NASA Confident of Finding Alien Life in Next 20 Years
BALDWIN: A lot can happen in 20 years. "Back to the Future 2" anyone? Teleboards? What about turning on the news to hear the words "we are not alone in our galaxy." It turns out the folks at NASA are so confident, they say the proof of alien life could come within our lifetime. So this panel of these super-smart science space experts holding a meeting in Washington to discuss exactly how NASA expects to find the first inhabited planet. Joining me now with Charles Bolden, NASA administrator. He commanded multiple crews and multiple space shuttles, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Charlie Bolden, am I right in all these accolades for you? Welcome back to the show, by the way.</s>CHARLES BOLDEN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Good to be here, Brooke. Thank you very much.</s>BALDWIN: So with all the accolades and everything you are, you've accomplished, you have said -- every time you've gone up to space -- and I was just asking in the commercial break -- you said that you actually were looking for life up there. Seriously?</s>BOLDEN: You're always looking to find out if -- you know, the ultimate question is, are we alone, and that's what NASA is about. You know, President Obama has challenged us to put humans on Mars in the next 20 to 30 years, in the 2030s. And that's our focus right now. That's the focus of the agency. So --</s>BALDWIN: Can we be clear, though, can we define life? We joke about it a little bit, tongue in cheek here, but we're not talking little green men. Are we talking moss? What are we talking about?</s>BOLDEN: We're talking about anything that is organic, anything that is a building block of life as we know it. And I tell people all of the time, we may find that they're microbial forms of life. There may be much more advanced forms of life than we. We don't know. We just want to find out. We believe that in this vast universe, there are other forms of life other than just here on this planet.</s>BALDWIN: It's hard to think that we would possibly be alone. But I'll leave it to you and the folks at NASA to figure this out. Which, speaking of, how will you find this out? Can you just talk me through logistics in finding life?</s>BOLDEN: Yes. In fact, we've been searching for life for many, many years. We have two rovers right now on Mars. One is "Curiosity" and the other is "Opportunity." "Curiosity" is specifically taking -- little chemistry labs on board, constantly taking samples from the soil and rock. We are trying to get humans to the planet, because we know that whenever humans go, they can do things much quicker, over much vaster expanses than robots can.</s>BALDWIN: What's the thought among you astronaut types as far as what really lurks out there? What's the thought? What do you all talk about up there?</s>BOLDEN: I'm not sure anybody has a guess as to what's out there. We just -- I think most of us believe that there is life form of some type. Whether you're talking about, you know, the planet in -- the moon, or the moon Europa of Jupiter, where there is interest now, other solar systems. We believe, I believe, that a multi-planet species is the kind of species that will survive in perpetuity. We just want to demonstrate the fact there is other life other places.</s>BALDWIN: OK. I feel I would be remiss if we didn't talk a little bit about the possibility of asteroids. I've had multiple astronauts on the show. The true fear from scientists is that only luck will save us from becoming dinosaurs. We know what happened to them eons ago. So the critics, shouldn't we be more concerned about that and asteroids versus spending money to try to see if life is all there?</s>BOLDEN: It's all a part of the grant strategy, to be quite honest. We want to get humans to Mars. That's the ultimate -- if you want to call it the horizon destination. We don't have the capability to do that yet. And so we need a proving ground. And we're going to use the lunar orbit as that proving ground. We're going to try to grapple an asteroid, move it into a lunar orbit, use it as a proving ground, where we can demonstrate some of the techniques and procedures, develop the technologies necessary to get humans to survive a trip all the way to Mars. So it's all a part of the NASA strategy right now for eventually getting humans to Mars in the 2030s and fulfilling President Obama's direction to us from 2010.</s>BALDWIN: You had me at grappling an asteroid. We'll save that conversation for the next time you come on the show.</s>CNN, 9: 00 eastern and pacific. Just ahead, Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, who owns properties, including FOX News, made an offer to buy Time Warner. That's the parent company of CNN. Hmmm. Find out what happened next.