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Welcome to Watch
this Space.

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I'm NASA Administrator
Jim Bridenstine.

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Today I want to start by
celebrating the amazing

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accomplishments of our
Opportunity rover on Mars.

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Originally planned for
just 90-days, Opportunity

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explored the Red Planet
for an astonishing

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15-years.

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Along with its sister
rover Spirit, which also

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far outlived its original
mission, Opportunity

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brought us new discoveries
about our planetary

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neighbor that will inform
future robotic missions

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and even human
missions to Mars.

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We gave an update on
the mission February

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thirteenth at our Jet
Propulsion Laboratory.

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Last night the team
made its final planned

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commands.

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At the time part of the
team went up to Mission

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Control to send up more
commands to ask the rover

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to respond.

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One-way light time is
about thirteen and a half

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minutes.

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It took thirteen and a
half minutes to get a

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signal up to Mars and if
the rover did respond it

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would take another
thirteen and a half

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minutes to come back.

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To find out more on what
the outcome was from last

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night, I'd like to
introduce you to the panel

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right now.

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We begin with
introductions, our JPL

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Director, Mike Watkins,
the NASA Administrator Jim

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Bridenstine, and also the
Associate Administrator

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Thomas Zurbuchen.

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Thomas we'll
start with you.

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Thank you so much, I was
there yesterday and I was

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there with the team as
these commands went out

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into the deep sky, and I
learned this morning that

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we had not heard back.

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And our Opportunity
remained silent.

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It is therefore that I am
standing here with a sense

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of deep appreciation and
gratitude that I declare

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that the Opportunity
mission as complete.

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And with it the Mars
Exploration Rover mission

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as complete.

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This is a celebration of
so many achievements.

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I'll just start by saying
that when this little

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rover landed, the
objective was to have it

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be able to move eleven
hundred yards and

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survive for ninety days
on Mars, ninety SOLs.

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And instead here we are
fourteen years later,

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after twenty-eight miles
of travel and today we get

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to celebrate the
end of this mission.

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So its an honor for me as
the NASA administrator to

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come out here to this
amazing facility with so

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many amazingly talented
people to say thank you

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for your great work, not
just for our country, but

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for the science that
people are going to be

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benefitting all over the
world, their going to be

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benefitting from this
science for years to come.

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Spirit and Opportunity may
be gone, but they leave us

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a legacy, and that's a
legacy of a new paradigm

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for solar system
exploration.

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A robotic geologist on
Mars and an integrated

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science and engineering
operations team here on Earth

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all set out together on a
mission of discovery.

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They didn't know what they
would find, they didn't

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know which direction they
would go, sometimes from

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one day to the next,
and they made it work.

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And they made it work
longer than any of us

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thought possible, by both
brilliant scientific

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deduction of where to go,
and brilliant engineering

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to keep the rovers alive.

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Cheering!

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Opportunity hit a
hole-in-one when she landed.

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The airbag system rolled
into this small crater

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called Eagle Crater, and
when the rover first

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turned on its cameras, it
saw that the rim of the of

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the small crater was lined
with exposed bedrock.

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So we took out our
microscope for the first

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time and we took a picture
and the surface of Mars at

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that location is littered
with an uncountable number

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of little round things.

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They were called
blueberries because they

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looked like blueberries
in a muffin.

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What we discovered was
that those are features

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that form in water and
they were a really

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definitive sign that there
had been liquid water on

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the surface of Mars
sometime in the past.

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And after we left Eagle
Crater we went to

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Endurance Crater and
that's the crater that we

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drove down in.

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And there we did what
the geologist call and

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in-sequence
stratographic section.

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Which is essentially
reading the chapters of

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the Martian history
book in reverse order.

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That rover became
a stratigrapher.

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The first time we had a
stratigrapher on Mars.

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We knew we wanted to
go after Endurance to

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Victoria.

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We put pedal to the metal
and we started heading

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there, tens of
kilometers away.

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We had to literally surf
across these dunes of

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windblown material and the
rover got stuck in one of

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those.

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We had to get the
rover unstuck.

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What we found is that the
best way to get it out is

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just to put it into
reverse and gun it.

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The rover eventually
popped out.

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And so we changed our
driving strategy so we

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recognized these
ripples as hazards.

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We get to this giant
half-mile diameter crater,

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Victoria Crater, and we
want to figure out, gee,

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how can we go
into this thing?

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All the sudden we
got HiRISE images.

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We could see the
rover in the image.

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And that was the very
first image that we got,

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from space, showing
one of our rovers.

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We spent a year scouting
the edge of that crater to

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decide where we wanted
to go in to get the best

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stratographic section.

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We found a place to go
in and we drove down in.

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We spent about a year
inside Victoria Crater.

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The science team was
really excited about the

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idea of driving to
Endeavour Crater, over

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twenty kilometers away.

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That was a long
drive to do.

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It was going to take
multiple years, but they

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decided to do it anyway.

