Crew Dragon Demo-1 Post-Launch Press Conference
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (2)
Transcript
0:12Elon MuskT minus 15 seconds. 10, 9. 8. 7. 6.
0:21Launch commentary5. 4, 3, 2, 1.
0:26Elon Musk0.
0:27Launch commentaryIgnition.
0:28Elon MuskLift off.
0:38Elon MuskVehicle is pitching down. Right.
1:00Launch commentaryWelcome. My name is Bettina. I'm the associate Administrator of Communications here at NASA and thank you for joining us for the post launch briefing of Demo one. Just as a reminder for each of the reporters, please say your name and organization.
1:12Launch commentaryWe also have reporters calling in on the line and also questions from social media. Please be respectful of the other reporters and one reporter per question. 1. With that, I'm going to turn it over to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
1:27Jim BridenstineWell, thank you, Bettina. It's an exciting evening. We've got a great group of folks here that can share some of their experiences. I'll introduce them and then I'll say a few words and turn it over to Elon Musk to say a few words about tonight's, or I should say today's event, whatever time it may be.
1:47Jim BridenstineI'm not sure. So to start, the CEO and lead designer of SpaceX, Elon Musk, is here. We have two astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will be flying on the Demo 2 mission which we're anxiously anticipating.
2:04Jim BridenstineWe have Steve Stich, the deputy manager of the commercial crew program and the NASA launch manager for Demo one, way down on my far right and Kirk Shireman, the manager of the International Space Station program to my immediate right.
2:18Jim BridenstineSo tonight was a big night for the United States of America, a great night for NASA. What today really represents is a new era in space flight. An era where we are looking forward to being one customer as an agency and as a country.
2:38Jim BridenstineWe're looking forward to being one customer of many customers in a robust commercial marketplace in low Earth orbit so that we can drive down cost and increase access in ways that historically have not been possible.
2:52Jim BridenstineAnd we have our first provider of multiple providers today that had a successful launch. This is just the beginning. We're still in the first quarter. This is a five day mission and and we're looking forward to future successes on this mission and missions beyond this one.
3:13Jim BridenstineSo Elon, I'll turn it over to you for a few of your opening comments.
3:18Elon MuskSure. Well, thank you. Well, I'd just like to express a very strong note of appreciation for the SpaceX team that's worked. It's been 17 years to get to this point from 2002 to now and incredible amount of hard work and sacrifice from a lot of people that's gotten to this point.
3:45Elon MuskAnd yeah, to be frank, I'm a little emotionally exhausted because that was super stressful, but it worked so far. We have to dock the station, we have to come back.
4:01Elon MuskBut so far it has worked. Some of the riskiest items have. We've passed on the riskiest items. But I'd like to also express a great appreciation for NASA. SpaceX would not be here without NASA, without the incredible work that was done before SpaceX even started and without the support of after SpaceX did start.
4:26Elon MuskSo thank you.
4:27Jim BridenstineAbsolutely. Well, it's great to have so many people here so early in the morning. So we'll just open it up. If people have questions. I'll just call on folks as we go.
4:40Jim BridenstineThe gentleman right here in the gray
4:42Elon Muskjacket, Ivan Kuron of agence France Press. Mr. Maersk, do you have any customers for the capsule, private customers other than NASA? We've not sought any private customers. Our focus has been on serving NASA's needs.
4:58Elon MuskBut once the once Dragon is in regular operation, I think we will seek commercial customers, of which the NASA administrator and NASA in general has been very supportive of that idea.
5:17Elon MuskBut we've been very focused on just making sure that the vehicle worked and maximizing safety and reliability. And we've not put any effort into yet into commercial customers.
5:30Jim BridenstineWe'll go to the gentleman right behind him.
5:35ReporterHi, good morning. Tom Costello with NBC News. And congratulations to all. Elon, can you talk about now? What does Today prove to NASA and to the world about your capabilities at SpaceX and Dragon specifically?
5:51Elon MuskWell, we're only partway through the mission, but the system thus far has passed an exhaustive set of reviews. And then in the launch itself, the launch went as expected.
