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(gentle music)

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- Hi, I'm Ellen Stofan, or Dr. E.

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And I'm the John and
Adrienne Mars Director

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of the Smithsonian's National
Air and Space Museum.

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- Hey, I'm Thomas Zurbuchen,
also known as Dr. Z.

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I'm the Associate Administrator
of Science at NASA.

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- So, together, we're "E.Z. Science",

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and in each episode, we're
gonna be talking about

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what's the latest and
greatest in space science?

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Really wanting to cover
exciting topics, what's new,

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but also, what have we
learned over these 50 years

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of space exploration?

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And what better place to start
than with the anniversary

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of the landing on the Moon 50 years ago?

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- God, I'm so excited to be here,

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right here at the museum.

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I've been here many times

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looking at the exhibit of the Moon.

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I think it's one of my absolute favorites

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and my favorite museum in the world.

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- Yeah, it's an amazing place.

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And we do hold the Apollo
collection for the nation,

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so it's amazing to be celebrating
this 50th anniversary.

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- So, tell us about Apollo.

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What are your memories about Apollo?

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Your childhood memories?

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- So, I was eight years old

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the summer we landed on the Moon.

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And I remember it really well,

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partially 'cause my dad worked for NASA.

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So, we were obviously, sort
of, paying attention to it

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probably more than most people.

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We were up at my grandparents' cottage

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on a lake in Michigan.

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And my clearest memory was going,

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at one point during the night,
we went out onto the lake,

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and it was a fairly sizable lake.

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And you could hear the broadcast echoing

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all over the lake, because that night,

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you know, not just America stood still,

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but the world stood still to watch

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what humanity was accomplishing.

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Frankly, when they landed on the Moon,

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those really fuzzy
images, and by that point,

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it was after 11 o'clock at night,

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and I was eight years
old, I was really tired.

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So that part I remember
a little less clearly.

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- Yeah, it's really amazing.

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I can only imagine.

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For me, Apollo has really changed my life.

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The university where I got my Ph.D.

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and was the university that, in a group,

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that was started because
of the first experiment

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on the surface of the Moon,
the solar wind experiment.

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The work I did afterwards
was robotic exploration

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with NASA spacecraft as a
followup of that experiment

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that was set up by Buzz Aldrin
right after the landing.

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- You know, a lot of people
throughout my career have said,

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what did we learn from all
those Apollo moon rocks

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they brought back, one
of which you can touch

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right here at the Air and Space Museum,

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what did we learn from
all those Apollo rocks?

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For you, what are the big
science takeaways from Apollo?

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- So, for me, what's
really the most amazing

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is, I think, when I look at the Moon,

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and I do that every
time I get a chance to.

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It's just amazing, this
celestial neighbor of ours,

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looking at it.

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I think of it as kind of
the archives of the earth

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and the solar system history.

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What we learn about is really
the bombardment history

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of the solar system, but also,
about really the relationship

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between the Earth and the Moon.

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But how 'bout you?

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- Well, you know, it's really
that, going back to the fact

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that all those impact craters
on the Moon that you see,

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those big, huge circles on the Moon,

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they're telling you at some point,

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all those bodies were
also hitting the Earth

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and creating huge craters on the Earth,

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but with the Earth surface
constantly changing over time,

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we've lost that early
history of the Earth.

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So, we can go to the Moon and say,

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what was the Earth like
four billion years ago?

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And really help to learn
more about this planet.

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And of course, there are theories
that the Moon originated,

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started out as a big chunk of
the Earth that got knocked out

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by a very large impact
early in Earth's history.

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So, understanding what was that
lost chemistry, so to speak,

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of that chunk of the
Earth that got removed

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is also really important for
understanding this planet.

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- You know, one of the things
that's been really amazing,

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these rocks that came back,

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one of the rocks you have right here,

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have really been a source
of science even to today.

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Early next year, we're opening up

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one of the Apollo cores
that we've never opened up.

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And there's still a lot
of science we're learning.

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What are the most, kind
of, recent science results

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that are exciting to you?

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- You know, a lot of it
really does have to do

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with this history of the
Moon and what it's telling us

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about the long-term history of the Earth,

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but for a lot of us who really
care about how we move humans

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out into the solar system,
we think about things like,

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could there be ice on the Moon?

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Could there be any ice deposits

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that future astronauts could maybe access?

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And so, the fact that, over
the last, about, decade,

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with various instruments, we've
actually been figuring out

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there are ice deposits on the Moon.

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There's ice in the lunar soil.

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There could be, actually,
larger ice deposits

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in permanently-shadowed craters

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that are at the poles of the Moon.

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And so, this idea of water
on the Moon, which certainly,

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at Apollo, we didn't
think that was possible,

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we've really learned in the last decade.

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And again, why that's
important is for one thing,

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that water is probably cometary ice.

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And we're interested in comets,

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'cause they helped form the Earth,

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but we're also really
interested in using it

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potentially as a resource.

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- And of course, that's
why, as early as 2020,

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we're going back with robots,

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initially in kind of an equatorial region,

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but soon enough to the polar regions,

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and then as early as '24,

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with humans to the very same region,

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because the resources are right there.

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Those water resources, we think,

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from remote sensing, are right there.

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- So, what are all the missions
that are going on right now?

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I know there's a lot going on right now.

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In fact, there's so much going on,

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I can barely keep track of it.

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I know you just recently
announced a bunch of ideas

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of missions going back to the Moon.

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- So, what's really exciting to me,

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besides the Moon being a really
important science target,

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it's also a way station to Mars.

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What we're really doing right now

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is we're develop technology instruments.

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And right now, we're working
on 28 science instruments

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and tech demonstrations.
- 28?

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- And the way we're flying them there

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is using commercial partners.

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So, we can do that.

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We can use a very different
development paradigm for that,

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but of course, in parallel,

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our colleagues from human exploration

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are developing the systems both to get,

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with a big rocket, off
the surface of the Earth,

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but also then, this small gateway,

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kind of a small station that is there,

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really, as a place to learn to live away

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from Earth gravity,

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learn to live away from
the Earth magnetic field.

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And then, to the surface
with commercial partners.

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- So, I love this idea that
we have this huge legacy

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of Apollo that's really carried us forward

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from all the science we
learned from Apollo early on

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to the new science
we're doing at the Moon,

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a lot of it helping us not
understand more about this planet

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but also where we go next.

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And it's gonna be that stepping stone

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to exploring the rest of our solar system.

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- I really believe that's one
of the most important aspects

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for Apollo for me.

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It shows that we can do these things.

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We go beyond.

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Yes, the Moon is there.

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Yes, we're celebrating it.

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But our aspirations are beyond.

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We can't wait to have the
United States on the surface

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with our international
and commercial partners

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on the surface of Mars.

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We can't wait to see
Dragonfly, this new mission,

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that we just selected to go to Titan.

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What are the most exciting things for you

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on the outside of the Moon?

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- Yeah, for me, it's really
getting humans to Mars,

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breaking open that bright
rock, and finding out

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did life evolve on the red planet?

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And what can we learn from that
about how life evolved here?

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And then, going out to those moons

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in the outer solar system,
Titan, Enceladus, Europa,

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and really searching to say,
is there life beyond Earth?

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There's so much going on.

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- We're just about out
of time, unfortunately.

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Really enjoying talking to you.

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- This has been really fun,
but in future episodes,

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what we'd like to do is to have
you send us your questions.

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So, contact us on social
media, on Twitter, on Facebook,

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and let us know what you
would like to learn about.

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- So, we'll see each
other again at the next