[Senate Hearing 109-1136]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-1136
NASA BUDGET AND PROGRAMS:
OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 7, 2006
__________
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Transportation
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Co-
CONRAD BURNS, Montana Chairman
TRENT LOTT, Mississippi JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas Virginia
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BARBARA BOXER, California
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia BILL NELSON, Florida
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
JIM DeMINT, South Carolina FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska
MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
Lisa J. Sutherland, Republican Staff Director
Christine Drager Kurth, Republican Deputy Staff Director
Kenneth R. Nahigian, Republican Chief Counsel
Margaret L. Cummisky, Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Samuel E. Whitehorn, Democratic Deputy Staff Director and General
Counsel
Lila Harper Helms, Democratic Policy Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska BILL NELSON, Florida, Ranking
CONRAD BURNS, Montana JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
TRENT LOTT, Mississippi Virginia
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 7, 2006..................................... 1
Statement of Senator Hutchison................................... 1
Statement of Senator Bill Nelson................................. 2
Statement of Senator Sununu...................................... 3
Witnesses
Bolden Jr., Charles F., Major General, U.S. Marine Corps
(Retired); CEO, JackandPanther, LLC............................ 22
Prepared statement........................................... 24
Pawelczyk, James A., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Physiology,
Kinesiology and Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University.... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Torbert, Dr. Roy B., Director, University of New Hampshire Space
Science Center................................................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Voorhees, Dr. Peter W., Chair, Department of Materials Science
and Engineering, Northwestern University....................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Appendix
Karas, John, Vice President, Space Exploration, Lockheed Martin,
prepared statement............................................. 37
Lewis, Mark J., Chief Scientist, U.S. Air Force, prepared
statement...................................................... 39
Stevens, Hon. Ted, U.S. Senator from Alaska, prepared statement.. 37
Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Kay Bailey
Hutchison to:
Dr. Roy B. Torbert........................................... 43
Dr. Peter W. Voorhees........................................ 44
NASA BUDGET AND PROGRAMS:
OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Science and Space,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m. in
room SD-562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Kay Bailey
Hutchison, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TEXAS
Senator Hutchison. Good afternoon. We are very pleased that
you are here. This is a very important session for us.
Certainly my ranking member, Senator Nelson, and I are very
focused on this science section of the NASA mission, but I want
to especially point out that Senator Sununu asked for this
hearing and asked to make this one of the focuses of this
subcommittee. So, Senator Sununu, thank you very much for that.
Senator Sununu. Thank you.
Senator Hutchison. Last year Congress enacted and the
President signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. This was a
bill that I co-sponsored with Senator Nelson and others on the
Committee, and it was the first time in 5 years that Congress
passed an authorization bill for NASA. It was very important to
us that there be a legislative foundation, a commitment to
NASA's mission. That is why we thought that the President's
vision for exploration should get the Congressional approval
and we added parts that came from Congress to make it even
stronger.
We believe that we have authorized the minimum funding
levels needed to support the Vision for Exploration and the
ongoing scientific activities of NASA, including the assembly
and full utilization of the International Space Station, in a
way that would avoid disruptions caused by any kind of abrupt
shift in NASA's focus and goals.
We know that the NASA budget eventually requested by the
President is $1.1 billion less than the amount authorized by
the NASA Authorization Act. While that is not unusual to have
budget requests that are less than the authorized amounts, this
is a crucial time for transition. The end result of the
shortfall in the funding request is a series of painful
decisions for Michael Griffin, the NASA Administrator, and to
which, of course, the research community has reacted--and
rightfully so.
I am not one who believes that the Federal Government
should fund all programs just because we have done it in
previous years. We have to have accountability and adjustments
to assure that we are making the best use of taxpayer dollars.