6:09Elon MuskSo so far everything is nominal. The Dragon 2 or Crew Dragon is a fundamental redesign. There's hardly a part in common with Dragon 1, which in retrospect will probably change actually.
6:26Elon MuskBut there's a mass amount of new equipment on the vehicle and everything appears to be working fine. So, yeah, we opened the nose cone, the forward Draco thruster is fired, the propellant system is working.
6:51Elon MuskIt's much more complex than Dragon 1 because you have the integrated launch escape thrusters, the SuperDraco launch escape thrusters on the side. In fact, I'm not sure if people know what say better about Dragon than some other vehicles is that it does have integrated escape system.
7:17Elon MuskSo previously you'd have a tractor escape system, like a solid rocket motor mounted on the nose of the capsule as sort of a tractor. It would sort of pull the spacecraft away.
7:33Elon MuskThat's how Soyuz works, for example. But in the case of Dragon, they're integrated so you have an abort capability all the way to orbit and you do not have to worry about a separation event of the launch escape system.
7:50Elon MuskSo this is, I think, quite a big safety improvement in principle. And then over the next, hopefully Tomorrow, in about 24 hours, we'll be docking with the space station so that it will be able to dock with space station without using the arm.
8:10Jim BridenstineGo ahead.
8:17Elon MuskMajor voyage for, for the Dragon over the next five days has to go through a number of important steps. You have a checklist that you have to go through.
8:25Elon MuskAre there any moments in particular that you are will find especially challenging or worrisome? Well, I think docking with the space station is going to be. We'll be docking for the first time.
8:37Elon MuskPreviously we would go close to the space station and the arm would reach out and grab in case Dragon 1 and would grab Dragon 1, attach it to the space station.
8:46Elon MuskIn this case, the spacecraft will literally fly onto the space station and attach itself. So that's certainly going to be something new that we've never done before. And then reentry, because the back shell is not symmetric in the way it that Dragon 1 is.
9:12Elon MuskIt's not sort of a smooth conic like Dragon 1. You've got the launch escape thruster pods that could potentially, potentially cause a roll instability on reentry. But I think it's unlikely.
9:26Elon MuskWe've run simulations a thousand times, but this is a possibility. So I think that the reentry with the asymmetric back shell and then the parachutes are new. Will the parachutes deploy correctly?
9:43Elon MuskAnd then will the system guide Dragon 2 to the right location and splash down safely? I see. Hypersonic reentry is probably my biggest concern because. Oh, just because of the asymmetric back shell.
10:06Elon MuskYeah. For a week we'll go right here.
10:11Jim BridenstineYes.
10:14Elon MuskWe didn't get a chance to see the camera inside the capsule at liftoff in the first minute. What did you see?
10:24ReporterWhat Data.
10:25Elon MuskHow did the. Oh, sure, Mannequin test dummy Ripley do you. Yeah, the video. We did get video from the ground station. So in fact we'll hopefully be able to post some of that soon for sure.
10:40Elon MuskOnce you get close to the station, we'll have a good video link from inside the spacecraft. The bias was towards data. Make sure we got the data down. So data's all looking really good.
10:51Elon MuskBut I think for members of the public, the real fun thing would be seeing little celestial buddy, little tiny Earth humanoid Earth thing floating around in zero G. I think the polyc will probably be Most excited about that.
11:09Elon MuskWell, it's in zero G now, but it would. Oh, and it's fine. It's probably, we got to about four and a half GS or something like that. It's no problem.
11:19PanelistYeah, the mannequin didn't complain once.
11:22Elon MuskYeah, no, it looked fine. You couldn't even tell. It's just. It looked like a still. Yeah, looked fine.
11:32Jim BridenstineWe'll go right here in the front.
11:34Elon MuskTim Dodd, the everyday astronaut. I have a question regarding when you had the failure of landing and you had a block freeze of the Falcon 9, you know, Block 5, you're unable to make changes according to NASA's requests.
11:50Elon MuskHow did it, you know, when you have non mission critical things like grid fin hydraulic pumps that seize, what were
11:55Jim Bridenstineyou able to do?
