1 1 2 NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 3 4 5 REVIEW OF U.S. HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT 6 PLANS COMMITTEE 7 8 9 Public Meeting 10 Carnegie Institution for Science 11 1530 P Street, N.W. 12 Washington, D.C. 13 August 5, 2009 14 8:00 a.m. 15 16 17 18 19 REPORTED BY JANA MULHOLLAN 20 Registered Professional Reporter 21 22 VALADOR, INC. 23 24 25 2 1 MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE 2 (Appearances) 3 4 5 Chairman 6 NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE 7 8 Executive Director 9 Designated Federal Official (DFO) 10 PHIL MCALISTER 11 12 13 Members Listed Alphabetically 14 15 WANDA M. AUSTIN, PH.D. 16 BOHDAN BEJMUK 17 LEROY CHIAO, PH.D. 18 CHRISTOPHER CHYBA, PH.D. 19 EDWARD F. CRAWLEY, PH.D. 20 JEFF GREASON 21 GENERAL LESTER L. LYLES 22 SALLY RIDE, PH.D. 23 24 25 3 1 I N D E X 2 3 Introduction and Opening Remarks 4 Phil McAlister/Norman Augustine..... 4 5 Vision for Space Exploration Background 6 John Marburger...................... 7 7 Mars Society Views on U.S. Human 8 Space Flight 9 Robert Zubrin....................... 30 10 Biological and Physical Sciences 11 Elizabeth Cantwell.................. 60 12 Earth Science 13 Anthony Janetos..................... 79 14 Astronomy and Astrophysics 15 Marcia Rieke........................ 101 16 Planetary Science 17 Steve Squyres....................... 117 18 Arianespace 19 Jean-Yves Le Gall................... 137 20 EADS Astrium 21 Mark Kinnersley..................... 152 22 Public Comments......................... 167 23 Committee Deliberations................. 177 24 Meeting adjourned....................... 252 25 4 1 MR. McALISTER: Good morning, 2 everybody, and welcome to the meeting of the 3 Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Committee. 4 We're here in the Carnegie Institute again in 5 Washington, D.C. Thanks for everybody to 6 come -- that came out today. We're also 7 being broadcasted live on NASA TV. So hello 8 to everybody watching there. And we're 9 streaming live on the Internet via the 10 nasa.gov website. So welcome to everybody. 11 Just a couple of comments to start 12 off. This is a -- this meeting is ruled by 13 the Federal Advisory Committee Act. So all 14 comments, presentations and the discussion 15 today are on the record. 16 We are going to have a public comment 17 period. We plan to start that approximately 18 at 11:00. We'll ask you to come up to the 19 mic. Because of constrained schedule today, 20 we're only going to be allowed to hear from 21 five commenters. So if you would like to 22 speak during the public comment period, 23 there's a sign-up sheet in the back of the 24 room for those five people. So go ahead at 25 your leisure and sign up for that. 5 1 Just if you don't -- if you want to 2 make a comment and we don't have time for you 3 today, just keep in mind that the committee 4 is available 24/7 via our website, which is 5 http:\\hsf.nasa.gov. You can give a comment, 6 ask a question, upload a document. 7 And actually we prefer the questions 8 be submitted to the website and that you 9 don't use the public comment period for 10 questions, because we like to get the 11 questions and post the answers for everybody. 12 Please don't interrupt the 13 presentations or the deliberations of the 14 committee members today, and please mute your 15 cell phones. 16 With that, Chairman Norm Augustine... 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thanks, Phil. Good 18 morning, everyone, and thank you for your... 19 Is this working? Can you hear in the 20 back all right? Can you hear? Okay. Thank 21 you. 22 We're very happy to have everyone 23 here. It's always a pleasure to see such 24 interest in the space program. We have been 25 deluged with comments on our website, with 6 1 e-mails, with our Twitter and everything 2 else, and we really appreciate the inputs 3 we've received from the public. I can't 4 emphasize enough how helpful it is to know of 5 the span of feelings that folks share. 6 So welcome to those of you in the 7 room, welcome to those watching on NASA TV. 8 A special welcome to you, Buzz. 9 Thank you for talking to our group 10 previously. 11 This morning we have, I think, a very 12 good schedule. A number of people with 13 significant backgrounds in the space program 14 are going to share some thoughts with us. 15 Toward the end of the morning, we're going to 16 have time for the committee to discuss some 17 of the alternative programs that we've been 18 addressing, and I'll give more introduction 19 to that when the time comes. 20 But let me just say that last week we 21 met in Houston and Huntsville and at the 22 Cape, and at the end of those meetings, we 23 asked a subgroup of our committee that 24 consisted really of the subgroup leads, the 25 four of them, plus myself, to meet since last 7 1 Friday and propose a set of options. And 2 those we will discuss this morning with the 3 idea of adding or subtracting or 4 discussing -- whatever we care to do with 5 them. 6 As you know, our charge is to provide 7 options to our government. We are not asked 8 to provide a specific recommendation, but we 9 obviously will provide some assessment of the 10 various options for the people who actually 11 make the decision. 12 Our first speaker this morning is a 13 friend who many of us know in the room who is 14 the President's Science Advisor and the head 15 of the Office of Science and Technology 16 Policy in the prior Administration and had a 17 good deal to do with shaping the space 18 program over the last few years, and I speak, 19 of course, of Jack Marburger. 20 Jack, it's a pleasure to have you 21 with us, and the podium is yours. 22 MR. MARBURGER: Great. Thanks, Norm. 23 It's a pleasure to be here and talk about 24 these events that have occurred, for me, six 25 years ago when the Chief of Staff Andy Card, 8 1 at the time, pulled together a group to 2 propose concepts for the long-term future of 3 the U.S. Human Space Exploration program. 4 During that process the Chief of 5 Staff formed a group we called the Rump Group 6 that consisted of a number of people. I will 7 list their names in a written document that 8 I'll provide to the committee so that you 9 have a complete record of that early history. 10 But as a result of recommendations by 11 that group, the Chief of Staff's office 12 formed a set of questions that they sent to 13 agencies including NASA, Department of 14 Defense, the intelligence community and some 15 others, whose answers guided the policy from 16 then on. And the process occurred under the 17 normal policy committee -- coordinating 18 committee process, PCC process, and the 19 process was augmented by representatives from 20 NASA, particularly, and from the intelligence 21 community. 22 And I sat in on all of those 23 meetings -- all of the senior policy meetings 24 in the White House during that period. Out 25 of this process emerged the President's 9 1 address of January 14th, 2004 and the 2 accompanying policy document called a Renewed 3 Spirit of Discovery. 4 Two features of that process are 5 noteworthy. First, it took place in an 6 unusually rich environment of information. 7 We had numerous reports, studies, 8 commentaries on all aspects of space 9 exploration reaching back to the 1952 10 Collier's magazine series by Werhner 11 von Braun and including work of predecessors 12 of this committee, including a previous 13 Augustine committee report. 14 Second, the final policy document was 15 a compromise between contrasting policy 16 perspectives offered by NASA and by the 17 White House advisors. In presentations to 18 the Congress and to the public, NASA 19 representatives emphasized the NASA point of 20 view subsequently, which began to appear even 21 during the policy process through leaks to 22 the media. 23 In my own public presentations and 24 particularly in two speeches I gave in 2006 25 and 2008 to the annual Robert H. Goddard 10 1 Memorial Symposium, I emphasized the 2 White House view. 3 NASA decisions following 2004 tended 4 to diverge from the compromised vision toward 5 greater emphasis on a Mars expedition as a 6 primary objective and minimizing the features 7 of sustainable cumulative capabilities and 8 commercial participation that were important 9 parts of the vision. 10 NASA decision-making did grow 11 increasingly constrained by real budget 12 shortfalls created, in part, by the larger 13 than estimated return to flight cost of the 14 shuttle, but it would be a mistake to assume 15 that the actual development path for space 16 exploration since 2004 has accurately 17 reflected the overall concept of the vision. 18 In September of 2003, partly in 19 response to the questions to agencies that I 20 mentioned, I drafted my own version of the 21 policy direction then emerging from the 22 deliberations of the Rump Group, and it 23 remains my own personal preference today. 24 And so I would like to continue my 25 presentation by simply reading you that 11 1 document that I prepared in response to these 2 questions. 3 The first question was: What is our 4 vision for future space exploration? 5 Our vision is to understand as far as 6 humanly possible the universe beyond Earth's 7 immediate vicinity and to use that knowledge 8 to improve the quality of life in every 9 aspect for all people. We will pursue these 10 goals through every means appropriate to the 11 diverse task of the enterprise with respect 12 for the health and safety of those involved 13 and in balance with other worthy endeavors. 14 Why is it important? 15 Within the Earth's orbit, space 16 exploration has enabled technologies for 17 national security, economic gain and science. 18 Surveillance, navigation, communication 19 satellites are now part of our military and 20 civilian infrastructure. Scientific 21 satellites looking deep into space and down 22 at Earth are changing profoundly our notion 23 of the substance and structure of the 24 universe and the operation of the Earth 25 environment. These will continue to bring 12 1 benefits for the foreseeable future. 2 Beyond Earth's orbit, we have sent 3 robotic explorers to every planet in our 4 solar system except Pluto. Each planet and 5 moon visited has yielded new scientific 6 discoveries and challenged our understanding 7 of planetary formation and the possibility of 8 emerging life. 9 Imaginative schemes have been 10 proposed for further enhancing our national 11 security, economic strength and scientific 12 knowledge using objects and phenomena 13 accessible only from space. Those that 14 require large structures beyond Earth's orbit 15 are impractical today. If such schemes are 16 ever to be realized, the groundwork must be 17 laid far in advance of their implementation. 18 Laying that groundwork is the task of 19 our generation. 20 Three: What contribution does human 21 space flight make to this vision? 22 The reference is to then current 23 space flight activities. 24 With one exception, it does not 25 contribute in a tangible way to the immediate 13 1 task of preparing for large-scale development 2 of space resources. That exception is the 3 understanding of the effects of 4 weightlessness on humans. 5 In the future, humans working with 6 robotic systems will probably be required for 7 large-scale development such as the 8 construction and maintenance of remote 9 facilities, mines, factories, base stations. 10 We do not now, however, possess the knowledge 11 or technical infrastructure necessary to 12 deploy humans safely beyond Earth's immediate 13 neighborhood. 14 Human space flight does contribute to 15 society in non-tangible, yet compelling, 16 ways. It provides lofty goals and promotes 17 human orientation toward acceptance of our 18 place in the universe. Human space 19 exploration has inspired an entire generation 20 of Americans to pursue careers in 21 mathematics, science and engineering, and 22 U.S. leadership in human space flight serves 23 as a highly visible example of how we can 24 apply advanced technology towards peaceful 25 ends. It provides a vehicle for 14 1 international cooperation and a uniquely 2 positive legacy to future generations. 3 Why is human space flight important 4 in the long term? 5 Future desirable large-scale 6 operations in space, such as resource 7 exploitation, climate control, solar energy 8 schemes, will probably exceed the capacity of 9 robotic systems for independent operations. 10 Under these circumstances, human 11 participation can be justified and will 12 likely be required. 13 Until the costs and risks of human 14 participation are better understood and 15 controlled, however, the establishment of 16 goals for such large-scale operations is a 17 futile exercise. The necessary 18 human-oriented studies, which involve placing 19 humans in a weightless environment, can be 20 carried out simultaneously with continued 21 robotic exploration throughout the solar 22 system. 23 Most official studies of human space 24 flight conclude that it has value that might 25 be called spiritual or existential. No 15 1 agreement exists as to what this means, but 2 it is complementary to the value of some 3 kinds of scientific knowledge. 4 We do not study the collisions of 5 galaxies for commercial profit, but 6 understanding such exotic phenomena brings 7 them into the human domain in the same way 8 knowing that men and women have visited an 9 exotic world literally humanized those 10 places. Heroic acts and their importance to 11 society are real, and spiritual motivations 12 are among the strongest that we have. Much 13 anecdotal evidence suggests that space 14 exploration provides a vehicle for these 15 social benefits. 16 Programmatic options run the gamut 17 from terminating human space flight 18 altogether to announcing an Apollo-like 19 sprint to Mars. The options vary in the 20 degree to which humans participate 21 directly -- that is, physically -- in space 22 exploration. At one extreme, space 23 exploration is entirely robotic. At the 24 other, vast resources are invested to 25 maximize human participation. 16 1 A balanced approach would prudently 2 build capability for human exploration beyond 3 low Earth orbit while avoiding premature 4 commitment to specific large-scale 5 operations. By careful planning, we can make 6 each step a foundation for a range of next 7 steps, so with time our investments mount, 8 costs and risks diminish, and we keep options 9 open to exploit the right one when we're 10 ready to make a big move. 11 As costs and risks are lowered, the 12 case for human presence in space improves, 13 and the variety of plausible missions 14 increases. We have a vigorous and highly 15 productive program of non-human space 16 operations for science, military and 17 commercial purposes. The philosophy of going 18 step by step and preparing for the future on 19 a broad front introduces human capabilities 20 only as appropriate, keeping in mind that the 21 ultimate goal is to permit humans to operate 22 routinely on missions where they are needed. 23 The quest to enable all large-scale 24 missions is itself more ambitious than 25 anything yet ventured in space. It includes 17 1 careful exploration of the Moon, for example, 2 an establishment of a base there for in situ 3 resource utilization. This should suffice to 4 capture the public imagination. 5 Our programmatic vision for human 6 space flight is to bring the successive 7 spheres of every space frontier within our 8 reach, to diminish the daunting cost and risk 9 of every expedition into this new territory. 10 We can embark upon this mission now because 11 every future mission is encumbered with the 12 same impediments of cost and risk. 13 Reducing risk: Radiation and the 14 effects of low gravity limit the duration for 15 humans to live safely and work in space. The 16 radiation can be simulated here on Earth, but 17 to study weightlessness requires a free-fall 18 laboratory. And we have one, the 19 International Space Station. This is the 20 first existing step, and we aim to build upon 21 it with our international partners. 22 The Earth-bound and the space-based 23 work, together, will provide the data and the 24 ideas we need. They build stepping stones of 25 knowledge about ourselves that we will need 18 1 to survive in space. 2 Reducing cost: Some strategies are 3 well known -- miniaturize, improve materials, 4 develop better transport systems and forge 5 partnerships with robots and with able 6 nations. Other strategies are technically 7 less mature but offer much greater potential 8 payoff -- make heavy parts beyond Earth's 9 deep well gravity to cut the cost of lifting 10 it out to space. 11 And where should we find the raw the 12 materials for this? On the Moon. This 13 requires a Moon base, robotic, and ultimately 14 human crews for oversight. 15 Some consequences of this approach. 16 It optimizes not for a single mission but for 17 the steady accumulation of technologies and 18 capabilities that provide a base for multiple 19 operations. It emphasizes the role of 20 robotics, of ground-based research and of 21 system thinking. It places the International 22 Space Station in a larger context. Its 23 purpose is specifically to acquire knowledge 24 that allows us to protect humans in space. 25 This approach is compatible with a 19 1 reduction of the current Human Space Flight 2 program. The current program places humans 3 in space to accomplish missions that with 4 today's robotic technology can be 5 accomplished without them. The result has 6 been to decrease resources available to build 7 a foundation toward future missions for which 8 humans have a more important role to play. 9 We cannot place humans deeper in 10 space for any length of time without solving 11 the problems risk and cost. The first order 12 of business is to solve these problems, not 13 to use humans in lieu of robots in the safer 14 low Earth orbits. 15 The approach entails extensive 16 robotic exploration of the Moon, potentially 17 followed by the construction of a permanent 18 lunar base, whose objective is resource 19 exploitation, possibly for economic gain, and 20 to use the material to facilitate further 21 expansion of human exploration deeper into 22 the solar system. This program would be 23 carried out simultaneously with research into 24 the mitigation of human risk factors and the 25 development of new launch and transport 20 1 technology. 2 Schedule and budget: The pace of 3 advance will be dictated by the level of 4 resources devoted, but a range of budgets 5 permits continued progress. Close 6 cooperation with and even reliance on 7 international partners should be seriously 8 considered. 9 No date should be established for 10 humans to return to the Moon or Mars. The 11 rate of advance away from the Earth should be 12 dominated by budget and technical progress 13 and by no calendar but the winding of the 14 planets along their eternal paths. 15 Well, I wrote that to try to educate 16 and persuade as well as to explain. If I 17 were rewriting this today, I'd add a 18 paragraph on the role and importance of 19 commercial space enterprises and emphasize 20 the importance of sustained effort. 21 And some of that deficiency was 22 remedied in the final version of the policy, 23 but it's been neglected in execution. 24 Let me restate a plea that I made in 25 my 2008 Goddard lecture. If the architecture 21 1 of the exploration phase is not crafted with 2 sustainability in mind, we will look back on 3 a century or more of huge expenditures with 4 nothing more to show for them than a litter 5 of ritual monuments scattered across the 6 planets and their moons. 7 In my opinion, the all-encompassing 8 scope of the vision we advanced was 9 diminished in the final policy by specific 10 mention of Mars as a target, and the 11 immediate path forward was burdened by 12 deadlines and difficult budget issues. Our 13 view was pragmatic and conservative with 14 respect to human operations but vast beyond 15 any scenario since von Braun's view and its 16 view of a future in which the entire solar 17 system is open to the service of humanity. 18 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 19 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much 20 for those comments, and I wonder if we could 21 get a copy of your paper for our committee. 22 MR. MARBURGER: I have a longer 23 version of this that I will get this 24 afternoon and will send it to you. 25 MR. AUGUSTINE: That would be 22 1 terrific, so we could distribute them. 2 We have time for a couple questions 3 from my colleagues. Does anyone have any 4 questions they'd like to start out with? 5 Chris... 6 DR. CHYBA: Thanks very much for your 7 remarks. I'd like to ask you to be a bit 8 more specific with respect to your comment on 9 sustainability. 10 Do you view the current architecture, 11 the program of record, as a sustainable 12 architecture, or would you prefer to see that 13 modified in some way? 14 MR. MARBURGER: It's hard to 15 characterize the current program because it 16 has been impacted so much by exigencies and 17 budget constraints. So it's not clear that 18 what's being done is consistent with NASA's 19 intent or with any particular policy intent. 20 So I want to be a little careful about how I 21 say this. 22 Certainly the -- sustainability has a 23 lot to do with what society can tolerate and 24 how to carry a vision like this beyond 25 administrations. We have supportive 23 1 administrations, and we have less than 2 supportive administrations. We have 3 recessions. We have booms and busts. And I 4 think it's important to craft a strategy that 5 is not disrupted by those exigencies, and in 6 order to do that, you have to be somewhat 7 careful about establishing firm deadlines and 8 rushing to achieve them. 9 In my view, the most important factor 10 here is sustaining the workforce that has the 11 expertise required to build the various 12 pieces and to continue an initiative over a 13 period of a century. I don't know whether 14 the current mission is sustainable in that 15 sense. 16 My guess is that not sufficient 17 attention has been paid to the sustainability 18 dimension of the program. There's a lot of 19 fixation on how to achieve the short-term 20 goals of the International Space Station. 21 There's a lot of attention fixed on 22 the gap, which in the grand scheme of things 23 is not as significant as we make it to be. 24 So closing the gap as a short-term objective 25 tends to get in the way of the longer term 24 1 thinking. 2 MR. AUGUSTINE: Anyone else? 3 Bo... 4 MR. BEJMUK: If I may. Thank you 5 very much for your talk to us. It was very 6 useful. 7 My question is this -- if you look 8 into future and consider an undertaking like 9 going to Mars for humans, it's going to be 10 terribly complex, very difficult and very 11 expensive. And the question is -- you didn't 12 say much -- how would you envision engaging 13 international or global participation in it 14 and how would you do it and would you invite 15 people to be on the critical path of this 16 undertaking, give them an important role 17 where they feel like their stakeholders? 18 MR. MARBURGER: Of course, the 19 concept of a step-by-step program that 20 establishes infrastructure that can be 21 utilized by subsequent missions -- for 22 example, simply putting up communication 23 satellites around the planets that you'd like 24 to visit in the future reduces the cost for 25 those subsequent missions. That's a good 25 1 example. It would certainly work for Mars. 2 It will work for the Moon. 3 And in a vision like that, there are 4 many things to do. There are many concepts 5 that need to be filled in and parts of the 6 system that different nations can participate 7 in. And while the Europeans, for example, 8 take advantage of communication satellites 9 that we have around Mars, we can take 10 advantage of infrastructure that's left by 11 the Europeans or the Chinese or the Indians 12 or whoever has the capability to put it 13 there. 14 But what we need is a shared vision 15 for what the system has to look like. Power 16 systems, for example, on the Moon, somehow we 17 have to get something up there that can 18 generate power for industrial operations on 19 the Moon, which we will need in order to 20 reduce the cost of lift in future missions. 21 So those are things that are not 22 necessarily objectives that a single nation 23 can achieve. All nations should be 24 contributing in a way that is agreed can 25 foster the continued accumulation of 26 1 capability. 2 MR. AUGUSTINE: Jack, I have a 3 question that's perhaps almost impossible to 4 answer, but I think you had to do it in your 5 prior job. You've talked some about the 6 trade-off between human space flight and 7 robotics and balance and so on. 8 How do you deal with the issue of 9 trading, say, the space program against 10 medical research or energy research, 11 environmental research? How did you deal 12 with that? 13 MR. MARBURGER: Philosophically there 14 is a way to do that, and I mentioned it in 15 one of my Goddard lectures. The point is 16 that in the vision that we advanced the 17 motivation was not the existential or 18 spiritual motivation for human achievement. 19 The motivation was national security, 20 commerce, science -- not just putting 21 somebody up there on a remote planet. 22 Well, those are missions that can 23 also be achieved by investments in other 24 activities. And so you can weigh the impact 25 of those investments. 27 1 Now, the impact of space exploration, 2 particularly human space exploration, is very 3 long term, but at least you can get some 4 sense of the domains of human enterprise that 5 might be advantaged by it. Even the 6 objective of encouraging young people to 7 become scientists and engineers and so forth 8 can be achieved in other ways. 9 So I think once you get away -- back 10 off a little bit from this notion that we 11 must as human beings just be out there, 12 then -- which is not -- you know, you can't 13 compare that with anything -- any other 14 expenditure, so it's not possible. Once you 15 back away from that, you get into spheres 16 where you can compare what's the advantage of 17 having $30 billion invested in NIH, for 18 example, versus investing $5 billion in an 19 enhancement to a step-by-step program. 20 MR. AUGUSTINE: Yeah. Chris... 21 DR. CHYBA: This is just to follow up 22 on this very interesting discussion. 23 How would you factor into that sort 24 of scheme the -- you know, in a way that 25 would be comparable, the advantages of, say, 28 1 conducting fundamental research in cosmology? 2 MR. MARBURGER: Well, the fundamental 3 research in cosmology is in a different 4 category. That's in the category of, you 5 know, we are human beings, we live in the 6 universe, we must know about it. There is an 7 urge to do that. 8 And there are some questions that are 9 intrinsically very interesting. Whether or 10 not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the 11 universe is an extremely interesting thing 12 that humans ought to be interested in and 13 willing to spend something on. 14 The origin of the universe is sort of 15 an intrinsically deep and interesting 16 question that humans have spent a lot of 17 brainpower on for a long time and similar 18 things. 19 The ultimate structure of matter, 20 we're spending billions of dollars on 21 particle accelerators to determine the 22 structure of matter, which has essentially no 23 impact other than its spinoffs on human -- on 24 enterprise -- commercial enterprises and 25 human health and so forth, but it's an 29 1 intrinsically interesting question. 2 So it's hard to say. In my view, 3 those kinds of questions are more 4 intrinsically interesting than the issue of 5 having a human being on a remote planet, 6 which doesn't -- you know, you don't get too 7 much out of that except for the pride of 8 knowing that human beings can do that and -- 9 whereas the knowledge that you get from 10 studying cosmology and so forth is permanent 11 knowledge. Many people can share in the 12 enterprise of getting it and thinking about 13 what it means and so forth, whereas I view 14 the flags and footsteps model as having less 15 impact in the long term. 16 MR. AUGUSTINE: Jack, thank you very 17 much for sharing your thoughts with us. We 18 appreciate it. It was great to see you 19 again. 20 MR. MARBURGER: My pleasure. Thank 21 you. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: Take care. 23 Our next speaker this morning is 24 representing the Mars Society, well known to 25 many in the room, and that's Bob Zubrin. 30 1 Bob, welcome. 2 (Discussion off the record.) 3 DR. ZUBRIN: Mr. Augustine, Members 4 of the Committee, I would like to thank you 5 for inviting me here to express my views and 6 insights and those of the Mars Society on 7 where the American space program should be 8 going and to thank you for coming out of your 9 private pursuits to do this activity, because 10 I think this is a very important activity 11 that you're engaged in here. 12 I hope you'll forgive me if I just 13 take a few seconds to present my credentials 14 since some people here might not be familiar 15 with me. I'm an engineer with a master's in 16 aeronautics and astronautics and a doctorate 17 in nuclear engineering. 18 I have over two decades of aerospace 19 industry experience, including seven years at 20 Martin Marietta Denver and Lockheed Martin 21 doing preliminary design of interplanetary 22 missions, and I also for a number of years 23 have run my own company, Pioneer 24 Astronautics, which has done around -- 25 successfully about 40 NASA contracts of 31 1 various sorts, written over 200 publications, 2 including nine patents and eight books, five 3 of which are in this field. 4 And I also lead the Mars Society, an 5 international organization of people 6 committing to furthering the exploration of 7 Mars, which has done various things, the most 8 notable of which has been to establish a 9 Simulated Human Mars Exploration Station in 10 the high Arctic on Devin Island in the polar 11 desert, 900 miles from the North Pole. 12 My remarks today are going to cover a 13 number of areas. First of all, why NASA 14 needs a definitive goal with a definitive 15 schedule, what that goals needs to be and how 16 it can be accomplished in that kind of say. 17 So to begin, you know, in recent 18 years and, in fact, it's now rolling into 19 decades, people have been concerned -- 20 politicians, Congressman, journalists -- why 21 are we stuck in Earth orbit, why have we not 22 gone anywhere since the conclusion of the 23 Apollo program. And it's a very valid 24 concern, and it needs to be addressed. 25 And I think it can be addressed if 32 1 you look at how NASA has actually operated 2 over its history. It's operated in two 3 fundamentally different modes of operation, 4 one of which is that which prevailed in the 5 Apollo era from '61 to about '73 -- and I 6 call that the Apollo mode -- and the other 7 which has prevailed since, which, therefore, 8 I call the shuttle era mode or shuttle mode 9 for shorthand. 10 Okay. Now, there's two completely 11 different styles of operation that were 12 engaged in these two periods. 13 In the Apollo mode, what's done is 14 national leadership sets a definitive goal 15 with a definitive schedule, NASA is assigned 16 to figure out how to do it on that schedule, 17 a mission is designed, components are 18 designed to fulfill that mission, they are 19 built and the mission is flown -- one, two, 20 three -- by the numbers. That's how we got 21 to the Moon. 22 In the shuttle mode, on the other 23 hand, okay, what happens is -- is programs 24 are proposed by various constituencies, 25 whether constituencies in the technical 33 1 community, from various NASA centers, from 2 various states or other interests, and some 3 of these make it through the political system 4 and we get an assortment of technical 5 programs undertaken which are not really 6 coordinated with each other and which are 7 subsequently justified by a rationale which 8 is produced to be able to claim that these 9 programs would be useful at some point in the 10 future when someone actually had a mission to 11 go somewhere. 12 Okay. If you want to use a metaphor 13 to compare these two modes of operation, 14 think of two couples, each of which would 15 like to have their dream house. 