, but you yourself have just pointed out some of the problems with it
And I'm wondering if maybe we should consider that the successors to high-speed rail
already exist or are on the verge on the cusp of
Coming into being and should we as a nation or we as California's start looking at these alternate technologies and sort of hopscotch over?
high-speed rail
well the only hopscotch technology would be Mac Lev and
You know when you're going through hundred fifty miles an hour you really can't beyond the surface because all that going by you would just
Be I think maybe dizzying
So the one from in Japan
Maglev is
all being done in a tunnel from Tokyo to Nagoya and
That will be ready
Completed, I think in about
2021 for operation now the Chinese to have a
maglev in
Pudong to the Shanghai Airport, it's about
19 20 miles long and it gets up to about
250 to 300 miles an hour, but it takes about
Takes them about three minutes to get up to 250 miles an hour
And then they're breaking the rest of the sentence way into a Pudong Airport
and
It's the first
commercial
Maglev
project in the world, but it's still not the
Kind of a system that probably will be operational
or a long period of time
the one in Japan will be
Yes, sir
We've talked about 911 and tracking airplanes and lately we've had a bunch of airplanes just disappear and
Possibly people turning off
Things that are in the airplane
We have technology now to track everything how?
How comes it's so hard to get and we you know when we do we have to dive down and find these analog?
Devices that are crushed
How comes it's so hard to get a system so that we can actually track and find out what's going on in airplanes?
It doesn't sound like it would be that difficult, or you know at least
Technically no. You're right in 2004
I created something called the next generation
Air transportation system
and
G and 80s a lot of people said in the secretary can't spell Nats
but it's
and that is now known as next generation or next gen and
What we were trying to do then was to go from ground-based radar to space-based
and the
Part of it became budgetary
part of it became
Resistance from the unions about moving to space-based and
like in that recent EgyptAir or even in the case of the
malaysian airlines'
If we had had a space-based
radar
We would have been able to pinpoint where the plane went in and without having to look for the FDR the flight day
flight data recorder reporter recorder or the cockpit voice recorder
And we be able to trace them
Today and I've been part of an effort in a public-private partnership
P3
to try to get next-gen
and we've raised over two billion dollars to
Build satellites
to house
this ad SB
receiver
for or transmitter for for space-based air traffic control
The FAA is still fighting us on this
NAV CANADA a private
nonprofit
Air carrier air traffic management
Force has put some 60 million of their money into it UK and the Europeans have
And so now we will be launching our first satellite in
July out of Vandenberg
to start this series of
66 balls in the air
satellites for for
space-based air traffic control
The Europeans are part of this and so when
They're using it
the
distance between aircraft will be five nautical mount mountain five nautical miles
but when they try for
That aircraft to us control
Then the planes are going to have to go to
13 Mach nautical miles of distance so that means that us when the planes are coming into US territory
They'll have to slow down and and increase that distance between the airplanes
so we're hoping that the
Sixty-six ball system will be up in about a year and a half, and we'll be able to get
Greater
air traffic management
system in place
as all of you know
You're also working on air traffic management here at Ames
Okay, so we want to wrap it up here, and thank you again for being here and sherry. Thank you for the
You