I am convinced, however, that in many cases where
reductions and cuts have been made in science and research
programs in NASA, that we are not justifying the mission that
NASA has for rejuvenating the creativity in our scientific
community. The underlying value of the things that we have been
doing on the Space Station and the missions that NASA has had
in science in the past and the positive impacts of those
efforts have added to the economic competitive and security
interests for all of our country. So I refuse to accept that a
fully and adequately funded space program is something that we
cannot afford in this Nation.
Finally, there is a practical reason why the President
should require that we have realistic funding levels, and that
is to succeed in the Vision for Exploration. At a time when the
President is working with Congress on a new competitive
initiative, which includes doubling the research budget of the
National Science Foundation, it would be shortsighted to
squeeze the research budget of NASA and other areas of research
in the same physical science fields.
We have invited witnesses here today because I believe that
we can put our minds together to come up with the funding and
to keep the focus on science. I believe that our committee is
absolutely solid on this point. We have invited you because you
have important opinions on this subject.
We also believe that sharing resources with other agencies
of the government who have scientific missions as well could
better use the expenditures that we can make in research. That
would mean cooperative NASA scientific activities, along with
the Department of Defense, DARPA, the Department of Energy, and
the National Science Foundation.
In our authorization bill, we did ask those agencies to
work with NASA to determine where there were duplications or
where putting money together could come to a better result.
Finding efficiencies and eliminating duplication, as well as
sharing resources for common objectives can help alleviate the
pressure for additional funding for NASA, and this is an area
that I certainly want to explore.
So I do thank you. After the statements from our
colleagues, I will introduce each of the panel members. My
Ranking Member, Senator Nelson.
STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,
U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA
Senator Bill Nelson. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The age-old question, can you have guns and butter in a
Nation, and a Nation wants to have both, so too it is with this
little Federal agency NASA. Can you have science and human
exploration? And the answer is we need both.
We accommodated for that in the NASA authorization bill
that we passed last year, but the Office of Management and
Budget came along and underfunded the NASA budget by $1.1
billion. So, Senator Sununu, this being a concern of yours, as
it is of ours, on the cutting of science programs, we can
alleviate that if we can get the appropriators to fund at the
authorized level instead of the level that is recommended by
OMB.
When you look at a little agency that is less than 1
percent of the entire Federal budget, you are looking at an
agency that means so much to the future of the country because
of its cutting-edge science exploration and inspiration for the
people. That is not, in this Senator's opinion, an agency that
you want to go whacking away at its budget.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you.
Senator Sununu.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN E. SUNUNU,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE
Senator Sununu. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to
be here, and I appreciate all of the effort you have put into
both the authorization bill and other issues of science that
have come before the Committee.
This is an area that has enormous impact not just on the
particular programs that we might talk about today, but I
think, as we will hear from the panelists, on focusing the
attention, providing a platform for future generations of
scientists as well.
And to that extent, I am very pleased to welcome, in
addition to our other panelists, Dr. Roy Torbert who works at
the University of New Hampshire, who I met probably 8 or 10
years ago when I was first elected to Congress and became
familiar with the work that he does at UNH as a professor and a
director of the Space Science Center there, working with
graduate students and undergraduate students on a range of
basic science projects, the very kinds of projects that I think
would be most impacted by the budget proposals that Senator
Nelson spoke of. They are the kinds of projects that extend the
limits of our knowledge in the solar system, the galaxy, and
the universe that support our future missions within the space
program, and they are the kinds of efforts that simply cannot
be done or duplicated anywhere else.
The private sector does not have an interest in this kind
of work because it does not have a rate of return, because it
does not have predictable future cash-flows, even though 10 or
15 or 20 or 40 years from now someone might say, you know, this
is actually a technology that was first used on a particular
Explorer mission. No one can predict that today. No one can
predict future practical applications or market applications of
these technologies. No one else would do this work if
government did not step forward and say we have an interest in
providing the support for this scientific exploration.