16 Couple A talk about their dream house 17 and then they hire an architect to design the 18 dream house and they get the drawing done and 19 then they go to a contractor, they build the 20 house and they have their house. 21 Couple B goes out every weekend and 22 cruises garage sales and sees items that they 23 might be of interest at some point in the 24 future when they want to build a house. So 25 they pick up a spiral staircase, some Durette 34 1 (phonetic) columns, you know, aluminum 2 siding -- whatever -- and they pile it up in 3 the backyard. And then every once in a while 4 when the in-laws come to visit and pa-in-law 5 says why do you have all of this junk piled 6 in your backyard, they say, well, it's to 7 build a house. And he says, well, I'd like 8 to see the plans for this house. 9 So they hire an architect, and they 10 tell him, look, we want you to design a house 11 and it has to include all of those parts. 12 Okay. So the house is never built, but 13 embarrassment is avoided because a rationale 14 is produced for their various purchases. 15 And so that is the difference with 16 the two modes of operation. And it is 17 apparent which one is going to be more 18 productive, and the numbers show it. 19 You know, if you take NASA's budget 20 from 1961 to 1973 and you add it up in 21 today's dollars, it's around $230 billion. 22 Divide that by 13. It's 18 billion a year, 23 which is the same as NASA's budget this year. 24 That is, during the Apollo period, while 25 there was -- like 1966 it was more and other 35 1 years it was less, on average NASA's budget 2 over that period was the same within a few 3 percent of what it is this year or last year 4 and frankly the same in general order of what 5 it's been since 1990. 6 So let's compare what NASA 7 accomplished with that budget between '61 and 8 '73 compared to what it accomplished with the 9 same budget between 1997 and today. 10 Okay. Between 1961 and 1973 NASA 11 built and flew Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, 12 Skylab -- okay -- Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner. 13 We did all of the technology needed to -- 14 development to do Pioneer, Viking voyager, 15 some -- over 30 lunar and planetary missions 16 in that list. 17 We did technology development of 18 amazing sorts. We developed hydrogen-oxygen 19 rocket engines, multistage heavy-lift launch 20 vehicles, in-space life support spacesuits, 21 deep space navigation techniques, deep space 22 communication techniques, space rendezvous 23 techniques, lunar landing techniques, reentry 24 techniques, nuclear rocket engines, 25 nuclear -- space nuclear reactors, 36 1 radioisotope thermoelectric generators -- the 2 list goes on. 3 The entire bag of tricks that we use 4 to do everything that we do in space was 5 developed. And we developed a deep space 6 tracking network and built Cape Canaveral and 7 Johnson Space Center and Jet Propulsion 8 Lab -- the works -- and we inspired a 9 generation of youth to want to enter science, 10 a point that I'll get to, again, later. 11 By comparison, with the same budget, 12 between 1997 and 2009, NASA flew 47 shuttle 13 missions, which allowed them to repair and 14 upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope and 15 partially build a space station, and we flew 16 about a dozen lunar and planetary probes and 17 we did no significant technology development, 18 to speak of. 19 So comparing these two records of 20 accomplishment over identical periods with 21 identical budgets it is difficult to come to 22 any other conclusion that the degree of 23 accomplishment that one can get using the 24 Apollo mode of operation is at least -- at 25 least -- an order of magnitude more effective 37 1 than can be done with the shuttle mode of 2 let's just work on technologies and do 3 projects that are interesting and potentially 4 valuable and some day we'll have the set of 5 tools we need to go, as Mr. O'Keefe put it, 6 anywhere anytime. 7 The first program works. The second 8 essentially does not. 9 So, in short, we really need to take 10 stock. This idea of having an unfocused 11 program is simply unworkable if you want to 12 have an efficient program. We need to take 13 stock, decide what our goals really are and 14 allocate our priorities in accord with those 15 goals. Okay. 16 Should we continue flying the 17 shuttle? Well, if our goal is to continue 18 ferrying people up and down to Earth orbit, 19 if this is what we think our primary activity 20 in space should be, then that is worth 21 considering. 22 But if our goal is, in fact, to send 23 humans to the Moon or Mars or wherever beyond 24 low Earth orbit, then we have to allocate our 25 priorities and allocate our funds to support 38 1 those objectives, if we wish to accomplish 2 them, and we have to set a definitive 3 schedule to achieve those objectives. Okay. 4 The Apollo mode got us to the Moon. 5 It could get us to Mars if we choose. The 6 shuttle mode will never get us anywhere. 7 What's needed, though, to set a goal, 8 set a schedule and accomplish the project is 9 leadership. In the beginning was the word. 10 Now, what should the goal be? In my 11 view, the goal needs to be humans to Mars 12 within a decade. 13 Why Mars? Okay. Because of all 14 planetary destinations within reach, Mars is 15 by far the most important, offers the most 16 both scientifically in terms of social 17 benefits for our nation if we do accept this 18 challenge and in terms of what it portends 19 for the future. 20 In terms of science, Mars is the 21 Rosetta stone for letting us know the truth 22 about the prevalence and potential diversity 23 of life in the universe. We now know that 24 Mars had liquid water on its surface, 25 including standing bodies of water of various 39 1 kinds for a period on the order of a billion 2 years, which is five times as long as it took 3 life to appear on Earth after there was 4 liquid water here. 5 So if the theory is correct that life 6 is a natural development from chemistry 7 through chemical complexification wherever 8 you have an aqueous environment and 9 reasonable temperatures and an assortment of 10 various mineral and so forth present, then 11 life should have appeared on Earth -- on Mars 12 as it did on Earth. And if we can go to Mars 13 and find fossils of past life on the surface, 14 then we will have proven this conjecture and 15 we will know that life is a general 16 phenomena. 17 And since we now know that planets 18 around stars are a general phenomena -- we've 19 detected over 200 extrasolar planetary 20 systems. It now appears that planets around 21 other stars are more the rule than the 22 exception. Since every star has an 23 appropriate distance, near or far, depending 24 upon the brightness of the star where you 25 have acceptable temperature for liquid water, 40 1 if life develops with reasonable probability 2 whenever it has planets within this range, 3 then life is everywhere. We're living in an 4 inhabited universe. This is worth finding 5 out. Okay. 6 Furthermore, if we can send 7 astronauts to Mars and drill down into he 8 subsurface where there is almost certainly 9 liquid water underground on Mars -- okay -- 10 we know that because we've now seen a 11 runoff -- a transient runoff of water that 12 occurred during the lifetime of MGS from the 13 side of a crater, which means there had to be 14 a reservoir there. We're seeing methane 15 vents coming out from Mars, which means at a 16 minimum there has to be hydrothermal activity 17 underground on Mars. Okay. 18 If we can drill and reach that 19 groundwater and bring it up and see if there 20 is life in the water -- because if there is 21 life living on Mars today, that's where it is 22 to be found, in liquid water. Okay. 23 And we could examine that life. We 24 could find out if it has the same chemical 25 structure. All life on Earth has the same 41 1 biochemistry. All of these RNA and DNA and 2 the amino acids are the same group. 3 And does life on Mars replicate that 4 pattern? In other words, is life on Earth 5 the pattern for all life everywhere, or are 6 we just one particular example drawn from a 7 much faster tapestry of possibilities? 8 This is worth finding out. This is 9 something that thinking men and women have 10 wondered about for thousands of years. There 11 is no comparable science to be done on the 12 Moon. Okay. 13 You can go to the Moon. You can date 14 the craters and you'll know that Aristarchus 15 is this old and this is when this meteor 16 landed and that is when that meteor landed 17 and somebody can get a paper published in the 18 Journal of Geophysical Research out of that, 19 but that is not something that changes 20 humanity's world view. This does. Okay. 21 So Mars is vastly more important 22 scientifically than the Moon or other 23 alternative destinations that are actually 24 within reach of the Human Space Flight 25 program. 42 1 Secondly, the challenge. I believe 2 that civilizations are like individuals. We 3 thrive when we're challenged. We stagnate 4 when we are not. And humans to Mars program 5 would be a tremendous bracing challenge for 6 our society and particularly for our youth. 7 Okay. 8 It would say to every young person in 9 this country learn your science and you can 10 be part of pioneering new worlds, and out of 11 that challenge we would get millions of 12 scientists, engineers, inventors, 13 technological entrepreneurs, medical 14 researchers, doctors, people who add to our 15 military strength, our industrial strength, 16 our social progress, advance our society in 17 every capacity. 18 And this is really worth adding 19 emphasis to. You know, the Apollo program 20 doubled the number of science graduates in 21 this country at every level -- high school, 22 college, Ph.D. -- and we're still benefiting 23 from that today. Okay. Because, you know, 24 these forty something technological 25 entrepreneurs who built Silicon Valley in the 43 1 1990s, these were the 12-year-old little boy 2 scientists of the 1960s who had gotten into 3 science because they were made for space 4 because of what was going on. 5 Now, in this day and age, a humans to 6 Mars program would have an even greater 7 social impact because the science and 8 engineering professions are open to women 9 today in a way that was simply not the case 10 in the 1960s. So in addition to millions of 11 little boy scientists, we would get millions 12 of little girl scientists, and these people 13 would be making their contributions that add 14 to our economic progress, our medical 15 progress, our military strength for decades 16 to come in a way that totally dwarfs the 17 expenditure. 18 But you have to challenge them. 19 You're not going to challenge the youth of 20 today with the idea of replicating the 21 technological feats of their grandparents' 22 generation. Okay. Youth loves adventure. 23 We invite them to adventure. We raise their 24 morale. We can address this problem. 25 And then finally there is the issue 44 1 of the future. Okay. Mars has the resources 2 to support life; therefore, it also has the 3 resources to potentially support civilization 4 in a way that the Moon simply does not. 5 Mars has liquid water on it. We've 6 now imagined places on Mars -- 7 continent-sized region that are 60 percent 8 water by weight in the soil. That compares 9 to the Moon where people are talking about 10 parts per million or maybe higher 11 concentrations at 40 Kelvin and shadowed 12 poles. 13 There's carbon on Mars. There's 14 virtually no carbon on the Moon. We're a 15 carbon-based life form. Everything we eat, 16 everything we wear, whether it's natural or 17 synthetic fibers, is made from carbon. Okay. 18 This is made from carbon (indicating.) Our 19 fuels are made from carbon. We need carbon. 20 We have nitrogen on Mars. It's the 21 minority constituent to the Martian 22 atmosphere. Okay. Nitrogen is absent on the 23 Moon. Another element fundamental for life. 24 Mars has had a complex geologic 25 history that has created mineral ore that can 45 1 concentrate geochemically rare elements. You 2 know, human beings have used copper since 3 Egyptian times, but copper is actually a very 4 rare element on Earth in terms of percent of 5 the crust. It is, though, accessible because 6 there are geological processes that 7 concentrate it. The Moon has not had these 8 sorts of geological processes Mars had, and 9 that makes available ore. 10 It also has a 24-hour day, which is 11 what is appropriate for growing plants in 12 greenhouses. It has an atmosphere which is 13 thick enough to basically mask out solar 14 flares, so you can use thin-walled 15 greenhouses on Mars instead of thick-walled 16 greenhouses, which is what we needed on the 17 Moon, assuming you had plants that could 18 accept the two-week light/dark cycle. So you 19 can do agriculture on Mars in a way that's 20 simply not possible on the Moon. 21 So one could go on, but in short, for 22 the coming age of exploration, Mars compares 23 to the Moon as North America compared to 24 Greenland in the previous age of exploration. 25 Greenland was closer to Europe. Europeans 46 1 reached it first, but it was ultimately too 2 baron of an environment in which a new branch 3 of human civilization could be established. 4 In contrast, North America is one in which 5 one could be established and flourish. 6 So if we're talking about going into 7 space to stay, if we're talking about 8 sustainability, you want to go to where the 9 resources are. Okay. The contrast that is 10 sometimes drawn between Mars as the flag and 11 footprints place and the Moon as the place 12 where you go to stay is exactly the reverse. 13 Okay. A Moon base would have much greater 14 logistic requirements than a Mars base 15 because on Mars you don't have to ship your 16 water to Mars. The water is there. The 17 carbon is there. It's all there. 18 And if we can make use of the 19 resources, we can establish ourselves there. 20 And if we can establish ourselves there -- if 21 we in our time can do what we can do, which 22 is establish that first little tiny human 23 foothold on Mars, then we will put our stamp 24 on the future, because hundreds of years from 25 now there will be human civilization on Mars. 47 1 And when they look back at this time, there 2 will be nothing that anyone is doing in this 3 period in history that they will consider 4 more significant than what we did to make 5 them possible. Okay. 6 You know, 1492, you ask any American 7 what happened in 1492, they'll say 8 Christopher Columbus set sail, but in 1492 9 England and France signed a peace treaty, 10 de Borgia took over the papacy, Lorenzo 11 de' Medici died. To people into current 12 events those might have seemed more 13 important, but to us today, it's Columbus' 14 voyage that stands as the important event. 15 Similarly this. 16 Now, to send humans to Mars in a 17 decade, how is that possible? Okay. I mean, 18 various mission architectures that you've 19 seen undoubtably make it seem like a very 20 futuristic proposition, but it's not. Okay. 21 And now I'm going to walk you through 22 how this can actually be done, in brief, 23 unfortunately not in as much detail as I'd 24 like. But I've written books on the subject, 25 and the details are all there. May I have 48 1 the next chart. 2 Okay. First of all, how long does it 3 take to get to Mars? It's the same question 4 as how much rope does it take to connect two 5 posts that are ten meters apart. In 6 principle, it can take any amount. Okay. 7 But it can be done with ten meters if you 8 pull it tight, and the thing that pulls it 9 tight is the schedule. Okay. 10 The thing that made Apollo work was 11 the schedule. Kennedy said we had to be on 12 the Moon by the end of the decade. Had he 13 not done that, the program would have failed. 14 Because there were any number of factions 15 with all sorts of other projects that they 16 would like to do -- space stations, 17 Saturn IX's, nuclear rockets -- who were 18 willing to say, well, you can't do your 19 program until you do my program, but at a 20 certain point they were squeezed out of the 21 picture when the rope was pulled tight 22 because people finally said, look, do we 23 really want to go to the Moon or don't we. 24 And that's how this happened. Okay. 25 But the issue is whether you want to 49 1 connect the posts or whether you want to sell 2 rope. So let's look at a couple of rope 3 sales. Next chart. 4 Okay. Of course, there's the lunar 5 base, the lunar tollbooth. Okay. The 6 previous Administration in announcing the 7 vision of President Bush said we've got to go 8 to the Moon because we can launch from the 9 Moon easier than from the Earth, and, indeed, 10 you can. But before you launch a spacecraft 11 from the Moon you have to get to the Moon, 12 and the Delta V required to go from low Earth 13 orbit to the lunar surface is greater than 14 that to go from low Earth orbit to the 15 surface of Mars. 16 So even if there was a lunar 17 Cape Canaveral in place right now and they 18 were making propellant and giving it away for 19 free to anyone who would stop by, it still 20 would not make any sense to go to the Moon. 21 Next chart. 22 Okay. Then there's this one. Okay. 23 There's the advanced propulsion crowd. You 24 have to build our giant spaceship. Here's 25 one that was designed under the Prometheus 50 1 program. You can see it's quite large. Mars 2 is there for scale. And they had all kinds 3 of fantastical assumptions about it, but, in 4 fact, A, it isn't necessary to go to Mars 5 and, B, if you actually do the mission 6 analysis using real numbers, you find out it 7 offered no mission advantages at all. Next 8 chart. 9 Now, this is one we commonly hear 10 today, that you can train for Mars on the 11 Moon, and certainly you can train for Mars on 12 the Moon. But you can do it in the Arctic at 13 three orders of magnitude lower cost. 14 And this, by the way, is a photograph 15 of the Mars Society's base on Devin Island on 16 the rim of a 20-kilometer diameter impact 17 crater in the middle of a polar desert, and 18 we just had a one-month mission there. It 19 cost us $75,000. If you want to do it at 20 higher fidelity, you could up the budget an 21 order of magnitude, and it would be $750,000. 22 It would still be a trivial percentage of the 23 cost of doing practice exercises on the Moon. 24 And we can initiate such activities 25 today, not waiting until 2019 or something 51 1 like that. Okay. So that justification 2 isn't there. 3 That leaves the question: How do we 4 actually do a human Mars mission? Next 5 chart. 6 Okay. Well, any mission requires an 7 appropriate launch vehicle. And by the way, 8 I'm showing you charts now that were actually 9 developed when we designed this mission, 10 which is known as the Mars Direct plan, which 11 was designed at Martin Marietta back in 1990. 12 And as you know, Mr. Augustine, one 13 of the great benefits of working at the 14 Martin companies, when you leave, they let 15 you keep your charts, so... 16 This is a heavy-lift vehicle, in this 17 case, shuttle derived, four SSMEs, two 18 solids, an ET core and hydrogen-oxygen upper 19 stage. And I hope I won't disappoint you too 20 much if I don't give you an extended pitch on 21 why this launch vehicle is better than 22 various other launch vehicles that have been 23 shown to you like the Ares V or the Direct 24 vehicle. Frankly any of them will work. Any 25 heavy-lift launch vehicle with an upper stage 52 1 to do a large-scale injection on trans-Mars 2 will suffice. 3 What won't work, however, is not 4 having a heavy-lift launch vehicle. And this 5 is a subject that, you know, I think, is very 6 much before you right now. Some people want 7 to abandon the goal of heavy lift. If you -- 8 look, we cut the contract on the Saturn V in 9 1962. We flew it in 1966. We were on the 10 Moon three years later. If we had heavy-lift 11 launch vehicle today, we could be on the Moon 12 within four years easily. 13 And the reason why we haven't gone 14 anywhere since the mid '70s in space is 15 primarily due to the fact that we haven't had 16 a heavy lift. Okay. You know, any number of 17 people, including me, have designed various 18 plans -- or attempted to -- to go to the Moon 19 or asteroids or Mars or wherever with 20 multiple launches of medium-lift launch 21 vehicles, and the plan always completely 22 breaks down because you have to launch four 23 or six or whatever medium-lift vehicles, not 24 only successfully but on schedule, and you 25 get ridiculously low mission reliability 53 1 figures and the plan becomes unacceptable. 2 But if we have heavy lift, we can do 3 this. And that's what this does. This 4 vehicle, as designed, could lift 120 tons to 5 LEO, but more importantly, using that 6 hydrogen-oxygen injection stage, it could 7 throw 47 tons on a direct trajectory to Mars 8 or 59- to the Moon. And that's how we want 9 to do the mission -- just lift and throw and 10 let it go. Send the payload to the planet 11 with the same upper stage or the same booster 12 that lifted it to orbit in the first. 13 That's how we've done every real 14 unmanned planetary mission. That's how we 15 did the Apollo lunar mission. If you can do 16 the Mars mission that way, right there you've 17 gone 90 percent of the way towards taking the 18 Mars mission out of the world of Battlestar 19 Gallatica fantasy and putting it in our 20 world. So what do you do? Next chart. 21 Okay. This shows the mission 22 sequence. In the first year of operation, 23 you launch one of these boosters off of the 24 Cape, use that upper stage to throw a 40-ton 25 payload on a minimum energy trajectory to 54 1 Mars. What is that payload? Next chart. 2 It consists of a number of things. 3 The primary object is the Earth return 4 vehicle or ERV. Okay. This is a little 5 rocket ship for coming back from Mars to 6 Earth. It's got a small cabin that can house 7 four astronauts on a six-month transit from 8 Mars to Earth. No one is in it now. 9 Then below that are two 10 methane-oxygen chemical propulsion stages, 11 which, however, are unfueled, and then slung 12 below the vehicle, not shown in this diagram, 13 is a light truck, which in the back of it has 14 a nuclear reactor, 100-kilowatt power. 15 Okay. This thing flies to Mars. You 16 use the aerobrake to capture into Mars orbit. 17 After we see the weather is okay, we bring it 18 in, use the aeroshell to plow us down to 19 subsonic speeds, pop a chute, come down soft 20 with rockets just like we did in Viking. 21 Okay. So now you've got this thing 22 on the ground. Then you telerobotically 23 drive the truck a couple of hundreds yards 24 away, deploy the reactor on the ground, turn 25 it on. Next chart. 55 1 MR. AUGUSTINE: I hate to hurry here, 2 but we're getting close to time. 3 DR. ZUBRIN: Okay. 4 MR. AUGUSTINE: This is very 5 interesting, but we need to move on. 6 DR. ZUBRIN: Using very elementary 7 chemistry, you make the propellant. Okay. 8 And this has all been demonstrated in full on 9 Earth actually since the gaslight era. Next 10 chart. 11 Skip it. Next chart. 12 Okay. Then at the next launch 13 opportunity, you launch two more boosters off 14 of the Cape. One shoots out another Earth 15 return vehicle. The other shoots out a hab 16 module with four astronauts in it. Next 17 chart. 18 Well, that shows the hab module. 19 Next chart. 20 Okay. It's the basic tuna can hab 21 with a number of rooms and a solar flare 22 storm shelter in the middle which you can 23 shield with provisions. You don't need extra 24 mass to provide shielding. Next chart. 25 Okay. We'll skip this. Next chart. 56 1 Okay. We can make artificial gravity 2 on the way to Mars, and this is important so 3 the crew's health doesn't deteriorate. And 4 it also means that we don't need another 5 30 years of research on the space station on 6 zero gravity health effects on the crew 7 because we can avoid them through simple 8 engineering. Next chart. 9 Next chart. Keep going. 10 So this is a concept of the base. 11 You land in the immediate vicinity of the 12 Earth return vehicle. If you land some 13 distance away, you have a ground rover that 14 can get you to the Earth return vehicle. You 15 also have a backup Earth return vehicle that 16 you can direct to the site if you do not land 17 accurately enough to drive there. 18 You're on the surface for a year and 19 a half, which allows you to do substantial 20 exploration over a period of time. At the 21 end of that time, you get in the Earth return 22 vehicle, you take your off, you fly back to 23 Earth. You leave your hab on the base -- on 24 the surface. So each time you do this, you 25 add another hab to the Martian surface. 57 1 There is nothing in this that is fundamental 2 beyond our technology. 3 Let's move forward quickly through a 4 couple of charts. Keep going. Keep going. 5 Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. There. 6 Okay. Now, the Moon -- if you also 7 develop lunar landing stages, you could use 8 the same set of hardware to land on the Moon, 9 and that could be done as a tangential goal 10 of the program. I would not recommend the 11 Moon as a precursor mission for Mars because 12 you do you have to develop lunar landing and 13 ascent modules, which are of no -- are not 14 utilizable by the Mars mission. 15 However, you could do a near Earth 16 asteroid mission as a precursor, because a 17 near Earth asteroid mission can be done with 18 a subset of the Mars hardware. In other 19 words, I'm not proposing a near Earth 20 asteroid program. I'm proposing that you set 21 your goal on Mars, and in the course of doing 22 that, there are certain other activities 23 where you exercise a subset of the Mars 24 hardware, which gives you greater confidence 25 and have certain value in themselves. And a 58 1 near Earth asteroid mission could fall into 2 this class. 3 So there it is. The technology is 4 there -- okay -- to do this. You know, going 5 to Mars on an absolute scale is more 6 difficult than going to the Moon, but 7 relative to our technology today, this is a 8 lower order of challenge. In 1961 we didn't 9 even know if people could eat in space -- 10 okay -- you know, and we got to the Moon 11 eight years later. 12 The amount of technology we have to 13 develop to accomplish this plan is modest 14 compared to what had to be developed to do 15 Apollo. And for us to say today that this is 16 beyond us -- that is, this is beyond our 17 capacity, our skill or our courage -- is 18 saying that we have become less than the 19 people that got us here and that, therefore, 20 we are going to give less to the people who 21 will follow in our footsteps, and I would say 22 that that is something that this country 23 cannot afford. 24 So we're here -- I think this is 25 potentially a great moment. It's a great 59 1 moment because it's a moment in which great 2 things are possible. You've got a new 3 Administration which is reexamining 4 everything, an Administration which is 5 committed to audacity and hope and the fierce 6 urgency of now -- okay -- and which has 7 sufficient political support in Congress to 8 actually implement a bold program, should 9 they decide to embrace it. 10 The American people want and deserve 11 a space program that is really going 12 somewhere. By taking decisive action, by 13 making a decisive recommendation to break us 14 out of this stagnation that we've had in the 15 space program for several decades -- for four 16 decades -- for decades of stagnation is 17 enough. 18 Mr. Augustine, Members of the 19 Commission, I'm asking you to make a bold 20 recommendation to Mr. Obama that he seize the 21 time and move America forward in space. 22 Thank you. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, thank you very 24 much. Your enthusiasm is certainly not 25 lacking, and we appreciate that and admire 60 1 it. I'm afraid our time is used up. So we 2 won't be able to ask any questions. We'll 3 read your book. 4 DR. ZUBRIN: All right. 5 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thanks for joining 6 us. 7 DR. ZUBRIN: Thank you. 8 MR. AUGUSTINE: We now are going to 9 turn to the issue of performing science 10 related to the human exploration program and 11 certainly its interaction with robotic 12 programs. We're going to hear four briefings 13 on this, different aspects of sciences. The 14 first will concern the biological and 15 physical sciences, and our briefer will be 16 Elizabeth Cantwell. 17 Thank you very much for joining us. 18 DR. CANTWELL: Good morning. Thank 19 you very much for having me. 20 It's a bit daunting to go after Bob 21 Zubrin, and I cannot bring the level of zest 22 that he does to the table. So we'll just 23 ratchet it down a little bit. 24 But I always appreciate you when you 25 speak. I've seen you many times, Bob. 61 1 As Mr. Augustine said, my name is 2 Betsy Cantwell. Several of you on the 3 committee have some familiarity with me. I 4 welcome this chance to discuss my experiences 5 and perspectives on life and physical 6 sciences in low gravity environments. I've 7 been a researcher for many years in this 8 area, a research manager and, perhaps for an 9 even longer time, a critiquer in the form of 10 many National Academy reports in this area. 11 I'm currently the cochair of the 12 National Academy of Sciences decadal study on 13 this subject. My cochair is Wendy Cort from 14 the University of Colorado, and as this study 15 has just kicked off, I will not have a lot to 16 report on our findings. I will have a couple 17 of slides where I discuss our approach. But 18 I do have a long career and a long 19 association with this research area, and I'll 20 use my own background and discussions with 21 colleagues to give you what I hope is a 22 useful perspective. Next slide, please. 23 A decadal study typically develops a 24 set of priority research topics for NASA and 25 options for implementation plans for future 62 1 missions. 2 (Discussion off the record.) 3 DR. CANTWELL: NASA has commissioned 4 decadal studies a number of times over the 5 years, and you'll hear from my colleagues 6 after me. 7 This is somewhat unusual. It was 8 requested by Congress to focus on a greater 9 understanding of life and physical sciences 10 phenomena in reduced gravity environments. 11 The objectives are fairly common for a 12 decadal study, but let me point out that NASA 13 has asked the National Academy to focus on 14 research areas that enable exploration 15 missions and are enabled by exploration 16 missions. And as a committee we've 17 assiduously tried to keep our focused on the 18 fought and the value that a research 19 portfolio in these areas can bring. 20 I will discuss this research 21 portfolio in the context of both enabled and 22 enabling, but I'm going to focus on enabling. 23 You'll see that they're hardly mutually 24 exclusive. On the bottom of this chart, let 25 me just point out there's a little graphic 63 1 that outlines the connection between life and 2 physical sciences in low gravity 3 environments, which is both some commonality 4 and relevant phenomenology -- and I'll give 5 you a little bit of a discussion about 6 that -- and exploration requirements. I'll 7 also discuss that. 8 And the steering committee for this 9 decadal study has discussed the commonality 10 elements between enabled and enabling, and 11 you'll see, as I talk, that there are a 12 number of commonalities. There's obvious 13 links between the two, but the key link that 14 I'd ask you to pay attention to is the need 15 for common infrastructure for research 16 laboratories in low and microgravity 17 environments. 18 I understand there's been a great 19 deal of discussion so far in both public and 20 private committee meetings regarding the ISS. 21 I have a place at the end of this talk for a 22 little bit of a discussion about that. Next 23 slide, please. 24 My last slide on our decadal study, 25 let me tell you about the seven subcommittees 64 1 that we're processing of populating with 2 experts. They will cover the basic areas of 3 expertise most relevant to life and physical 4 sciences in reduced gravity environments. 