11:55Elon MuskAs far as you know you're in a freeze of the vehicle. How did that affect certification going on? Were you able to make tweaks to the hydraulic systems? Were you able to add a redundant pump already or did it not.
12:05Elon MuskIs that not considered a freeze?
12:07Jim BridenstineI guess or what's that like?
12:08PanelistI guess
12:11Elon Muskno. We've been actually able to work with NASA very well and make changes as it's. As I said earlier, I think you almost think of like this was like kind of co designed by NASA and SpaceX in the sense that there was so much interaction and feedback that.
12:40Elon MuskThis, this is a joint effort really and the NASA engineering team understands the vehicle really quite well. Very well. And so when we want to make changes, provide those changes are sound, then we meet and confer and get it done and we're able to fix the grid fin hydraulic pump stool pretty easily actually without having a redundant pump.
13:11Elon MuskThis just turned out to be like a bizarre sort of stall zone and with a little bit of a tiny relief valve, we were able to fix it easy.
13:18ReporterI would say from a NASA perspective, we work hand in hand with SpaceX. They will propose changes to us. We have an engineering team that will look at every one of those changes.
13:28ReporterIn this particular one, it was a pretty simple valve change to improve that grid fin performance. SpaceX proposed it, they bring it to us, we kind of go through it with our process and engineers look at it and then we make those changes to the vehicle.
13:41ReporterSo it's a very methodical process. I would say we have great teamwork between NASA and SpaceX.
13:47Elon MuskYeah, I mean, obviously not for a mission like this, but done some pretty wild things. I was just talking with Bill Gerstenmayer earlier and reflecting on the time when we had to trim the nozzle of the Merlin vacuum engine.
14:05Elon MuskSo the C103 nozzle, which is like an OVM half DNA nozzle for the vacuum extension, had like a little tear in it. So basically sent one of our best techs in there to trim it with a pair of scissors.
14:20Elon MuskAnd I was like, this is pretty crazy, but Bill. And I was like, well, you know, it should work. It did, did, did work.
14:33Jim BridenstineWe'll go right here in the NASA shirt.
14:36Elon MuskMary Lizbender with the Planetary Society. Elon, you've spent 17 years pushing past adversity, doubt, and you must feel incredible to finally be at this stage. I'm just curious what advice you have to all the dreamers out there that
14:53Launch commentaryare dealing with the same kind of
14:54Elon Muskdoubt that you did. I always thought we would fail. So this is. It's all upside. I thought maybe we had a 10% chance reaching orbit starting out. So then people thought when we started SpaceX, they said, oh, you're going to fail.
15:14Elon MuskSo I agree. I think we probably will fail. Yeah, it was worth trying anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
15:24Jim BridenstineHow's that for honesty, huh?
15:25Elon MuskYeah. I said I'd lose all the money from PayPal. I was like, well, you're probably right. And we're almost there. First three launches of Falcon 1 didn't work. Then the fourth one, we scraped together some parts and that one worked.
15:39Elon MuskAnd if that one hadn't worked, that would have been it for us. I don't know. I really believe in the future of space and I think it's important that we've become a spacefaring civilization and I'll be out there among the stars.
15:52Elon MuskAnd I think that's one of the things that makes people excited about the future. We want the things that are in science fiction novels and movies not to be science fiction forever.
16:03Elon MuskWe want them to be real one day.
16:07Launch commentaryDoes anyone have questions for the astronauts or specifics on commercial crew or the issuance?
16:18Jim BridenstineYou can.
16:18Launch commentaryOkay, gentlemen over there.
16:23ReporterHi, I'm Stephen Clark from Spaceflight now had a question about the reentry. Since Elon mentioned that's one of the riskier parts of this test flight. I understand the reentry is going to be a descending node over the U.S.
16:35Reporteris that correct? And I remember during the shuttle days overflight over a populated area was a concern and was always got some extra scrutiny. So I'm curious if that's something you've discussed and talk about any risk that was assessed and how you would dispose of that risk to decide for a descending node reentry.