So I think that is the essence of the concerns shared by
the members of this subcommittee and I think by our panelists
as well. Dr. Torbert has really been a great advocate for those
areas of scientific investigation, but also a good teacher, a
good administrator of a program that I think is in many ways a
model for others around the country. So I am pleased to welcome
Roy and pleased to be here to hear from our other panelists.
Thank you.
Senator Hutchison. Well, thank you, Senator Sununu, for
really making a point of not letting this hearing be delayed.
I am going to introduce all four of you and then ask you to
speak in this order. I have no idea why the order is what it
is. That is above my pay grade, but I am going to read my
script.
Dr. Peter Voorhees is the Engelhart Professor and Chair of
the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at
Northwestern University. Dr. James Pawelczyk is an associate
professor at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Torbert, as has
been mentioned, is Director of the Space Science Center at the
University of New Hampshire. General Charles Bolden has the
distinction of being an astronaut. He was a pilot on the trip
that was taken by my colleague, Senator Nelson, and Senator
Nelson asked for you to be a witness today. We are very
pleased. After you left NASA, you went to the Marine Corps and
served capably in the Marine Corps before retirement, and you
have just been inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. So we
are very pleased that all of you are here.
I want to mention that there were two specific people we
asked to be here who could not, but who are submitting for the
record their testimony. Dr. Mark Lewis, the Chief Scientist of
the U.S. Air Force. I asked him to talk about the cooperative
role in aeronautics research that NASA and the Department of
Defense through the Air Force could utilize. And John Karas,
the Vice President for Space Exploration of Lockheed Martin
Space Systems. They will provide written testimony.
So with that, let me start with you, Dr. Voorhees.
STATEMENT OF DR. PETER W. VOORHEES, CHAIR,
DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING,
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Voorhees. Thank you very much. Chairwoman Hutchison,
Ranking Member Nelson, and Members of the Committee, thank you
for inviting me to testify today. My name is Peter Voorhees. I
am the Frank C. Engelhart Professor and Chair of the Department
of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern
University. I was a member of the National Research Council
Space Studies Board and Chair of the Committee of Microgravity
Research. Through my tenure as Chair, I have become familiar
with the microgravity program and many of the areas within the
physical sciences that are at the core of NASA's human
exploration effort.
The future of research at NASA is being threatened as never
before. I believe that a strong physical sciences research
program is crucial to both capitalizing on NASA's significant
investment in the area and to enabling the human spaceflight
program. Only by supporting an ongoing physical sciences
research program will NASA be able to avoid failures, that
could have been anticipated by physical sciences research, and
implement the President's vision for human spaceflight in the
most cost-effective and rapid fashion.
The rationale for continuing physical sciences research at
NASA lies in both the past and the future. Since 1990, NASA has
been investing significant resources, measured in billions of
dollars, in developing and maintaining a community of
researchers in the microgravity sciences area. In 2003, the
National Research Council study, Assessment of the Directions
in Microgravity and Physical Sciences Research, found the
quality of the investigators in the program to be excellent,
and the research has impacted the fields in which it was a
part. Ending the physical sciences research program will
deprive the Nation of important discoveries in fields ranging
from wetting and spreading dynamics of fluids on surfaces to
relativity and precision clocks and negatively impact the
ability to perform high quality research on the International
Space Station.
Just as important as this past investment is the profound
impact that physical sciences research can have on the future
of NASA's human exploration effort. This is because important
technology required for space exploration is affected by
gravitationally related phenomena that are poorly understood.
This lack of understanding hampers the design of a vast array
of devices such as those for heat transfer, the prevention and
detection of fires, fluid handling, and materials repair such
as brazing and welding, among many others.