5 The country has some history in this area. 6 We also have a strong sense of the 7 need to address translational research as 8 systems elements of both human space farers 9 and space-faring hardware are such an 10 important potential end point for research in 11 this area. 12 The bottom line is that there's an 13 incredibly broad suite of research areas 14 bound tightly by infrastructure and systems 15 applications. Next slight, please. 16 Let me start with a short discussion 17 of science that can be enabled by access to 18 reduced gravity in environments. I'd like to 19 point out, as I begin, that there's a history 20 of research programs in all of these areas 21 that I'll discuss today, and most of the 22 research in these areas that might have 23 focused on reduced gravity environments over 24 the last decade has been reduced in cost by 25 about an order of magnitude or in budget. 65 1 I'm not actually going to discuss that. 2 I'm happy to answer questions, but 3 I'd like to point out that we've had at 4 various times in the history of this country 5 various sizes of research programs in this 6 area. It's down around $50 million at the 7 moment. I'd be happy to field other 8 questions, as I said, later. 9 In the life sciences, studies in 10 things like mechanobiology, topics like 11 cellular mechanotransduction, these are areas 12 where the absence of the ubiquitous 13 terrestrial mechanism of gravity will often 14 yield new results. Similarly gravitational 15 effect -- gravity affects behavior such as 16 gravitropism, and this is something that can 17 be uniquely studied in a low gravity 18 environment. 19 I'd like to point out that as we have 20 reduced our funding and studies in this area 21 both the Europeans and the Japanese -- the 22 international community in this area is very 23 robust at the moment. 24 Also in the physical sciences there's 25 a number of areas where gravity while not 66 1 inducing an effect can mask it substantially 2 in a terrestrial environment. So 3 investigations in phase transitions, for 4 instance, are uniquely able to produce new 5 results in a low gravity environment. 6 And in combustion physics, looking at 7 surface reactions or soot dynamics in the 8 absence of convection can and has elucidated 9 mechanisms that have not been seen in and are 10 very difficult to see in a terrestrial 11 environment. Next slide, please. 12 As a start to research that enables 13 exploration, I'm showing you here some 14 elements of human and exploration systems 15 that are relevant for life and physical 16 sciences. There are risks, and I've outlined 17 some risks here. And I've shown you mostly 18 risks for humans. There are also clearly 19 risk for hardware systems. There are also 20 system functions. There are a host of 21 requirements associated with expanding our 22 abilities to explore in space. 23 And that are numerous 24 gravity-dependent phenomena that are 25 imperfectly understood and play a role in all 67 1 of these areas. Next slide, please. 2 This is a busy slide and I'm not 3 going to cover every word, but I wanted to 4 give you a sense of where scientific 5 investigations can and, in many cases, must 6 play a role in some of the challenges 7 associated with human exploration. 8 What you see here is a graphic of two 9 of the exploration scenarios -- and there are 10 many more -- I know you all are well aware of 11 all of them -- with a representation of the 12 elements of exploration challenges that can 13 be addressed with research in life and 14 physical sciences research in low gravity. 15 You'll notice that there are 16 competencies such as radiation, various 17 elements of materials development or 18 materials understanding and multiphase flow 19 that show up all over the place. There are a 20 number of key research areas that must make a 21 contribution across the board to solving 22 these challenges. Next slide, please. 23 Okay. This slide is very small 24 selection of areas from across this research 25 portfolio where there are links to 68 1 terrestrial challenges. I show you this not 2 because I'm interested in demonstrating dual 3 use. My intention is to show that the 4 plethora of science commonalities across 5 exploration and terrestrial challenges do 6 exist. There are absolute science 7 commonalities. 8 Translation of these scientific 9 endeavors to meet either an exploration 10 challenge or a terrestrial challenge would 11 represent an entirely different set of 12 considerations. In other words, it takes a 13 different set of considerations to translate 14 a science endeavor to a terrestrial challenge 15 such as meeting our current energy portfolio 16 needs or an exploration challenge such as 17 aerospace energy or power. Next slide, 18 please. 19 On to research platforms, all of 20 these modalities that you see here, which is 21 everything from drop towers where you can get 22 about ten seconds of low gravity to the ISS 23 or -- something that doesn't exist today -- 24 planetary laboratories where there's a 25 continuous access to the reduced gravity 69 1 environment that we'd be interested in, are 2 useful, but it is ISS and something like a 3 planetary laboratory concept that hold the 4 most promise of utility because of the 5 continuous availability of a low gravity 6 environment. 7 So let me give you briefly the 8 perspective of my science community on the 9 ISS. Right now it is the only scientific 10 laboratory we have that makes low gravity 11 continuously available. It's all we've got. 12 Though we have hardly, in my decadal study, 13 begun looking at an integrated analysis of 14 research that we would like to see done, I 15 can tell you that there is a great deal of 16 important work to be done on ISS. 17 And if you're -- you know, while we 18 have not produced our results yet, there's a 19 very useful ESA study that's on the street 20 from September 2008 looking at their 21 integrated life and physical sciences 22 portfolio, and I recommend that to you. 23 We, the Europeans and the Japanese 24 all have in place experimental capabilities 25 to do life and physical sciences research on 70 1 ISS. And we finally have the ability to have 2 six crew members on board, which allows us a 3 lot more opportunity to utilize those 4 capabilities. 5 Let me just point out that, at least 6 from the perspective of my science community 7 in the life sciences, there's a lot that can 8 still be done on ISS to reduce human health 9 risks, most importantly bone and muscle. 10 There are immunological studies that are very 11 important to be done, cardiovascular, and, of 12 course, looking at the risks of radiation and 13 how to mitigate those. 14 And on the physical sciences -- and 15 these are really perhaps focused on 16 fundamental research but that can directly 17 impact and help almost any exploration future 18 you can predict -- cryogenic fluid mixing, 19 multiphase flows, which is an incredibly 20 difficult problem which we do not understand 21 at the levels that we need to understand it 22 and all kinds of heat transfer issues. And 23 the last slide, please. 24 So this is essentially the slide 25 that's just a distillation of everything I've 71 1 talked about. I wanted to make sure that I 2 had plenty of time to answer questions, if 3 you have them, about this portfolio. 4 I apologize for not being able to go 5 into greater detail about the considerations 6 of this particular study, but we have just 7 begun. We have a really remarkable group of 8 people who have signed up -- approximately 60 9 or 70 people who have signed up. I have a 10 19-person steering committee, and I will tell 11 you that many of them have come to the table, 12 once again, to provide recommendations 13 because they really believe in doing this 14 kind of work, even though many of them have 15 over the years seen their work funded at 16 lower and lower and lower levels. 17 So thank you. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 19 We do have time for questions. 20 So, Chris, do you want to start out? 21 DR. CHYBA: Thank you. 22 Thanks very much for that 23 presentation. At our last meeting in 24 Cocoa Beach we talked about a candidate set 25 of figures of merit that we would apply to 72 1 all of the scenarios that the committee is 2 going to consider, and one of those figures 3 of merit is going to be scientific -- it's 4 science -- value for science. Not that 5 that's necessarily the driver, but it's 6 clearly an important -- 7 DR. CANTWELL: YES. 8 DR. CHYBA: -- an important figure of 9 merit. 10 So what I'd like to do is try to -- 11 based on your presentation, to try to draw 12 some conclusions within this domain at 13 least -- 14 DR. CANTWELL: Yes. 15 DR. CHYBA: -- for how we might try 16 to scale different scenarios, and it seemed 17 to me -- but don't let me put words in your 18 mouth -- 19 DR. CANTWELL: Okay. 20 DR. CHYBA: -- that's why I'm 21 asking -- 22 DR. CANTWELL: I won't. 23 DR. CHYBA: -- the question -- that 24 the most directly relevant comment you 25 made -- and maybe the most important comment 73 1 you made in that respect was your comment 2 that the International Space Station and 3 planetary laboratory access hold the most 4 utility because of -- and planetary 5 laboratories hold the most utility because of 6 continuous access. 7 DR. CANTWELL: Yes. 8 DR. CHYBA: Would it be right, then, 9 for us to take from that that scenarios which 10 establish -- which either keep the ISS flying 11 for sometime or establish a long-term lunar 12 base or a Mars base are the most interesting 13 from the point of view of your science 14 because of that continuous access to lower 15 microgravity and scenarios that don't 16 establish those kind of bases are less 17 favored? Or if that's not right, tell me 18 what's right. 19 DR. CANTWELL: No. That's correct. 20 Certainly -- and let's talk about less 21 favored for a moment. 22 You just can't get as much -- and 23 we're talking about a science portfolio that 24 is focused on producing results that are -- 25 that allow us to make really valid scientific 74 1 statements. You've got to have continuous 2 access to experimental facilities that give 3 you the time on target so that you can get 4 enough data whatever statistical inferences 5 you need to make -- you know, science 6 typically requires access to scientific 7 facilities for a -- not just once but for 8 enough time or for -- and that can be perhaps 9 in however many shots you get of a large 10 laser, for instance, or continuous access. 11 Either way you look at it, it has to be a lot 12 of time on target. And in this case, that's 13 time in the relevant environment. 14 DR. AUSTIN: I'd like to follow up 15 with a question -- 16 DR. CANTWELL: Yes. 17 DR. AUSTIN: -- if I could. I 18 appreciate the need for time on target. 19 But could you also share your 20 perspective on the relative value of robotic 21 experimentation as well as -- you know, 22 clearly there's a need for human exposure 23 here in order to get the proof in the 24 pudding. 25 But have you made any assessments 75 1 about what the opportunities might be for 2 robotic excursions that may be valuable? 3 DR. CANTWELL: So certainly as a 4 committee we have not started -- we have not 5 had that discussion. So anything -- any 6 comments that I make are really personal 7 comments. 8 And my personal experience says that 9 there are times when one could envision 10 creating an autonomously operated laboratory. 11 However, my personal experience is that when 12 you really do top quality science in an 13 autonomous manner it is extremely expensive, 14 and it may not cost less than having a human 15 there to do it. 16 Yes... 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: Please, Jeff. 18 MR. GREASON: I've been getting a lot 19 of correspondence from people suggesting to 20 me that there's a factor that we haven't 21 talked about, which is, if you're going to 22 get good scientific utilization of the ISS, 23 it's not just a question of how much mass you 24 get up to and down from it but a question of 25 how frequently you can do so, that we could 76 1 do a lot more good science up there if you 2 could discover things and send new things up 3 or bring samples back with greater frequency 4 in time. 5 I'd like to hear your comment on 6 that. 7 DR. CANTWELL: Well, again, a 8 personal comment, but that's almost common 9 sense. The question is how much additional 10 value could we actually bring in the time -- 11 whatever that time is that we have left to 12 utilize station. 13 And I didn't make a very clear 14 comment, but let me say that those kinds of 15 considerations really ought to -- for this -- 16 this is an international science community, 17 and it's clear that there's a lot of 18 international capability on the station. 19 Those kinds of discussions should be held in 20 a -- with the international community. 21 MR. AUGUSTINE: Please, Leroy. 22 DR. CHIAO: I just have a quick 23 question about interest in the community. Of 24 course, there are a lot of -- a corps of 25 scientists that are very much interested in 77 1 continuing microgravity or other research in 2 space, but a lot of them have been burned 3 over the years and you've kind of alluded to 4 that. 5 My question is: If access became 6 more regular, perhaps through commercial 7 means, do you think that there would be a 8 resurgence in interest, or would there be 9 wariness in coming back? And particularly in 10 perhaps commercial ventures like perhaps 11 pharmaceutical companies. 12 DR. CANTWELL: I think you'll -- 13 well, again, this is a personal comment. I 14 think you'll see both. 15 There are members of the community -- 16 significant members of -- large numbers and 17 very well-known people who have been burned 18 in the sense that funding for these -- you 19 know, the way you build a science community 20 is not just money, but it is associated with 21 the amount of dollars and the length of time. 22 You need to guarantee people that they're 23 going to be able to get funding to do this 24 type of work for long enough to make 25 substantial -- I mean, what scientists live 78 1 for -- to make substantial findings within 2 their community. 3 However, there's also -- I think 4 there's a chance to rebuild this community 5 and -- as it was built 15 years ago, which is 6 with a real assiduous focus on bringing young 7 people into the community. 8 Everybody is going to watch and see, 9 were this to be funded at any level, again, 10 as to whether or not -- whether or not the 11 United States, in particular, were serious. 12 It's clear that the European community and 13 the Japanese community have been serious. 14 They have -- their funding levels have gone 15 up and down somewhat, but they have 16 maintained a community. We have -- we've not 17 really done that. 18 However, I don't see any reason why 19 you couldn't do that in the future through a 20 number of ways, and commercial is clearly one 21 of them, yes. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, thank you 23 very -- 24 DR. CANTWELL: Thank you. 25 MR. AUGUSTINE: -- much for your 79 1 comments. We're very appreciate of your 2 time. 3 Let's turn to the Earth sciences, and 4 our speaker will be Anthony Janetos. 5 Good morning. 6 DR. JANETOS: Thanks very much. 7 Could I have the first slide. 8 What I would like to talk about 9 today -- and thank you for the opportunity to 10 speak -- is the first decadal survey that has 11 been done for Earth sciences and 12 applications. Can I have the next slide, 13 please. 14 The vision for this study was -- and 15 I'll simply read it to you -- understanding 16 the complex, changing planet on which we 17 live, how it supports life and how human 18 activities affect its ability to do so in the 19 future is one of the greatest intellectual 20 challenges facing humanity. It is also one 21 of the most important for society as it seeks 22 to achieve prosperity and sustainability. 23 Let me just pause for a moment and 24 tell you something about some of the 25 background for the study and something about 80 1 the participants. If I could have the next 2 slide. 3 The background -- this study was 4 commissioned by NASA, NOAA and the 5 U.S. Geological Survey. Its charge was to 6 recommend a prioritized list of missions, 7 observations and supporting activities to 8 support national needs for research and 9 monitoring of the entire Earth system during 10 the next decade and beyond. 11 As this was the first decadal survey 12 that's been done for the Earth sciences, it 13 was governed by a steering committee of 14 18 members composed -- and was composed of 15 seven thematically organized study panels, 16 each of which had about a dozen members or so 17 each, ranging from an overall panel on Earth 18 science applications and societal needs, 19 which I was fortunate to chair, ranging 20 from -- to land use change and ecosystem 21 dynamics, weather, climate variability and 22 change, water resources and the hydrologic 23 cycle, human health and security and 24 solid-Earth hazards, resources and dynamics. 25 Can I have the next slide, please. 81 1 Objectives for each individual panel 2 were to identify general needs and 3 opportunities for space-borne observations to 4 advance our science over the next decade; to 5 propose programs or missions to meet those 6 needs; to rank those missions in priority 7 order; describe each one in terms of 8 scientific payoff, cost and potential 9 benefits; identify objections that could not 10 be made from space but would be necessary to 11 complement those observations; and to 12 identify and comment on other essential 13 components -- everything from data management 14 to power supplies, technological challenges 15 and management objectives. 16 The executive committee was, in one 17 sense, sort of a marvel of interdisciplinary 18 scientific interaction. Rick Anthes, 19 president of UCAR, and Berrien Moore, then at 20 the University of New Hampshire, cochaired 21 the committee. We had atmospheric chemists. 22 We had technical experts in remote-sensing 23 technologies. We had university professors. 24 We had people from operational weather 25 forecasting centers. We had people from the 82 1 national laboratories in a very wide range of 2 disciplines. 3 All of the executive committee, many 4 of the panel members, had extensive 5 experience both as principal investigators 6 and in some cases -- such as my own case, I 7 had a decade's worth of experience working at 8 NASA headquarters in the Earth Science 9 program. 10 The elements of the Study Task 11 Statement were, first, to review the status 12 of the field, develop our own consensus on 13 some of the top scientific questions to focus 14 environmental observations, taking into 15 account a whole series of users of 16 information and data in addition to the 17 scientific community and then make our 18 recommendations. Next, please. 19 These are the combinations of the 20 scientific and societal imperatives that we 21 identified. 22 The importance of understanding 23 climate change and its impacts -- certainly 24 one of the greatest challenges, both 25 scientifically and from a sustainability 83 1 standpoint in today's world. 2 The critical components of 3 understanding ice sheets, sea level and ocean 4 circulation as a part -- as a rapidly 5 changing part of the physical climate system. 6 Changes in precipitation and water 7 availability, both for its scientific 8 necessity for understanding the physical 9 climate system and, of course, for the 10 societal need of understanding where water 11 will be available not only today but it is 12 likely to be available in future decades. 13 The issue of transcontinental air 14 pollution in both generation and support -- 15 chemistry and support. 16 Changes in the response and, indeed, 17 the location of a whole variety of ecosystems 18 in response to changes in climate. 19 The critical nature of human health 20 responses to climate. 21 And the importance, both societally 22 and scientifically, of understanding extreme 23 events, both their location, their magnitude 24 and their frequency, in both the Earth 25 system, the geological system, and in the 84 1 climate system. Next, please. 2 This is the first decadal survey for 3 these communities and was tremendously 4 challenging. A huge organizational challenge 5 was how to cover all of the relevant 6 scientific and application themes as well 7 disciplines. It might have been useful in 8 retrospect to have had additional panels 9 focused on disciplines in addition to the way 10 that we were organized, but that perhaps will 11 be something that a subsequent decadal survey 12 may find useful advice. 13 There are a large amount of 14 multi-agency issues to confront in such a 15 study, which we wrestled with. This was a 16 set of recommendations not just for NASA but 17 for the operational programs of NOAA and for 18 the growing role of agencies such as the 19 USGS. 20 And, thirdly, there were important 21 changes in our baseline assumptions during 22 the study. The budgets for Earth science 23 during the period of this study declined 24 quite dramatically. The NPOESS program, the 25 interagency program between NOAA and NASA and 85 1 the Department of Defense went through what 2 we could only describe as a debacle during 3 this time period, from which it is really 4 only beginning to emerge. 5 We actually issued two reports. Our 6 first report was something that the -- that 7 our panel -- our committee and the NRC 8 decided to do. This was issued when we 9 were -- after we had been working for about a 10 year, I think. 11 This first bullet is a quotation from 12 the report. It's perhaps the strongest 13 statement that I've ever seen come out of a 14 NRC committee that I've had the pleasure of 15 serving on. "Today this system of 16 environmental satellites is at risk of 17 collapse." 18 I wish that were hyperbole. It was 19 not. Since that time and between then and 20 for about two years afterwards, there were 21 more delays, descoping and cancellations of 22 missions both at NOAA and at NASA. 23 In the final report what we 24 recommended were a set of 17 missions phased 25 over the next decade -- and I'm going to come 86 1 back to this in just a minute -- intended, in 2 part, to restore U.S. leadership in Earth 3 science and applications from space, averting 4 the potential collapse of the system of 5 environmental satellites on which we depend, 6 both for scientific insight, for a whole 7 range of societal needs and, in fact, for 8 many operational purposes as well. 9 We tried to represent this as an 10 integrated suite of missions. We took 11 recommendations from the panels. In fact, we 12 had done a very large call for ideas and 13 proposals. We had recommended to us well in 14 excess of 100 potential measurements and 15 missions. We worked for about a year on 16 trying to identify what we thought were the 17 most important of those. 18 We sequenced those missions. We 19 tried to match our sequence to -- the overall 20 cost of that sequence to a combination of 21 anticipated resources plus what we felt was 22 reasonable growth in the Earth Science 23 Objection programs. 24 In so doing, we also took some pains 25 to maintain the highest priorities, although 87 1 I will say not all of the priorities of each 2 panel. And then at the end of this, what we 3 tried to do was issue some guidance on how to 4 handle the inevitable budgetary or technology 5 development problems. Can I have the next 6 slide. 7 An overarching recommendation from 8 the committee was that the Office of Science 9 and Technology Policy, in collaboration with 10 the relevant agencies and in consultation 11 with the scientific community, should develop 12 and implement a plan for sustaining global 13 Earth observations. It should recognize the 14 complexity of differing agency roles, 15 responsibility and capabilities as well as 16 some of the hard lessons that we've learned, 17 both from, for example, the Landsat mission, 18 the suite of missions around the 19 Earth-Observing System and NPOESS. Next 20 slide, please. 21 For currently planned -- what at that 22 time were currently planned observing 23 systems, we had two key recommendations -- 24 launching a global precipitation mission by 25 2012, obtaining a replace for the Landsat 7 88 1 data before 2012. This is also known as the 2 Landsat data continuity mission. 3 We also recommended that NASA 4 continue to seek both cost-effective and 5 innovative means of obtaining land cover 6 change information. This had -- I have to 7 say that this had particular relevance to me, 8 because during my career at NASA I had the 9 privilege of being the Landsat 7 program 10 scientist. Next slide, please. Next slide. 11 For NOAA we recommended, in 12 particular, an increased investment in 13 putting the research results and research 14 observations in a truly operational program, 15 initiating missions for vector ocean winds, 16 for GPS radio occultation mission and for 17 ensuring that we had total solar irradiance 18 and an Earth radiation budget instruments 19 restored to NPOESS. 20 For NASA, out of our 17 missions, we 21 identified 15 in categories -- in a sense, in 22 budgetary categories but that are also phased 23 in time. Next, please. 24 I'll show you the spreadsheet of the 25 missions in a minute. There's clearly not 89 1 time to go through each one in detail. 2 Let me share with you some of our 3 additional recommendations for what are 4 essentially managing such an ambitious Earth 5 Observation program. Several are related to 6 technology development. 7 NASA is going to have to continue to 8 invest in both mission focus and 9 cross-cutting technology development to both 10 decrease risk in missions and promote cost 11 reduction across multiple missions. 12 We strongly recommended that a new 13 venture class of lost cost missions be 14 created to foster innovation and to train 15 future leaders. 16 Many of us, in a sense, grew up 17 scientifically in the space program during a 18 period in which it was essentially necessary 19 to bet the major fraction of one's research 20 career that a mission would succeed. Such a 21 model is not, in fact, sustainable in the 22 long run and an inherently risky business. 23 The original programs that were instituted 24 to, in a sense, get out of that bind saw 25 mission costs increase to the point where 90 1 they were essentially as large as the 2 previous large missions had been. Next, 3 please. 4 Secondly, to manage technology risks, 5 what we tried to do was sequence these 6 missions according both to budget risk 7 factors and our assessment of their 8 technological readiness and that at this 9 time, particularly for missions that we felt 10 to be more challenging, which we then rushed 11 to the right, that there needed to be 12 technological investments made in order to 13 try to reduce technological risk of those 14 missions succeeding. 15 If it turned out that there were 16 insufficient funds to execute the missions in 17 those time frame, it will still be important 18 to make advances on the key technological 19 hurdles and to establish that readiness 20 through documented technology demonstrations 21 before mission development phase. Next, 22 please. 23 Third, that we should leverage 24 international efforts. Earth observation 25 clearly does not occur in a vacuum. The 91 1 Europeans, the Japanese, the Brazilians and 2 Chinese have active programs in Earth 3 observations, and it's particularly important 4 to leverage those effort. There have been 5 many -- there have been many successful 6 examples of this in the past TOPEX/Poseidon, 7 for example. 8 Our recommendation in this domain was 9 to restructure or even defer missions if 10 international partners themselves select 11 missions which meet most of the measurement 12 objectives, but if that is done, then it is 13 critical then to establish data access 14 agreements and establish science teams, which 15 has not always been done in the past. And, 16 where appropriate, if an international 17 partner identifies missions which meets our 18 requirements, it may be effective for NASA to 19 offer cost-effective additions to those 20 missions. Next, please. 21 We've heard the opinion from some 22 since this study was published that the 23 recommended budget envelope was outside the 24 realm of practicality. In fact, the 25 recommended budget envelop was essentially a 92 1 return to the investment that NASA was making 2 in Earth science observations around the year 3 2000. The notion that the United States 4 cannot afford to have the same investment in 5 critical Earth observations that it had a 6 decade ago was a conclusion that we rejected. 7 Nevertheless, this is the real world 8 we live in, and there will always be budget 9 pressures. And so what we tried to do in our 10 programmatic recommendations was give some 11 guidance to NASA and, in fact, to NOAA about 12 how they could -- how they ought to respond 13 in the inevitable world that there are 14 budgetary pressures, technological challenges 15 that turn out to be more expensive than one 16 could easily anticipate a decade earlier, 17 first, by canceling missions that 18 substantially overrun, second, by maintaining 19 a broad research program under reduced agency 20 funds by accepting greater mission risks 21 rather than by descoping mission and science 22 requirements to aggressively seek both 23 international and commercial partners to 24 share mission costs and, rather than 25 evaluating mission by mission the classical 93 1 way of dealing with risk, to reevaluate the 2 set of missions periodically and in so 3 doing -- not doing this strictly as an agency 4 activity but by seeking broad input from the 5 scientific community when that is done. 6 I won't pretend to go through each of 7 the 17 missions in detail. We've got 8 everything in here from backscatter radars to 9 GPS radio occultation to much more complex 10 and challenging missions using -- with laser 11 altimeters and, in the far future, 12 hyperspectral spectrometers for a wide 13 variety of scientific needs. If I could have 14 the next slide, however, rather than go 15 through this. 16 For each one of these missions, 17 however, in the decadal survey, we tried to 18 do several things, and one is to provide a 19 detailed description of both the 20 measurements, what we could anticipate in 21 terms of instrumentation, what we could 22 anticipate in terms of mission costs and how 23 one would use the measurements from each of 24 those missions to -- how they might be used 25 to address both scientific challenges and 94 1 challenges related to the societal benefit 2 areas. Next slide. And that is my last 3 slide. 4 And then, in addition, for each of 5 the societal benefit areas, how the suite of 6 missions, if implemented, could be used 7 scientifically and, in some cases, 8 operationally to begin to address those 9 challenges. 10 So let me stop there. There's a 11 series of backup slides. The study was 12 published the year before last. The initial 13 response, both in Congress and in the 14 agencies, was, I think fair to say, quite 15 positive. There have clearly been challenges 16 in implementing, both programmatic challenges 17 and budgetary challenges, but several of 18 these missions have already been selected for 19 study development and beginning to -- the 20 early stages of beginning to be ready for 21 flight. 22 Thanks very much. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 24 And before we take a couple of questions, I 25 should acknowledge that one of our 95 1 colleagues, Sally Ride, I think, has joined 2 us by teleconference. 3 Sally, are you able to hear us? 4 DR. RIDE: Yes, I am. Can you hear 5 me, Norm? I appreciate the opportunity to 6 join you, if only by phone. 7 MR. AUGUSTINE: Terrific. Sally, 8 thank you, and if you have any questions, 9 please feel free to speak up. In fact, we'll 10 give you first shot right now if you had 11 anything you wanted to ask. 12 DR. RIDE: Actually I don't, but I do 13 want to thank the speaker. I thought that 14 was a very, very interesting presentation on 15 an extremely important and relevant topic. 16 MR. AUGUSTINE: I had a question I 17 wanted to ask, and that would be: Could you 18 indicate to us the importance of human space 19 flight in terms of the things you talked 20 about? 