Category Archives: Space Travel

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration seems to be obsessed with the idea of manned space travel, starting with sending humans to Mars. Does it make any sense to pour billions of dollars into this effort, and what will it really accomplish other than proving that we can do it?

It is pretty obvious that there are multiple problems to be solved before we can transport anyone both ways across the 50 million miles between Earth and Mars when their orbits bring them closest together. Estimates of the cost of the Mars mission range from a ridiculously low $6 billion to $500 billion, and it is projected to take 40 years to accomplish.

By comparison, in 1980 the International Space Station was estimated to cost $10 billion and take 10 years to complete. It ended up costing 10 times that amount and took 30 years to complete, which makes $500 billion look more realistic for the Mars mission. The biggest challenge is created by the length of time up to a year it will take to complete the mission, and the need to provide life support for the crew for that length of time. There are also the psychological effects of isolation and long-duration living in close quarters, plus the effect of cosmic radiation on the human heart.

Astronauts who have ventured into space have been five times as likely to die from heart failure as those who have not, and their exposure time was only a few days or weeks not months.

Another issue is why not continue with unmanned missions that have been increasingly successful in providing information on Mars and produced the spectacular results of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto? By not having to make provisions for a crew and its return to Earth, unmanned missions can be smaller and lighter (requiring less fuel) and cheaper. The costs of unmanned Mars missions have been from $1 billion to $2.5 billion, and the Pluto mission cost less than $1 billion.

Advances in technology are coming so rapidly that humans encumbered in spacesuits will not be able to do what can better be done robotically. Humans will have become obsolete for space exploration well before a manned mission to Mars will be ready to launch.

The reason offered to justify a manned mission to Mars is that it is the first step in a search for another potentially habitable planet around a nearby star where humanity could survive when conditions on Earth deteriorate to a point that we will no longer be able to survive here. What could be more preposterous?

First, the distance makes it impossible. Our nearest star, 4.3 light years from Earth, has just been discovered to have an Earth-size planet. The highest rocket velocity we have been able to achieve is 0.05 percent of the speed of light, so it would take over 800 years to travel that distance. Next, if our goal is to try to relocate the human race, there is no way we could possibly send the number of people necessary for it to succeed.

Finally, even if it were possible for humans to reach some distant planet, how could they survive? Would the planet have an atmosphere that would support life? Would it have fertile soil and readily available water to raise food crops? (Mars does not.) What would feed the pioneers until crops matured? Would there be the resources and energy supplies needed to support life, and how would the pioneers find them, process them and manufacture what they would need to support anything above a caveman existence?

All of this prompts the question, why should we spend hundreds of billons of dollars on something that has no realistic future? The answer, my friends, is money. The Aerospace Industries Association, supported by more than 300 corporations including Boeing, Curtiss-Wright, DuPont, General Dynamics, General Electric, Honeywell, IBM, Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman, is busy lobbying Congress (you know what that means) to keep billions of our tax dollars flowing to them through NASA. That money would be better spent on efforts to preserve the livability of our own planet, including safeguarding our environment and developing alternative sources of energy.

NASA's mission should be shifted from manned space flight to searching for and protecting our planet from "Near-Earth objects" asteroids which might someday be on a collision course with Earth, resulting in massive extinctions, including our own.

Hal Sundin's As I See It column appears on the first Thursday of each month.

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Sundin column: The folly of manned space travel | PostIndependent ... - Glenwood Springs Post Independent

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Fla., Thursday. It was the first recycled rocket launched by SpaceX, the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Reusing rockets is key to transporting humans to other planets because passengers otherwise will be making one-way trips, the president of SpaceX said Wednesday at the 33rd annual Space Symposium at The Broadmoor hotel.

Gwynne Shotwell, who also is chief operating officer of the privately held rocket launch company, said the only alternative to reuse is finding materials and assembling a rocket to enable humans to make the return trip to Earth. SpaceX launched a reused rocket last week for the first time - a process that took nearly a year to complete after the spacecraft was used April 9 to ferry cargo to space, then later landed successfully on an Pacific Ocean platform.

"This ushers in a new era with more enterprise in space," Shotwell said during a brief speech and question-and-answer session. "It has taken us 15 years to get it right, and it was a lot of work. But the only way to explore the solar system and return is for the system to be reusable. Otherwise, it is a one-way trip unless they (the crew) learn to build a rocket there."