An example of the importance of physical sciences research
is illustrated by the need to prevent and detect fires in a
reduced gravity environment. We have had thousands of years of
experience detecting and fighting fires on Earth. In contrast,
our experience with combustion phenomena and microgravity or
partial Earth's gravity is limited to, at most, 50 years. As a
result, our understanding of flame propagation issues that
impact spacecraft safety is very limited. It is, thus, not
surprising that research in this area continues to uncover new
and unexpected results. Although fires on the spacecraft are an
unlikely event, if one should occur, it could be catastrophic
not only for the mission, but for the entire human exploration
of space effort. Given our lack of understanding of how fires
behave in reduced gravity environments and the crucial
importance of this to the human exploration effort, I can think
of few stronger rationales for a vigorous combustion research
program.
There are numerous other examples of the importance of
physical sciences research in the human exploration of space
effort as well.
In order to capitalize on the past investment and to ensure
a future for the human exploration effort, it is crucial to
retrain a broad spectrum of physical sciences research at NASA.
The importance of continuity in a research program cannot be
overemphasized. Continued support of this community is
essential in engaging the best researchers, producing the
students interested in working with NASA upon graduation, and
performing the ground-breaking research that is essential to
accomplishing NASA's human spaceflight goals. The level of
support needed to continue funding a cadre of 250
investigators, which is the minimum number needed for a viable
program, is quite modest compared to that formerly invested in
the Office of Biological and Physical Research. Many
investigators have recently had their programs terminated. If
this support is not made available in the very near future,
these scientists will be reluctant to return to microgravity
research and the remaining researchers will also likely leave
the program.
It is important to realize that funding physical sciences
research will not diminish in any way NASA's future plans for
human exploration. Rather, it will be an essential enabler of
this effort. Finally, continuation of funding will allow NASA
to reap the benefits of many years of funding high-impact
research that is focused on gravitationally related phenomena.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today,
and I look forward to responding to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Voorhees follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Peter W. Voorhees, Chair, Department of
Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University
Introduction
Chairwoman Hutchison, Ranking Member Nelson, and members of the
Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Peter
Voorhees. I am the Frank C. Engelhart Professor and Chair of the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern
University. I was a member of the National Research Council Space
Studies Board and Chair of the Committee for Microgravity Research.
Through my tenure as Chair I have become familiar with the microgravity
program and many of the areas within the physical sciences that are at
the core of NASA's human exploration effort.
I believe that a strong physical sciences research program is
crucial to both capitalizing on NASA's significant past investment in
this area and to enabling the human spaceflight program. In 2004
President Bush provided a clear vision for NASA's human spaceflight
effort and NASA has fully embraced the goal of returning humans to the
Moon and eventually sending humans to Mars. However, to accomplish
these goals research in the physical sciences is necessary to gain a
more complete understanding of effects of microgravity on a wide range
of processes as well as develop a variety of technologies to ensure the
safety and success of these missions. Only by supporting an ongoing
physical sciences research program will NASA be able to avoid failures
that could have been anticipated by an ongoing physical sciences
research program, and to implement the President's vision in the most
cost-effective and rapid fashion.
The Development of the Physical Sciences Research Program
The evolution of NASA's physical sciences research program provides
important lessons for how to formulate a successful research program to
enable human space exploration. NASA's physical sciences research
program began as the materials processing in space effort during the
Skylab era. The program was singularly focused on performing
experiments in space. As a result, many of the experiments were ill-
conceived and few yielded new insights into the physical phenomena that
were operative in space or impacted their respective scientific
communities. In the early 1990s a new paradigm for research was
initiated in the fluids, materials, combustion and fundamental physics
research areas. In order to attract the best researchers, a
concentrated out-reach effort was undertaken and a rigorous peer review
system was instituted. In addition, a large ground-based research
program was created that ensured that ideas were refined and scientific
questions identified that could be answered only through space flight
experiments. As a result the ``shoot and look'' approach to performing
experiments during the Skylab era was replaced by carefully conceived
hypothesis driven experiments. At its peak there were approximately 500
investigators in the program and it supported 1,700 research students.