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There were too many of
these dangerous ripples in

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our way and we actually
had to take this

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circuitous route that at
times took us away from

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the crater only then to
cut back and then approach

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it more directly.

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And then we pull up to
Endeavour Crater and all

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the sudden there's all
these new things to look

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at.

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We first discovered
the Homestake vein.

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It was this very, very
bright linear feature.

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It turns out that there
was a big gypsum vein and

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we see these gypsum
veins now all over.

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So it was our first taste
of what was a really

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important process on Mars.

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We were driving to a
valley and along the way

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there we realized that
right about the point we

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were about to get to this
valley that was when we

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were going to cross
the marathon mark.

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So we said "Well
that's cool.

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We're just going to name
this valley after that,

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call it Marathon Valley."

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That was when we
reached the distance of a

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marathon, twenty-six point
two miles on another

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planet.

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We continued driving
through some slopes down a

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little bit on the interior
of the crater rim until we

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came back out so we could
continue on to the next

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valley, Perseverance
Valley, where the rover

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was exploring when
we lost contact.

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We said we are going to
operate this vehicle until

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the day where we can't,
and that's exactly what we

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did and I'm really proud.

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We set a foundation that
will serve as the basis

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for future exploration.

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NASA is committed to
sending humans forward to

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the Moon in the next
decade, and this time,

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we're going to stay.

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We want to establish a
permanent, sustainable

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presence beyond Earth as
we push farther into the

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solar system.

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To do that, we're going to
need the next generation

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of lunar landers.

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We've already kicked off
that process, and we held

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an industry day at NASA
Headquarters on February

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fourteenth to discuss
the next steps.

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♪ ♪

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Today we're highlighting a
broad agency announcement

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about putting humans back
on the surface of the

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Moon.

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And of course you're here
today because one of your,

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your company is interested
in participating in this

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activity.

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And we're very interested
in your participation in a

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way that maybe
historically NASA hasn't

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involved commercial
industry in the way we're

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involving it today.

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And I'm going to tell
you why we are doing it.

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The President issued what
we call Space Policy

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Directive One.

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It says that we are going
to go back to the Moon,

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and I like to say we are
going to go forward to the

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Moon.

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We're going to go to the
Moon in a way that we have

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never gone to
the Moon before.

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We are going to go with
international partners.

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We are going to go with
commercial partners.

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And here's the key
element, we are going to

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go sustainably.

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In other words, this time
when we go to the Moon, we

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are going to stay.

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We're not going back to
the Moon to leave flags

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and footprints and then
not go back for another

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fifty years, we're going
to go sustainably, to

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stay.

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With landers and robots
and rovers and humans and

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that's what we are here
to talk about today.

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We're going to put humans
on the surface of the

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Moon.

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We're going to build an
architecture where we can

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go back and forth again
and again and again.

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Another piece of Space
Policy Directive One is

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actually using the
resources of the Moon.

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It was discovered back
in 2008 that there was

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potentially water ice on
the surface of the Moon.

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In 2009 NASA did a study
and we've now discovered

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that there's hundreds of
billions of tons of water

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ice on the surface
of the Moon.

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So, new American policy,
we're going to utilize the

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resources of the Moon.

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Water ice represents
oxygen, air to breath.

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It represents water to
drink, in other words,

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life support.

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But it also represents
rocket fuel, hydrogen and

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oxygen is the same fuel
that powers the Space

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Shuttle.

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So all of that is abundant
in hundreds of billions of

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tons at the poles
of the Moon.

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So we're going to back to
the Moon, we're going to

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go forward to the Moon,
we're going to go with

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international partners,
and with commercial

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partners, we're going
to go sustainably.

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We're going to utilize the
resources of the Moon.

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We're going to
retire risk.

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We're going to
prove technology.

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And then we are going to
take as much of this as

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possible and
replicate it at Mars.

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And this all part of the
President's Space Policy

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Directive One, that we
here at NASA are charged

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with moving out on.

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And friends, we're
moving out very quickly.

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This is the beginning
where we really want, Jim

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and I wanted to kick off
and kind of show you the

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bigger architecture the
things we're planning and

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how we think this is very
different that what we did

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before when we went to
the Moon with humans.

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This really sustainable,
this is going to be fast,

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we are going to need the
best and brightest from

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you in industry, we're
going to need the best and

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brightest from the
international partner

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community to pull
all this off.

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And we've got a great
plan to do this.

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It all fits under Space
Policy Directive One with

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sustainability, it
fits under that.

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Win cooperation with
industry, commercial

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partners and also
international partners.

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I want to thank the entire
NASA family for their hard

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work as we push the
boundaries of human

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exploration, As we make
new discoveries about our

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Earth, our solar system
and the universe beyond,

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as we improve flight, and as
we innovate new technologies.

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It's an exciting time
and there's a lot on our

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plate, but I know we'll
continue to rise to the

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challenge.

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Thank you again for
watching. Check out

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nasa.gov/watchthisspace
and follow me on Twitter

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@JimBridenstine.