SpaceX still has a lot of work to do to reach its goal of being able to reuse a rocket within 24 hours of its first launch, which Shotwell agreed is the company's goal - though she didn't say how quickly it would achieve it.

Once the goal is met, the cost of reusing the spacecraft will drop from half the cost of building a new rocket to 10 percent, she said.

"We learned from the (space) shuttle program that reuse is really hard, especially refurbishment after the rocket has been in the ocean. Fortunately, we only needed minimal refurbishment on the engine," Shotwell said.

A reusable spacecraft is a key element of the company's planned mission to Mars because "when we do that, we will have the ability to bring (the crew) back. It is important to live on more than one planet. It is risk management for humans."

She told the crowd she "hope you all are thinking of buying tickets to Mars" and took a shot a competitors who have shunned reusing rockets as not economically feasible, saying she believes "you will see that position changing."

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Reusing rockets is best way to advance space travel, SpaceX officer tells symposium attendees - Colorado Springs Gazette

When Hollywood star Robert Downey Jnr won the part of Tony Stark ingenious engineer turned comic book superhero Iron Man he says there was only one muse who came to mind.

Silicon Valley geek turned multi-billionaire Elon Musk may not have invented a super-powered armoured suit with which to save us all, but hes just about thought of everything else.

Musk, the 80th richest person in the world, worth 11billion has made safeguarding the world his business, with an eclectic catalogue of far-out ideas.

The first step is to establish that something is possible, he insists with indomitable superhero confidence.

Theres his 36.44billion electric and self-drive car business Tesla, speeding towards an eco-friendly horizon and saving us from our toxic selves.

Alongside sits SpaceX, Musk s foray into the universe, which aims to send us to Mars in reusable rockets, settling a million people there by the mid-2060s.

And then theres the most futuristic of all, Musks medical research company Neuralink, which aims to connect human brains with computers.

Recently, he joined Donald Trumps Manufacturing Jobs Initiative as an advisor and he is also part of the US Presidents economic advisory board.

Meanwhile, as Musk drags the world into the future at a speed to rival his rockets, his personal life is mirroring the breakneck trajectory.

At 45, hes already been married three times twice in the space of three years to British St Trinians actress Talulah Riley. And most recently, hes been linked to Johnny Depps ex, actress Amber Heard .

Musk says total lack of fear lies behind his fast-fuelled decision-making and achievements. Fear is finite, hope is infinite. We are afraid of failing, but it doesnt stop us from trying, he once said.

People should certainly ignore fear if its irrational. Even if its rational and the stake is worth it, its worth proceeding.

South African by birth, the entrepreneur was raised by his engineer dad Errol and dietician and model mum Maye.

He has a younger brother Kimbal, also an entrepreneur and millionaire, and younger sister Tosca, a film producer.

Born in 1971, by the age of 10 long before computers became mainstream childs play Musk showed an interest, and just two years later taught himself computer programming.

His first creation was a video game called Blaster, which, at age 12, he sold for 400. I have two brilliant children, but Elons a genius, said Maye.

I can explain Tosca and Kimbal pretty well. I cant explain Elon.

Maye and Errol split when the children were young and they remained with their dad. It has been reported Errol was very strict, but he describes a young son always naturally dedicated to study.

Errol said: Elon has always been an introvert thinker. So where a lot of people would go to a party and have a great time, and drink and talk about all sorts of things like rugby or sport, you would find Elon had found the persons library and was going through their books.

Because he was so bright, Musk was sent to school early, the youngest and the smallest. He was relentlessly bullied.

He has described being thrown down a concrete stairwell and ending up in hospital. Aged 18, he moved to Canada, where he had an uncle.

Musk studied at Queens University, in Ontario, and, after graduation, moved to Californias Silicon Valley, armed with capital from his father.

Aged just 27, he sold his first co-founded company, Zip2, to Compaq in 1999 for 246million, earning him 14million.

PayPal, originally X.com, was to follow. Musk co-founded the online payments company and sold it for 1.2billion in 2002, making 132million from the deal.

Meanwhile, he was moving fast in his personal life, too. He met his first wife, Justine Wilson, at university.

They married in 2000. Author Justine gave birth to their first son Nevada in 2002, but at 10 weeks old, he died of sudden infant death syndrome.