The 2003 National Research Council (NRC) study ``Assessment of the
Directions in Microgravity and Physical Sciences Research'' found the
quality of the investigators in the program to be excellent. On the
basis of an analysis of the citations of the papers published,
prominence of journals in which the papers appeared, the influence of
the research on the content of textbooks, documented influence on
industry and the quality of the investigators in the program, we found
that the microgravity program has had a significant impact on the
fields of which it was a part. For example, 37 members of the fluids
program were fellows of the American Physical Society, the materials
science program produced some of the most highly cited papers in the
area of solidification and crystal growth, and the fundamental physics
program was funding six Nobel laureates. Many billions of dollars were
invested in creating this successful and influential program.
NASA should take great pride in the creation of this high quality
physical sciences research program in the fluids, combustion, materials
and fundamental physics areas. It evolved into one of the jewels in
NASA's crown. With the growth in the quality of the program, NASA
became the primary source of funding for research in areas such as
crystal growth, low temperature physics, and low Reynolds number and
interfacial fluid flow, making NASA stewards of these important and
broad scientific areas.
In early 2001 it became apparent that the International Space
Station (ISS) program was facing major cost overruns. These financial
constraints led to a major reduction in the microgravity research that
had been planned for the ISS. Many of the experimental facilities that
were planned were either reduced in size or delayed and the number of
crew aboard the ISS was cut, making it difficult to perform experiments
during the construction phase of the project. As a result, flight
experiments were delayed or effectively canceled. The catastrophic loss
of the Columbia orbiter in 2003 placed even more severe restrictions on
the ability to transport samples and experimental equipment to and from
the ISS.
The challenges posed by these recent events, the need to retire the
Shuttle by 2010, as well as develop the Crew Exploration Vehicle have
placed great pressures on NASA's budget. These financial constraints
have resulted in a major reduction in the size and scope of the
physical sciences research program. For example, with breathtaking
speed and no external input, NASA eliminated the Office of Biological
and Physical Research, and the Physical Sciences division within the
office. The number of principal investigators has been reduced to less
than 100 with still more reductions proposed. NASA's physical sciences
research effort is on the verge of elimination. FY07 is the last chance
to keep physical sciences research at NASA alive.
Rationales for Physical Sciences Research at NASA
The raison d'etre for physical sciences research at NASA lies in
both the past and future. Since 1990 NASA has been investing
significant resources, measured in the billions of dollars, in
developing and maintaining a community of high quality researchers in
the microgravity sciences arena. The focus of this research is to use
the microgravity environment to study a broad range of physical
phenomena. The research spans from the basic to the applied, and will
continue to impact both the scientific communities, of which the
research is a part, as well as industry. As a result of the rigorous
peer review of this research, important discoveries have been made in
fields ranging from the wetting and spreading dynamics of fluids on
surfaces to relativity and precision clock experiments. Moreover, many
of the space flight experiments that flow from this program require the
unique microgravity environment that is provided by the ISS and thus
make use of a national asset that has been very costly to create.
Ending the physical sciences research will squander the investment made
in building the physical sciences research program and negatively
impact the ability to perform high quality research on the ISS.
Just as important as this past investment is the likely impact of
the physical sciences program on the future of NASA's human exploration
effort. A vibrant physical sciences research program is the key to
successfully accomplishing the President's Vision for Space
Exploration, since important technology required for space exploration
is controlled by gravitationally related phenomena that are poorly
understood. This lack of understanding hampers the design of a vast
array of devices such as those for heat transfer, the prevention and
detection of fires, fluid handling, controlling the transport and
movement of Lunar and Martian soils, and materials repair such as
brazing and welding, among many others. The need for research in these
areas is discussed in detail in the NRC report ``Microgravity Research
in Support of Technologies for the Human Exploration and Development of
Space and Planetary Bodies.'' Given the central importance of these
areas in fostering the human exploration of space effort, the impact of
a physical sciences research program on one of NASA's central missions
could thus be profound. As illustrations, I shall focus on two such
examples: heat transfer systems and fire prevention and detection.