16:53Jim BridenstineThanks, Kirk or Steve.
16:56ReporterYeah, I can take that one. So, yeah, you're correct. The entry is we're landing right off the coast of Florida, just a little bit north of here. There's an area that SpaceX has sort of designed as their landing area in terms of entry risk.
17:12ReporterThere's a process we go through to assess that risk. We take a look at the components on the spacecraft and look at the worst case kind of scenarios that could happen during entry.
17:21ReporterAnd there's a criteria we have to meet. And so what we've done is we worked hand in hand with SpaceX to look at the spacecraft, how it's composed, how it flies.
17:32ReporterThey run models and simulations of how it lands. We have an independent modeling system that we employed. And so we went through that whole process to ensure the safety of the public relative to landing.
17:42ReporterAs Elon said, it is one of the areas that we're interested in for this mission as well, for crew. You know, if you look at the rest of the mission and the highest risk periods, it's obviously docking the station and then the landing phase.
17:54ReporterI think we'll learn a lot about the modeling of the vehicle, how the aerodynamics works for this particular vehicle and the GNC system to during entry. So we're really excited about that part of the mission and getting that data for the crewed missions later on.
18:09Jim BridenstineWe go to Reuters here in the front.
18:15Elon MuskSteve, what's the biggest takeaway you hope to learn from this mission? And based on what you've learned in the past and what you expect to learn in the coming weeks, how confident are you to say that we'll see humans launch from US soil this year or in the summer?
18:30Elon MuskWell, so far it's looking quite promising. We're only part way into the mission, but so far it seems looking very good. Dragon 2 has a very complex propellant system because of the fact that it's got an on orbit maneuvering.
18:49Elon MuskIt's got 16 on orbit maneuvering thrusters, the little Draco thrusters, which are kind of small thrusters, and it's got the eight SuperDraco thrusters, which are very powerful thrusters, and that the two are interwoven in a way that's quite tricky.
19:02Elon MuskAnd the main maneuvering thrusters on orbit actually thrust in the opposite direction that the propellant wants to flow. So those worked. The forward thrusters under the nose cone worked, which is.
19:16Elon MuskThat's big risk reduction. The nose cone opened, which is cool. The solar arrays work. So far everything looked good. So docking, as I mentioned, reentry you can sort of see the illustration of there on the wall.
19:33Elon MuskWhat I mean by the back shell not being sort of a smooth conic like it is on falcon. On Dragon 1, it's got those escape thruster pods so, you know, should be fine.
19:48Elon MuskBut that would be a thing to make sure that it works on reentry, make sure the docking system works. Everything we know so far is looking positive. And unless something goes wrong, I would think that we'll be flying hopefully this year.
20:05Elon MuskYeah, I mean, this summer, hopefully.
20:09Jim BridenstineSteve or Kirk? Did you want to go ahead, Steve?
20:12ReporterYeah, I would just echo what Elon said to me. It's really a, a bit of a dress rehearsal for the demo 2 mission. We're going to fly all aspects of the mission.
20:21ReporterSo I think we'll learn, you know, a lot of subtle things about the spacecraft. How it does thermally, how the GNC system works. Getting into the rendezvous, it'll be really important to check out how the sensors work as we approach station.
20:37ReporterYou know, it's the first time we've flown to this particular integrated docking apparatus with this vehicle. There's a series of steps we'll take as we move in closer to station to make sure that the systems are performing well on the Dragon.
20:52ReporterObviously the crew on station will be monitoring the vehicle coming in and then at the end of the flight, you know, while we're docked, also we'll understand how it works at station.
21:03ReporterWe're going to exchange data between Dragon and the space station, we exchange airflow between the two vehicles and at the end of the flight we'll do the undock maneuver and then separate the trunk is another big event.
21:16ReporterRight before we deorbit, we'll separate the trunk and then come in for the deorbit and entry. So lots of different pieces and each piece, you know, my experience is they'll learn a little bit.
21:27ReporterAnd as Elon said, the flight's going great so far and I would turn it over to Kirk to see.
