WEBVTT

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(Video)

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(John F. Kennedy) Many years ago,

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the great British explorer George Mallory,

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who was to die on Mount Everest,

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was asked why did he want to climb it.

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He said, "Because it is there."

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(Video ends)

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So, in 1962,

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then-President Kennedy announced
at Rice University in Texas

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the goal of sending humans to the Moon

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and returning them safely to Earth
within that decade.

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And, of course, we sort of take it
as a given that the President said it,

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it became a national initiative,
vast amounts of money were spent.

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But, in fact, one of the things
that had to happen

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was a large number 
of policymakers and taxpayers

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all had to be persuaded 
that this was a good idea.

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Well, in August of 1963,

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about 11 months after Kennedy
made his historic speech in Texas,

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two NASA scientists

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by the name of Newell and Jastrow

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wrote a little booklet
which was distributed very widely

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among policymakers and to anyone
in the public who was interested,

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and basically posed the question:

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Why should we land on the Moon?

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Why was this worth 
a vast amount of money?

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And there were three
principal lines of argument

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that are discussed in this little booklet.

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One, of course, has to do
with the national interest,

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national security, national prestige.

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We were in the midst of the Cold War,

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and the space race with the Soviet Union

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was at that moment,
in 1962 and then in 1963,

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still being lost.

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The Soviet Union had been
the first to space with a satellite.

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They had been the first to space
with an animal, a living animal, a dog.

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They had been the first to space
with an astronaut,

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and the administration
was looking for an initiative

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that was something that the US
could win in the space race

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because that would demonstrate
that the US socio-economic system

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was competitive
and was superior to communism.

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So, first and foremost,
national interest, national prestige,

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demonstrating that the US
was a superior system.

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Secondly, as Kennedy
mentioned in his speech,

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we do these things 
not because they are easy

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but because they are hard.

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And the pursuit of the space race
and the pursuit of the Apollo program

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would lead to tremendous
technical innovation

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in aerospace technologies and computing
and materials and all these technologies

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that were of great value
both in the Cold War

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and for the future of the United States.

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And lastly, for science.

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Because there was at that time
still a big question

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about how was the Moon formed,

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what is the relationship
between the Moon and the Earth,

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and what was the earliest origins
of our solar system,

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and how did the Earth and the Moon
get affected by the impacts

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that came from deep space?

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All of those things were unknown.

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Well, all of those questions
were addressed

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and all of those technologies
were developed.

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The space race was won;
missions took place.

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So why are we talking now
about going back to the Moon?

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There are really
three principal reasons again.

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First and foremost,
there's been a fundamental change

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in our understanding of the Moon
in the last 10 or 15 years,

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based on the discovery

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that there is, in fact, 
vast amounts of water

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in the form of ices and hydrated minerals
at the north and south pole of the Moon.

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One of the things
we learned from Apollo

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was that the Moon was bone dry

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and always would be
and always had been.

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There was no water,
no hydrogen, no oxygen,

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no way to make life support materials,
no way to make rocket fuels, and so on.

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Turned out none of that was true,

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and there is, in fact,
a vast amount of water

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at the poles of the Moon, where it's cold.

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Second big change.

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Right now, there is a revolution going on

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in space launch systems technology,

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driven in large measure by two firms:
SpaceX and Blue Origin,

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both of which are developing new launchers

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which will deliver payloads to space,

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and therefore to the Moon,

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at a 90% cost reduction,

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from the costs of getting into space
and getting to the Moon,

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compared to the glory days
of Apollo and the space shuttle.

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That changes everything.

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And lastly - and I use these metaphors -

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and lastly, there has been 
tremendous advances

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in a wide range
of technologies here on Earth,

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which allow large numbers of 3D printed,

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technically modular,

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rapidly reconfigurable intelligent systems

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to be mass-produced all over the world.

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If you have ever seen a little CubeSat,

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or you have seen ...

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if you have one of these things
in your pocket,

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then you are enjoying -
it's a mobile phone -

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you are enjoying the benefits
of mass-produced

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modular digitally reconfigurable systems.

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This changes how we return to the Moon

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and what we can do there
and at what price.

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As a consequence of water on the Moon,

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new launch systems,
lower prices, new technologies,

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a vast number of countries and companies

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are now all planning to go to the Moon.

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And so, one reason
now is the time to go to the Moon

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is because everybody else is also going.

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And they are going

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for the purposes of exploring,
finding those resources,

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developing those resources and using them,

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not only for basically
the operations on the Moon,

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which is kind of a selfie
if you're eating watermelon -

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we go to the Moon to get resources
to operate on the Moon -

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it's not really useful.

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But, in addition, finding materials
on the Moon like water ice,

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using the other resources of the Moon

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silicon, aluminum, iron, and so on
to manufacture things,

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print things, 3D printing on the Moon,

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affordably will allow us
to basically use the Moon

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as a stepping-stone
to the rest of the solar system,

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and to introduce lunar resources

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in the form of manufactured things

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into a larger near-Earth economy,

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including the delivery of energy,

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solar energy harvested in space
to the markets on Earth

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in tremendous quantities

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and in completely carbon neutral fashion

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during the coming decades.

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Moreover, we go back to the Moon

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because it is a tremendous test bed
for new technologies,

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a research and development lab.

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We can use it as shown
in the lower right image

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as a test bed for going back to Mars.

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So it's a tremendous R&D lab

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because it's going
to be cheaper to get there

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because we'll have the resources
to be there in a sustainable fashion.

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And operations in near-Earth space
on orbital platforms

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will basically open 
the gateway - pun intended -

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for a current NASA program on this level

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to the rest of the solar system.

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Just going in and being on the Moon

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is not the same as being able
to go anywhere in the solar system.

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That becomes possible.

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And, lastly, we go back to the Moon

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because it is a tremendous platform

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for doing astronomy
and for observing our universe

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in ways that we cannot achieve
here on Earth.

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And, finally, we go back
to the Moon to stay.

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There is no better place
in our solar system

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where we might consider the creation
of a sustainable Earth-like habitat

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than at the north
and the south pole of the Moon

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where we have basically
the same amount of energy,

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we have the same kind of minerals.

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We have some shortcomings.

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But the discovery of water
fundamentally changes the opportunity

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for human settlement of the Moon.

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And, ultimately, we do all these things

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not individually, not in a race,

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but we do them because we have
the opportunity to do them together.

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We have the opportunity 
to do all of these things,

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development of the Moon's resources, 
delivery of energy for Earth,

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sustainable settlements in space
in the form of a village as a metaphor -

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not in a race but rather
doing these things altogether.

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And I think that many of the students 
here at Laguna Blanca

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will be part of these programs
in these efforts over the coming years.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)