Thermal control is critical for spacecraft; excess heat must be
rejected into space and moved from one section of the craft to another.
In the past NASA relied on single-phase heat transfer systems, for
example systems that involve only a liquid to transfer heat. However,
there are clear advantages of employing systems that involve both a
liquid and vapor (two phases), such as those used on the Earth. This
allows one to employ the significant amount of heat required to
transform a liquid to a vapor or a vapor to a liquid in the heat
transfer process. This significant heat of vaporization or condensation
allows the heat to be transferred in a far more efficient manner than
with a single-phase system. The successful operation of such systems on
the Earth frequently requires that the less dense vapor sit above the
more dense liquid which, due to the presence of gravity, occurs
naturally in a terrestrial environment. However this density driven
stratification would not be present in space. This is but one of the
many challenges of using such systems in space. Nevertheless, the
advantages of using such a system in a spacecraft are significant.
Given the enhanced efficiency, a multi-phase heat transfer system would
save considerable space and mass. Heat pipes have also been proposed as
possible heat transfer devices. These have the advantage of being
completely passive where the motion of the fluid is driven by the
surface tension of the liquid, but they also involve evaporation and
condensation to transfer heat.
The central reason why heat transfer systems that involve
multiphase flow are not more commonly used in spacecraft is that the
dynamics of flow in systems with more than one phase, such as a vapor
and liquid, in a microgravity or partial Earth's gravity environment
are not well understood. A ground-based and flight program focused on
the dynamics of flow in these multiphase systems could provide the
insights to allow these higher efficiency devices to be used in the
human spaceflight effort. While there are constraints on the mass and
space available in the limited-duration environment of the Shuttle or
ISS, the constraints placed on long-duration flights to Mars or even
the Moon are even more stringent. Thus, the availability of high
efficiency heat transfer devices, that occupy less space and have a
smaller mass than existing devices, would open up much needed space for
food and water. It is only through research in this area that these
devices will be embraced by the spacecraft engineering community.
A second example of the importance of physical sciences research is
in preventing and detecting fires in a reduced gravity environment. We
have had thousands of years of experience detecting and fighting fires
on Earth. In contrast our experience with combustion phenomena in
microgravity or partial Earth's gravity is limited to at most fifty
years. As a result, our understanding of the flame propagation issues
that impact spacecraft safety is very limited, and research in this
area continues to uncover new and unexpected results. For example,
flames can spread along surfaces in the opposite direction to that on
Earth, flames extend over electrical insulation 30 to 50 percent faster
in microgravity than under normal conditions, and smoldering under
microgravity conditions is less bright and more difficult to detect
than on the ground. All of these results were determined from basic
research conducted in only the past 10 years and have had a documented
effect on the fire fighting procedures on spacecraft. Given the limited
number of experiments performed in microgravity and the surprising
results thus produced, there is much still to be learned.
Although fires on a spacecraft are an unlikely event, if one should
occur it could be catastrophic not only for the mission but for the
entire human exploration of space effort. The absence of any safe
refuge on a spacecraft, and possibly lunar base, makes detecting and
preventing small fires essential. Moreover, the design of lunar
habitats that mitigate the effects of possible fires requires knowledge
of how fires propagate in structures in partial Earth's gravity.
Physics based simulation codes exist for fires in Earth-based
structures, but none exist for micro or partial gravity environments.
Given our lack of understanding of how fires behave in microgravity
environments and the critical importance of this to the human
exploration effort, I can think of few stronger rationales for a
vigorous combustion research program. Such a program must involve an
active ground-based program and, due to the long duration of many
combustion experiments, ready access to the ISS may be required.