21:31PanelistYeah, so the cool thing is you learn engineering things like you talked about operations thing. So docking, coming close to the iss. It's a test flight, but not really for us.
21:41PanelistWe consider this one for score. It really is flying to the ISS and we really want to protect the crew on board and the assets. So we'll learn that.
21:50PanelistWe actually had to learn how to protect SpaceX's proprietary data when working with our international partners. And so there's whole dimensions of learning and we've already done a tremendous amount of work and I'm sure we're going to have some surprises along the way.
22:06PanelistThat's what makes this so much fun.
22:09Launch commentaryWe're going to take a question from our social media participants. Okay. Powell Majak, perhaps on Twitter, is asking
22:18Elon Muskhow are the Dragon astronauts feeling about the spacecraft?
22:23PanelistI guess I would say for us, you know, we've been following the process for a few years at this point. We've made a lot of trips out to Hawthorne to kind of see this spacecraft come together and the spacecraft that we'll fly on later this year come together as well.
22:36PanelistAnd so seeing a success like this definitely gives us a lot of confidence in the future. And you know, like folks have described, really this is about predicting what the vehicle's going to do and then testing it and making sure that those two things match up as you kind of go through this mission.
22:50PanelistAnd that's what's going to give us that confidence going forward. And launch has been wonderful. Activation has been wonderful. We still have some significant events going forward that we'll want to make sure match up as well.
23:00PanelistI think the other thing, I think that maybe to allude to the previous question a little bit, is that I think we also have learned how to work together as a team and that's really the reason that Doug and I came to Florida to participate from inside the firing room.
23:14PanelistWe, of course, on launch day won't be able to do that, but it's great to understand how that team works, being a member of it. That's maybe not represented during the demo 1 mission.
23:24PanelistWe can take advantage of this experience and take that with us when we fly on our missions later this year. We'll be racing across the country, going to Hawthorne to see docking and then also to see the splashdown from out there as well.
23:37PanelistSo we're feeling pretty good about it. And it's really about each one of these milestones getting accomplished and giving us more confidence in the future.
23:47Jim BridenstineDoug, did you want to.
23:49PanelistYeah. All I'll say is, you know, this is the buildup approach that we learned very early as test pilots. And you know, we've worked ourselves to our first flight of the vehicle with DM1 and then as Bob said, we'll work through those milestones and then next up is the in flight abort.
24:05PanelistThen we'll have that to go, you know, follow as they go through that exercise and then that's kind of the graduation exercise for us to get on DM2 and go fly.
24:14PanelistSo. So we'll work with the teams and we'll be out in California. We'll be here and we're looking forward to supporting all of those events.
24:26Jim BridenstineThe aqua shirt right here.
24:30Elon MuskExcuse me.
24:30ReporterDave Mosher with Business Insider. And Insider. I suppose this is for Elon. You said you're emotionally drained right now having launched an uncrewed crew Dragon, but you've got these two guys sitting right next to you.
24:43ReporterHow do you think you're going to feel and handle that experience going into demo 2? Any thoughts on that, how you're going to get through that launch?
24:54Elon MuskI suspect it will be extremely stressful. But I mean, doing this test flight I think goes a long way towards feeling good about the flight with Bob and Doug.
25:12Elon MuskSo in fact, right after Dragon set, you know, separated and fired the thrusters, I went over and asked them what they thought, you know, and they're like, how do you feel about flying on it?
25:23Elon MuskLike, seems like you felt good about flying on it. I was like, okay, you know, they're in the control room watching Levada. So I'm like, yeah, the guys told
25:35Panelistus what was going to happen and that's what happened. That's how we like it to be.
25:38Elon MuskSo, yeah, so, but I want to ask, make sure they're feeling good about it. And you guys were so, you know, we definitely won't launch until we've done everything we can possibly think of.
25:51Elon MuskThat's for sure. And I think this plus the high altitude abort gives a lot of confidence about the actual mission. With astronauts
26:02Jim BridenstineAviation Week.
26:04Elon MuskThanks.
26:05Launch commentaryIrene Klotz with Aviation Week for Bob or Doug, did you see anything from your perspective in the firing room that in the countdown or in fueling anything in the calls that kind of initially you're flagging is something you'd like to take another look at.