Justine has said Musk bottled up his grief. Elon made it clear he did not want to talk about Nevadas death.

I didnt understand this, just as he didnt understand why I grieved openly, which he regarded as emotionally manipulative, she said.

But, with IVF, in the next five years, they had twins Xavier and Griffin, and triplets Damian, Saxon and Kai. Despite their joy, their marriage foundered.

Elon does what he wants and he is relentless about it, Justine said. Its Elons world and the rest of us live in it. They divorced in 2008.

Musk sped into love again this time with Talulah. That same year, he met the 22-year-old star in a London club. Just a few weeks later, on a hotel bed in Beverly Hills, he asked her to marry him. He didnt have a ring, so they shook hands.

It is said at work he is ferocious, He works 80 to 100 hours a week and tells employees: I want your head to hurt every night when you go to bed.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, his relationship with the actress has been a roller-coaster ride. They married in 2010, but divorced in 2012 only to remarry again the following summer.

She then filed for divorce again in 2014, then withdrew it, and then filed another time.

It probably looks mad from the outside but it hasnt put either of us off marriage. We are both very romantic people, Talulah explained.

Musk argues virtual reality is already approaching being indistinguishable from reality.

Certainly, his own star is sky-rocketing so fast its hard to decipher whats science fiction and what is not.

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Cheap space travel, electric cars and a whirlwind love life love life... the billionaire genius inventing our future - Mirror.co.uk

Last Modified: Wednesday, April 05, 2017 8:13 AM

By Lisa Addison / American Press

Fourth-grader Korionna Kennedy, a student at Barbe Elementary School, is in awe that she has held in her hands an object that once traveled in space. Kennedy, along with teacher Terri Miller and other fourth-grade students at Barbe Elementary, have been taking part in a Tomatosphere project, an experiment designed to help future space travel.

Our project has been amazing, said Kennedy. Its the first time in my life that I actually got to see and touch something that went to space.

Miller said Tomatosphere uses the excitement of space exploration to teach the skills and processes of scientific experimentation and inquiry. Students investigate the effects of the space environment on the growth of food that will inevitably support long-term human space travel.

Students were sent two packages of tomato seeds; one contained seeds that had been sent into space for six weeks on the International Space Station and the other contained regular seeds. Their experiment was to compare the germination rates of the two groups of seeds.

The project relies on a blind test, Miller said, in which educators and students will not know which of the two packages contained the seeds from space and which contained other seeds until the germination process is completed and the results have been submitted.

I am very excited to know that my students are helping to shape the future of space exploration, Miller said. The seeds are definitely germinating at different rates, so I have my own hypothesis about which group of seeds went to space. We will find out soon after we finish collecting our data and send it in.

Student Larren Guiton said, By working on this project, I had a chance to do something really special, and it has been a lot of fun too.

Miller said the whole project has felt magical. How did our school get selected to participate? I heard about it and then I simply applied. And waited. When our school was selected, I was elated. Its been a wonderful learning experience for the students.

Jonathan Walker, a student, said, My favorite part of the project is that we have been helping scientists. We collected a lot of data, and that will really help them in the future.

Fourth-grader Aniya Richard said she could talk about the project all day if needed. But if I had to pick just one thing about the experiment I can say that I love checking on the plants every day to see how much they have grown and knowing that we actually did this whole project. It makes me super happy.

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Students learn effects of space exploration - American Press

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is leading the way with his SpaceX company, but he's not the only mogul with cosmic ambitions

YOU might not spend much time thinking about the end of the world, but others are actively preparing for it.

Billionaires are already investing in super-bunkers in case of nuclear war, with some proving to be more luxurious than the hotelsmany of us stay induring our summer holidays.

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But now theres something even more phenomenal in the pipeline, with claims new tech could be used to set up colonies on MARS.

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Muskhas no shortage of world-changing ideas, having launched the electric car firm Tesla and pioneered a new form of public transport called the Hyperloop.

He also founded a rocket company called SpaceXin the hope of cutting the cost of space travel and making it cheaper to bring supplies to the International Space Station.

Getty Images

How? By developing a way for rockets to be used more than once, according to Business Insider.

That might not sound like much, but at the moment rockets are a one-use affair which cost tens of millions of pounds.

Essentially, a rocket is like a giant firework stuffed with fuel which are attached to asmaller module which carries supplies, satellites or human passengers.