21 DR. JANETOS: In the discussions of 22 the committee, we did not focus primarily on 23 the role of human space flight or the role 24 of -- potential role of the ISS. There has 25 been a tradition in the agency not always for 96 1 imagers but for other types of measurements 2 of actually, in a sense, using the shuttle as 3 a vehicle for doing -- launching pilot 4 demonstrations. This is particularly true 5 for some of the atmospheric chemistry 6 missions and for the laser altimeters where 7 the -- in a sense, what was turning out to be 8 a regular or a quasi-regular access to space 9 was useful for doing these kinds of pilot 10 demonstrations. 11 MR. AUGUSTINE: Are there other 12 questions? 13 Chris... 14 MR. CHYBA: Thanks, Norm. I should 15 have said when the last speaker spoke -- just 16 to thank all of the science speakers today. 17 Because of the pace of this committee, I know 18 that all of you have had to come here on 19 short notice and put together presentations. 20 So it's really an impressive job that 21 everyone is doing. 22 In 2005 there were a lot of reports 23 in the press about cuts to the Earth 24 science/Earth-observing budget putatively 25 driven by human space flight overruns or 97 1 needs for growing budgets. I was struck that 2 your group didn't identify any important 3 missions that human space flight would 4 enable, and it sounds as though you didn't 5 focus on that question. 6 I guess I have three questions. The 7 first is that -- is that because your group 8 simply didn't consider it likely that there 9 would be very high priority missions that 10 would be enabled by human space flight? 11 And I had two questions, that, and 12 then my second question is -- and as I said 13 to the last speaker, don't let me put words 14 in your mouth -- should we take away from the 15 fact that you identified 17 missions and none 16 of those have any important dependence on 17 human space flight -- should we take away 18 from that that the single biggest thing we 19 need to make sure of with respect to Earth 20 science objections is that human space flight 21 not eat your lunch? 22 Because, you know, we can -- we could 23 make a recommendation that there be a 24 firewall and that, you know, the single most 25 important thing is that human space flight do 98 1 not harm in this realm. 2 DR. JANETOS: I don't think you're 3 going to find that quote in the report. I 4 will say -- and, I think, as with the 5 previous speaker, these are my words, not the 6 committee's words -- the period of greatest 7 progress, both scientifically and 8 programmatically, for the development of the 9 Earth-observing systems that we have 10 essentially came during a time when there was 11 such a firewall. I take away from that that 12 the existence of that firewall was critical 13 for the continued development, implementation 14 and, in fact, the programmatic sustainability 15 of a system of measurements on which, in 16 fact, we depend and will continue to depend. 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: We have time for one 18 more question. 19 Leroy... 20 DR. CHIAO: Yeah. Kind of just to 21 keep on the topic of human space flight and 22 Earth observation, as you -- I'm sure you're 23 well aware that astronauts take tens of 24 thousands of photos. In fact, on my ISS 25 missions I took over 16,000 photos of the 99 1 Earth. And we are told by scientists when we 2 come back that those photos are appreciated 3 and many times, in specifically targeted 4 cases, could not have been done better by 5 remote-sensing satellite. 6 And so, you know, there's a little 7 bit of a disconnect here, and I wonder if you 8 could comment on that. Again, kind of 9 repeating what Chris just said, is it that 10 you just didn't look at that element, or are 11 we being flattered and our work really isn't 12 that important? 13 MR. JANETOS: Let me see how to say 14 this because some of my best friends have 15 taken those photos. 16 The photos -- the photography is 17 important, it's a visible means of -- it's a 18 set of information that is -- it's important 19 for public acceptance for getting a visual 20 sense of what is happening. In terms of 21 actually doing quantitative analysis, it is, 22 I think, marginally useful. 23 ISS is, in fact, not a very good 24 platform for consistent quantitative 25 observations of the Earth's surface. It 100 1 would be -- it's not stable enough. The 2 phemora are not as well known as they are for 3 the robotic platforms. 4 It has a -- because of the orbit, you 5 can't actually see the whole Earth, and so 6 for many of the applications for which -- on 7 which the community -- both the scientific 8 committee depends and on which the 9 operational communities depend, it would not 10 be the first choice. That is not to say that 11 observation -- that opportunistic 12 observations from that platform don't have a 13 role. I think they do and they could. 14 But what we were really trying to do 15 was identify the set of missions that we 16 could not -- that, in our judgment, we could 17 not and should not do without. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much 19 for your comments. 20 DR. JANETOS: Thank you. 21 MR. AUGUSTINE: We appreciate it. 22 Let's turn to the subject of 23 astronomy and astrophysics, and our briefer 24 will be Marcia Rieke. 25 DR. RIEKE: And I'd like the first 101 1 slide, please. 2 So astronomers have done decadal 3 surveys for a long time. And, in fact, we 4 have just started last December our sixth 5 such survey, and we're calling this one 6 Astro2010. And it is to set the priorities 7 for the next ten years for astronomy and 8 astrophysics, and our sponsors, of course, 9 are NASA and the National Science Foundation 10 and, for the first time, the Department of 11 Energy. 12 And because we are midstream in this 13 study, I want to emphasize that this 14 presentation really represents my personal 15 views and one shouldn't construe that what 16 I'm saying may have something to do with the 17 final report. Obviously I'm participating 18 and know, but I want to be clear on that 19 point. Let's go to the second chart, please. 20 Astronomers have had a long 21 relationship with human space flight. Of 22 course, our flagship mission right now, the 23 Hubble Space Telescope, would be nowhere if 24 astronomers -- if astronauts had not been 25 willing to risk their lives to fix our 102 1 telescope. And it's an understatement to say 2 that astronomy is very grateful to them. 3 We also have a long-standing 4 tradition of using the Moon when appropriate. 5 Astronauts left retro-reflectors on the 6 Moon's surface, and a very long data set has 7 been gathered that have allowed a lot of 8 interesting tests of gravitational theories 9 using those data. And so we can see that 10 over 40 years we've had a relationship with 11 the human space program. Let's go to the 12 next slide, please. 13 And there are some regions where 14 there -- areas of research where there have 15 been very unanticipated connections between 16 what we've learned as a result of, for 17 example, the lunar samples that astronauts 18 brought back from the Moon and how that now 19 is connecting with research that is ongoing. 20 The plot that you see in the lower 21 left corner shows the age in mega-years of 22 some stars, and what's plotted in the 23 vertical direction is how much -- essentially 24 how much material is still orbiting those 25 stars. And you can see that there's a very 103 1 rapid decay over a few hundreds of millions 2 of years of that material. 3 And if we look then go and look at 4 the upper plot, that shows the date of 5 cratering within the solar system, and the 6 rapid decline of crater formation is on 7 approximately the same time scale as what we 8 see in terms of clearing of dust around other 9 stars. And the stellar time scales come 10 from, you know, other astrophysical 11 considerations, and the solar sytem times 12 scale comes from radioactive age dating of 13 the lunar rocks. And who would have thought 14 that rocks collected in 1970 would have a 15 bearing on research that astronomers are 16 doing with the Spitzer Space Telescope now. 17 So you never know exactly what 18 connection might come out of things, but I 19 find it remarkable that these two different 20 time scales can now be tied together to reach 21 a conclusion about how planetary systems may 22 be in their initial stages of formation in 23 this material around the other stars and so 24 on. Let's go to next slide please. 25 You asked two questions that you 104 1 wanted scientists to answer. And the first 2 was to give examples of important science 3 objectives that the Human Space Flight 4 program could address, for example, in the 5 next decade. 6 Now, when NASA chartered Astro2010, 7 they did not ask us to address the impact of 8 human space flight or how we might take 9 advantage of it directly. But we've received 10 over 400 inputs from the broad astronomical 11 community. We asked for white papers on 12 technology development science missions, and 13 a few of these mention a connection with the 14 Human Space Flight program. These were not 15 connections, you know, that we directly 16 requested. This just came out of what the 17 community is thinking. 18 And a sampling of these ideas are 19 placing new retro-reflectors on the Moon that 20 would enable more -- even more precise 21 measurements; deployment of radio telescopes 22 on the back side of the Moon, which is a very 23 ambitious program and, I think, would 24 probably be not in this decade but several 25 dates hence; and the use of newly developed 105 1 launch vehicles for astronomical missions. 2 I'm sure you're all aware that astronomers 3 are nothing if not ambitious, and the bigger 4 the rocket, the bigger the telescope we can 5 think of putting into space. 6 But there are actually some other 7 clever ideas for using some of the launch 8 vehicles. There's one proposal in our stack 9 of items that I didn't put on the slide, but 10 it's to put a laser on Phobos to send back 11 pulses so that one gets around having to send 12 the light to there and back as you do with 13 the lunar retro-reflector. 14 So there's some connections here, but 15 I don't want to -- you know, we haven't 16 reached a conclusion of which of these ideas 17 we might support in this end, which would be 18 the most -- what would be the most important 19 to astronomical research. But I have to say 20 that it would be unfair to say that 21 astronomers are demanding humans in space for 22 their research programs based on what we've 23 received from the community so far. There 24 are places where astronomers will take 25 advantage of the opportunities if there are 106 1 things there, but there isn't something 2 that's absolutely demanding that a person be 3 there. 4 And, of course, there are some 5 engineering connections. What Hubble has 6 taught us is that it's very convenient if 7 astronauts can go visit your telescope. And 8 so with the trend to moving toward telescopes 9 that would be in positions like the L2 point, 10 being able to get there and do something 11 might be a very useful capability. Let's go 12 to the next slide. 13 Your second question was how science 14 and exploration could be mutually supportive. 15 And, of course, this is a question where, I 16 think, astronomy and human space flight share 17 a lot together. Astronomy, of course, is 18 essentially the exploration of places that we 19 have no hope of getting to, but there are 20 very many connections with that work and 21 where we can go explore. 22 So, for example, if you go through 23 these many responses that we've gotten from 24 the full community, many now are addressing 25 looking for other solar systems outside of 107 1 our own. And one might almost characterize 2 this as becoming a big business in astronomy 3 now. There are many, many different thrusts 4 in terms of trying to find planets around 5 other stars. 6 And the planet discoveries are 7 accumulating very rapidly. The recently 8 launched Kepler mission will actually, we 9 hope, quantify the number of Earth-life 10 planets around other stars. And a new field 11 of transit studies where a planet in orbit 12 around another star actually eclipses it from 13 our point of view, one can learn a lot about 14 that planet from careful study of those data. 15 And another connection between 16 astronomy and human space flight comes in the 17 realm of studying violent events, both 18 violent events within our own solar system 19 caused by the Sun and those caused elsewhere 20 in the galaxy but which can have an effect on 21 the near Earth and inner solar system 22 environments. And so that's a realm where 23 what astronomers want to learn sheds light on 24 human safety factors. And I think it's safe 25 to say that a lot of the solar research that 108 1 has been done on flares is quite relevant to 2 human space flight. Let's go to the next 3 slide. 4 Just to give you a sense of this 5 discovery of other planets, you can see how 6 quickly the number of planets being 7 discovered has gone up since the initial 8 discovery in 1989 to now, and, of course, 9 2009 the bar isn't very high because we're 10 not all of the way through the year yet. 11 The different colors indicate the 12 different strategies for finding the planets. 13 And if you go through the list of planets 14 being discovered, ones as small as Uranus and 15 Neptune sizes are now being found. So we're 16 getting close to the Holy Grail of finding an 17 Earth-size planet. And as I mentioned 18 before, transit observations are giving us 19 detailed information on the atmospheric 20 characteristics of other planets. Let's go 21 to No. 7, please. 22 So what are the goals for astronomers 23 in this realm? They are to find other 24 planetary systems that look like our own 25 solar system. 109 1 And the plot in the upper left shows 2 a blue band that's the habitable zone and 3 with our own solar system at the top and then 4 a depiction of a system of four planets 5 around another star with the unattractive 6 name of Gliese 561 (sic), which just 7 happens -- Gliese was the man that cataloged 8 the star. 9 It's a cooler star than the Sun, so 10 its habitable zone moves in a little bit 11 closer to the star, and you can see from the 12 numbers there that planets only a few times 13 bigger than the Earth have been found around 14 this star. And, in fact, one planet does 15 appear to be within that star's habitable 16 zone, and that's an active area of research 17 to find out what the characteristics of that 18 planet might be, can we see evidence for 19 water and so on. 20 And the picture in the lower left 21 shows the orbits around -- of planets around 22 another star that mimic what our own inner 23 solar system looks like. And, of course, the 24 big picture questions are, you know, how do 25 these planetary systems form and evolve, what 110 1 can that tell us about our own solar system 2 and, conversely, what can studying our solar 3 system tell us about these others, can we 4 find evidence for life elsewhere. And 5 understanding our own planetary system is 6 essential for informing these kinds of 7 astronomical goals. Let's go to the next 8 slide, please. 9 This is a very complicated slide, and 10 I won't go through all of the data sets here. 11 But one thing I want to just impress on 12 people is that the plot on the upper left 13 shows data taken by the Hubble Space 14 Telescope studying a planet that transits 15 another star, and the pattern of dips in 16 brightnesses with wavelength for that 17 observation matches best with methane and 18 water. 19 And if you look at the plot in the 20 lower left, there are two spectra from Pluto 21 and Charon in our own solar system, one of 22 which is largely covered with water, the 23 other one of which, Pluto, in the spectrum is 24 dominated methane. And by comparing what we 25 see from our own solar sytem to other 111 1 planets, we're going the learn much more 2 about each of them. 3 The picture on the right is more data 4 from the Spitzer Space Telescope where we're 5 actually, by using this transit technique, 6 able to map out the temperatures on the 7 surface of another planet and to get a 8 feeling of whether the rotation matters the 9 most or atmospheric circulation and so on. 10 And I find it remarkable that we can learn 11 that much about a planet around another star, 12 and we can then begin to compare it with what 13 we learn from the different circumstances 14 within our own solar system. Let's go to the 15 next slide, please. 16 Now, the other topic I mentioned 17 where there's considerable mutual interest 18 has to do with what we might call violence in 19 the universe, and, of course, the most -- the 20 closest to home violence comes from our very 21 own Sun. And there's a very active area of 22 research to try to understand exactly what it 23 is that causes the 11- and 22-year solar 24 cycles, what causes the Sun's magnetic field 25 to change the way that it does, how does all 112 1 of that cycle drive, in detail, the formation 2 of flares, what is it that makes a coronal 3 mass ejection actually happen, why doesn't 4 that happen from all of the active spots. 5 And it's a key goal for solar 6 physicists to be able to predict why these 7 things happen, and obviously being able to 8 predict rather than just look and see that 9 there's a sunspot group that might cause a 10 problem -- being able to actually predict 11 would be much, much more satisfying for 12 safety of humans in space. And there is a 13 lot of hope in the community that the 14 advances in numerical simulations and larger 15 data sets are going to be able to get us much 16 closer to this predictability goal. 17 And for looking at long-term time in 18 space, you know, there's a question about 19 whether the solar cycle now is representative 20 or not, and by studying the cycles of other 21 stars like the Sun, we may also be able to 22 shed light on that question. And 23 interestedly enough, looking at the solar 24 cycle -- or the equivalent of the solar cycle 25 on other stars is actually a by-product of 113 1 searching for planets. Because this key 2 technique of looking for repetitive changes 3 in a star's output by transits, for those 4 astronomers, the star's intrinsic cycle like 5 our Sun's solar cycle is kind of a weed and 6 an annoyance, but it means that you've 7 gathered a lot of other relevant data for 8 understanding those kinds of cycles. Let's 9 go to No. 10. 10 And we already know that there are a 11 lot of galactic cosmic rays that come through 12 our solar system and are clearly a hazard to 13 people in space, and studying those kind of 14 cosmic rays has been something astronomers 15 have done for a long time and will continue 16 to be a source -- a target of study. But 17 we've recently discovered that there's some 18 other objects in the universe that are much 19 more dangerous than we might have originally 20 ever thought. 21 We've know for a long time that 22 objects emit lots of x-rays and gamma-rays, 23 and in late 2004 there was an object called a 24 magnetar or a magnetized neutron star, a dead 25 end of the evolution of a star somewhat more 114 1 massive than our Sun, emitted a flare of 2 gamma-rays that was so strong that it 3 actually disrupted our atmosphere down to a 4 depth of about 20 kilometers. The peak 5 strength of this flare was really only 6 registered by particle detectors on a mission 7 designed to study the Sun largely called 8 Rossi and its particle detectors could still 9 function and detect these gamma-rays at the 10 peak and then other satellites unsaturated 11 and came back on line. 12 This object was way on the other side 13 of the Milky Way from us, and I believe there 14 was an estimate that it might have caused as 15 much exposure to someone on the Space Station 16 as a dental x-ray. It turned out the Space 17 Station was on the opposite side of the Earth 18 when this flare went off, so it didn't matter 19 anyway. 20 But if you imagine that, you know, we 21 don't have a very complete census of these 22 kinds of objects, if there are ones 23 significantly closer -- and there are 24 certainly a lot of candidates within the 25 Milky Way -- it could be an unpleasant 115 1 experience to have that many gamma-rays go 2 through you. They might be easily shielded 3 from, but just another thing to keep in the 4 back of one's mind, that there may be more 5 hazards than we're used to thinking about. 6 Let's go to the next slide. 7 So I want to summarize by saying that 8 astronomers have welcomed past opportunities 9 to take advantage of what human space flight 10 offers in terms of opportunities, and we 11 will, no doubt, take advantage of the 12 opportunities presented in the future. 13 I have to say that there may be some, 14 you know, budget issues. If we want to 15 piggyback something on and we have to pay the 16 entire cost of a human space flight, we'll 17 have to discuss what those kinds of budget 18 issues might mean, but the mere fact of 19 humans going into space present opportunities 20 that astronomers will, no doubt, take 21 advantage of. 22 And if I tried to predict what the 23 most significant scientific result from such 24 an enterprise would be right now, I think I 25 would be undoubtedly wrong. That's the 116 1 lesson from the past, that things you don't 2 predict end up being the most interesting. 3 And I think these two topic areas 4 that I highlighted -- you know, studying 5 planets around other stars, searching for 6 signs of life from those planets and studying 7 the violent universe -- are areas where 8 there's a lot of mutual interest between 9 astronomical research and human space flight. 10 Thanks. 11 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 12 We have time for about one question. 13 Would anyone want to raise one? 14 Chris, you're our expert here. 15 Please... 16 DR. CHYBA: Thank you very much for 17 that presentation. I'll try to do this -- 18 the same sort of thing I did at the last two 19 presentations. 20 What I'm taking away -- if we think 21 about figures of merits for possible 22 architectures, what I'm taking away from this 23 is twofold. 24 One is architectures that would favor 25 an ability to service astronomical 117 1 observatories, including astronomical 2 observatories at Lagrange points, would be 3 favored by your community and, besides that, 4 do no harm. 5 DR. RIEKE: Exactly. And I think we 6 would also favor the ability to get detailed 7 sample returns or chemical evidence that we 8 could relate to what we see from planets 9 around other stars. 10 MR. AUGUSTINE: Does anyone else have 11 a short question? If not, I think we're all 12 set. 13 Thank you very much for sharing your 14 thoughts with us. 15 Then we come to the final briefing of 16 this series. That will be on planetary 17 science. Steve Squyres will be presenting 18 that. 19 Good morning, Steve. 20 DR. SQUYRES: Good morning, and thank 21 you very much for the chance to appear before 22 this committee. 23 Like the other speakers, I should 24 stress that my opinions are my own and do not 25 represent the views of the National Research 118 1 Council or any other organization. 2 I'd like to begin by very briefly 3 reviewing some of the most important 4 questions in planetary science as expressed 5 in the most recent NRC decadal survey. These 6 questions are significant because they were 7 derived from scientific first principles 8 without particular regard for the means by 9 which they might be answered. 10 The complete list of questions can be 11 found in the NRC report entitled the "New 12 Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated 13 Exploration Strategy." And I encourage you 14 to look at that report. 15 I'll just mention a few of highlights 16 here. So some of the questions like: 17 What processes marked the initial 18 stages of planet and satellite formation? 19 What's the history of volatile 20 compounds, especially water, across the solar 21 system? 22 What's the nature of organic matter 23 in the solar system, and how has this matter 24 evolved? 25 Why have the terrestrial planets 119 1 differed so dramatically from one another in 2 their evolutions? 3 What planetary processes are 4 responsible for generating and sustaining 5 habitable worlds, and where are the habitable 6 zones in this solar system? 7 Does -- or did -- life exist beyond 8 the Earth? 9 And there are others. These are big 10 questions, and they span all of planetary 11 science. 12 Now, that decadal survey also 13 described a suite of missions that could 14 address these scientific questions. Again, a 15 complete list of missions is available in the 16 report. Those missions include: 17 A Kuiper Belt-Pluto explorer. That's 18 a Pluto flyby. It's happening now. 19 A South Pole-Aitken Basin sample 20 return. That's a robotic sample return 21 mission from the Moon. 22 Jupiter polar orbiter with probes. 23 A Venus in-situ explorer. That's a 24 Venus lander. 25 Comet surface sample return. 120 1 Europa geophysical explorer. 2 Mars Science Laboratory. And more. 3 Now, this, of course, is not an 4 exhaustive list of the kind of missions that 5 could be flown in the time period of interest 6 to this committee, but it does illustrate the 7 breadth of techniques that have to be applied 8 to answer the most important scientific 9 questions identified by the NRC. 10 The first point I would like to make 11 is that most of the missions that address the 12 most important questions in planetary science 13 would not benefit from the presence of human 14 explorers. Planetary flybys, planetary 15 orbiters, atmospheric entry probes, landers 16 to environmentally hostile bodies like Venus 17 are all best done robotically, and I believe 18 they will continue to be. 19 However, there's an important subset 20 of planetary exploration that can benefit 21 from human space flight, and these are 22 missions to the surfaces of solid bodies 23 whose surface conditions are not too hostile 24 for humans. 25 Now, it's conceivable that in the 121 1 distant future humans could explore some 2 planetary surface environments that seemed 3 too hostile today, including things like the 4 polar regions of Mercury, moons of the outer 5 planets, comet nuclei and so forth. But for 6 the time period of greatest interest to this 7 committee, I believe that humans can only 8 realistically explore the surfaces of the 9 Moon, Mars and some asteroids. And I will, 10 therefore, restrict the remainder of my 11 comments to just those bodies. 12 Now, much has been said about the 13 relative merits of human and robotic space 14 exploration. My own opinion is that both 15 have advantages and disadvantages and that, 16 given sufficient resources, the best approach 17 is one that uses each in the most effective 18 way. 19 My own personal views on this subject 20 were shaped, in part, by my experiences doing 21 research in ice-covered lakes in the 22 Dry Valleys of Antarctica. There we used 23 robotic techniques -- a remotely operated 24 underwater vehicle -- to perform the initial 25 exploration of the lake bottom. The robot 122 1 provided a safe, effective and inexpensive 2 way of answering the most basic questions 3 about a very complex and hostile environment. 4 After those questions had been answered, we 5 then used scuba gear to investigate the lake 6 bottom ourselves. 7 The key point is that the first-order 8 knowledge that we gained from the robotic 9 exploration allowed us to make expensive and 10 hazardous dive operations -- EVAs, if you 11 will -- much more scientifically productive 12 than they would have been otherwise. Armed 13 with the knowledge that we had gained from 14 the robots, we had well-defined objectives 15 and plans for each dive that let us tackle 16 the most complicated questions on the lake 17 bottom very quickly and effectively. 18 Now, given enough time, could we have 19 built robots that would have -- that could 20 have done the same jobs that we did in our 21 scuba gear? Yeah, probably, but we would 22 have needed many cycles of design, use and 23 redesign. 24 Humans have an extraordinary ability 25 to function in complex environments, to 123 1 improvise and to respond quickly to new 2 discoveries. Robots, in contrast -- and this 3 is a key point -- do best when the 4 environment is simple and well understood and 5 the scientific tasks for that robot are well 6 defined in the advance. 7 There are also lessons, I think, to 8 be learned from the missions of the Mars 9 rovers Spirit and Opportunity. One is that 10 rovers like these accomplish their tasks much 11 more slowly than humans in the same 12 environment would. What Spirit and 13 Opportunity typically achieve in a day a 14 human explorer could do in less than a 15 minute. 16 The Opportunity rover has traversed 17 about 17 kilometers in its 18 five-and-a-half-year lifetime on Mars. This 19 is less than the distance covered by two 20 astronauts in their lunar roving vehicle in a 21 single EVA on Apollo 17. 22 The rovers have other limitations as 23 well. Spirit and Opportunity, of course, 24 have exceeded our wildest expectations 25 regarding longevity, operational flexibility 124 1 and science return, but they have also 2 encountered challenges for which they were 3 not designed and that they consequently have 4 been unable to meet. 5 The rovers can't dig deep holes in 6 the regolith. They cannot climb and descend 7 steep slopes. They cannot turn over rocks. 8 They often cannot position their cameras 9 where they're needed most. And they cannot 10 traverse some common forms of loose debris on 11 Mars without getting stuck. All of these 12 limitations have impacted their science 13 return, and all of them arise from the 14 complexity of their landing sites. 15 Again, given enough time for multiple 16 design and redesign cycles, all of these 17 problems probably could have been solved 18 robotically and probably could be resolved 19 robotically in the future. But humans in the 20 same environment could adapt to this 21 complexity much more effectively. 22 These experiences raise an important 23 point: Because the capabilities of humans 24 surpass those of robots in complex 25 environments, the scientific value that 125 1 humans add is in proportion to the complexity 2 of the environment that's being explored. 3 That's a critical point. 4 So which bodies are complex, and 5 which are less so? The Moon is an airless 6 body that has experienced mostly impacts, 7 volcanism and modest tectonism over its 8 history. Only impacts have occurred 9 recently. 10 Asteroids are more poorly understood 11 but are broadly similar to the Moon in their 12 complexity. 13 Mars, in contrast, is a much more 14 complicated world. It has experienced all of 15 the geologic processes that operate on the 16 Moon and asteroids and many more -- wind 17 transport and deposition, water transport and 18 deposition, glacial and a periglacial 19 processes, widespread tectonism and others. 20 Aqueous alteration and hydrothermal activity 21 have yielded complex mineralogy on Mars that 22 holds clues to past environmental conditions. 23 And there are intriguing clues that Mars once 24 had habitable conditions at its surface and 25 may have habitable niches below the surface 126 1 even today. 2 All of this complexity means that 3 human explorers can, in principle, contribute 4 more to the scientific exploration of Mars 5 than they can to any other body in the solar 6 system for the foreseeable future. 7 Now, given the strong scientific 8 appeal of Mars, it is reasonable to ask 9 whether or not there's high priority science 10 to be done at the Moon. Looking at the most 11 recent planetary decadal survey, the answer 12 to that question is an unequivocal and 13 emphatic yes. 14 Several of the most important 15 questions in planetary science deal with 16 understanding how planets form, how they 17 evolve and why the terrestrial planets are so 18 different from one another. Understanding 19 the Moon is central to these questions. 20 That's why the South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample 21 Return featured so prominently in the last 22 decadal survey report. That's why the GRAIL 23 mission was recently selected as part of 24 NASA's Discovery program. 