26:23Launch commentaryAnd for Elon, thanks for coming out here. We've seen you here after, after the first reuse of a Falcon 9 and for Falcon Heavy, big picture, how does this flight fit into your overall objectives and satisfactions personally and professionally?
26:41Launch commentaryThanks.
26:43Elon MuskWell, the whole goal of SpaceX was crewed Spaceflight try and improve space exploration technology. That's actually the full name of the company is Space Exploration Technologies. So the goal is to improve space exploration technology and that's with view towards helping make humanity a space frame civilization.
27:10Elon MuskIt's been 17 years, we still haven't launched anyone yet, but hopefully we will later this year. And so that would definitely be the culmination of a long dream for a lot of people.
27:25Elon MuskMe and a lot of people at SpaceX for sure.
27:30Jim BridenstineCan't Wait, Bob and Doug?
27:33PanelistYeah, I think it was. We've probably seen half a dozen, maybe three quarters of a dozen combination of static fires or launches either from here, from Hawthorne. And, you know, every time we participate, you know, it's.
27:52PanelistIt's just amazing to see how the team is hitting its stride getting these vehicles ready to go into space. And I think, you know, every launch count or every static fire, there are technical issues that the team has to go back and solve real time.
28:06PanelistAnd I don't think this was any different. And I thought everybody handled their, you know, their roles very well, and it seemed like everything went smoothly all the way up until launch, and so far, so good.
28:18PanelistSo from our standpoint, this is. This is what you want to see. You want to see the team hitting its stride as we get ready to put people on these things.
28:28PanelistAnd kind of as Doug described, we've. We've seen several static fires or launches from various locations. McGregor from here, here, watching along in Hawthorne. And I think from our perspective is the thing that's been different with the Demo one mission is kind of the integrated operation.
28:45PanelistSo seeing the Dragon team work with the Falcon team, usually it's a little bit more of a standalone payload. It seems from the missions that we've seen in this case, there can be things that you need to communicate between those two teams kind of real time.
28:59PanelistAnd to see the team kind of process, that kind of causes us to think a little bit about, hey, what's the crew perspective about that? What's Dragon going to tell the ground and what's it going to tell us, and what does the Falcon team need to know about that?
29:12PanelistThat's a piece of this that we got to see on Demo one. And we'll get to make sure as we go forward that that's all captured in the simulations as we move forward.
29:20PanelistSo that integration, we got to see it here, and we'll continue to see that as we get closer to flight.
29:29Jim BridenstineRight here in the second row.
29:33Elon MuskMARCIA Dunn, Associated Press for Elon I'm assuming you were in the firing room for launch.
29:38Jim BridenstineIf that's so.
29:38Elon MuskAnd how much does it add to the satisfaction of seeing your rocket launch from the moon pads, the shuttle pads, and here you are in the firing room used by NASA for so many years and traditions.
29:52Elon MuskI mean, does that just add to the pleasure? Talk about that. I would never believe that this would ever happen.
30:05Elon MuskYeah, I just think, you know, the humanity landing on the moon, man, that was maybe the greatest thing ever. Maybe the greatest thing ever. So I Can't believe we're launching from that pad.
30:25Elon MuskThank you. Thank you for letting us do that.
30:29Jim BridenstineThank you for refurbishing it.
30:32Elon MuskYeah, yeah. It's really hard to believe. It's incredible history. Hope we go back to the moon soon.
30:45Jim BridenstineThat's the goal.
30:46Elon MuskYeah. We should have a base on the moon, like a permanently occupied human base on the moon and send people to Mars, you know, and build a city on Mars.
30:58Elon MuskThat's what we should do.
31:02Jim BridenstineThe gentleman in the back, put your hand up high there.
31:09Elon MuskMike from Fox 35, Elon, after you looked at Bob and Doug and said, how do you guys feel about going up in it? Did they say to you, how do you feel, Elon?
31:18Elon MuskAnd I wonder, under what circumstances would you get in it and take a ride? Yeah, I'd be happy to go on the Bickle.
