USA cannot outsource our manned space flight

[Luke_Wilbur]

NSS Executive Director George Whitesides testified today at a Senate Committee hearing on the NASA Reauthorization bill. He emphasized member support for the goals of the Vision for Space Exploration, the Constellation program, and the use of commercial services, as well as potential national investments like Space Solar Power.

 

The United States is facing an economic power shift by not properly funding and outsourcing our most coveted industry. This is a must a read.

 

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STATEMENT OF GEORGE T. WHITESIDES

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE, AERONAUTICS, AND RELATED SCIENCES

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

UNITED STATES SENATE

Hearing on

“Reauthorizing the Vision for Space Exploration”

May 7, 2008

 

Chairman Nelson, Ranking Member Vitter, and members of the subcommittee:

 

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you the views of the National Space Society on the upcoming reauthorization of NASA.

 

I serve as the Executive Director of the National Space Society (NSS). NSS is an independent, grassroots organization with over 20,000 members, founded with the goal of promoting space exploration and development. NSS communicates the excitement and benefits of space to the public, and represents the perspectives of the space-interested public to policymakers.

 

Our members are citizens who live and work in every state in our great country. They include a wide swath of America, from teachers, to students, to business leaders, to elected officials, to even a few

astronauts. Most, however, are simply everyday citizens without ties to the space industry, citizens who understand the importance of space to our nation and its future.

 

I am proud to represent the voices of our members to you today. In preparation for this testimony, we solicited their views on these issues, in addition to those of our board and policy committee, and the members responded with eloquent and nuanced comment on future space activities. I will share some of their words with you as part of this statement.

 

NSS was founded over 30 years ago by a group of leading Americans that included Wernher von Braun and Hugh Downs. Their vision, and that of our current governors, such as John Glenn, Tom Hanks, and Buzz Aldrin, continues to inspire us today. The ultimate vision of the society is:

 

“People living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.”

While the first part of that vision emphasizes exploration and settlement of space, the second emphasizes how the resources of space can be used to improve life on Earth. These are both crucial, as Iwill discuss in more detail below, for they hold the key to the long-term future of the agency and its mission.

 

A . The value and importance of U.S. space exploration from economic and strategic perspectives:

 

We live in a new age of discovery, in which we learn on a regular basis of new oceans under the crust of distant moons, new planets around distant stars, and new possibilities for life beyond Earth. Our astronauts regularly perform heroic feats on orbit, as they build the International Space Station, the largest and most complex science project in history. Meanwhile, a new generation of space entrepreneurs is emerging, with plans to transform the space sector with new services and lower costs. It is an exciting time.

 

It has been said that a thousand years in the future, our era will be remembered most for the birth of spaceflight, the moment in human history when we developed the ability to travel to space. It is

humanity’s ultimate destiny to explore the universe, to develop the ability to live for extended periods off planet Earth, and eventually, to build communities in space. I firmly believe that the individuals who have advanced the space frontier during these early years will be remembered as among the greatest heroes of our era, as those who recognized the historical importance of space to our nation and the world.

 

But we live in the present, and together we must confront three interlinked groups of challenges of our time:

 

• Education, competitiveness, innovation and our economy;

• Energy, resources, climate, and environmental protection;

• Security, diplomacy, and peace.

 

My primary message to you today is that space is a key part of the solutions to all of these presentday, national challenges. That fact is something that we do not hear enough of today, and it is critical to ongoing public support for future space activities. What America must understand is that the full breadth of NASA’s skills, people and technologies will be required to meaningfully respond to and solve the biggest challenges of our time.

 

Our great country must apply its full abilities to solve these serious tests over the coming years:

 

• We must inspire and educate our young people to become the scientists, engineers and innovators of tomorrow. Nothing inspires children towards the study of science and engineering like an

ambitious space program that matters to our country’s future. At a time when our education system is falling behind, we must do all we can to motivate children to enter STEM careers, and to offer them jobs once they enter the workforce.

 

• We must maintain and build our industrial base, and create innovations which build prosperity. NASA’s spaceflight capabilities are a strategic asset of the country, and its engineers and

contractors have long driven critical technological advances that drive our economy. The space sector has grown to a quarter-trillion dollar global industry, and is one of the few in which the US

maintains a positive balance of trade.

 

• We must maintain and build our industrial base, and create innovations which build prosperity. NASA’s spaceflight capabilities are a strategic asset of the country, and its engineers and contractors have long driven critical technological advances that drive our economy. The space sector has grown to a quarter-trillion dollar global industry, and is one of the few in which the US maintains a positive balance of trade.

 

We must protect the Earth’s environment, and seek to forestall rapid climate change. NASA is the world’s foremost climate science agency. Going forward, its world-class system engineering capabilities could help design solutions for climate change on a national and global scale.

