JUDY WOODRUFF: This summer will
mark the 50th anniversary of
Neil Armstrong's first setting
foot on the moon, a
moment for the ages.
But ever since the space
shuttles were retired,
there's been a renewed
debate over what NASA's
mission should be.
As it turns out, what's
old is new again.
There's a big push to
return to the moon.
Miles O'Brien looks at those
questions and the man who tasked
-- is tasked with overseeing
it for our weekly segment
about the Leading Edge of
science, technology and health.
MILES O'BRIEN: One year into his
tenure as NASA administrator,
Jim Bridenstine is a man
on a new mission for
the space agency.
MAN: Please join me in
welcoming Jim Bridenstine.
(APPLAUSE)
MILES O'BRIEN: It made him a
star at the 35th Space Symposium
in Colorado Springs, the annual
convening of the
cosmic cognoscenti.
JIM BRIDENSTINE, NASA
Administrator: So many
in this room are familiar
that we have been
given now a new charge, that
we are going to place humans
on the surface of the moon
in five years.
For a number of years at NASA,
they weren't really allowed
to talk about going to the
moon.
And now they not only can
talk about going to the moon.
The idea that we're going to
be there in five years has
everybody extremely excited.
MILES O'BRIEN: U.S. astronauts
on the moon by 2024, Vice
President Mike Pence dropped
that gauntlet at
the end of March.
MIKE PENCE, Vice President
of the United States: Now,
make no mistake about it.
We're in a space race today,
just as we were in the 1960s,
and the stakes are even higher.
MILES O'BRIEN: A
space race with whom?
A private mission designed by
Elon Musk and SpaceX or also
China, which landed on the
far side of the moon in
January, and vows to build a
permanent encampment there in a
decade.
It's a time frame that invokes
another race, another era.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of
the United States: We choose to
go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things,
not because they are easy,
because they are hard.
MILES O'BRIEN: NASA delivered
on President Kennedy's
audacious challenge 50 years ago
this July.
That moon race was fueled by
rivalry with the Soviets, the
desire to honor the wishes
of a martyred leader, and a
blank check from taxpayers.
A lot of things just lined up
perfectly to make that happen.
JIM BRIDENSTINE: That's right.
MILES O'BRIEN: Do you see the
similar ingredients right now?
JIM BRIDENSTINE: So,
it's a different era.
That kind of competition
doesn't exist right now.
But what does exist now that's
unique that didn't happen back
then is all of the partnerships
with international players.
MILES O'BRIEN: During
the symposium, the former
Navy fighter pilot,
who wasn't even alive
during Apollo, met with
those international partners.
He had some convincing to do.
U.S. space policy has shifted
with the political wind.
In 2004, President George
W. Bush retired the shuttle
program and set his sights on
the moon, a program
called Constellation.
But when Barack Obama became
president, he made it clear
the moon didn't interest him.
So, in 2010, he canceled
Constellation after an
independent committee
determined the NASA
budget fell far short
of the ambition.
The agency was left
with a vague underfunded
notion to go to Mars.
But in December of 2017,
President Trump signed
Space Policy Directive
1, which put NASA back
on course to the moon.
NASA policy has been as
dizzying as the stomach-churning
gimbal rig test endured
by the first astronauts.
When you talk to your
counterparts, as you did earlier
today, and you tell them, we're
going to be there in five years,
we need your help, are they
kind of hanging on to their
wallet a little bit?
Are they a little skeptical?
JIM BRIDENSTINE: We are
anxiously anticipating the
resources that come from
these other countries.
But you're right, not every
country will participate
at the same level, and
we're OK with that.
MILES O'BRIEN: All the big
spacefaring nations were here,
except China, conspicuous in its
absence.
What are your thoughts on
whether China should somehow be
brought into this partnership?
JIM BRIDENSTINE: So, that
goes above the pay grade
of the NASA administrator.
What I will tell you is that
we follow the law, and the law
says that NASA is not going
to do any bilateral kind
of cooperation with China.
MILES O'BRIEN: So what will this
international sprint look like?
To be determined, quickly.