They are designed to provide the thrust to blast other craft into space.

Once theyve done all the hard work, the boosters are jettisoned before burning up in Earths atmosphere.

This process is extremely wasteful and expensive, because a new rocket must be built for every mission.

That changed when Elon's rocket company safely fired off a rocket booster and then steered it back to Earth so it could be used again.

Sadly, not even Musk's boffins have been able to totally nail this and several rockets blew up during testing.

But once the technology is mastered itcould revolutionise space travel by making it millions of pounds cheaper to launch a mission.

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There's another company working on reuseable rockets called Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are working to develop rockets which can be used repeatedly, with the main cost coming from fuel needed to power them.

At the moment neither has rockets which can make it very far into space, but both firms are working on much more powerful offerings.

For Elon Musk, the plan is to build a spaceship capable of getting all the way to Mars.

So why is businessman Elon doing this? His hope is to make space travel so accessible that a colony of humans can be set up on Mars, creating somewhere for people to go should Earth eventually be destroyed.

He's very worried about the threat posed by doomsday asteroids, but also fears that killer robots and artificial intelligence could turn on humanity and wipe us out.

If he manages to figure out a way of living on Mars, it's no exaggeration to say that Musk could be the saviour of humanity.

Sadly, this is likely to prove very difficult because we've never even managed to get a human to Mars, let alone set up a colony there.

Could Musk be the man to help us reachthis historic milestone?

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Why the mega-rich want to move humanity to another planet using a fleet of reusable rockets - The Sun

This week a major milestone in spaceflight took place. SpaceX, the private company with big dreams for manned spaceflight, launched a partly used rocket into orbit at a lower cost than building a brand new one. If that report doesnt fill you with a sense of awe, wonder, and hope for the future of spaceflight, allow us to fix that right now.

The last major attempt at a reusable spacecraft was NASAs Space Shuttle. However, the promised ultra-low cost of the space shuttle never materialized, as the costs of refurbishing the crafts between launches ending up eating up any potential savings.

While the true cost savings of a reusable Falcon 9 rocket are presently unknown, a SpaceX executive has proposed that future launches with reused boosters could have the sticker price reduced by a third. Not bad considering that would amount to twenty million dollars per launch.

But, why is this as important as we say it is?

bill-nye-spacex-vs-nasa-who-wins-2

There is currently a new space race going on, one that Big Think has mentioned previously. While there is reason enough to be excited, the high costs of this space race are still a hindrance and reality check to the dreams of space exploration. Even something as simple as being able to reuse a portion of a spacecraft, and therefore lower the costs of operation, is a major step forward in the feasibility of other dreams.

Best case,the often seen idea of inexpensive commercial spaceflight to Earth's orbit could soon become feasible, as innovation and competition drives down costs. Even if this was only to be a moderate success, space flight will soon become much more feasible for commercial operations.

Now, this rocket is limited. It is designed strictly for orbital flights, so you can forget about getting to Mars anytime soon. Secondly, the lower cost of a reused rocket is being pitched towards potential customers for orbital flights but this is only going to be successful if the customers for orbital flights, like telecommunications companies, are willing to have their expensive hardware flown in a pre-owned rocket. If you know the fear of getting burned on a used car, imagine that sensation being applied to a spacecraft.

And this could end up just being hype, the United Launch Alliance has previously investigated the feasibility of reusable rockets and found that the reductions to maximum payload outweighed the benefits of reduced launching prices. NASA has also declared that having reusable componentswas not a major concern in the planning of their new S.L.S rocket.

OK, so this is just step one?

Yes, but a big one. If future launches of the Falcon 9 support the feasibility of recycled rockets the price of orbital space flight is likely to take a tumble and the likelihood of SpaceXs dreams of Martian colonies will increase. Elon Musk speaks for all of us when he said, We just had an incredible day today.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from space launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida on March 30, 2017, with an SES communications satellite. SpaceX blasted off a recycled rocket for the first time on, using a booster that had previously flown cargo to the astronauts living at the International Space Station. (BRUCE WEAVER/AFP/Getty Images)

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What Does SpaceX's Reusable Rocket Mean for Space Travel? - Big Think

The reason for this is simple. Historically, rockets have been a single-use object -- imagine the cost of commuting to work if you had to buy a new car each day.