25 So there is unquestionably a great 127 1 deal of important science to be done at the 2 Moon. It's my personal opinion, however, 3 that most of the really important lunar 4 science can be done robotically for the 5 reasons that I outlined above. 6 Now, let me address four specific 7 questions regarding the role of humans in 8 scientific exploration of the solar system. 9 First, if rovers -- if human 10 explorers -- excuse me -- are going to be 11 sent to planetary bodies, what's the most 12 cost-effective science that they can do? 13 Second, what important science does 14 sending humans enable? 15 Third, what science can robotic 16 systems do to help enable human exploration? 17 And, finally, what can human and 18 robotic systems accomplish together? 19 Regarding the first question, if NASA 20 is going to take on the substantial costs and 21 risks of sending humans to another planetary 22 body, there are important scientific tasks 23 that those humans can accomplish for 24 relatively little additional cost and risk. 25 Clearly the best example is sample return. 128 1 Human explorers are going to have to come 2 back to Earth, and when they do, it will be 3 relatively straightforward for them to bring 4 samples back with them. Moreover, humans can 5 do a better job than robotic systems of 6 selecting and collecting samples, 7 particularly on a geologically complex body 8 like Mars. 9 Now, let me stress that humans are 10 not required to bring back samples from the 11 Moon, asteroids or Mars. That can be done 12 robotically. But if humans are going to 13 visit these bodies, collecting and returning 14 high quality samples is one of the most 15 important scientific tasks that they can 16 carry out. Laboratory instruments surpass 17 flight instruments in quality. So the best 18 scientific work will be done with 19 well-documented return samples. 20 And samples can increase in 21 scientific value with time. Some of the best 22 science ever done with the Apollo samples is 23 being done today using instrumental 24 techniques that did not exist when the 25 samples were collected by scientists who had 129 1 not been born at the time. 2 Next I'd ask what high priority 3 science is enabled by the presence of humans; 4 i.e., what simply cannot be done without 5 humans there. The answer may be nothing if 6 we're willing to wait long enough, again, 7 enabling enough cycles of design and redesign 8 of robotic systems. But there are some very 9 important tasks that will require so much 10 equipment and infrastructure that it's hard 11 for me to imagine it all working without 12 humans on site to operate and maintain it. 13 Perhaps the best example is deep 14 drilling on Mars. If habitable conditions 15 exist on Mars today, they may be restricted 16 to depths of hundreds of meters or more where 17 liquid water is stable under current Martian 18 conditions. Deep drilling could be one of 19 the most important scientific tasks carried 20 out on Mars, but the equipment required to do 21 it could be very difficult to operate and 22 maintain without humans. 23 Robotic precursor missions can do 24 much to enable human exploration as was shown 25 by Ranger, Surveyor and lunar orbiter 130 1 missions that preceded Apollo. Orbital and 2 landed missions can be used to select landing 3 sites for their safety and for their 4 scientific potential. 5 Precursor landed missions can 6 characterize the environmental conditions on 7 a planet's surface and the threats that they 8 might pose to human health. This could be 9 particularly important on Mars where fine 10 airborne dust is pervasive. 11 Precursor missions can also 12 characterize the environment from engineering 13 perspective allowing better design of 14 vehicles, habitats and suits for humans. 15 And precursor missions can be used to 16 search for potential resources, including ice 17 and other water reservoirs on Mars, possible 18 ice at the lunar poles and materials ranging 19 from hydrocarbons to metals on asteroids. 20 Also there can be valuable 21 opportunities for humans and robots to work 22 together in exploring planetary surfaces. 23 The most recent space shuttle mission 24 demonstrated this potential with five EVAs 25 conducted in tandem with operations of the 131 1 robotic arm on the space station, the robotic 2 arm on the shuttle and the arm on the 3 Japanese Kibo Laboratory. 4 So as robotic technology advances, I 5 believe that human explorers on the Moon, on 6 asteroids or Mars will make extensive use of 7 robotic systems just as the astronauts on the 8 shuttle and space station do today. For 9 example, astronauts in orbit or on the 10 surface of asteroids or Mars will be able to 11 tele-operate rovers without the long time 12 lags and the need for autonomy that's 13 required by tele-operation from Earth. 14 Essentially all of the science that 15 humans will do on these bodies can be aided 16 by judicious use of robotic systems just as 17 we used robotic systems to amplify the 18 science return from our dives in the Dry 19 Valleys. 20 Finally, I would be ignoring a 21 critical issue if I did not comment on the 22 cost effectiveness of human versus robotic 23 space exploration. I have argued that humans 24 or humans aided by robots can carry out 25 scientific exploration of planetary surfaces, 132 1 particularly complex ones, more effectively 2 than robots alone. 3 But if good science were the only 4 goal, then I think one of the clear lessons 5 of 50 years of space exploration is that 6 robots alone are more cost effective. There 7 are a few examples -- like deep drilling on 8 Mars -- of high priority science that may 9 never be practical without humans present, 10 but there's more than enough important 11 planetary science to be done purely 12 robotically -- including exploration of the 13 surfaces of the Moon, asteroids and Mars -- 14 for decades to come. 15 Also I'm personally wary of arguments 16 that say, in effect, we're going to do this 17 enemy (sic) -- we're going to do this anyway, 18 so what science can we add to it. Such 19 arguments have not served NASA well in the 20 past. When science is an afterthought, it 21 can be the first thing to go when schedules 22 slip and when budgets get tight. 23 Now, I do not mean to say that human 24 exploration is bad for planetary science. It 25 need not be, and I believe it should not be. 133 1 And I am well aware that science is not the 2 only motivation for human exploration of the 3 solar system. Indeed, I am a strong advocate 4 personally of human exploration for many 5 other reasons. 6 But if science is to be served well 7 by a program of human exploration, then 8 science must be a full partner in planning 9 and executing that program. And if science 10 is going to be one of the major goals of 11 human exploration, not just an add-on, then 12 care should be taken to concentrate the human 13 explorers' efforts in the scientifically 14 complex settings where humans can contribute 15 most. 16 Thank you. 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: Steve, thank you very 18 much. And we have time for a couple of 19 questions. 20 I'll start out with one then, Steve. 21 The story is told about Jack Schmidt on the 22 Moon -- you obviously recognize the story by 23 your reaction -- that he found a rock that a 24 robot might not have distinguished from other 25 rocks that were around and that that 134 1 particular rock was extremely valuable in 2 terms of our understanding of -- or our 3 scientific benefits from the mission and that 4 the moral of the story was that a trained 5 geologist, such as Jack, could do things that 6 a robot just can't begin to do. 7 Could you comment on that? 8 DR. SQUYRES: Yeah. There is no 9 question, in my mind, that having humans, 10 especially experienced scientists, in the 11 field doing fieldwork on another planetary 12 surface adds value. And I think they will 13 add value on the Moon, they'll add value on 14 asteroids, they'll add value on Mars. 15 My point is the more complicated the 16 environment, the more value they add. And if 17 they add some value on the Moon, they're 18 going to add even more in a more complex 19 environment like Mars is. 20 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you. 21 MR. GREASON: I have some follow-up 22 on that. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: Please, Jeff... 24 MR. GREASON: Sometimes I get the 25 message lost in the careful euphemisms that 135 1 we use to explain this. I'm going to see 2 if -- I'm going to say what I think you mean, 3 and then you can tell me if I'm missing it. 4 DR. SQUYRES: Fire away. 5 MR. GREASON: What you're saying is, 6 if we're going to send humans, don't just 7 send them to the boring places because 8 they're easy to land on? 9 DR. SQUYRES: That would be one good 10 way of putting it, yeah. I think maybe a 11 slightly more positive spin on that would be 12 concentrate their efforts in the place where 13 they can contribute most. 14 MR. AUGUSTINE: Chris... 15 DR. CHYBA: Steve, I'm actually left 16 with few questions that are directly relevant 17 to the science objectives, because I think 18 you really addressed what the committee 19 needed to hear or wanted to hear. 20 I would like, though, to ask you to 21 go back to a statement you made at the very 22 end where you said that science is not the 23 only or primary motive for human space 24 flight. 25 DR. SQUYRES: Sure. 136 1 DR. CHYBA: And I wonder if you'd 2 share your thoughts with what you think the 3 important motives of human space flight are. 4 DR. SQUYRES: Oh, well, I mean, there 5 are many. And, again, I stress that these 6 are my personal views. 7 Bob Zubrin earlier today very 8 passionately expressed some of the other 9 motivations for human space flight. 10 You know, there is -- I think all of 11 us feel a deep human need to explore, to go 12 places where we haven't -- I think it was 13 described as a spiritual need, and that's 14 significant. 15 I will tell you personally, you know, 16 one of the things that I'm involved in -- 17 I've been involved in for the last -- many 18 years now is the Mars exploration rovers 19 Spirit and Opportunity. And like me, most of 20 people who built those rovers grew up during 21 the '60s watching Mercury and Apollo and all 22 of that stuff on television and dreaming of 23 sending spaceships to Mars some day, and now 24 we get to do it. And so the inspirational 25 role, the thing that causes young people to 137 1 go into engineering and science and so forth, 2 is important, and there are many others. 3 It's not just the science. 4 DR. CHYBA: And do you think that 5 those goals are sufficient to justify an 6 $80 billion program over the next decade? 7 DR. SQUYRES: If it's $80 billion 8 over a decade, yeah, I personally do. I 9 personally think that those address pressing 10 needs at a national level that justifies that 11 kind of expenditure. $80 billion over a 12 decade, that's $8 billion a year, and to me, 13 that sounds like a darn good investment. The 14 question is: Is that what it really costs? 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: Steve, thank you very 16 much. We appreciate your comments and your 17 candor as always. 18 We now have the privilege of hearing 19 from some of our colleagues in Europe. The 20 first speaker is from Arianespace, and that 21 will be Jean-Yves Le Gall. 22 Good morning. 23 MR. LE GALL: So good morning, 24 Mr. Chairman, and good morning, ladies and 25 gentlemen. 138 1 First of all, I would like to thank 2 this Augustine commission for allowing me to 3 address your committee as it considers issues 4 of historical importance to the continued 5 exploration of space. 6 As you said, my name is Jean-Yves 7 Le Gall, and I am the chairman and CEO of 8 Arianespace. Our company, Arianespace, is 9 the first commercial launch service provider 10 in the world. Our first mission was 30 years 11 ago, and our latest mission was 30 days ago 12 with TerreStar-1, the biggest commercial 13 telecommunications satellite ever launched. 14 TerreStar-1 was nearly 7 metric tons, and we 15 launched it to geostationary orbit. 16 But even bigger than TerreStar-1 was 17 the first ATV launch last year when 18 Arianespace hit a milestone and put the 19 19.4 metric ton ATV Jules Verne into low 20 Earth orbit. After the ATV made its 21 picture-perfect docking with the ISS two 22 weeks later, members of the crew were able to 23 bring aboard several tons of crucial supplies 24 and equipment. Shortly after that, the ATV 25 raised the attitude of the ISS, and it also 139 1 did the unexpected in using its thrusters to 2 slow down the ISS to avoid orbital debris. 3 In the meantime, the ATV served as an 4 extra room for the station. Its pressurized 5 interior allowed the crew to use it almost as 6 if it were another module of the ISS. This 7 ATV launch was a major step forward that 8 enabled the international partners to fully 9 utilize the ISS to conduct important 10 biological and scientific research in space. 11 Now we are looking for 2010 when we 12 launch the second ATV named Johannes Kepler 13 to the ISS. In support of a completed ISS, 14 we have a full crew of six astronauts. We at 15 Arianespace are very, very proud of the flown 16 ATV mission controlled by our colleagues at 17 ESA and CNES, and with all due modesty, we 18 were equally proud of the launch vehicles 19 that put the ATV in orbit. 20 The Ariane 5 has now been in 21 operation for more than a decade, and since 22 inception, the Ariane 5 has proven itself to 23 be a valuable heavy-lift launcher. 24 Originally human rated, the Ariane 5 has 25 adapted to its present day role as a leading 140 1 launch capacity/launch vehicle for satellite 2 orbiters and international partners the world 3 over, but the Ariane 5 is not limited, as you 4 know, to GTO launches. 5 As I will point out in my 6 presentation, the Ariane 5 can reach lunar 7 orbit, the lunar surface and Mars, objectives 8 that are compatible with NASA exploration 9 missions. 10 We often tell our customers that 11 launches speak louder than words. Let me say 12 that the launches also speak louder than 13 PowerPoint slides. We are a proven solution 14 for providing cargo to the ISS, and I am here 15 today to provide a sharp presentation on this 16 topic. 17 Now please allow me to elaborate on 18 these points. So you have here some slides. 19 I would like to get the next slide, please. 20 Next. 21 Okay. So, first of all, if you will, 22 on the mission, today, as I said, with the 23 Ariane 5 and the ATV, we provide the cargo 24 services to the ISS through appropriate 25 international collaboration in support of 141 1 NASA's human space flight activities. Next. 2 As you know, the baseline for the ISS 3 utilization is first to support for 4 six-person crew aboard the completed ISS, the 5 ISS utilization for biological and scientific 6 research, and in 2010 the shuttle retirement 7 will diminish the U.S. upmass/return 8 capability until CRS suppliers come online. 9 CRS, it has four independent parts, 10 two launch vehicles and two cargo systems 11 which must be operational by 2011, and the 12 requirement for 20 missions carrying 13 48 metric tons of cargo between 2010 and 14 2015. 15 So we see that NASA is likely to need 16 gap-filler commercial cargo service by 2013 17 should any of the four systems be delayed. 18 And I think that there is likely a shortfall 19 of 8 to 12 metric tons per year in 2012 to 20 2015. Next. 21 A few words about our company, 22 Arianespace. Since 1980 we placed space in 23 the center of everyday life with launches for 24 science, for Earth monitoring, for security 25 and, of course, for communications. And 142 1 since our inception, we launched a total of 2 more than 50 percent of operational 3 commercial satellites, and as I said, the 4 last one was TerreStar-1 in early July. 5 Next. 6 In our mission, in fact, we are 7 committed to organize everything around the 8 launch, and, in particular, for the servicing 9 of the station, we have now in our order book 10 six Ariane 5 launches devoted to launch the 11 ATVs. The first one has been launched last 12 year, as I said, and the next one will be 13 launched starting next year at the pace of 14 one every 18 months. Next. 15 Ariane 5 today is probably the most 16 reliable heavy-lift launcher. We have now, 17 since 2003, 31 successes in a row. 18 We have a capability of 20 metric 19 tons to low Earth orbit -- it was the ATV 20 mission -- a capability also to lunar 21 transfer orbit and to Mars. And this point 22 is quite important because I think that 23 Ariane 5 is a very well-suited launch vehicle 24 for the exploration. 25 We have a very good launch tempo. We 143 1 have a total of seven launches per year, and 2 today we have 46 launch vehicles which are 3 currently in production. 4 Now a few words about the ATV Jules 5 Verne. Next. 6 At launch we had a total mass of 7 19.4 tons, and the Jules Verne has a 8 capability to bring 840 kilo of water and 9 100 kilo of air to the station, 4.7 metric 10 ton of propellant for ISS re-boost, 11 6.4 metric ton for disposal mass and probably 12 the ATV has three times the capability of a 13 Progress launch vehicle. Next. 14 A few words about the mission 15 overview. The Jules Verne arrived in French 16 Guiana, our home port, in August 2007. We 17 performed the launch last year on the 9th of 18 March. We docked it to the ISS on the 3rd of 19 April. There was some re-boost firings on 20 April 25 and June 20, and the mission lasted 21 on -- in September we undocked from ISS and 22 the atmosphere re-entered. Next. 23 The Ariane comparison between the 24 ATV, the Progress and the HTV, and you see 25 that for the cargo mass we have a capability 144 1 with the ATV of 7.7 -- 7.75 metric ton. The 2 Progress, as you know, is 3.2, and the HTV 3 which will be launched for the first time by 4 our Japanese colleagues next month, in fact, 5 is just 6 tons. 6 Now a few words about the 7 international cooperation. We are performing 8 our launches next from the Guiana Space 9 Center. There are two points on which I 10 would like to insist. We have very modern 11 facilities meeting all western safety 12 standards, and this is, in fact, a NATO 13 territory which is also quite important for 14 the launch of governmental satellites. 15 Our next very important mission, 16 besides the ATV, will be the launch of the 17 James Webb Space Telescope and we are very 18 honored to have been awarded in this contract 19 by NASA and ESA and it will be a heritage 20 from Rosetta, Herschel-Planck that we 21 launched early this year. 22 As a conclusion -- next -- I would 23 like to say that I think that the Ariane 5 24 ATV cargo resupply can provide the gap-filler 25 services until CRS providers fully meet NASA 145 1 requirements -- is the first point. 2 The second point on which I would 3 like to insist is that this approach can 4 sustain the architecture for future U.S. 5 human space flight providing utilization of 6 the completed ISS. 7 The third point, Ariane 5 ATV is a 8 flight-proven system -- and I think that this 9 is quite important because it is now fully 10 available with Ariane 5, 31 successes in a 11 now and perfect flight of the Jules Verne 12 last year. And this enabled system, this 13 flight-proven system meets NASA's ISS cargo 14 resupply requirements. 15 And last but not least, I think that 16 this is a very nice opportunity for 17 international collaboration using a 18 successfully demonstrated capability. 19 I thank you for your attention. 20 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 21 We do have time for questions. 22 Jeff, would you like to start? 23 MR. GREASON: Yeah. Thank you very 24 much for the presentation. I have to ask 25 this one very carefully so we don't say too 146 1 much or too little. 2 The ISS experience has demonstrated 3 quite clearly that it's very advantageous to 4 the robustness and sustainability of your 5 program if you have more than one way of 6 doing things. Because then when one of them 7 has a problem or has a slip or has an 8 accident, you're not out -- you're not down 9 to zero. 10 I'm also aware that when you ask any 11 commercial supplier can you do -- fill in the 12 blank -- the answer is always, well, yes, if 13 I have enough money. 14 So I have to ask you to distinguish 15 on this question between that which is sort 16 of a reasonable stretch beyond where we are 17 today and that which, of course, anything 18 could be done for the right amount of money. 19 We're faced with the task of looking at an 20 array of launch vehicles. Some of these 21 launch vehicles have more capability or more 22 throw weight than others. It sure would be 23 nice if we designed exploration elements and 24 other launch providers could launch them 25 because then there would always be more than 147 1 one way to launch them. 2 So within the bounds of reasonable 3 sanity, how big can you go in the future? 4 MR. LE GALL: See, as I said in my 5 presentation, what is important for me, in my 6 opinion, is that the system Ariane 5 plus ATV 7 is fully available, and with Ariane 5 every 8 two months we demonstrate the availability 9 and with the ATV we have first flight which 10 fully demonstrated the capability of the 11 system. So it's almost another shelf system. 12 And I think that this is a point 13 which is the most important now in front of 14 us. We have plenty of Ariane 5 launches for 15 commercial purpose, and it will be very easy 16 to pick one of these launchers to be used for 17 the ATV. This is basically the reason why we 18 plan to have six ATV launches for ESA within 19 the frame of the barter agreement between 20 NASA and ESA, and we guarantee the 21 availability of the launch with 22 Ariane 5 because of the successful commercial 23 exportation of Ariane 5. 24 So I think that this is a fully 25 available system, flight proven, and after 148 1 this, we can -- if a decision is taken to use 2 the ATV for flights outside of the barter 3 agreement, we need a 36-month clearance for 4 the ATVs, and for Ariane 5 we have plenty of 5 launchers which are ready to use. 6 MR. AUGUSTINE: Leroy... 7 MR. GREASON: Yeah. That's not 8 really -- sorry. That's all good information 9 and I am very much interested in it, but 10 that's not quite the question. 11 The question is: What larger throw 12 weight derivatives of the Ariane 5 can you 13 reasonable foresee being developable over the 14 next five, six years that might provide a 15 backup or an alternative path to U.S. source 16 launchers for elements that are larger than 17 the ATV or HTV? 18 MR. LE GALL: Today Ariane 5 to 19 launch the ATV is using its fully capacity, 20 which is about 20 metric tons in low Earth 21 orbit. There are some plans to increase this 22 capacity, but the decisions have to be taken 23 in the next two or three years and it will 24 not be available before, let us say, the end 25 of the next decade. Today we have a system 149 1 working with Ariane 5 and the ATV. For the 2 rest, these are decisions to be taken. And, 3 of course, there are -- after this, it is 4 demonstrated that the system will be flight 5 proven. 6 MR. AUGUSTINE: Leroy... 7 DR. CHIAO: Well, thank you for your 8 presentation and for coming all of this way 9 to meet with us, and congratulations on the 10 string of successes of Ariane 5. 11 My question is about Ariane 5. I'm 12 sure there have been some studies done. Can 13 you comment on the qualitative difficulty of 14 human rating an Ariane 5, and was the 15 Ariane 5 perhaps designed with that thought 16 in mind? 17 MR. LE GALL: Today -- at the 18 beginning Ariane 5 has been human rated, and 19 after this, you know the story. The Hermes 20 space-plane has been cancelled, and now the 21 goal is not -- is no longer human rated. So 22 if it should be considered to launch with 23 Arianespace astronauts, which may be a 24 strategy subjective of space, we will need 25 to, once again, qualify Ariane 5 to be human 150 1 rated. 2 Today this is not clearly in the 3 plans of Europe. This is an objective, but 4 it is not yet decided and what we are 5 focused -- we are focused on the ATV 6 launches. We have six launches in front of 7 us, and we started recently a study on the 8 possibility to have cargo return capability. 9 MR. AUGUSTINE: If one were to order 10 an Ariane 5 today, how long would it be 11 before one could launch it? 12 MR. LE GALL: With Ariane 5 today -- 13 I missed your point. Could you repeat it? 14 MR. AUGUSTINE: I'm interested in the 15 lead time between an order and on orbit. 16 MR. LE GALL: For Ariane 5 it is not 17 a problem because we have plenty of vehicles 18 which are ordered. The question is for the 19 ATV, and for the ATV we can see there that 20 the order has to be made 36 months before the 21 launch. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: I'm sorry. How much? 23 MR. LE GALL: 36 months, three 24 years -- for the ATV. But for the Ariane 5, 25 as I said, we have 46 launch vehicles which 151 1 are in production, and we have plenty of 2 launch vehicles which are available. 3 MR. AUGUSTINE: Any other questions? 4 Bo, do you have a question, by 5 chance? 6 All right. Sally? 7 DR. RIDE: Yes. I actually do have 8 one, Norm. Thank you. 9 I'm curious about your plans for 10 evolution of the ATV. I think I heard you 11 mention that you're thinking about it as a 12 possible return capsule -- cargo return 13 capsule. 14 I wonder if you could provide the 15 timeline for that, when you would expect that 16 to be tested, and whether you plan to 17 consider evolving the ATV beyond that, 18 perhaps for a rescue capsule from the space 19 station. 20 MR. McALISTER: She was asking about 21 the return capability of an ATV and what the 22 timelines were for that and an associated 23 rescue capsule capability. 24 MR. LE GALL: There is no study which 25 has been started by the European Space Agency 152 1 about the return capability of the ATV and 2 changing that part of the ATV. I do not know 3 the exact figures because the studies are 4 just starting, but this could lead to a 5 decision in 2011, 2012. 6 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, thank you so 7 much for sharing your thoughts with us. We 8 appreciate your coming all of this way. 9 MR. LE GALL: Thank you. 10 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you. 11 We then will hear from the European 12 Aerospace Defense Systems. Mark Kinnersley 13 will be speaking to us. 14 Mark, good morning. 15 DR. KINNERSLEY: Good morning. Thank 16 you very much for the invitation. 17 I think I can expand a bit more on 18 the advanced reentry vehicle during my 19 presentation. 20 I very much appreciate having the 21 opportunity to address this committee for the 22 Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans. 23 It's a privilege. EADS is very much 24 encouraged by the serious interest shown by 25 this committee and the Administration -- if 153 1 you could get to the next chart, please -- in 2 expanding U.S./European cooperative 3 partnerships in this field. 4 As your charter clearly alludes, the 5 ability to develop and sustain a robust 6 U.S. Human Space Flight program requires 7 leveraging all alternatives available that 8 can provide efficiencies towards 9 affordability, risk and schedule. 10 We at EADS Astrium are confident we 11 can provide a great benefit to NASA and to 12 the U.S. taxpayer by undertaking the 13 following specific points, which are 14 contained at the end of this presentation, 15 but I'll repeat them now. 16 The automated transfer vehicle: 17 EADS Astrium can offer additional ATV mission 18 services to supply ISS in cooperation with 19 U.S. industry. In particular, ATV can be 20 specifically used to plug the potential 21 logistics gap to the ISS after shuttle 22 retirement. That's Point 1. 23 Industrialization: EADS Astrium's 24 expertise gained over the last few years as 25 the industrial operator for Europe's ISS 154 1 activities could further enable international 2 operational programs to achieve reliable yet 3 cost-efficient industrial services. We 4 operate the ISS on behalf -- for ESA. I'm 5 talking about the Columbus part, not the 6 whole part. That would be good but... 7 In future exploration programs EADS 8 could provide significant key building blocks 9 in a joint international human and robotic 10 space exploration scenario. I think we have 11 many capabilities which I will show you in 12 the next chart. 13 EADS Astrium, as a multi-national 14 company that lives and breathes international 15 programs, is convinced that partnership is 16 truly the best way forward for both the U.S. 17 and Europe to realize their respective goals. 18 We've been working together for 30 years, and 19 I have no reason to doubt a successful 20 partnership in the next 30 years. Next 21 chart, please. 22 I had trouble fitting a lot of these 23 photos onto a PowerPoint presentation. 24 Excuse me for the small writing. At the end 25 of the presentation, there is a fuller 155 1 description of all these different products 2 that we have from EADS Astrium. I'm just 3 going to go through it very briefly to due to 4 time limitations. 5 We have here developed the Columbus 6 orbital facility, which you can see in the 7 top left-hand corner. This was done under 8 firm fixed price contract to the European 9 Space Agency, I might add. 10 The Ariane 5 launcher 11 production/development with a prime 12 contractor of Ariane 5, and we have delivered 13 on time and on quality to Arianespace to do 14 the seven launches per year. 15 The automated transfer vehicle, which 16 we produce now in Bremen. The Johannes 17 Kepler is well underway to being ready for 18 the 2010 launch. 19 We manage the European contribution 20 to the ISS as the industrial operator, and 21 we've also performed reentry, descent and 22 landing. We've led a lot of the ESA 23 interplanetary missions like Mars Express and 24 Venus Express. 25 And in the future we're looking at 156 1 developing the ATV further, what we call ATV 2 evolution, or the Advanced Reentry Vehicle. 3 This will initially replace the integrated 4 cargo carrier with an Apollo-shaped capsule 5 which will allow cargo to be downloaded from 6 the ISS, initially just for cargo, and 7 eventually -- this could be eventually used 8 as a human-rated vehicle. 9 We have got a study from ESA which we 10 have just started which we hope to answer a 11 lot of these questions about exactly what the 12 vehicle is going to look like, the precise 13 definition and also the potential questions 14 on human rating of Ariane 5. 15 Soft and precision landing, an 16 extended mobility on the surface of the Moon, 17 we're investing a lot of money into that. 18 We've also started an ESA study on that. In 19 fact, we've also got a study from the DLR to 20 do an Earth-bound demonstrated test for soft 21 and precision landing. Next chart, please. 22 We've very extremely -- as I said 23 before, we're extremely experienced in 24 partnerships with NASA and U.S. We have 25 subsidiaries over here. We can be counted on 157 1 as reliable and trustworthy. We worked with 2 the U.S. on the Spacelab missions, I think, 3 if I remember correctly, 22 since 1983. 4 And we are now introducing ATVs, a 5 regular operational vehicle. It's now 6 operational. Next chart, please. 7 We really want to really reap the 8 benefits of the ISS investment, and this 9 means it's time now to realize the fruits of 10 our joint labors and use this rather unique 11 facility. 12 In 2008 European theory became 13 reality. It was a great year for Europe in 14 this field. With both the launch and 15 successful commissioning of the Columbus auto 16 facility and the successful maiden voyage of 17 the ATV, Europe arguably became of age in 18 this -- human space flight in this year. 19 This brings confidence to prospective 20 partners, especially when you consider the 21 vehicle. I haven't got a diagram here 22 showing the sizes, but it's the size of 23 London double-decker bus. I'm British so I'm 24 going to use the double-decker bus analogy. 25 Successfully managed to formation fly 158 1 and dock inch perfect -- and notice again 2 it's the use of inches -- I'm British 3 again -- with platform traveling at 4 17,000 miles an hour. So I just wanted to 5 make the point this thing has flown, it's 6 proven, it's available and a capacity of 7 seven tons. And it's soon to be one of only 8 a handful of operational vehicles available 9 for logistics. 