In the last decade and a half, India and China have both engaged in extensive economic reforms, in effect bringing their joint population of some 2.3 billion into the worldwide system of capitalism and free trade. Those 2.3 billion people, many of whom are extremely well educated, are by and large willing to work harder and for less pay than are Americans. Are India and China's expanding and modernizing economies threatening America's long global dominance of science, technology, and industry? If so, what should we do about it? Peter Robinson speaks with Craig Barrett, Stephen Moore, and Peter A. Thiel.

In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced a plan for a manned mission to Mars in the first half of the twenty-first century. Is NASA up to the task? Given the recent failures of NASA's manned space program, from Space Shuttle disasters to the overbudget and barely functional International Space Station, should NASA even be running a manned space program? If so, what can be done to revitalize NASA and restore both its sense of purpose and the public's excitement for space exploration that has been missing for twenty years? Peter Robinson speaks with Sean O'Keefe.

This past summer's big-budget disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow depicted a near-future in which human-caused global warming dramatically disrupted the earth's climate system, plunging the world into a new ice age. Although the scenario in the film is clearly an unrealistic fantasy, some scientists say that relatively sudden climate change is theoretically possible—but how likely it is depends on whether human activity really causes global warming. Does the evidence suggest that higher amounts of so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel consumption are, in fact, causing global warming? And if so, what should we do about it? Peter Robinson speaks with Carl Pope and Fred Smith Jr.

More than fifty years after the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education, there is still an unacceptable gap between the academic achievements of white and black students in America. In fact, by some standards, black students today perform more poorly than they did fifteen years ago. Why? What role does culture play? Does culture explain the disparate performance of Hispanic and Asian students? And just how should we go about trying to close this gap? Peter Robinson speaks with Bernard Gifford, Abigail Thernststrom, and Stephan Thernstrom.