Going Forward
In order to leverage the past investment in physical sciences
research and to ensure a successful future for the human exploration
effort, it is crucial that a broad spectrum of physical sciences
research in NASA be retained. The importance of continuity in a
research program cannot be overemphasized. Continued support of this
community is essential in engaging the best researchers, producing the
students interested in working with NASA upon graduation, and
performing the ground-breaking research that is essential to
accomplishing NASA's human spaceflight goals. The level of support
needed for this continuity is quite modest given that a cadre of 250
investigators, each of whom requires $130 thousand, would lead to a
$32.5 million per year program, a very small investment compared to the
$1 billion of the former Office of Biological and Physical Research.
This represents the minimum support needed to keep a physical sciences
research program alive at NASA. Many researchers have recently had
their programs terminated. If this support is not made available in the
very near future these scientists will be reluctant to return to
microgravity research and the remaining researchers will also likely
leave the program. As a result NASA will find itself in the same
position as it was in the late 1980s: without an organized and
influential microgravity research program. Unfortunately, NASA will
never have the time or the resources to recreate a physical sciences
research community. Therefore it is absolutely imperative that NASA
fund physical sciences research at no less than $32.5 million for FY07.
To avoid many of the pitfalls of the past, it is essential that the
program involves both ground-based research and spaceflight
experiments. One of the crucial lessons of the early microgravity
program is that only through the testing and refinement that is
possible with ground-based theoretical and experimental research can
experiments be performed in space that will yield reliable results. It
is essential that both the ground-based and spaceflight research be
rigorously-peer reviewed.
The future of research at NASA is being threatened as never before.
It is important to realize that funding physical sciences research will
not diminish in any way NASA's future plans for human exploration.
Rather it will be an essential enabler in this effort. Finally,
continuation of the funding will allow NASA to reap the benefits of
many past years of funding of high impact research that is focused on
gravitationally related phenomena.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today. I look
forward to responding to your questions.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much. That was very good.
Dr. Pawelczyk.
STATEMENT OF JAMES A. PAWELCZYK, Ph.D., ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY, KINESIOLOGY AND MEDICINE, THE
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Pawelczyk. Madam Chairperson, members of the Committee,
good afternoon. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
impact of NASA's science cuts on the President's Vision for
Space Exploration.
My comments are formulated from diverse perspectives. First
of all, I am a former astronaut researcher and I flew on the
Space Shuttle in 1998. Second, I have recently helped evaluate
NASA's biological research for the Institute of Medicine and
the National Research Council, as well as assess the progress
of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute in Houston.
Finally, I am a life scientist. I am a physiologist at Penn
State, and my NASA research funded program was recently
terminated more than a year in advance of our scheduled
completion date. I am not bitter. Maybe a little.
The Vision for Space Exploration has caused dramatic change
at NASA. Research that contributes to exploration goals takes
precedence over experiments with intrinsic scientific
importance and impact, and the entity responsible for funding
such work, the former Office of Biological and Physical
Research, has been absorbed into the Exploration Systems
Mission Directorate.
Now, I agree with Mr. Griffin's view that aligning research
with exploration goals is a good thing. However, naive or
wholesale elimination of scientific themes is not. Funding for
biological and physical research has declined almost 75 percent
over a 2-year period, and this includes the cancellation of
virtually all research equipment for the International Space
Station that supports animals and plants, the elimination of 20
percent of the funding for external research grants, and the
premature termination of 84 percent of these grants.
Approximately 500 life science graduate students in 25 states
are going to be affected by this.
Now, on a January interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Mr.
Griffin was asked about the lessons learned from Challenger and
Columbia, and he stated the following, ``If you spend much time
on this stuff and aviation accidents, a common theme is that of
not listening to the signals the hardware is sending--the test
results, the flight results, the dissenting opinions of the
people involved. So a common theme is not listening. And I
don't mean actively shutting out. I mean being so focused on
what we're trying to do that we're not aware of what nature is
telling us.''