There have been several other successful vertical landings, but none of these rockets had been reused until now. Thursday, SpaceX launched a geostationary communications satellite using a refurbished first stage Falcon 9 booster. The launch not only successfully inserted the satellite into orbit, but the booster again landed as planned on a floating platform located in deep water off the Florida coast.

So, these successes are technically satisfying, but are they important? They most certainly are. In fact, they could be a game-changer.

Thus, the typical cost of a SpaceX launch of $62 million might be reduced to $43 million -- a considerable contribution to the satellite company's bottom line. The cost of Thursday's launch has not been released, but SES, the company owning the satellite that was launched, has said they were interested in an even lower price of $30 million for this first attempt.

Musk has made clear his near-term goal is is to drop the launch costs to 10% of the current costs, with a longer-term goal of dropping the launch price tag to 1%. If successful, a launch that costs $62 million in 2016 will eventually be $620,000.

A viable Martian colonization strategy will require an even greater reduction in the price tag, but this recent development is a key step toward a much grander goal.

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave an inspiring speech at Rice University, my alma mater, where he said, "We choose to go to the moon in this decade ... not because (it is) easy, but because (it is) hard."

Kennedy was speaking to Americans, but it was all of humanity that watched raptly on July 20, 1969, as Neil Armstrong took humanity's first halting steps on a heavenly body other than Earth.

The recent SpaceX achievement does not rise to that level of accomplishment, but there is no question that we have achieved a different, but important, step. The day that mankind returns to deep space is that much closer.

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Elon Musk is changing the rules of space travel - CNN

Altered states: an astronaut with the moon. Photograph: Juan Camilo Bernal/Getty Images

The two people who have paid for a private moon mission next year will undergo a psychological as well as a physical journey. Theres a fundamental shift in human perspective offered by space flight. This radical shift in viewpoint sometimes called the overview effect - the cognitive shift in awareness that astronauts talk about when they look at Earth from orbit. The idea of how we view ourselves in the world was established in the 1980s with Professor Richard Morriss water maze experiment. The maze consists of a tank with submerged platforms that rats seek out to rest on. By manipulating the landmarks we can study how the rat navigates and creates internal spatial maps.

Whats much less frequently studied in rats or people is the moment when you escape from the world in which youve been contained, and see a familiar landmark from a radically different perspective.

Astronauts report a deep change in their sense of themselves and the world. This is something neuroscientists need to engage in - wed better start saving now.

Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at Kings College London

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How space travel leads to cognitive shifts in awareness - The Guardian

Enjoy this review of Mass effect: Andromeda, which is set 600 years after ME 3

Mass Effect: Andromeda. Source: Internet

Ever since the invention of flight, mankind has been enamoured with the infinite possibilities of space and the worlds that exist beyond ours. For gamers, space travel has always been a great experience. The ability to immerse oneself in the infinite and engage with different species, fight against them and ally with them has always been the stuff of dreams. A dream that has been fulfilled by BioWares iconic Mass Effect Trilogy (ME) on more than one occasion in the last decade. The series provides players with a unique blend of role-playing elements and the unique choice-based decision-making system as we jump across galaxies to save the universe from impending doom on more than one occasion.

The new game is set 600 years after ME 3 and begins a fresh start for the franchise as the developers hope to move on from the impressive legacy of commander Shepard, and it is everything that we players hoped for familiar, picturesque, clean and futuristic but that doesnt mean it is a good thing. The game is plagued by the same issues as the originals the close conversation animation is patchy, and though the gameplay is smooth and reliable it just lacks the new exciting elements that force one to take notice and be challenged.

It seems a little sad that seven years of ME 3 has so few changes. Though the visuals and graphical effects will leave you spell-bound, the game has nothing new to offer. It almost seems that BioWare were so scared to tamper with the originals and hurt fans in the process that this title just seems a formulaic extension. It just falls flat and seems like another day in space, a beautiful but boring day. Maybe the appeal of space as the final frontier is fading, after all.

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The fading charm of space travel - Telangana Today

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Hannah Northey, E&E News reporter

House Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) led a hearing on climate science yesterday. Photo courtesy of the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) says the federal government should be researching climate change.

But try pinning the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee down on exactly what the government's role ought to be.

During a recent interview in his corner office in the Rayburn House Office Building, Smith blasted U.S. EPA's climate research as politically tainted and voiced support for President Trump's proposed budget cuts at agencies like NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that gather data on emissions, temperatures and clouds using satellites.