10 So plainly spoken, ATV is available 11 and can expand its already major role in ISS 12 logistics supply until a new, you know, 13 system comes online and could potentially 14 even be flown on U.S. launches. We've done 15 some preliminary studies on that, and this 16 could be compatible. 17 In addition, an evolution of ATV 18 towards a download capability with the 19 development of ESA's advanced return vehicle 20 could ease a strain on download logistics. 21 Additional partner capabilities is made 22 before the point -- make the system more 23 robust. 24 We also think we can help with the 25 utilization because of our experience in 159 1 payload, production and management there. 2 And last but not least, EADS will 3 fully support efforts to have the ISS 4 lifetime extended as far as possible. Next 5 chart, please. 6 The U.S. should also consider 7 leveraging European capabilities, other 8 capabilities. An international space 9 exploration initiative would become more 10 robust and vigorous through contributions of 11 the partners. 12 EADS Astrium's developments within 13 ESA-sponsored projects to land soft and 14 precisely on the Moon -- we started a 15 feasibility study on that -- could perhaps 16 lead to a European automated cargo lander for 17 the Moon, launch an Ariane 5 which could 18 bring nearly two tons of usable payload mass 19 to the surface of the Moon, and this would 20 then spread the burden and share the costs 21 for a return to the Moon, for example. 22 Additional key building blocks could 23 be use the ATV to -- based on the rendezvous 24 capability of ATV further aspects such as 25 rendezvous techniques for sample return or 160 1 for approaching near Earth objects, for 2 instance. 3 And last but not least, I'd like to 4 just stress that Astrium has been operating 5 the ISS -- the European part of the ISS on 6 behalf of the European Space Agency, and I 7 think we can bring a lot of lessons learned 8 into this to show how we have industrialized 9 this and run a European team of industry 10 there to operate the European part of the ISS 11 in a reliable, yet cost-efficient manner. 12 Next chart, please. 13 Again, to summarize the conclusions 14 that I made at the beginning -- and, please, 15 there are some more charts at the end if you 16 need more information on some of the other 17 aspects -- EADS Astrium can offer additional 18 ATV mission services to supply ISS in 19 cooperation with U.S. industry. 20 Industrialization: We think we can 21 bring a lot of lessons learned there from our 22 side to industrialize this to save taxpayers 23 money and to provide reliable, yet 24 cost-effective efficient services. 25 And for future exploration scenarios, 161 1 we have a lot of capabilities which could 2 provide significant key building blocks to a 3 joint international human and robotic space 4 exploration scenario. 5 I'd like to thank you very much for 6 your time to the committee and to the 7 audience and for your attention. Thank you. 8 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, thank you very 9 much for your comments. And we do have time 10 for a couple of questions. 11 Wanda... 12 DR. AUSTIN: Good morning. Thank you 13 very much for sharing your tremendous track 14 record for EADS in support of the European 15 operations. 16 My question is -- you talked about 17 the benefit of leveraging the partnership for 18 ISS. My question is to ask you to speculate 19 for, you know, sort of 30 years beyond that, 20 you know, what would be the vision for a 21 successful partnership relationship. What 22 are the things that you think would make that 23 attractive certainly for your organization 24 and maybe for the European partners? 25 Specifically if you could address whether 162 1 you've given thought to operations at Mars or 2 NEOs and what would be some of the challenges 3 there. 4 DR. KINNERSLEY: Okay. I've just got 5 to make plain that I'm speaking for EADS 6 Astrium and not for the European Space 7 Agency. There are European government 8 policies, so I have to be rather -- a little 9 bit careful on that, because this has to be 10 decided obviously by the government and by 11 ESA. 12 Having said that, yes, we've actually 13 been working very closely with NASA and my 14 team especially, in the advanced projects 15 area, have been working in an architecture 16 study with ESA. These results are available 17 on the Internet actually. They were 18 presented in Frascati last year. So I would 19 certainly direct you towards ESA. 20 I think we undertook a lot of those 21 studies, probably 50 percent or something 22 like that, and various aspects of the whole 23 architecture including the Moon, Mars, LEO, 24 et cetera, was exhaustively studied there. 25 And, in fact, we had U.S. industry 163 1 participate in one of the studies with us as 2 a consultant. So we are actively looking at 3 that. 4 I would just suggest you go to the 5 website. I can give you that later. 6 DR. AUSTIN: Okay. No particular 7 benefit one way or the other from an 8 industrial operator perspective? 9 DR. KINNERSLEY: I think, you know, 10 we've just started this industrial operator 11 aspect for the Columbus part and I think 12 we've learned a lot of lessons at the moment 13 and I'm sure -- I'm sure we can share that 14 further if there's further questions and we 15 can arrange certainly meetings about that. 16 But I certainly think this is the way 17 to go. It's certainly with Ariane as well. 18 We've industrialized that a lot as a prime 19 contractor, and I think this is certainly a 20 way to go in terms of achieving great 21 efficiency. 22 DR. AUSTIN: Great. Thanks very 23 much, Mark. 24 MR. AUGUSTINE: Yeah... 25 MR. GREASON: I'll be careful to 164 1 phrase this as a technical question so that 2 it doesn't get into the questions of ESA 3 policy. 4 There's a lot of possible exploration 5 architectures in which you could do a lot 6 more exploration earlier if you had a very 7 capable storable propellant Earth return 8 stage that you could, you know, send things 9 to places in the solar system and use this 10 Earth return stage to get them back again. 11 It has struck me that you could 12 derive something like that from the 13 industrial infrastructure of the ATV in a 14 relatively straightforward manner. 15 Does that make sense to you? 16 DR. KINNERSLEY: Yes. Definitely, 17 yes. You've been reading my stuff. No. We 18 may make a lot of thoughts about that. 19 That's what my team does every day. ATV is a 20 great vehicle, and I think we can certainly 21 base things on that definitely. 22 MR. GREASON: If you have studies or 23 papers on that that you'd like to share with 24 us, I think that would be welcomed. 25 DR. KINNERSLEY: I will certainly go 165 1 back and do that. 2 MR. AUGUSTINE: Are there any other 3 questions from the panel? 4 MR. BEJMUK: I have one. 5 MR. AUGUSTINE: Please, Bo. 6 MR. BEJMUK: Thank you for your 7 comments. I have a question. 8 Can you envision any single country 9 undertaking in the not too distant future a 10 mission to Mars with humans? And if you 11 think it has to be an international affair, 12 which country should lead? 13 DR. KINNERSLEY: On the personal 14 question -- a personal basis, I think clearly 15 the U.S. is the leader in human space flight 16 within the world. I mean, I've worked a lot 17 in Russia and have a lot of respect for other 18 countries' capabilities. I do think Mars -- 19 a human mission to Mars would certainly -- 20 would benefit from international cooperation, 21 and I think clearly the U.S. is a leader in 22 that from my opinion. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: Sally, anything from 24 you? 25 DR. RIDE: Yes. I do have one 166 1 technical question that regards the ATV as a 2 cargo resupply for ISS. I recognize that 3 there are five additional launches planned of 4 the ATV, and I wonder what the capability 5 would be to add additional launches. 6 In other words, what's the production 7 capability of ATV? Are we restricted to 8 those five, or is there additional 9 opportunity for further flights? 10 DR. KINNERSLEY: Right. Thank you 11 for the question. I thought that might come 12 up. 13 Yes. I mean, we currently have a 14 production line set up in Bremen, and the 15 lead time, as Jean-Yves Le Gall mentioned, is 16 36 months for an ATV. So if you would like 17 one, say, in 2011 or whatever, you've got to 18 act pretty quickly. So 2011 is probably 19 cutting it fine. 20 But certainly, yes, we think we have 21 the flexibility to provide more ATVs, and 22 certainly we plan on doing that in the 23 future. Because if the ISS is extended, we 24 will need more ATV missions anyway to 25 contribute to European compensation operating 167 1 costs. So I think there's flexibility 2 certainly to produce more ATVs. 3 MR. GREASON: A quick follow-up: At 4 what rate? 5 DR. KINNERSLEY: Okay. What rate. 6 Again, it depends on how you set up the 7 production facility because we have optimized 8 it for the current setup as it is, which 9 we're doing one per year. But certainly I'm 10 sure we could accelerate that rate, but this 11 has to be investigated. 12 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, again, thank 13 you very much for sharing your thoughts with 14 us. We appreciate it. 15 DR. KINNERSLEY: Thank you very much. 16 MR. AUGUSTINE: We now come to the 17 part of our agenda where we take comments 18 from the public. As you heard, we had to 19 limit them to five speakers today, although 20 we've had many speakers at each of the prior 21 briefings. 22 We would ask that each speaker hold 23 their comments to three minutes out of 24 respect for the others who would like to 25 speak as well. 168 1 I will introduce you in the order 2 that you've signed up here, and I will 3 apologize in advance for any distortions in 4 my pronunciation of your names. 5 The first speaker is Aaron Oesterle 6 (phonetic) from the University of Michigan. 7 And there are two microphones on each side. 8 Aaron... 9 MR. OESTERLE: Thank you, 10 Chairman Augustine. As you said, I'm 11 studying at the University Michigan. 12 And I look up there and I see a lot 13 of -- a lot of gray hair and a lot of the 14 older generation -- no disrespect intended. 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: We would be lucky to 16 have gray hair. 17 DR. CRAWLEY: Hey, hey, watch it. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you for the 19 compliments. 20 MR. McALISTER: I've gotten more in 21 the last few months. 22 DR. CRAWLEY: Do you plan to have a 23 doctoral exam soon? 24 MR. OESTERLE: But I think it's 25 interesting that the person who will be 169 1 making the final decision is younger than 2 many of you, and my generation, which will be 3 paying for and either embracing with or 4 dealing with the proposals that come out of 5 the Augustine commission, we will be the ones 6 that have to face those decisions. 7 And last week during Cocoa Beach, you 8 guys -- or the beyond Leo group -- subgroup 9 proposed making the long -- the big thing was 10 make us a space-faring society, and I was 11 thrilled with that. But you can't promise 12 that to my generation. We're not Apollo 13 worshippers. I wish we were, but we're not. 14 And so if you propose things that are 15 out of budget and you don't have a 16 discernible granular predictable and 17 measurable return on investment, it won't get 18 funded. So I would ask you to not -- A, 19 don't promise more than you can honestly 20 expect and, B, don't expect that we're going 21 to get any sort of massive increase in 22 funding. I would love to see it. I really 23 would. But I'm a realist, and I just 24 don't -- I don't see it happening for my 25 generation. 170 1 And those are my comments. Thank 2 you. 3 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: He doesn't speak 5 for all young people. 6 MR. AUGUSTINE: Let's go to the next 7 speaker, who will be Jeff Fitzsimmons from -- 8 USAF retired. 9 MR. FITZSIMMONS: Yes. Thank you for 10 allowing me to make comments today. I have a 11 few recommendations for the committee, but 12 I'm speaking just for myself. I'm retired 13 military and a semi-retired aerospace 14 engineer. Here's my recommendations. 15 Number one, full utilization and use 16 of the International Space Station should be 17 the number one priority for the human space 18 flight. For the next five years it will be 19 our human space flight priority. It's the 20 only affordable one in the current budget 21 projections. It has the greatest near-term 22 benefits and relevance to the American 23 people, and it's achieving with modest 24 investments in utilization funds. 25 Recommendation No. 2, $1.0 billion 171 1 over the ten-year time frame -- that's 2 $100,000 million per year -- specifically for 3 ISS use and microgravity science missions. 4 Three, extend the appropriations and 5 commitment to ISS until 2020. It makes no 6 sense to try to decommission the ISS in 2016 7 if we're going to fund something like that 8 COTS. 9 Four, set up an independent 10 organization to manage the ISS utilization 11 such as the Hubble Space Telescope Science 12 Institute does. 13 Five, reestablish space product 14 development group and reenergize the 15 commercial space centers to promote ISS use. 16 Six, establish objective success 17 criteria for microgravity science benefits. 18 Seven, use the ISS as a bridge to 19 Mars, such as long-duration missions or 20 variable gravity centrifuge. 21 And, eight, above all, name it. 22 Let's name it something sexy. I propose 23 something like the Isaac Asimov or the 24 Arthur C. Clark or calling it Excelsior. 25 In sum, it's the number one priority 172 1 because it's affordable, it's achievable, 2 it's relevant and has direct benefits to the 3 American people. 4 Thank you. 5 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you. 6 And I see more people standing here 7 than we had signed up. But I must apologize. 8 We really are pressed for time today. So if 9 you didn't sign up, we would ask that you 10 communicate with us by our website, which 11 is... 12 MR. McALISTER: Http:\\hsf.nasa.gov. 13 I need a nickel every time I say that. I 14 would not need to be employed anymore. 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: You got it. Thank 16 you. 17 So we'll continue with the people who 18 have signed up, and that will be all we'll be 19 able to take this morning. 20 The next is John Casanto from ITA. 21 MR. CASANTO: Thank you. I'm going 22 to give you five points relative to the 23 return vehicle from Mars. There's a briefing 24 that all of the panel members should have 25 that I've given to Mr. Philip McAlister. So 173 1 you've got that someplace electronically. 2 It's obvious that there's a strong 3 support for a direct mission to Mars, bypass 4 the Moon. Buzz Aldrin has said that makes 5 sense. Robert Zubrin has said that makes 6 sense. 7 If Mars is going to be the next 8 national goal of this nation, we've got to 9 make some changes. You want to get rid of, 10 you want to scrap, you want to replace the 11 CEV Earth entry configuration. 12 Why do you want to do that? It's a 13 low lift-to-drag ratio vehicle, and what it 14 does, it severely limits the various Mars 15 mission option scenarios. And, again, the 16 briefing I've given to Mr. McAlister has all 17 of the technical data. 18 You can't do anything to the Apollo 19 configuration, the CEV. You can't do 20 anything to get the lift-to-drag ratio up. 21 And the bottom line is there have been a 22 couple of studies done that have shown that a 23 mid L/D vehicle, lifting body, has enough 24 lift-to-drag ratio to do all of the 25 foreseeable Mars missions. 174 1 These kinds of configurations have 2 been studied. They've been flight tested. 3 It would seem to me the commission would want 4 to look at this -- take a real hard look at 5 this and don't just take what's left over 6 from Orion and Constellation -- look at it 7 and say, hey, is there a better way to do it. 8 Why would we want to go to Mars and 9 limit our mission options? And if you fly 10 the Apollo configuration, you can't do all of 11 the mission. 12 Finally, there was a reentry vehicle 13 compendium study done three or four years 14 ago. We looked at every configuration on 15 planet Earth -- everything. We've got the 16 aeronautics, we looked at the trajectories, 17 we've got the shape. So we know what's 18 flown, we know what's there, we know what's 19 easy and quick to do. You don't have to go 20 redesigning and reinventing the wheel. 21 And the bottom line is the study 22 conclusively showed you go to a mid L/D 23 vehicle and there's several configurations -- 24 it's in the briefing I've given McAlister -- 25 and these things have flown. You go to these 175 1 things, you meet ever Mars mission -- bottom 2 line. 3 Thank you. 4 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 5 The next speaker is Cindy Martin 6 Brenner -- 7 MS. BRENNER: Yes. Hi. 8 MR. AUGUSTINE: -- from the American 9 Society of Gravitational and Space Biology. 10 MS. BRENNER: Yes. It's a mouthful. 11 I have another compelling reason to 12 be very fast here. I have a 12-year-old 13 daughter who's having a birthday, and she's 14 waiting for mom to get home to open her 15 presents. So this is going to be very quick. 16 Betsy -- Dr. Cantwell spoke earlier 17 today about our research community -- life 18 and physical sciences community. We are the 19 group -- we are the scientists who have done 20 this research since Skylab. We would like 21 the opportunity to do the research on the 22 ISS. As Dr. Cantwell mentioned it, there is 23 an opportunity to rebuild this community. 24 In the package that, I believe, 25 you're going to receive from NASA or possibly 176 1 the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on science 2 and space, there is a paper in there written 3 by the community, the scientists, that talks 4 about how to do this, how to rebuild it. And 5 I just really want to call your attention to 6 this, and there is support and information 7 from ESA, ELGRA and Japan in regards to this. 8 So I just want to bring this to your 9 attention. 10 Thank you. 11 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much. 12 And our final speaker from the public 13 comment section is Keri Bean from Texas A&M. 14 MS. BEAN: Howdy. 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: It's good to have an 16 Aggie here. 17 MS. BEAN: Yeah. I've been really 18 involved in outreach. I've worked on Spirit 19 and Opportunity in Phoenix and eventually 20 Curiosity in Hubble. And, yes, I'm only a 21 senior. 22 And I've really fallen in love with 23 outreach. I'm the one that runs the Facebook 24 pages for the Mars rovers and for Phoenix, 25 and now we've got Twittering astronauts. And 177 1 I think that's a really good way to reach out 2 to the younger generation. 3 Not only have I been able to really 4 inspire kids about NASA in speaking to them 5 through Facebook but also the older people 6 that are on Facebook and Twitter. And the 7 younger kids, their parents let them onto 8 Facebook to chat with the spacecraft. 9 So I just wanted to make sure that 10 there would be good outreach or the future. 11 MR. AUGUSTINE: Thank you very much 12 for your comments. Those were all very good 13 comments, and we appreciate them. 14 We will now proceed to the 15 deliberation portion of the morning 16 session -- or the session. In the way of 17 background, for those who joined us late, at 18 the sessions last week, we began to put 19 together individual pieces of the options 20 that we might propose. Those pieces were 21 studied in some depth by the various 22 subpanels that we formed from our committee. 23 Needless to say, when you put those 24 together independently and you have so many 25 different interrelationships, it takes a 178 1 certain amount of integration. And we 2 appointed an ad hoc set of our membership to 3 do some preparatory work for this morning's 4 meeting and for the meeting -- the next 5 meeting to try to narrow down the possible 6 set of options. 7 And as I mentioned earlier, according 8 to Professor Crawley, we have over 3,000 9 possible combinations based on the various 10 separate cases we've looked at. And we don't 11 propose to go through them one by one this 12 morning, but we do plan to go through an 13 abbreviated list. 14 There will be other derivatives that 15 we undoubtedly will want to discuss in our 16 report, but we do need to narrow it down to a 17 few -- or a more manageable list. That's our 18 task before us right now. 19 Ed, you've done the heavy lifting on 20 this. So would you mind perhaps bringing us 21 up to date with the preparatory work that was 22 done? 23 DR. CRAWLEY: Sure. Thank you, Norm. 24 And I apologize for coming in a little late. 25 As both the panel and the public can imagine, 179 1 we're covering ground very fast here. But 2 you can rest assured that I was keeping 3 abreast of it because I was following the 4 Twitter on AstroDude, which has a remarkably 5 comprehensive track of the discussions. 6 So as Norm just said, an ad hoc which 7 essentially consists of the three or four of 8 us who are leaders of the subteams met since 9 our last public meeting in order to do 10 additional fact-finding and prepare options 11 for discussion by the committee today. 12 So the outline of the remarks that I 13 have prepared are, first, to review and 14 discuss the potential decisions on human 15 exploration, secondly, to deliberate on these 16 integrated options that we will carry forward 17 and agree to a -- agree as a committee to a 18 process going forward from today until our 19 next public meeting next week. 20 I should just remind you, both in the 21 committee and in the listening public, that 22 we did have an extensive set of discussion 23 last week at our three public meetings. On 24 Monday Sally Ride's group on shuttle and ISS 25 reported a series of options they brought to 180 1 the committee for consideration. 2 MR. McALISTER: That was Tuesday. 3 DR. CRAWLEY: I'm sorry. Tuesday. 4 MR. McALISTER: We've lost track. 5 DR. CRAWLEY: And it was Houston. 6 MR. GREASON: And in what city was 7 that? 8 DR. CRAWLEY: On Wednesday both Bo 9 and Les Lyles presented the deliberations of 10 their subgroups for consideration and on 11 Thursday the beyond LEO group presented its 12 deliberation and some larger scale 13 recommendations, which were alluded to by 14 several of the speakers, including the high 15 level assertion that the ultimate goal is to 16 become a spare-faring civilization and a 17 discussion of why we go to space and derive 18 from that, as well as pertinent policy 19 documents of the federal government, 20 evaluation criteria that will be applied to 21 these options prior to our presentation of 22 them to the Executive Office of the 23 President. 24 So in order to sort of frame the 25 space in which we're working, we tried to 181 1 state these as decisions which should be 2 made. I've learned that when you speak with 3 decision makers they like you to have framed 4 the questions you ask them as decisions. 5 So this represents a compaction and 6 narrowing down of the individual 7 recommendations that were made essentially by 8 the four subgroups over the course of last 9 week, and I'll take us through them quickly. 10 But it's important to understand -- because 11 when you see the integrated options, they 12 are, of course, combinations of these 13 individual decisions. 14 The first is: What is the phaseout 15 plan of the shuttle? 16 It is currently a matter of national 17 policy that the shuttle will be retired. And 18 the two principal choices that we laid out 19 here as a summary and simplification of the 20 onces that Sally presented last Tuesday in 21 Houston are basically the current policy, 22 which is to fly out the remaining flights 23 safely. We estimate that will probably run 24 into Calendar Year '11. This is currently 25 policy, but the FY '11 funding is not part of 182 1 the current President's budget. 2 Or alternatively to extend the 3 shuttle at one or two flights per year 4 through about 2015, which, as Sally pointed 5 out last week, only makes sense as part of an 6 integrated option which is combined with 7 extending the ISS, having a shuttle-derived 8 vehicle -- a true shuttle-derived vehicle so 9 that there would be commonality of the 10 infrastructure and an emphasis on a 11 commercial crew delivery capability to 12 replace the shuttle. That's the first 13 decision, two choices. 14 What's the future of the ISS? 15 Pretty simply summarized is: End 16 U.S. participation at the end of 2015, what 17 has been the assumption in previous budgets, 18 or to continue U.S. participation through at 19 least 2020 -- and then there's two slight 20 variants -- at a sort of nominal capability 21 or what at what Sally called an enhanced 22 capability. One decision, two options there. 23 Then we move to the range -- to the 24 questions of reaching low Earth orbit. These 25 are meant to be ranges so that we can sort of 183 1 think of different possible vehicles within 2 it. The 25 ton and below is meant to 3 represent the existing EELVs as well as other 4 commercially derived vehicles. The 75 ton 5 range roughly represents directly 6 shuttle-derived, side-mount inline vehicles 7 of that class, and the 125 ton range is mean 8 to represent the Ares V or variants of it. 9 The -- I'm sorry -- 75 ton class could also 10 include super-heavy variants of the EELVs. 11 The next question is, in fact, do we 12 build this launch capability off of the NASA 13 and shuttle heritage -- things like the 14 Apollo, the tanks, the rocket, the solid 15 rocket boosters, which are derived from 16 shuttle hardware, the J-2X, that family which 17 is, of course, the current program of 18 record -- or should we consider, as a 19 reasonable alternative, the EELV defense -- 20 National Security Space derived set of launch 21 vehicles. 22 The next decision is: How should 23 crew be carried to LEO and to ISS, in 24 particular? And really here at a policy 25 level, there are three choices. 184 1 One is continue the commitment to a 2 government created and provided service. 3 That's in the current program of record, 4 Ares I and Orion. 5 The second alternative is to, at this 6 point, commit solely to commercial and 7 international access. That is to say, to not 8 have NASA develop an independent federally 9 funded launched system to LEO specifically 10 for the ISS. 11 And the third is sort of an option 12 halfway in between, which is to encourage and 13 rely on commercial and international 14 providers for this humans-to-LEO service but 15 to maintain an option -- or you can think of 16 it sort of as insurance or a backup -- of 17 having an alternative U.S. capability should 18 it turn out that, for either international 19 reasons or domestic economic reasons, the 20 commercials or internationals are not able to 21 provide that service in the long run. You 22 can think of this as real option, that it 23 would be exercised within this choice. 24 Next, what should be the plan for 25 in-space depoting and refueling? 185 1 We have as a committee discussed 2 this -- and particularly in the beyond LEO 3 group -- quite extensively. We're quite 4 interested in this either as an enabler or an 5 enhancer of future capabilities. If I were 6 trying to sell this in the Senate this 7 morning, instead of cash for your clunker, 8 I'd call this cash for your rocket. 9 This is creating the opportunity that 10 commercial providers of launch services, in 11 addition to a potential market for cargo to 12 the ISS and potentially crew to the ISS, 13 would additionally be able to provide fuel 14 for purchase by NASA on orbit, a turnkey 15 operation or something like that. 16 The last two decisions -- there are 17 eight in total that make up this set of 18 decisions that we have to sort through -- is: 19 What's the first destination for exploration 20 beyond LEO? Should it be Moon with surface 21 exploration, should it be deep space -- that 22 is, visiting libration points near Earth 23 objects and planetary flybys but with no 24 immediate surface exploration, that is, you 25 would develop in-space capability first and 186 1 then move to planetary surface exploration -- 2 and, thirdly, to do Mars first with surface 3 exploration. So Moon, Mars or the deep space 4 option. 5 And, finally, what's the role for 6 commercial entities in exploration? 7 To stimulate by choice of the 8 architecture -- by choice of an architecture 9 options which encourage greater commercial 10 involvement by providing on-ramps for, for 11 example, cargo, fuel, crew to LEO and even 12 beyond LEO systems -- for example, like the 13 EADS proposed -- or at least the topic which 14 was discussed by the presenter from EADS of 15 having commercially provided modules which 16 might provide both Delta V and cargo capacity 17 beyond LEO or essentially the current 18 strategy. 19 And, Norm, in the process of our 20 deliberation and preparation of the options 21 here, you'll notice we slimmed it down to 22 864. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: You're doing well. 24 DR. CRAWLEY: So all we have to do is 25 get to three by next week. That's not a 187 1 joke. 2 DR. CHIAO: Ed, can I -- sorry -- can 3 I interrupt you just for a second? 4 DR. CRAWLEY: Sure. 5 DR. CHIAO: On No. 7 of the last one, 6 Mars first, with surface exploration, last 7 week you had mentioned a possible 8 touch-and-go on the Moon. Is that still part 9 of that, or is that -- 10 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. That's sort 11 of -- Leroy, at this level that's sort of a 12 variant. And, in fact, Bob Zubrin discussed 13 another variant, which is sort of a 14 touch-and-go on an asteroid or a near Earth 15 orbit on the way to the Moon -- on the way to 16 Mars. I'm sorry. 17 And, you know, amongst friends, I 18 think you can sort of put those in and take 19 them out of the Mars architecture -- 20 DR. CHIAO: Yeah. 21 DR. CRAWLEY: -- without it being 22 sort of a policy level decision. 23 DR. CHIAO: Right. And my cut on 24 that was not so much for going there as much 25 as to test your -- 188 1 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. 2 DR. CHIAO: -- your hardware -- 3 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. 4 DR. CHIAO: -- and operations 5 systems. 6 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. These -- 7 in all of those cases -- and I think Bob 8 would probably say the same thing -- is that 9 you really build the hardware to go to Mars, 10 and as some combination of early capability 11 demonstration, slash, test flight, you would 12 do some other things with it. 13 DR. CHIAO: Thanks. 14 DR. CHYBA: Ed, if we're having 15 questions -- 16 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah, yeah. 17 DR. CHYBA: -- of clarification, 18 just -- 19 DR. CRAWLEY: I think it's probably a 20 good point, Norm, to stop and discuss this 21 much formulation, so... 22 DR. CHYBA: Just on the first 23 question of flying out the shuttle, I had 24 thought there was an option in which there 25 was -- in addition to flying out the existing 189 1 manifest, there would be one more flight 2 taking advantage -- 3 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. And -- 4 DR. CHYBA: -- of the existing 5 external tank. 6 DR. CRAWLEY: That's well remembered, 7 Professor. And, in fact, in the attempt to 8 sort of simplify and slim down, we put that 9 in a note that's associated with basically 10 flying out the remainder. We didn't think 11 that, at this sort of policy level, keeping 12 an independent option of one more flight was 13 a big enough difference that we wanted it. 14 So, yes, in the fly out the 15 remainder, there's a maybe fly one more 16 flight. 17 For the purposes of the 18 clarification, as Sally pointed out, her 19 subgroup investigated flying a few more 20 shuttle flights, and it turns out that 21 there's a break point at one and exactly one, 22 because there is one more external tank that 23 exists. So without having to restart the 24 external tank assembly line, you could 25 probably fly one more flight, and then 190 1 there's sort of a big restart cost. 2 MR. GREASON: I don't think this is 3 going to grow the space so much as it's 4 something we have to keep in mind when we're 5 looking at these destinations. But these 6 have been made sort of as different as 7 possible from each other so that we can think 8 about them more easily, but then when you get 9 down one layer deeper into it, it really -- 10 some of them start to look an awful lot like 11 each other. It's just a question of in which 12 order you do things. 