31:32Elon MuskI think it's good design. Lot of crazy amount of hard work from a lot of smart people at SpaceX and with a lot of help from NASA. And I think it's a good vehicle.
31:46Elon MuskAnd you guys think it's a good vehicle, right?
31:49ReporterYeah.
31:49Jim BridenstineWe're gonna do one more question, gentlemen, in the aisle.
31:54Elon MuskSunday, before we reach any conclusions, or a week when it lands.
32:00Jim BridenstineWait, one last question here.
32:06Elon MuskGreat. Ken Kramer for space up close.
32:09PanelistThanks for doing this.
32:10Elon MuskJim Bridenstine, you mentioned you want NASA to be one of many customers. So my question, Elon, where do you
32:17Panelistsee Dragon going beyond NASA? What would you like to do expand on that? Thanks.
32:24Elon MuskWell, I think the obvious thing would be if there are sort of private citizens that want to go to the space station, as has happened before. They've always gone on the Soyuz before.
32:37Elon MuskThere's been a number of people that have gone to the space station on the Soyuz. And I think it would be pretty cool if people went to the space station on an American vehicle as well.
32:46Elon MuskSoyuz is a good vehicle, but it'd be good if there were also commercial trips on an American vehicle as well. And so I think that's one of the things that we'll do.
33:04Elon MuskAnd obviously NASA's very supportive of that. And. Yeah, so. And then, you know, maybe there's something beyond, beyond, beyond the space station. We'll see. Gotta focus on getting this right.
33:21Elon MuskFor sure. That's the priority. But then after that, maybe something beyond beyond Earth orbit.
33:28Jim BridenstineSo I'll go ahead and close it out. You know, we just heard Elon say he'd be interested in having a permanent presence on the moon.
33:35Elon MuskFor sure. We should do it.
33:37Jim BridenstineWell, that's the very first Space Policy Directive given by the President of the United States to me as the NASA Administrator that we're going to go to the Moon and we're going to go sustainably.
33:48Jim BridenstineSo what that means is when we say sustainably, that means we're going to stay. And of course, the objective here is not just humans, but also landers and rovers and robots and, and humans and utilizing our international partners and utilizing our commercial partners.
34:08Jim BridenstineAnd there's no doubt SpaceX has some really amazing ideas about what they could help us do at the Moon and what they could help the coalition of international partners do as we develop this together.
34:22Jim BridenstineBut the President's Space Policy Directive is clear. We're going to the Moon, we're going sustainably, we're going with international partners, we're going with commercial partners, we're going to utilize the resources of the Moon.
34:35Jim BridenstineThat's a critically important part of the agenda. Why we have to be able to live and work on another world for long periods of time. We have to be able to use those resources of another world, which is of course a great opportunity for us to prove those capabilities and technologies on the Moon.
34:52Jim BridenstineBecause as it happens, you know, Mars and Earth are only aligned once every 26 months on the same side of the sun. Which means when we go to Mars, which I know is high on Elon's agenda and it's high on NASA's agenda, when we go to Mars, we have to be there for long periods of time.
35:09Jim BridenstineSo we have to figure out how to, how to do in situ resource utilization. And then ultimately we need to prove all of this out at the Moon, which is a three day journey from Earth, which means we, we have a risk mitigation capability right there.
35:23Jim BridenstineWe've seen what happens with Apollo 13 when something goes wrong, you can get home. If something goes wrong on the way to Mars, it becomes a lot more difficult.
35:32Jim BridenstineAnd so that's why the Moon matters, It's why the Moon is so important. It's the proving ground. And then at the end, we want to take all those technologies, all those capabilities, we want to retire the risk and go to Mars.
35:44Jim BridenstineThere's great alignment between NASA and our commercial partners. And as we're seeing now with our international partners, just yesterday, I don't even know what day it is, it's like two days ago, I guess now we had a great announcement from Canada and they announced that they're going to be with us for the next 24 years in our sustainable return to the Moon.