When pressed for what kind of work that left the federal government, the soft-spoken Texan said he supports research and development but only when it's not in direct competition with the private sector or tied to costly and ineffective regulations like EPA's Clean Power Plan.

"But we need to gather information, we need to gather data on climate change, absolutely," Smith said. "Do we need the satellites? Absolutely."

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As chairman of the House Science Committee, Smith, 69, has grown more vocal and aggressive as the world of politics and science collide under a Trump administration. At a hearing yesterday, Smith challenged the credibility of Science, the prestigious publication by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and traded barbs with ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat who is also from Texas (Greenwire, March 29).

Smith, who is in his 16th term representing the San Antonio and Austin areas, recently chatted with E&E News about space travel, the Trump family, the role his committee will play as the president scraps Obama-era climate regulations and those controversial stories his committee is retweeting.

The House Science Committee recently retweeted a controversial Breitbart story denouncing a "global warming scare." Do you tweet?

I approve tweets.

You were recently at the White House for a bill signing. Did you chat with President Trump about science and technology?

No. I will say, the president wasn't the only one in the room I was eager to speak to ... last-minute entries for the bill signing were Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump, so he was sharing the limelight.

Should the federal government be studying climate change?

Absolutely ... in fact, I'd like us to increase our R&D [research and development] budgets in a lot of areas. That would be a part of the mix because I just think that if you're concerned about climate change, the best way to address it is through those technological innovations. There's a role for the federal government and a role for the private sector, and you want it to be collaborative, not competitive.

How and where should federal climate research take place?

In some R&D, again not when they're competing in the private sector. And then also, even when they're not competing with the private sector, I still think the government wastes too much money again trying to promulgate regulations that are inefficient and ineffective. But we need to gather information, we need to gather data on climate change, absolutely. Do we need the satellites? Absolutely.

But what about President Trump's proposed budget cuts?

A lot of those cuts are going to be reprioritizing some of the agency goals ... and let's stop throwing billions of dollars at regulations that are not going to be effective, that are not going to accomplish much.

What's on tap for the House Science Committee this year?

In the case of science, we want to make sure we're relying upon good science, honest science, not politically correct science to implement policies. ... [W]e're going, I think, to help agencies who in the past have been prone to using secret science ... be more open with us, their representatives."

In a couple years from now, we'll see the advent of space tourism. All it does is cost $250,000 and you can buy a ticket to ride up to 62 miles, lower Earth orbit. I actually want to do that I shouldn't be making fun of this get a certificate for being a junior astronaut. I'm going to start dropping hints pretty soon about needing a government CODEL [congressional delegation] going into lower Earth orbit so I and one Democrat on the committee can be two of the volunteer passengers without having to pay our half-million dollars jointly.

What role will the committee play as the White House scraps President Obama's climate legacy?

I think generally we expect to be supportive of [Trump's] initiatives and his view of science, and he's talked about R&D, as well. So I think generally we'll be supportive, but we're still going to conduct oversight regardless of who the administration is.

What about subpoenas?

I don't expect to need to issue near as many subpoenas with this administration as I did with the last. I think it was 25 with the last Congress.

What if they don't comply?

We have three choices if they don't, the same three choices that would apply to the object of any subpoena. We can invoke to hold them in contempt, we can file a lawsuit, and we can refer the next step to the AG [attorney general] for prosecution. I see one of those three happening, yes, and we're still thinking about which is the best way to proceed.

Are you trying to eliminate climate research?

I think we need the right kind of research.

How should we address climate change?

I think technology is the answer. That's what R&D is for, we don't know what the answer's going to be. Fifteen years ago, we hadn't heard of fracking.

Were you aware a nonprofit group, 314 Action, had targeted you as "anti-science"?

Targeting me? Oh, who knows, I hadn't heard.

What's your response to the March for Science planned for April 22?

They're exercising their First Amendment rights, they're exercising their right to free expression. I'm sure they will do it in the right way. But they could be so much more constructive if they would get behind the idea of technology leading the way to address climate change, rather than more regulations.

Reporters Christa Marshall and Hannah Hess contributed. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) says the federal government should be researching climate change. But try pinning the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee down on exactly what the government's role ought to be.

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Lamar Smith on space travel, 'good science' and the Trumps - E&E News