MIKE PENCE: The president has
directed NASA and Administrator
Jim Bridenstine to accomplish
this goal by any
means necessary.
You must consider every
available option and
platform to meet our
goals, including industry,
government, and the entire
American space enterprise.
MILES O'BRIEN: Pence gave that
address at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville
Alabama, where they designed
the Saturn V rocket that
carried Apollo astronauts to the
moon.
The even bigger rocket they
and Boeing are building now,
the Space Launch System, or
SLS, is troubled.
JIM BRIDENSTINE:
It's behind schedule.
Yes, it's over cost.
Yes, it's been a challenge.
Every rocket program in history
has had those challenges,
but we're almost there.
And the problems that it has
had historically - - it's been
under development now for 10
years -- we're getting
those problems fixed.
MILES O'BRIEN: Elon Musk's
SpaceX is in early development
of a huge rocket for missions
to the moon and Mars,
but it is unlikely a
commercial alternative
to SLS would be ready
in time.
Besides, politics dictates
this rocket be at the
center of this program.
The powerful delegation
from Alabama will
have it no other way.
When he came to NASA,
Bridenstine was in
his third term as a
Republican congressman from
Oklahoma.
He understands technology
through a political prism.
JIM BRIDENSTINE: There's
two kinds of risk.
There's the technical risk and
then there's the political risk.
As a member of Congress, I
can tell you, I have seen it.
The technical risk is irrelevant
if the politics aren't right.
MILES O'BRIEN: Bridenstine has
already gotten a taste of the
skepticism he is facing among
his former colleagues.
REP.
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (D-TX):
The simple truth is, is that
we are not in a space race to
get to the moon.
We won that race a
half-century ago.
MILES O'BRIEN: Democrat Eddie
Bernice Johnson chairs the
House Science Committee.
REP.
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON: Rhetoric
that is not backed by a concrete
plan and believable cost
estimates is just hot air.
And hot air might be helpful
in ballooning, but it won't
get us to the moon or Mars.
MILES O'BRIEN: Even if
SLS works, NASA needs a
lot more hardware, like
the Orion crew capsule
built by Lockheed Martin and
its service module built by
the European Space Agency.
But the agency also aims to
build a small outpost orbiting
the moon called the Lunar
Orbital Platform-Gateway.
And, of course,
it needs a lander.
Bridenstine is hoping for help
from international partners
or maybe commercial players.
Why five years?
A lot of people look at
it and say, this synchs
up with the political
calendar perhaps a little
bit suspiciously.
Is there a political
motivation to all this?
JIM BRIDENSTINE: I
don't think so at all.
If there is, nobody has
talked to me about it.
So, I will tell you
what I think it is.
The idea that these long
timelines allow the agency to
be cast to and fro by political
whims, that's what
we're trying to avoid.
MILES O'BRIEN: The plan is
more than a sprint, followed by
flags, footprints and photos.
NASA hopes it will be the
beginning of a permanent
outpost near the lunar
south pole, a base
for science and a proving
ground for a mission to Mars.
The concern has always
been that, on paper,
that's a great idea.
It's a springboard to Mars.
It also could be a
cul-de-sac or a dead end.
JIM BRIDENSTINE: Right.
MILES O'BRIEN: Because there's
only so much money and interest.
JIM BRIDENSTINE: That's right.
MILES O'BRIEN: And it
could lose momentum.
JIM BRIDENSTINE: Yes.
So you're right.
If we get bogged down on the
moon and we put all of our
resources there, then we're not
going to get to Mars.
So we don't want that to happen.
MILES O'BRIEN: Speed,
sustainability and safety all
at once will not be cheap.
There is an expression in
the space world made popular
in the 1983 movie "The Right
Stuff":
ACTOR: No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
MILES O'BRIEN: And in those
glory days, NASA had a whole
lot of bucks, more than twice
the budget it gets now.
So the administration is
poised to ask Congress
to up the ante on space.
It will require
bipartisan support.
Sure, NASA can send a man to
the moon, but politics is not
as easy as rocket science.
For the "PBS NewsHour,"
I'm Miles O'Brien
in Colorado Springs.