 

We must forge new alliances with allies and competitors, and strengthen our economic and national security. As space becomes increasingly important for the global economy and global

security, America must lead to establish a new system for lasting peace and stability in space and on Earth.

 

NASA can be the keystone to the future, critical to the great challenges of the present, central to solving the issues that Americans care most about. But only if we can put forward a bold program that links the needs of Earth with the potential benefits of space.

 

The Vision for Space Exploration provides the foundation for such a bold program, and as such, it should be reauthorized by the Congress. Endorsed with bipartisan support, the Vision sets out an

inspiring path towards human habitation of the Moon, Mars and other destinations in the solar system. It builds on the hard-won wisdom following the Columbia accident: that the risk faced by American astronauts deserves a worthy goal, that of exploration of the solar system. Under the Vision, an official path for human exploration beyond low earth orbit was set out for the first time in at least a decade.

We would recommend that two themes within the general direction of the Vision be explicitly directed by Congress within the Authorization:

 

• To link the work of human and robotic exploration more closely with the response to the pressing needs of planet Earth, particularly those issues related to climate and energy;

 

• To recommit to engaging, building and using commercial space services as the preferred option for NASA’s needs whenever available.

 

The first theme anchors the Vision to the real challenges facing America today, creating real sustainability. That, in turn, will help build public understanding and support for NASA’s mission. The

second utilizes the full powers of the American entrepreneur, creating dynamics that over time will grow our economy, lower the cost of space access, and enable NASA to focus its own efforts and funds on exploration of the frontiers. Both themes will ultimately support the sustainable expansion of our civilization outward to the Moon, Mars and beyond, and the expansion of the Earth’s economic sphere to include those bodies.

 

Ultimately, space is the main path forward to resolving the great humanitarian and environmental challenge of our time – the global disparity between rich and poor. One of our members, James Martin of Springfield Virginia, captured the real scope of the issue at hand:

 

It seems to me that the great challenge facing the world in the coming decades is a growing contention for resources - most acutely energy - between the industrialized world (the "haves") and those rapidly industrializing countries (the current "have nots") that seek a lifestyle similar to ours. China and India, with the world's two largest national populations, are leading this quite natural urge of the "have nots" to improve their lot in life. This is leading to increased demand on global resources by economic growth in these two countries - a situation that can only get worse. It has been said that we would need three Earths to provide the energy and mineral resources to support the entire human population at a standard of living equal to the current industrialized countries (who make

up only 1/6 of the planet's population). This leads to a grim conclusion that the "haves" will increasingly have to fight to defend their current advantaged position (a dubious moral proposition), or we will have to change the "playing field" by accessing energy and mineral resources beyond this planet. Moreover, fossil fuels cannot support a massive increase in global industrialization without pushing us even further into environmental collapse.

 

There has never been a better time for a fundamental change in our perception of the future. If mankind can access resources beyond Earth, we can offer the hope of economic well-being and a clean environment for all, and avoid debilitating future resource conflicts that will only make us all poorer. America's space program must be oriented toward creating this future.

 

B . The Implications and Consequences of Any Gaps in the Nation’s Space Capabilities

 

Curtis Schroeder of Atlanta, Georgia, wrote to me, in preparation for this testimony,

 

We cannot outsource our manned space flight needs to other countries if we are to be a world leader.

 

Perhaps the most urgent space issue our nation faces in the next few years is the human spaceflight gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the start of Constellation Program operations. This gap, right now estimated to be five and a half years, will be about as long as the gap the nation experienced between the retirement of the Apollo hardware and the launch of the Space Shuttle.

 

Our nation’s space program survived that gap, but the environment was much different then. Where we once had a single competitor in space, we now have several. Where before we faced competition in orbital operations rather than lunar adventures, today there are three other nations orbiting hardware around the Moon, with Russia and China both expressing interest in sending humans there, possibly before Constellation’s target date of 2020. We are running the risk of falling behind in space, even if no “space race” has been declared.

 

The consequences of the gap, as seen during the transition between Apollo and Shuttle, are well known and ominous. Loss of funding translates into a loss of NASA’s most critical assets: the knowledge, corporate memory, and hands-on skills of its people. With a loss of jobs comes a loss of economic vitality in communities like Brevard County, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, as people move away to look for jobs and take their money and families with them. Once those people are gone, restoring diminished capabilities and communities will not be as simple as issuing a call-back after a brief layoff.

 

Jerry Carr, Commander of the final Skylab flight – a man who knows about such issues firsthand – wrote me the following comments:

I thought that we had learned the lesson during the seven-year hiatus between the Apollo and Shuttle programs. A huge body of NASA and contractor skill and experience just left to do something else. Then the workforce had to be built up all over again at no mean cost in order to proceed with the Shuttle and Space Station programs.