13 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. 14 MR. GREASON: So people should not 15 look at this and say, oh, deep space means 16 we're never going to land on the Moon. No, 17 it just means that you're going to go other 18 places and then you develop the land role 19 later. 20 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. 21 MR. GREASON: And Moon with surface 22 exploration doesn't mean, oh, my God, we're 23 never going to do propellant production 24 there. It just means, well, before you get 25 to the point where you're doing propellant 191 1 production, we're going to land a few times. 2 So just don't get -- we had -- we 3 have to call them something. 4 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. And I 5 think another way to say it, Jeff -- we're in 6 complete agreement -- is that, if you did a 7 30-year view of how we would explore space, 8 there would not be very much difference at 9 all in these variants. I mean, there's a -- 10 you know, there's -- I was going to say 11 general agreement. 12 There are some reasonable 13 disagreements about whether you should go to 14 the Moon on the way to Mars or you should go 15 directly to Mars. I think there's general 16 agreement -- and it's certainly the position 17 of our committee -- that we should eventually 18 go to Mars. 19 And there are certain capabilities 20 that are required to operate in the 21 Earth/Mars part of the inner solar system, 22 which include launch vehicles to get off the 23 surface, ways to inject large amounts of mass 24 away from the Earth, habitats en route if the 25 voyage is more than three or five days, ways 192 1 to descend to planetary surfaces, ways to 2 encounter non-planetary objects, ways to rove 3 around on planetary surfaces, habitats on 4 surfaces. 5 And then really what these 6 distinguish -- which are we going to deal off 7 the top of the deck first and how do we try 8 to do that within the guidance that the 9 President has given us to respect the budget 10 guidance. 11 GENERAL LYLES: Yeah. Ed, it doesn't 12 represent a different option, of course, but 13 I think one of the key things we discussed at 14 our deliberations last week was to make 15 international cooperation enhanced 16 international cooperation and underlay our 17 foundation to all of these different 18 scenarios. That's sort of a bottom line 19 recommendation that would apply to any one of 20 the different scenarios we noted here, not 21 just the one that mentions international. 22 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. And that's 23 actually in a chart a few down, Les, but it's 24 well taken here, that it is certainly a -- I 25 would characterize it as a strong sentiment 193 1 of our committee that that is the case. 2 And, in fact, when we get to the 3 costing proposal, you're going to see a 4 specific manifestation of that, that we are 5 going to cost two ways, so that we can sort 6 of account for the possibility of significant 7 international collaboration and contribution. 8 MR. BEJMUK: Ed? 9 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. 10 MR. BEJMUK: On this subject I'm not 11 sure we have a uniformity of opinions in our 12 committee. But I feel that lunar mission 13 could be another forum for learning how to do 14 international cooperation if we envision that 15 ultimately we will go to Mars as an 16 international venture. 17 Because apart from doing technical 18 things on the Moon that will assist you in 19 planning your Martian mission, there is 20 another element that has to do with blending 21 cultures -- technical cultures, blending 22 countries that fund things differently 23 than -- that negotiate between technical 24 people and people who lead their countries 25 differently than we do in America, and I feel 194 1 like there is an element of going to the Moon 2 which involves practicing this international 3 cooperation, because it's a much simpler 4 mission than going to Mars. 5 I would suggest it would be very 6 difficult to get, you know, a dozen countries 7 lined up and executing a Martian mission 8 without practicing that process first by 9 going to the Moon together, which is a much 10 simpler mission and much less costly. 11 So there is another little element 12 that puts a different spin on why should we 13 go to the Moon as an international 14 cooperative effort and not attempted for the 15 first time on this very complex, very 16 expensive mission attempting to go to Mars. 17 DR. CRAWLEY: And I would say to not 18 either agree or disagree with you but to 19 point out that one of the points that Sally 20 made based on interactions with the existing 21 international partners in the space station 22 is that they have much of the same view about 23 one of the important roles of the continued 24 or extended utilization of the space station 25 that it then becomes more of a proving ground 195 1 for a more multilateral international 2 approach which then might continue to the 3 next destination, whichever it is. 4 I don't know, Leroy, if you want to 5 make any comment on that -- or maybe Sally 6 might want to from cyberspace there. 7 DR. CHIAO: Yeah. I was thinking 8 along the same line. Certainly the 9 International Space Station, as we discussed 10 last week, has proved out -- we've 11 developed -- evolved into a very good 12 international framework, and one of the 13 points that we made in Sally's subgroup was 14 that the ISS can and should be used as kind 15 of a training ground to how we would do 16 exploration. 17 But Bo's point is well taken. Going 18 to the Moon is another -- another jump above 19 what we're doing on ISS currently and 20 especially in the context of putting 21 international partners in the critical 22 path -- you know, right in there in the 23 critical path, possibly departure stages, 24 landers, things like that, and so that would 25 be even a step above what we're doing on ISS 196 1 now. So Bo's comments are well taken. 2 DR. CRAWLEY: And it's worth 3 mentioning, as our European colleagues 4 pointed today, that the true 5 internationalization of the International 6 Space Station is really just happening in 7 this year. I mean, the arrival of the 8 Japanese Sonysa (phonetic) modules, the 9 availability of six crew and so forth is 10 really -- it's been an international program 11 on paper for a long time and it's certainly a 12 lot of hard work and development, but in 13 terms of operations, this is really -- we've 14 really turned the corner in the last 12 to 15 18 months. 16 DR. RIDE: Ed, if I could add just a 17 comment. 18 DR. CRAWLEY: Please. 19 DR. RIDE: Yeah. I think -- Leroy, 20 thank you for that, and I completely agree 21 with what you and Ed have said. And I'd only 22 note that Bo's point is a good one and 23 something should probably be said about deep 24 space option, that that is certainly simpler 25 than initially going straight to Mars and 197 1 that there are also a lot of opportunities 2 with that option to incorporate a full 3 international partnership to expand from the 4 ISS and develop that operational capability 5 further. 6 DR. CRAWLEY: Thanks, Sally. Okay. 7 DR. AUSTIN: Ed, if I could just make 8 one comment. 9 DR. CRAWLEY: Please. 10 DR. AUSTIN: On No. 4 just, you know, 11 to, again, clarify some of the discussions 12 that we've been having, it's great that it's 13 framed as a question. In that case, it might 14 be a yes and a yes. 15 And so some of the options, in fact, 16 are not mutually exclusive. And if we look 17 at the evaluation criteria, you know, things 18 that we would value in terms of industrial 19 base and workforce and all of those things, 20 we'll find that, I think, there's some 21 intersections there. 22 So, again, I would say that, you 23 know, some of the options that we've looked 24 at have benefit to the nation. You know, we 25 talk about, you know, pursuing our leadership 198 1 in space. That suggests that there's -- it's 2 not an either/or. It may be that there are 3 things that we do on both sides of that. 4 DR. CRAWLEY: Yes. Excellent point. 5 Many but not all of these choices are 6 mutually exclusive. 7 But they shouldn't necessarily be 8 taken strictly as such. But, of course, as 9 Norm would point out, that would, then, 10 increase the number of total possible 11 options -- if you can say A or B or A and 12 B -- like all of those tests we hate. 13 Any other comments before we move on 14 to the integrated options? 15 So to warm you up to the way that 16 we're going to present the integrated 17 options, we're going to present on this 18 chart -- I apologize for this being a little 19 eye chart, but I'll try my best to walk you 20 through it. 21 You see down the left-hand column 22 four options which are going to be at least 23 considered if not included in our final 24 report just for reference. These are not 25 options for considering going forward, but 199 1 they're sort of historical perspective of the 2 past and present evolution of the program. 3 So you read across the top and the 4 first column after the main option column -- 5 that is to say, the second from the left -- 6 is the intent with respect to the budget, 7 which is the current FY '10 covering the 8 period from 2010 to 2020. 9 The next column is what the decision 10 or recommendation for the shuttle retirement 11 is. 12 The next one is ISS's effective life, 13 that is to say, U.S. involvement. 14 The next one is the crew to LEO. 15 The next one is heavy lift option. 16 The next one is: Is there a 17 refueling option? 18 Then there's the first beyond LEO 19 destination and the strategy for commercial 20 engagement. 21 And the top line is -- will be a 22 representation by us of the program of 23 record. We think it's important and fair to 24 lay out the program of record as its 25 current -- as it is NASA's current plan, 200 1 because, of course, continuing it would be an 2 option that the national government could 3 exercise. 4 So in terms of these questions, the 5 program of record exceeds significantly the 6 FY '10 budget guidance. It retires the 7 shuttle in '10. There is no funding in the 8 budget for ISS life after '15. It has the 9 Ares I and the Ares V for crew and heavy 10 lift. It does not explicitly consider a 11 refueling option. It goes to a lunar sortie 12 and probably outpost mode, although I must be 13 fair and say that the specific mode of 14 surface exploration has not been decided upon 15 by the program but an out -- but I've used it 16 here as sort of a shorthand to represent an 17 outpost. And that there is a COTS cargo 18 component. 19 The next line down does not vary in 20 any way from the program of record except the 21 committee, with support from NASA and the 22 Aerospace Corporation -- that is to say, 23 PA&E, the independent group working with us 24 from NASA, and the Aerospace Corporation will 25 represent our assessment of how the program 201 1 of record would likely have played out just 2 so that the political decision makers will 3 get some sense for our view of the likely 4 evolution of this well-documented program 5 were it to have been allowed to evolve. The 6 program -- and that includes, you'll notice, 7 extending the shuttle to '11, which we think 8 is the likely thing to happen. 9 The next line called Increased 10 Confidence is actually an option proposed by 11 the program of -- the Constellation program 12 which expresses how they would prefer to 13 deploy additional resources to increase 14 schedule confidence and decrease the risk in 15 their program. 16 And just for historical purposes, we 17 will put on this array the best 18 reconstruction of the original 2005 plan, if 19 nothing else, to point out in the first 20 column -- or actually the second column, the 21 budget column, that the program was actually 22 designed to the "then" budget guidance, which 23 was significantly higher than the current 24 budget -- than last year's budget guidance, 25 which is significantly higher than this 202 1 year's budget guidance. 2 So we want the White House to 3 understand that as they move the target from 4 what NASA was looking at last year to what's 5 in the current guidance this is the second 6 significant reduction that the program has 7 seen in its budget and that the program was, 8 in fact, designed for a significantly larger 9 budget than last year's budget. 10 So a way to show this is to represent 11 something like the original plan that when 12 the -- when the decisions -- when the design 13 decisions were made in, let's call it, the 14 2006 time frame, the budget that the 15 decisions were made to. 16 So, for example, as the former 17 administrator Griffin would remind us, there 18 was little gap in that program. That program 19 had the first IOC of the Ares I in 2012, but 20 as a result of various things, including the 21 reduction of budget, that date has now 22 slipped significantly out to later than 2012. 23 MR. AUGUSTINE: Ed, just as a nit 24 here, how would it be if we put that last one 25 first? So that we could start out with this 203 1 is the way the program began, this is where 2 we are today according to the record, this is 3 where we think we are today. 4 DR. CRAWLEY: Right. I think that's 5 probably a good presentation choice. 6 MR. GREASON: And then before you 7 move on, a clarifying question. Original 8 2005 plan, you're referring essentially to 9 ESAS? 10 DR. CRAWLEY: Yes. It's the ESAS era 11 plan. And I think we'd actually, probably, 12 Jeff, capture the next budget, the one 13 that -- the budget that had caught up with 14 the ESAS plan or something. 15 MR. GREASON: Right. 16 DR. CRAWLEY: We have to do a little 17 bit of work on that, but that's the intent. 18 And, of course, we called them in 19 that era the crew launch vehicle and the 20 cargo launch vehicle, which have evolved into 21 what we now call Ares I and Ares V, but not 22 without some substantial changes. 23 Well, the next chart is what 24 General Schwarzkopf would have called the 25 "mother" of all briefing charts, and it lays 204 1 out in one chart the about seven -- although 2 if you read carefully, you'll notice there 3 are significant variants even within one of 4 these lines -- but the about seven options 5 that we are -- that our subgroup is proposing 6 that the full committee deliberate on and 7 consider taking forward by a process, which 8 I'll describe. 9 Now, in order to sort of try and give 10 you a little bit of a guided tour of this 11 chart before I go into detail -- and 12 basically the whole rest of the briefing is 13 on this chart -- let me show you intent. 14 The top three rows called Baseline 15 Derived From Program of Record, ISS Focused 16 and Dash Out of LEO are the ones where we are 17 trying to be true to the guidance proposed by 18 the White House to us in our Statement of 19 Task to come back with options that have a 20 credible chance of fitting within the 21 budgetary guidance of the President's budget. 22 We're not sure yet -- we haven't sharpened up 23 the pencil and we haven't done the costing 24 exercises, but these three are the ones that 25 we intend to fit within that -- within the 205 1 budget guidance. 2 The four lower ones, starting with 3 Use Shuttle Systems, Deep Space, Lunar Global 4 and Mars First, are the ones where we will -- 5 we have decided that we will not constrain 6 ourselves to the President's budget guidance 7 and see how these come out. 8 The other way to think of this -- 9 well, so let me begin, and I'll just sort of 10 walk you -- this is basically the same chart 11 over and over again but with a different row 12 highlighted just so you can see the one that 13 I'm talking about. 14 So the first option that we are 15 currently proposing to examine in detail is 16 called the Baseline, which is derived from 17 the program of record. It's actually 18 developed by the program of record. 19 And what it would do is basically 20 take the content of the current program and 21 treat schedule as the independent variable 22 and move the milestones to future years -- as 23 we say, to the right on the chart -- in order 24 to accommodate the budget, recognizing that 25 that increases the cost ultimately of 206 1 reaching any of those milestones, but it does 2 stay within the budgetary caps in any given 3 year. 4 So it's more or less exactly the 5 program of record as described here -- that 6 is to say, we give the shuttle the extra year 7 we think it will take; we withdraw U.S. 8 active participation -- federal government 9 participation in the space station in '15; we 10 rely on international partners transitioning 11 to Ares I to provide crew to LEO; we develop 12 the Atlas V heavy lifter; there's no 13 refueling option; we go to the Moon with 14 sorties and then outpost; and we use COTS 15 cargo. And we see how that plays out within 16 the budget constraints. 17 There are two other strategies at a 18 high level that you could imagine using to 19 try and fit within the constraints. And the 20 thinking here is that it's either/or but not 21 both. Either, as this one suggests, you put 22 your emphasis on developing and continuing to 23 exploit the International Space Station and 24 allow the -- and do that robustly and allow 25 the rest of the program to explore beyond LEO 207 1 to basically slip even more to the right, 2 even farther out into the future. 3 The other option is to wrap up the 4 U.S. government participation in the space 5 station as quickly as possible and leave low 6 Earth orbit as soon thereafter as the budget 7 allows. 8 But these are sort of the limiting 9 cases. Focus on the ISS or move past the ISS 10 to the stated federal policy of exploring the 11 Moon, Mars and beyond. 12 So the reflection of the current one 13 that's highlighted, ISS Focused, is basically 14 we try to stay within the federal budget as 15 prescribed by the guidance, we retire the 16 shuttle in '11 but we extend the space 17 station until at least '20 -- 2020 and we 18 put -- and we bet on all of the horses to 19 close the gap from above. 20 That is to say, we have to, in the 21 short term, rely on the international 22 partnerships, that we develop the Ares 1, 23 because it will have many years to go to the 24 space station, we hope, and that we bet on 25 the commercial providers of launch to LEO; 208 1 that, at the pace that the budget allows, we 2 continue to develop the heavy-lift Ares V 3 with no refusing and its planned eventual 4 program to go to the Moon; and that we not 5 only support a commercial cargo but a 6 commercial crew capability by providing 7 COTS-like or Space Act-like mechanisms to 8 acquire those services. 9 So this would be robust utilization 10 of the space station but allowing exploration 11 to move off into the greater distant future. 12 It's a limiting case. 13 MR. AUGUSTINE: Ed, before you leave 14 that, a comment. The questions you had 15 previously -- there were two cases of how 16 active one should be aboard the ISS during 17 this additional five years, and it would seem 18 to me that, if one does do this -- the second 19 option on this page, that one should then 20 make the additional investment to be sure you 21 get something useful out of ISS. 22 DR. CRAWLEY: That would be the 23 consistent -- 24 MR. AUGUSTINE: Right. So we could 25 drop that other -- in other words, this one 209 1 is the added additional money. 2 DR. CRAWLEY: That's right. This is 3 the sort of full-up ISS utilization option. 4 MR. AUGUSTINE: Right. 5 DR. CRAWLEY: That's exactly right. 6 The other bookend is -- within the 7 prescribed money and trying to fit within the 8 guidance, the other option is put the 9 emphasis on exploration, on exploration 10 beyond LEO. 11 So the dash out of LEO or explore 12 beyond LEO as fast as possible within the 13 President's budget would retire the shuttle 14 in '11 and terminate U.S. federal commitment 15 to the Space Station in '15, and, therefore, 16 it makes no sense to us to do anything other 17 than to rely on the international partners to 18 provide that crew access. 19 And it would use a variant proposed 20 by the program in their briefings to us and 21 that I discussed last week in Cocoa Beach of 22 actually creating what is referred to as the 23 Dual Launch Ares V Strategy in which, instead 24 of there being a one and a half launch, an 25 Ares V and an Ares I, that there are two 210 1 slightly simplified Ares V's used to launch 2 all of the things you need to go to the Moon 3 in two launches rather than the so-called one 4 and a half launch strategy. 5 This would cause the federal 6 government to skip over the Ares I 7 development and emphasize as soon as 8 possible -- as soon as practical within 9 contractual limitations the development of 10 the Ares V. 11 And what it would do is then -- in 12 order to save budget and defer the costs of 13 the lunar landing systems and lunar surface 14 systems, it would delay those even further, 15 and it would develop some in-space habitation 16 and propulsive capability, perhaps in 17 coordination with international partners, 18 which would allow us to visit lunar orbit, 19 the Lagrange points, the points of special 20 interest in the edge of the Earth's sphere of 21 influence, near Earth orbits and 22 potentially -- although even in this option, 23 it would be somewhat out -- potentially 24 planetary flybys, gaining capability of 25 operating in deep space. But the emphasis 211 1 here is that that would be done within the 2 President's budget or within the budget 3 guidelines. 4 So those are the three options which 5 are basically, simply put, stretch out the 6 current program to fit the budget, emphasize 7 the use of the space station but delay even 8 further the exploration beyond LEO or 9 terminate on the current schedule -- that is 10 to say, the schedule that has been assumed in 11 the past -- the use of the space station and 12 put as many resources as possible that the 13 budget allows in going beyond LEO. 14 DR. CHYBA: Ed, just -- 15 MR. McALISTER: Norm, do you want to 16 maybe -- 17 DR. CRAWLEY: That's a good stopping 18 point, if we want to discuss those three. 19 MR. AUGUSTINE: I'm happy. Does 20 anybody else want to -- 21 MR. McALISTER: Chris had a point. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: I think there are a 23 couple of folks. I saw -- Chris and then 24 Jeff and then Les. 25 DR. CHYBA: With respect to what you 212 1 call dash out of LEO, since that's -- you 2 know, you're shedding everything you can to 3 get beyond low Earth orbit as fast as 4 possible, what's an estimated date for when 5 we get a first mission beyond LEO? 6 DR. CRAWLEY: Really good question. 7 So maybe this is a good point to sort of 8 answer -- to answer that by flipping ahead a 9 few charts because it's probably the question 10 on everyone's mind. 11 And you'll notice that other than the 12 dates which are set by decision, like when 13 you retire the shuttle and when you no longer 14 have federal government involvement in the 15 space station, there are no dates on here. 16 So if we go down about -- one more. One 17 more. 18 So this is the -- this is the 19 proposed method of answering that question, 20 Chris, which is that we have now defined by 21 the work of our various subgroups 22 approximately the content of each of these 23 options. We have to do a little bit more 24 detailed definition, but we know about the 25 capabilities, as Jeff just said -- about the 213 1 sequence in which the capabilities come 2 online. 3 And what we have -- when we're going 4 to propose -- or are proposing as a way 5 forward is basically these three bullets. 6 First, that we develop a budget and 7 schedule that matches this content and 8 sequence of content and the assumptions -- 9 and the budgetary assumptions for each of the 10 integrated options in two ways, for most of 11 them. One of them is constrained to the FY 12 '10 budget guidance with schedule as the free 13 variable. We just say we will follow the 14 President's budget guidance and see where the 15 milestones occur. 16 In other words, Chris, the short 17 answer to your question is I don't know 18 yet -- right -- because this analysis is 19 still ahead of us. 20 But the other thing we're going to do 21 is to cost these not constrained by the 22 President's budget for two reasons. One is 23 that in some of them we don't intend to 24 actually try to fit within the President's 25 budget. We intend to see what a robust 214 1 program would be at a level higher than the 2 guidance in order to potentially make a case 3 for that. 4 But the other is -- as was pointed 5 out to us in a recent telecon by the budget 6 folks, is that if you actually expect some 7 commercial or international contribution what 8 you should really do is price the programs 9 above the budget line and then reason whether 10 the amount above the budget line could 11 legitimately be contributed by other 12 partners. Because if you put it below the 13 budget line, it would have that multiplying 14 effect of moving all of the milestones out. 15 So we intend to look at it both ways, 16 constrained by the budget and not constrained 17 by the budget, because it may be that 18 additional international or commercial 19 resources come into play basically causing 20 some the cost to be relieved from the federal 21 budget and absorbed by other partners. 22 But I wish I had the real answer to 23 your question. 24 MR. AUGUSTINE: Jeff. 25 MR. GREASON: I've got a couple here, 215 1 and they're all budget related, so they're 2 all things we don't know yet. 3 We've discussed informally that, you 4 know, there's outside the budget and then 5 there's way outside the budget. And, you 6 know, I think there's a lot of interesting 7 options that are maybe beyond the current 8 budget but not by an amount that might be out 9 of reach, and it's hard to tell from this 10 kind of what your subgroup's intent is going 11 forward. 12 DR. CRAWLEY: I'll defer to our 13 chairman. 14 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, my reaction is 15 there's no sense proposing things that are 16 dead on arrival. And if there are plausible, 17 double, useful programs that are in your 18 first category, we ought to do it. If they 19 aren't, then we're in the second category. 20 MR. GREASON: Okay. Well, that was 21 not actually my original question. 22 DR. CRAWLEY: Or said another way, 23 you know, I think that by doing these and the 24 variants that are represented we will get a 25 little bit of a value curve. We'll get a 216 1 cost and benefit -- a sense of the costs and 2 the benefit of additional investment by the 3 government, and we'll have some sense of that 4 trade. 5 MR. GREASON: The point I wanted to 6 raise that's deeper than that is that chart 7 makes an assertion and the assertion is that 8 none of the next five options are within or 9 close to the budget, and I don't think that's 10 correct. I think there are variants of some 11 of those that are within a reachable distance 12 of the budget phase. 13 DR. CRAWLEY: That's a fair comment, 14 that -- when I flip back, I'll point out that 15 the greater than might actually be greater 16 than or about equal to. 17 MR. GREASON: Right. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: Let's see. Les next 19 and then Bo. 20 GENERAL LYLES: Yeah. Ed, just for 21 completeness and because we've discussed this 22 obviously and I know you're going to talk 23 about it in the next chart, can I suggest one 24 mod to your matrix here -- it's an excellent 25 one -- but after the commercial engagement 217 1 column, we have a column that's says 2 international participation, we put 3 importance to that? 4 I have a feeling this chart is going 5 to have a life of its own in the future, and 6 because it is something that we think is of 7 value -- a very, very valued consideration, 8 that we capture that. 9 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. An excellent 10 point and we were just trying to -- I think 11 we all understand the importance of that, and 12 we were sort of thinking of that as a 13 wrapper. 14 And there is a subtlety which is 15 that, at least in principle, the things on -- 16 the choices on -- that are made corresponding 17 to these decisions are under the control of 18 the federal government -- when we retire 19 things, how much we fund things, which 20 capabilities we build first. And there's a 21 subtle but important distinction of not 22 wanting to sound too prescriptive about the 23 role of internationals in these various 24 ventures. So -- 25 GENERAL LYLES: Sure. I understand. 218 1 DR. CRAWLEY: -- that's the balance 2 we were trying to strike. 3 GENERAL LYLES: I understand. From a 4 policy standpoint, this is also somewhat 5 under the control of the federal government 6 also. That's what we don't want to lose. 7 DR. CRAWLEY: Well, the policy about 8 engaging internationals, absolutely. 9 GENERAL LYLES: Yeah. Right. 10 MR. AUGUSTINE: Bo. 11 MR. BEJMUK: In this upcoming costing 12 exercise -- and I made a point of it 13 previously in Huntsville, and I'd like to 14 make it here again -- it's absolutely 15 essentially that we make sure that whenever 16 we recommend -- or not recommend but lay out 17 a program that is going to replace, by 18 someone's choice -- probably salary grade 19 or -- salary grade higher than ours -- to 20 make a choice over the program of record that 21 we clearly account for all of the costs that 22 are associated with a changeover. And some 23 of them are not easy to see. 24 Some of them -- what I'm tying to 25 avoid is a bunch of hidden gotcha's that NASA 219 1 is going to be struggling later after 2 somebody sort of took a, you know, friendly 3 view of a paper program and we didn't account 4 for all of the cost items that really were a 5 result from changes. 6 Changes -- you know, changes, some 7 people love, some people hate, they always 8 happen and they bring along with them 9 surprises. And it is our job, as well as we 10 can -- we had little time to do it. We had 11 help from our Aerospace friends and 12 consultants. And I think it's very important 13 that we don't send the country on some chase 14 of things that has a bunch of, what I call 15 affectionately, hidden gotcha's. It's very 16 important, and I think we have to do that. 17 DR. CRAWLEY: And I think in our 18 public meetings, in particular, on our tour 19 last week -- somebody might call it a road 20 trip -- that we heard many pleas from both 21 the management and workforce for continuity 22 that we would have to consider. 23 In specific response, Bo, to your 24 comment, in the excellent report by the 25 Aerospace Corporation on the relative 220 1 assessment of the EELV as a crew launch 2 capability, which I believe was issued as a 3 public document this week, when they costed 4 out the transition costs there, they actually 5 identified a set things that could happen 6 within six months of a decision, I think a 7 set of things that could identify -- or could 8 happen within 12 months and a set of things 9 that it would take 18 months within such a 10 decision to occur based on experience in 11 historical record -- historical evidence of 12 previous major contract transitions that have 13 occurred. 14 And you're absolutely right, we have 15 to factor that in. And I think with the help 16 of Aerospace in this process going forward 17 we'll make sure that's represented. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: Ed, my turn here. 19 Sally pointed out to us that the program of 20 record does not include money to de-orbit the 21 ISS. At least for the 2015, we ought to make 22 a mental note to include that. 23 DR. CRAWLEY: That's an excellent 24 point. I think she pointed out that it 25 doesn't include enough money to de-orbit the 221 1 ISS. 2 MR. AUGUSTINE: That' may be. 3 DR. RIDE: Yeah. I can actually 4 clarify that because we've gotten -- 5 yesterday afternoon late breaking news, we 6 got an independent assessment from Aerospace, 7 and they identified some significant costs 8 that had been -- that are not presently 9 included in the budget that would be required 10 if ISS were to be de-orbited, and we'll make 11 those available. I think we just spread 12 those around last night -- distributed them 13 last night, and that will definitely be part 14 of the costing for those initiatives. 