36:08Jim BridenstineAnd that's the kind of long term, enduring commitment that we need. We need to grow the international partnership. And that means the partners that are currently there, we need them to help us in a bigger level.
36:19Jim BridenstineThe International Space Station, amazing, amazing development that has proven the concept we need to grow it. We need every piece of the architecture between the Earth and the moon to include our international partners.
36:33Jim BridenstineIt's not just about Gateway, it's not just about the International Space Station, but it's about the entire exploration agenda in three different theaters. That includes low Earth orbit, that includes the Moon, and it includes Mars.
36:46Jim BridenstineAnd putting together a grand bargain, if you will, between our international partners and our commercial partners in a way that can be transformative for generations to come, so that we can have that permanent presence of humans on another world, starting with the moon and eventually Mars.
37:04Jim BridenstineIt's a bright future right now. And I will say this, and I, I say this every time I have the opportunity to talk to an audience. And with all the cameras here, it's more important than ever.
37:13Jim BridenstineThe President's first budget request increased our budget at NASA by a billion dollars, which was about a 5% increase. And then even before I got sworn in as the NASA administrator, a bipartisan Congress in both the House and the Senate plussed us up by $1.7 billion.
37:30Jim BridenstineSo I thought I was coming in to advocate for a bigger budget. And in fact, by the time I got there, it was actually smaller than what Congress had already given us, which is a really good problem for NASA to have.
37:41Jim BridenstineAnd interestingly, today, as Elon and I were out on the launch pad 39A, we had a conversation about why he got involved in this to begin with. And it was to inspire America to increase NASA's budget because of the return we get on those activities.
38:00Jim BridenstineNow, it is true, you know, the idea that we can put humans on another world for long periods of time is great. But the benefits humanity has received from space exploration in general is immeasurable.
38:13Jim BridenstineThe return on investment we get from that as a nation and in fact as a world, the way we communicate, all of these cameras, DirecTV, DISH Network, Internet, broadband from space.
38:23Jim BridenstineI see a lot of people here that are going to put this on the Internet. We talk about XM Radio, for example, but the way we communicate, the way we navigate, the way we produce food.
38:33Jim BridenstineI was recently at the Ag Expo, and we're sensing the Earth in every part of the electromagnetic spectrum. And because of that, we can increase crop yields, we can reduce water usage.
38:42Jim BridenstineAt the same time, we can preserve nitrates in the Soil feeding more of the world than ever before because of what NASA does. That's an amazing capability. And we didn't develop the satellites for that purpose, but because we have that data, we can share it not only with the United States farmers, but around the world.
39:00Jim BridenstineWe saved tens of millions of dollars in disaster relief that would have gone to Uganda. But because we were able to predict ahead of time a disaster situation developing, we could mitigate and save not only money for us in the form of aid, but also lives in Uganda.
39:16Jim BridenstineBut the way we produce food, the way we understand weather, the way we understand climate, the way we do national security and disaster relief, all of these things were born.
39:27Jim BridenstineAnd I understand a lot of it's commercialized, and we love that helps save us money at NASA, but a lot of it's commercialized. A lot of it is done by the Department of Defense.
39:36Jim BridenstineBut at the end of the day, it's born from this little agency that occupies less than 1/2 of 1% of the federal budget. And the return on that has been astonishing.
39:48Jim BridenstineSo the idea that this event today was. Was born from a concept of how do we encourage Americans to increase the NASA budget. Friends, we have that opportunity right now, and it is, in fact, happening with bipartisan support in Congress and support from the administration.
40:08Jim BridenstineSo we're at a great time. Today's event was amazing to watch. And over the next five days, we're going to see a lot more milestones be achieved. And. And certainly as an agency and as a country and really as a world, with our international partners, we're going to be able to do more than ever before.
40:25Jim BridenstineSo I just want to thank everybody with the TV cameras and the iPhones, get this message to the world. It's an important message, and I'm so grateful for all of you being here and covering this very important achievement in American history.
40:39Jim BridenstineSo thank you guys so much.
40:41Launch commentaryThank you, everyone, for joining us. If you have more information, please visit NASA.gov thank you and have a great day.