 

Where is the incentive to build up our scientific and technical base if we have no space program to which those young minds can aspire? Space exploration is where the United States has shown

leadership, and in the current climate … we can't afford to abdicate the heritage we have established in space.

 

Over 20 years ago, a prescient report came out following the Challenger accident, The Report of the National Commission on Space. It made a similar observation then, and today the situation is

significantly more pressing:

Should the United States choose not to undertake achievement of these economies in launch and recovery capability, then the Nation must face the probability that other nations will rapidly overtake

our position as the world’s leading spacefaring nation. The competition to get into space and to operate effectively there is real. Above all, it is imperative that the United States maintain a continuous capability to put both humans and cargo into orbit; never again should the country experience the hiatus we endured from 1975 to 1981, when we were unable to launch astronauts into space.

 

Another gap is indeed upon us. NSS believes that this committee should make that gap as short as possible, and should use multiple means of doing so.

Fund Acceleration of the Constellation Program

 

NASA and its contractor team are well on their way toward development of the Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule. Starting over or even stopping to re-evaluate the designs would further extend the gap. Therefore, we believe NASA should receive the resources it needs to develop the Ares/Orion architecture as it now stands.

 

With an additional $2 billion a year, NASA could close the gap to three and a half years. This would also reimburse the agency for the expenses it sustained in adding safety systems to the Shuttle following the Columbia accident. However, many of the processes needed to develop the new Ares launch vehicles and Orion crew exploration vehicle are linear in nature and cannot be hurried along by additional money or resources. NSS asks Congress to fully fund these development efforts to meet their best-case schedules.

 

Authorize and Fund COTS Option D

 

In addition to supporting NASA’s current efforts to reduce the gap, NSS favors providing additional funding for commercial development of crew transportation to the International Space Station. In recent letters addressed to the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, Gary Barnhard, NSS Executive Board Chairman, and Greg Allison, Executive Committee Chairman, argued for additional funding of Part D of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. We support COTS Part D because we believe that it could:

 

• Shorten the “gap” in U.S. human space access after the Space Shuttle is retired;

 

• Foster technological diversity and competition among the companies providing these capabilities, which also can be used to support other operations;

 

• Allow innovative providers to use their best practices to develop and provide needed capabilities, outside traditional Government organizational or procurement channels;

 

• Add budgetary flexibility to NASA’s ISS servicing efforts, potentially at a lower cost than NASA could do otherwise; and

 

• Attract outside investment, if the program is properly structured.

Improve Opportunities and Incentives for Commercial Space Activities

 

As the COTS program matures, Congress can further both commercial development of space transportation systems and provide productive uses for the International Space Station after its scheduled defunding in 2016. This can be done by encouraging NASA to buy services for ISS, to conduct spacebased research, and to develop space-based education opportunities where it can to help stimulate services where none exist today. A combination of Space Act agreements and traditional contract vehicles could increase demand for commercial transportation services, fund new space ventures, and serve as a bridge between ISS’s status as a government laboratory and its future as a commercial outpost.

 

The American taxpayer wants to know that the efforts made and money spent to complete the Station have been worth it. One NSS member, Mr. James Grosbach, wrote to me in an email:

 

Almost as distressing as the upcoming “gap” is the projected date of 2016 as the retirement date of the ISS. My God, we’ll no sooner have the thing built than we’ll be looking at abandoning it. Funds should be made available to upgrade and refurbish ISS systems to keep it usable well into the third decade of the century!

 

In short, NSS members believe that it is both good and proper for the nation to continue funding and using ISS as a lab for productive science and commercial ventures—either through NASA, the private sector, or a combination of the two.

[Guest Fed Up]

The problem with our country is that we want to do everything cheap. That is good in the short run, but in the long term we lose everything. People have no idea what it takes to build a project of this magnitude. Only JFK was able to persuade Congress, because the Soviet Union had a satellite flying across the planet. America was scared, so it began its own Space Program. Now our country is once again letting our technology lead slip away. Computer hardware is made abroad. The knowledge base is moving abroad. It gets me upset that we do not care enough for our children.

[Luke_Wilbur]

Develop New Heavy Lift Vehicle

 

It is critical for exploration of the Moon and Mars for NASA to be authorized to continue past development of the Ares I to a new heavy lift vehicle. NASA currently has baselined the Ares V vehicle,

a new development program which will possess the capacity to launch the payloads required for lunar surface exploration.

[Guest Tim Hughes, SpaceX]

Russians have proven to be quite excellent capitalists. Unless NASA gets additional near-term funds, NASA will be wholly dependent on Russia for manned carriage through at least 2015.