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: And I guess that 16 should be included in both 2015 and the 2020 17 case. 18 DR. CRAWLEY: Right. One of the 19 benefits of looking at the 2010 to 2020 20 window is it moves that out, which is, of 21 course, a false economy but... 22 Other questions on the first three? 23 If not, I'll go back to -- let's spool up 24 about six slides. That's the right one. 25 Another option which starts the 222 1 thread for this one starts with an 2 observation that Sally's group made, which is 3 that it may make sense to -- if you were to 4 decide that an appropriate way to do heavy 5 lift was some vehicle directly derived from 6 the shuttle -- or one might say more directly 7 derived from the -- than the Ares V -- and 8 I've called that a class here under the 9 heavy-lift category -- Directly Shuttle 10 Derived -- and that's a placeholder for side 11 mount and inline options and things that use 12 SSMEs and so forth -- that if you were to 13 choose that, then it would make sense to 14 consider extending the life of the shuttle 15 beyond '11 by a few years -- we've used as a 16 placeholder here 2015 -- so that you could 17 both close the gap and reach synergies 18 between the operation of the eventual heavy 19 lifter and the operation of the shuttle. 20 So this is one in which -- and, here, 21 I'll take Jeff's friendly amendment. This 22 could be greater than or roughly equal to the 23 President's budget. We haven't done the 24 costing yet, but we would allow it to drift 25 more than the President's budget if it called 223 1 for that. 2 And then the crew to LEO would be 3 provided in the interim -- and this 4 presumably would be a relatively low rate. I 5 think Sally's report said one to two launches 6 a year. And I think, as I recall, Leroy, 7 discussions with the shuttle operations 8 people felt that it was -- they were 9 comfortable from a safety perspective going 10 that low. Right? 11 DR. CHIAO: Yes. That's correct. 12 DR. CRAWLEY: Yeah. So we've done 13 that diligence. So that you would then use 14 some combination of the shuttles and the IPs, 15 the international partners, to reach the 16 space station, and then eventually commercial 17 providers of launch to -- human launch to 18 LEO -- crew to LEO would come on. 19 This would only make sense if you did 20 it in conjunction with a directly 21 shuttle-derived vehicle which really would 22 only make sense also if you developed the 23 capability to enhance the upper stage of a 24 shuttle -- directly shuttle-derived vehicle 25 with fuel -- some sort of fuel transfer, a 224 1 tanker or a depoting idea so that, as Jeff 2 discussed in his discussion of depoting last 3 year -- that was a Freudian slip -- last 4 week, that the important parameter for the 5 design of missions beyond LEO is how much 6 mass can be injected away from the Earth, not 7 the size of the Earth departure stage, if you 8 allow there to be refueling of the Earth 9 departure stage on orbit. 10 So there's actually many things that 11 have to work together in order to make this 12 option make sense, but if you put -- if you 13 made all of these choices, then this 14 integrated option does fit together and would 15 be one that we recommend evaluated. 16 The next one is, in fact, sort of an 17 elaborated version of the Dash Out of LEO. 18 It's one where you allow the shuttle to fly 19 to '11 and -- not "or" -- and operate the 20 space station until '20. And in that time 21 you would first use the -- all of the words 22 aren't here -- you would first use the 23 international partners Earth to LEO crew 24 transfer capability, and then you would 25 strongly encourage a commercial -- a 225 1 development of domestic commercial 2 capability, which is over in the last column. 3 And for these two, we've place-kept 4 the idea that, while the committee is 5 strongly in favor of encouraging the 6 development of domestic U.S. commercial crew 7 capability to low Earth orbit, it's one more 8 step to say: And we're ready to commit the 9 nation to it. 10 And in view of all of the 11 uncertainties that occur in the business 12 community about the delivery of services 13 which are funded by the companies and by 14 investors, we think that it's prudent in at 15 least some of these options which rely on a 16 commercial crew to book-keep another option, 17 the idea that there's some insurance that 18 somehow in the U.S. launch capability there 19 should be the ability to quickly reconstruct, 20 if you will, the capability to launch 21 U.S. crew to orbit on a U.S. launcher. 22 So this is sort of rely on the 23 commercials but have a little insurance 24 policy as a strategy. 25 Likewise, in this one we could 226 1 imagine -- and we are still considering both 2 NASA heritage -- and that would include 3 things like Ares V, of course, but it might 4 also widen that space up a little bit -- NASA 5 heritage heavy-launch vehicles or what in the 6 EELV family would be called super-heavies, 7 things like the Atlas V Phase II heavy, which 8 is a roughly 70, 75 ton to low Earth orbit 9 capability. 10 And consistent with the deep space 11 destination, it would go to lunar orbit, the 12 Lagrange points, to near Earth objects, the 13 asteroids which cross Earth and conceivably 14 within the foreseeable future to planetary 15 flybys, and we would encourage commercial 16 cargo and crew supply. 17 The next one is Lunar Global. This 18 is not too far from the current strategy for 19 exploring the Moon but one that allows the 20 budget to be relaxed. Again, '11 for the 21 shuttle retirement and '20 for the space 22 station termination or withdrawal. The same 23 strategy for crew to low Earth orbit. The 24 same strategy for heavy lift. And the 25 difference is really in the destination and 227 1 that you would go to the Moon on a sortie -- 2 an extended sortie stay much like the mode in 3 which you would first explore the surface of 4 Mars. At least the reference missions, 5 including Bob Zubrin's reference mission and 6 the NASA reference missions, do not call for 7 initially developing a base-like or 8 outpost-like capability on Mars. It's more 9 of a self-contained lander that arrives and 10 goes to different sites on different 11 opportunities and allows broader exploration 12 of the planetary surface. 13 So this is our Moon variant -- lunar 14 variant which more explicitly, both in the 15 technology and in the subsystems and system 16 concepts, would prepare us to take the next 17 step to Mars, having spent some time on the 18 Moon. 19 And the last one is actually very 20 close to -- conceptually to both the one that 21 Bob Zubrin presented this morning and to the 22 Mars -- I'm sorry -- the NASA Mars design 23 reference architecture 5.0, which is an 24 option in which we do, in fact, go directly 25 to Mars with the friendly amendment of maybe 228 1 you take the Mars hardware and go do a near 2 Earth object or do a test flight to the Moon 3 but only for the purposes of validating and 4 demonstrating the Mars hardware. 5 So we would, in that, almost 6 certainly need to extend the ISS using IPs 7 and then commercials. And here we take all 8 of the budget for all practical purposes 9 other than some stimulation of the commercial 10 launch to LEO business and the money just to 11 extent the ISS and we put it on building 12 systems for Mars and we build them as quickly 13 as possible in order to reach Mars as the 14 next destination. 15 So, Norm, that's still many but many 16 fewer than 834 or whatever the number is, and 17 I did try and get through it in a timely way. 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: You did a terrific 19 job. It sounded like the same sessions I was 20 in, in fact. 21 I'm happy. Are there questions, 22 comments, concerns? 23 MR. BEJMUK: Norm, I have some, if I 24 may. 25 MR. AUGUSTINE: Bo... 229 1 MR. BEJMUK: You know, this is a 2 pretty small subset of what we looked at, and 3 I want you to know it wasn't easy to come up 4 with this set. It was not easy. In fact, as 5 we went through the process of trying to 6 figure out what makes sense using our 7 judgment, experience and also the input from 8 Aerospace guys, I personally became more 9 appreciative of the wisdom of the original 10 Ares 1/Ares V configuration. And I think 11 given enough money these guys could have 12 finished this job and served this nation 13 well, but they don't have enough money. 14 Their budget has been cut over the years, and 15 I've seen some data recently that sort of 16 shows just by how much. 17 So I'm telling you this is not -- 18 these alternatives are not the reflection on 19 the guys who created the original 20 architecture and were trying to serve our 21 country by that architecture. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: We probably also 23 should footnote that we discussed still 24 adding some boxes or something where there 25 are interesting derivatives not worthy of 230 1 this list but that should be called to 2 people's attention. 3 Chris, did you have something you 4 wanted to add? 5 DR. CHYBA: I have a question 6 regarding the Use Shuttle Systems scenario. 7 The first beyond LEO destination is listed as 8 lunar sortie/outpost. 9 Could you just say a bit about why 10 going to the shuttle-derived vehicle would 11 drive you to that being the first 12 destination? Why couldn't one have a more 13 deep space type set of options there? 14 DR. RIDE: Ed, could I make a comment 15 also? 16 DR. CRAWLEY: Sure. 17 DR. RIDE: Chris, I actually think 18 that's a really good question and a really 19 good point. 20 And I would suspect that after we've 21 done the costing of these and see what 22 happens with budget and schedule that we may 23 discover -- and we just haven't had time to 24 discover this yet -- that in putting together 25 some of these options we may have combined 231 1 things like the "close the gap" with perhaps 2 not the best exploration alternative. And 3 I'm not in a position to say right now 4 whether we have. Ed certainly has a better 5 perspective on beyond LEO destinations. 6 And I've had the same observation 7 actually in a couple of them, that as we get 8 smarter over the next day or two or three or 9 four, it may become obvious that a little bit 10 of mix-and-match produces better integrated 11 scenarios, but this struck me as a very good 12 place to start since we have to start 13 somewhere with a finite set of options that 14 need to be talked about. 15 DR. CRAWLEY: I would take both of 16 those as friendly amendments. I think that 17 the committee should reserve the right to 18 sort of spin these tumblers several different 19 ways as we work our way through it in the 20 next week or two. 21 MR. AUGUSTINE: Jeff... 22 MR. GREASON: On the Deep Space and 23 Lunar Global lines, you know, again trying 24 really hard to find some way to get these 25 sort of kind of vaguely like the budget, I 232 1 want to talk a little bit more about what we 2 have in mind -- or what -- I want us to have 3 something in mind -- about what is this U.S. 4 backup to international partners and 5 commercial crew to LEO strategy. 6 And, in particular, I see a big 7 bifurcation in that there's a set of more 8 expensive options where what you're talking 9 about is coming up with a crew compliant 10 booster that's big enough to loft your 11 exploration capsule to ISS and there's 12 another much less expensive set of options 13 where what would you do is you still let the 14 commercials develop sort of a crew taxi with 15 maybe enhanced U.S. government support and 16 the U.S. government provides a backup booster 17 in case their boosters don't go. 18 And I'm not sure if this is both of 19 those or which of those. 20 DR. CRAWLEY: I think it's all of 21 those. 22 MR. GREASON: Okay. 23 DR. CRAWLEY: In fact, I think 24 there's three classes of things. You 25 mentioned two of them. You mentioned the 233 1 U.S. government providing a more robust 2 option by providing a launch vehicle under 3 the argument that it might be easier for the 4 commercials to develop a capsule than -- 5 within a fixed amount of time, it might be 6 easier for the commercials to produce a 7 reliable capsule than a launch vehicle with 8 the demonstrated reliability that you would 9 expect it to have before you put a human on 10 board. So that's the robustified commercial 11 launch capability. 12 The second class of options you also 13 mentioned -- which are, whichever route that 14 you go through for the heavy, you could have 15 a variant of the heavy that was light, right. 16 So if you did the Ares V as the heavy, there 17 are variants of the Ares V that could be -- 18 could carry crew to low Earth orbit. If you 19 did a Delta V Phase II heavy, you could use 20 the Delta II Phase V (sic) medium as the 21 backup plan for crew to orbit. So there's a 22 class where you make simplifications of the 23 variant -- of the heavy. 24 And then the third class is if, for 25 example, you choose to skip over the Ares I 234 1 and go directly to the Ares V that you would 2 keep alive enough capability in the Ares I 3 because of the commonality between the "one" 4 and the "five" so that in a relatively short 5 order you could go back and finish the "one". 6 So there are several different ways 7 to -- depending on exactly the launch 8 vehicles that get picked, to think about how 9 you would do that. 10 MR. GREASON: In that case, I'll just 11 note, this is a deceptively simple chart. 12 This has really a lot more options on here 13 than it looks like. 14 MR. AUGUSTINE: Bo... 15 MR. BEJMUK: One thing -- I sort of 16 react a little bit like my younger colleague 17 here on this U.S. backup. It sort of implies 18 that we don't think that the guy working in a 19 private industry is as reliable or as 20 conscientious to design a system to launch 21 people to space. I don't agree with this, by 22 the way. 23 But I think it's very important that 24 when NASA competes for these commercial 25 capabilities that they structure the 235 1 procurement in such a way that our best and 2 most reliable contractors bid on it and NASA 3 selects not only the newcomers -- I think 4 it's very important to stimulate commercial 5 interest to open the door so that we can -- 6 so that newcomers can come and play in this 7 game. 8 But it's also important, especially 9 when it comes to launching humans to space, 10 that the people -- companies with the best 11 skills and the best capabilities are also 12 allowed to bid and NASA select at least one 13 of them. 14 And I think that's how you're assured 15 that we have a safe access to station and LEO 16 without necessarily having a U.S. government 17 backup. That's my opinion. 18 DR. CRAWLEY: Well, if I can respond 19 to that -- and this will demonstrate to the 20 public that we really are deliberating -- I 21 don't agree with you. But I actually don't 22 agree with you in a different part of the 23 argument, Bo. 24 I don't have any doubt that the 25 commercial community could provide these 236 1 capabilities technically. All right. But 2 the first word in commercial launch is 3 commercial, and as somebody who sits on 4 boards of both private companies and public 5 companies and has some insight into the 6 fiduciary responsibility of board members, I 7 know that every quarter and certainly every 8 year boards of directors are legally obliged 9 to make decisions about the investments of 10 corporate assets to optimize the internal 11 rate of return for the shareholders. 12 And unless the federal government 13 structures the commercial acquisition in such 14 a way so that there are reasonable assurances 15 that there, in fact, will be markets for 16 these things and there will be -- you know, 17 there will be a market, then it introduces a 18 great deal of risk into those business 19 decisions, which is my concern, not the 20 technical capabilities of the organizations 21 to deliver. 22 And there are, we know, various 23 mechanisms under the Space Act and mechanisms 24 used by other government agencies in times 25 of -- when it is expeditious on behalf of the 237 1 nation to not directly apply the federal 2 acquisition regulations -- Les would know 3 much more about this -- but there are other 4 mechanisms by which assurances can be given 5 to corporations to provide services on their 6 investment. 7 And you might want to comment on 8 that, Les. 9 GENERAL LYLES: No. You hit it right 10 on the head. I think that's exactly the 11 other consideration that goes into that 12 process. 13 MR. GREASON: All I want to add to 14 that is, you know, at a time when we're 15 trying to present national policy makers with 16 ways to do more with less, you know, we can 17 present them with recommendations to put 18 those tools in the toolbox. And, you know, 19 commercial is a shorthand. It's not just 20 about who you buy from, it's probably much 21 more importantly with how you buy. You can 22 buy commercials things from quite large 23 companies, but you have to do it that way. 24 DR. CRAWLEY: And I think what this 25 flags up, Norm, is that in this discussion of 238 1 commercial there's actually quite a bit to be 2 said about business practice by the 3 government and how these acquisitions are -- 4 MR. AUGUSTINE: Yeah. We'll do that. 5 DR. CRAWLEY: -- are structured. 6 MR. AUGUSTINE: Let's see. As a 7 peacekeeper here, let me propose a solution 8 and that would be that we have a separate box 9 that -- we take out of these boxes either the 10 U.S. backup or the commercial and in a 11 separate box, say, if you want to do it -- I 12 don't know what you make the baseline. But 13 let's say you make the baseline having the 14 backup. Another box would say if you don't 15 want the backup you can save X dollars and 16 take risk for it. 17 DR. CRAWLEY: I think that was 18 intended to be in there, Norm, and it's just 19 in the way it came out on the printed page. 20 MR. AUGUSTINE: I think that solves 21 Jeff's concern. 22 MR. GREASON: For -- well, okay. 23 There's one specific axis where that doesn't 24 do it and where we can't -- I don't think -- 25 box the problem, and that specific axis is 239 1 the choice of a NASA heritage or a more, you 2 know, commercial DOD heritage set of vehicles 3 going forward. 4 And the reason is that ripples 5 through so many other aspects of the 6 programs; that even though the capabilities 7 might be similar, the stakeholders are all 8 different, the budgets are all different, the 9 workforce implications are all different. 10 And I don't think that we can treat that as a 11 box. I think those are actually 12 distinguishable options for that reason. 13 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, if that's true, 14 then you've got on this page about 15 11 options. 16 MR. GREASON: Well, it's not a 17 perfect world but... 18 MR. AUGUSTINE: It's not a perfect 19 world, but if you take 11 options to a senior 20 decision maker in this country, you're liable 21 to get any answer, I'm afraid. 22 MR. GREASON: Well, I appreciate 23 that. Maybe we can find some other ones to 24 prune, but... 25 DR. CRAWLEY: So, Norm, there's just 240 1 a few charts at the end here that I want to 2 end with and get off the stage. 3 I just wanted to remind us -- this 4 was, Les, the note about international -- 5 there's an ongoing discussion about 6 international, the role of robotics, 7 technology development and the role of NASA 8 and its institutions that will, of course, be 9 reflected in the report as well but were not 10 explicitly, at least yet, embedded in the 11 option choices. And we discussed many of 12 these last week, and they reflect our 13 Statement of Task from OSTP. 14 So, on the next chart, I think we've 15 done this. We basically argued about whether 16 it reasonably captures the report of the 17 subgroups, are they reasonable and 18 consistent, are they -- is there any 19 evidence -- new evidence that would cause us 20 to add some and are there any options that 21 could be deleted. 22 I'm afraid we didn't get very far 23 towards the deleted end of the spectrum. 24 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, what I would 25 suggest we do is go ahead and cost these out, 241 1 determine the schedules of when you get where 2 and see if there's a simpler version that we 3 could come up with on how to present the 4 results. 5 I think all of the options are very 6 justifiable. It's just that I worry about 7 trying to explain this, and so maybe there is 8 a simpler way to show it. And if when we go 9 through it there are some options we can put 10 aside or deal with in a box or something, 11 that's great. 12 DR. CRAWLEY: So if we go to the last 13 chart, that's the plan which is that we -- as 14 I alluded to earlier, we'll cost these out 15 with and without the constraint of the 16 guidance budget -- budget guidance, and we 17 will also evaluate them based on the 18 valuation criteria which we presented to and 19 was approved by the committee at the meeting 20 last Thursday so that we understand that 21 we're looking at these in terms of 22 exploration, preparation, science, et cetera, 23 and that we present these results next week 24 for the deliberation of the committee. 25 MR. AUGUSTINE: Well, I think you've 242 1 done a terrific job. If we could come back 2 next week with less than 834, that would be 3 very good. 4 Does anybody want to have a last 5 word? 6 Jeff wants to have a last word. 7 MR. GREASON: Well, it may not be the 8 last -- I'm sorry -- but we've not run out of 9 time yet. 10 I think there may be a pruning 11 option, you know, like deletion. I'm not 12 sure that at the level of national policy 13 maker decisions Dash Out of LEO and Deep 14 Space option are so distinguishable that we 15 have to track them separately. I mean, the 16 only real difference between the two -- 17 considering that NASA heritage is already -- 18 you know, contains, depending on how much 19 budget you want to spend, Ares V as a subset, 20 the only real difference is, you know, do we 21 or don't we extend the space station, and I'm 22 not sure, given our limited trade space, that 23 we want to have another one of our primary 24 options that doesn't extend the space 25 station. And if we didn't have that, we 243 1 could drop one option. 2 MR. McALISTER: The difference is 3 this, the budget -- the Dash Out of LEO is in 4 the budget -- 5 MR. GREASON: Well, but, again, you 6 know, some of the -- as discussed earlier, 7 some of the variants of the deep space option 8 that are maybe stretch out more schedule or 9 use less expensive launchers do become budget 10 compliant or close to it. I'm trying here. 11 MR. McALISTER: Yeah. 12 DR. CRAWLEY: You're right. The 13 difference between the budgets available for 14 exploration beyond LEO in those two options 15 is on the range of 12- to $15 billion in the 16 window, which is -- which out of a budget 17 that would go to Constellation of about 70 is 18 not a small change, but it may not be a 19 larger change than some of the other changes 20 that are embedded -- I get you. Maybe we'll 21 think about that. 22 MR. AUGUSTINE: Chris... 23 DR. CHYBA: I'd like to float just 24 one other topic here that we're not going to 25 resolve today but I think it ought to be on 244 1 the table. 2 This chart is title Integrated 3 Options For Consideration in Going Forward. 4 And if we think about the way it cuts through 5 the Constellation program, it reconsiders -- 6 the various options reconsider how we're 7 going to get to low Earth orbit, is it Ares I 8 or not. We reconsider heavy lift, is it 9 Ares V or not with various options. Because 10 we're considering destinations, we reconsider 11 whether we're going to have the Altair lander 12 or not or at least whether we're going to 13 have it sooner or later or some other -- 14 something else presumably. 15 What isn't explicit on this table and 16 which -- and what one of our public speakers 17 emphasized today -- is what about the crew 18 vehicle. Of course, if one goes with some of 19 the commercial options for crew to low Earth 20 orbit, one would have a different crew 21 vehicle. But I don't see a kind of 22 systematic discussion here of what, if 23 anything, our thoughts are about the crew 24 vehicle, and probably we need to formally 25 discuss that at some point. 245 1 MR. AUGUSTINE: I think that's a 2 really good point. One of our earlier 3 versions had a column for the crew vehicle 4 that at least addressed whether it was a two- 5 or a four-person crew that we probably ought 6 to add a column back in for that as we do our 7 work. 8 Wanda... 9 DR. AUSTIN: I had a comment I wanted 10 to make, AGAIN, generic. As we start to 11 think about the report and how we formulate 12 that, I think we heard, you know, from many 13 different cities that we've been in recently, 14 the need to make sure that what we take 15 forward, you know, it really is executable 16 and does have these little hidden surprises 17 in them. 18 So I think it's important that we 19 capture our assumptions on some of these in 20 the report in terms of what our intent was. 21 Because as I look at, for example, the ISS 22 Focused -- full-up ISS utilization, I'm not 23 sure that I would be able to really say what 24 we're assuming there in terms of the number 25 of astronauts that we're thinking we would be 246 1 able to transport in order to support that 2 full utilization in order to say that we 3 really were getting a tremendous value out of 4 that. 5 And there, I think, are a couple of 6 others here where, as I listen to all of us, 7 we have different ideas about what's built 8 into it. So I think it's really key that 9 whatever options we come forward with we 10 somehow are able to communicate what the 11 assumptions were behind them and maybe why we 12 thought it was important. 13 MR. AUGUSTINE: Good point. 14 MR. GREASON: At the risk of 15 extending this -- 16 DR. CHYBA: Norm, I don't think I was 17 advocating that we add another column to the 18 table. I think I -- that would be the wrong 19 way to go. I just wanted to float the fact 20 that we haven't, I think, as a committee, 21 deliberated on this question in any detail of 22 the crew vehicle. 23 MR. GREASON: Well, maybe we should 24 take a couple of minutes. 25 DR. CHYBA: Jeff, I think you have 247 1 something to say. 2 MR. GREASON: Well, I am -- here's 3 another Nixon goes to China moment. You 4 know, I've been as strong a critic of the 5 size -- particularly the size of the 6 exploration vehicle that we're engaged in 7 developing right now as anybody has. You 8 know, I'm -- were we possessed of a time 9 machine, that would be one of many things we 10 would like to reopen. But we're not. 11 And, you know, so I simply can't see 12 reopening major changes to the exploration 13 capsule from an engineering and sort of 14 project management perspective unless we look 15 at options in which initial operating 16 capability of a capsule starts getting out 17 into the 2020-plus time frame, because it's 18 going to take that long. You know, if we 19 really crater that program and start over, 20 it's going to take that long, and if we try 21 to do minor course corrections, it's going to 22 take half that long for almost no benefit. 23 So I just -- much though I wish we 24 were in a different universe, I would 25 recommend that we not add that dimension to 248 1 the trade space. 2 MR. AUGUSTINE: Were you thinking of 3 a crew vehicle of less than four? 4 MR. GREASON: I've thought of a lot 5 of things, but they all look so different 6 than what we have under development right now 7 that the programmatic implications of trying 8 to go there would not, in my opinion, lead us 9 to a place that we would like. 10 MR. AUGUSTINE: The reason I asked 11 that is apparently in reality we have a crew 12 of four vehicle today, whether we like it or 13 not. 14 MR. GREASON: Yes. 15 MR. AUGUSTINE: And to go much less 16 than four, I wonder -- if you start getting 17 into workloads and psychological issues, it 18 would get pretty tough. 19 MR. GREASON: But let me just say, if 20 we had designed the system from the beginning 21 for a maximum capability of four, it would 22 probably look quite different than it does 23 right now. 24 MR. AUGUSTINE: Yeah. I don't know 25 that, but it could be. 249 1 DR. CRAWLEY: You know, I think 2 that -- I think Chris was right in raising 3 this point, but my sense is that the reason 4 it hasn't made it on the trade matrix 5 explicitly is that there's a general 6 consensus that's developed among the group 7 that more or less Jeff just articulated and 8 that we should just make that explicit, you 9 know, that at this point in that program, 10 barring some overwhelming reason to change 11 it, it's at a programmatic point where it's 12 unlikely that any small change or large 13 change will do anything other than delay it 14 extremely. And I think we heard from both 15 the commercial provider and the program 16 manager of it to that effect. 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: Any other points? 18 DR. CRAWLEY: I have one sort of 19 closing thought, Norm. 20 Our first international speaker, 21 Jean-Yves Le Gall, started by addressing us 22 as a commission in his excellent but French 23 accented English. I wasn't quite sure 24 whether he said the August commission or the 25 Augustine commission. So I would comment 250 1 that we're certainly the Augustine committee, 2 I hope some day we'll be referred to as the 3 Agust committee but we're certainly the 4 August committee. And we have to work to get 5 this stuff closed out by the end of the 6 month. 7 MR. AUGUSTINE: We're the committee 8 on the future of human space flight in the 9 U.S. 10 Anybody else? Speak now or forever 11 hold your peace. 12 (Discussion off the record.) 13 MR. BEJMUK: If I may, Norm... 14 MR. AUGUSTINE: The audience is 15 starving, you know, Bo. 16 MR. BEJMUK: Okay. 17 MR. AUGUSTINE: Go ahead. 18 MR. BEJMUK: I have just a final 19 thought. You know, I hear it like once a 20 week, flying to space is hard. Well, flying 21 to LEO is a little easier. Flying to the 22 Moon is going to be harder. Flying to Mars 23 is going to be much harder. I mean, this is 24 like at various levels. 25 NASA is good at -- we have handled 251 1 this flying to LEO for a long time, you know, 2 and we are -- and, you know, Mr. Zubrin said 3 we are stuck at LEO. Well, you know, that's 4 one way to look at it. 5 And I feel like, you know, NASA has 6 brilliant people. Get attention of these 7 brilliant people on the harder tasks and 8 think of buying the easiest tasks from 9 industry. And I think -- if NASA does it, I 10 think it would elevate -- it would strengthen 11 NASA. NASA would show off their skills in 12 doing the hard stuff and buy the -- you know, 13 it's not simple. It's still hard. Going to 14 LEO is -- I mean, God, I've been in this 15 business or a long time. It's still hard. 16 It's a little bit easier than going to the 17 Moon and Mars. And I think NASA, if it works 18 on this hard task -- and introduce vigor into 19 commercial industry -- I think that process 20 would elevate NASA's stature in America. 21 MR. AUGUSTINE: I'll add a thought to 22 that sort of vein, and that is, I've 23 refrained from referring at all to the study 24 that was done 19 years ago, believe it or 25 not, after the Challenger accident. 252 1 But one of the things that was 2 recommended there was to get on with building 3 a heavy-lift launch vehicle because that's 4 kind of the ground floor to everything. And 5 I think one of the lessons that most of us 6 have learned in our career is don't skimp on 7 the heavy-lift part of it, let's have enough 8 lift so we can have margins. And I think, as 9 we go through our recommendations here, 10 that's one of the things that we want to have 11 in mind. 12 Now, if I haven't opened Pandora's 13 box -- anything else? Anybody? 14 Okay. Let me just say that we have 15 our work cut out for us. We will meet again 16 next week. We have 26 days remaining before 17 our deadline. Thank all of you, thank our 18 speakers, our public participants and have a 19 nice day. 20 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned 21 at 12:40 p.m.) 22 23 24 25