I think those insights are remarkably prophetic, and today
I find myself before you as one of those dissenters. While I
share Mr. Griffin's passion for the human exploration of space,
my goal today is to ensure that you are, in fact, aware of what
nature is telling us about humans in space.
Simply put, the biological risks associated with
exploration class spaceflight are far from being mitigated.
Musculoskeletal deconditioning remains of paramount concern.
The rate of osteoporosis in astronauts today equals that of
patients with spinal cord injury and it exceeds that seen in
post-menopausal women by a factor of 10 or more.
Extrapolating from published studies of astronauts and
cosmonauts, we can offer these preliminary estimates of the
changes that would occur if humans made a 30-month trip to Mars
starting today. Every single one of them would lose 15 percent
of their bone mineral or more, and 80 percent would lose at
least 25 percent of their bone mineral. More than 40 percent of
them would lose greater than half of their bone mineral in
their hip and in their femur, and that would set them up for
catastrophic fracture. About 20 percent would lose more than a
quarter of their exercise capacity, and approximately 40
percent would experience a decline in leg muscle strength of 30
percent or more. And these changes would occur despite the fact
that astronauts are using the best countermeasures available
currently. To my knowledge, no engineer would accept a
spaceflight system where such degradation is expected, nor
should it be so for astronauts.
NASA's Bioastronautics Roadmap is the comprehensive plan to
document and reduce the biological risks of spaceflight, and in
2005, NASA's chief medical officer asked the Institute of
Medicine to evaluate the road map. Despite the alarming data
that I just described to you, we found a concern for these
risks varied widely among astronauts, flight surgeons, and mid-
level management. None of the 183 proposed risks mitigation
strategies have been implemented for spaceflight and
approximately two-thirds of these strategies were considered to
be so incompletely developed that they would not be addressed
further.
The problem is simply this. Biology has become the non-
science at NASA. The Science Mission Directorate, which is the
flagship, includes just four focus areas: astrophysics, Earth
science, heliophysics, and planetary science. Biology does not
appear at all. The next generations of space life scientists,
who are the graduate students like my own, perceive a bitter
lesson that is difficult to assuage. As a result of a shell
game of agency-wide reorganization, life sciences are not
recognized, valued, or funded adequately within science
anymore. So to restore that scientific credibility, I think we
need a coordinated strategy, and I'll offer you several
recommendations.
First, add sufficient funding to the budget both to answer
the questions essential for the vision and to replace the Space
Shuttle in a timely fashion.
Second, articulate a time frame for delivering and
completing a risk mitigation plan and vet that plan with the
external scientific community.
Third, develop a comprehensive plan for conducting research
on the International Space Station without the Space Shuttle.
Include in that capability for six people or more and the
logistics to keep them supplied.
And finally, establish sufficient oversight to hold NASA
accountable to these goals.
Make no mistake about this. In the long term, we are
retaining and accumulating human risk to spaceflight in order
to progress with an underfunded Vision for Space Exploration. I
think we have an ethical obligation to our current and future
space explorers and to the American public to do better. Given
sufficient resources, I remain optimistic that NASA can deliver
the rigorous translational research program that the scientific
community expects and the American people deserve, and I
sincerely thank you for your vigilant support of our Nation's
space program.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pawelczyk follows:]
Prepared Statement of James A. Pawelczyk, Ph.D., Associate Professor of
Physiology, Kinesiology and Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University
Abstract--At the midpoint between the Apollo program and a
human trip to Mars, NASA's recent reductions to scientific
funding are unprecedented. In particular, the thoughtfully
conceived architecture to explore the Moon, Mars and beyond has
produced large reallocations of research funding that
jeopardizes the stability and future of space life sciences.
Given current budgets, NASA does not appear to have sufficient
resources to fully engage the help of the external science
community to complete the President's Vision for Space
Exploration.
Madame Chairperson and members of the Committee:
Good afternoon. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
changes NASA has made to its research funding. I have been a life
sciences researcher for 20 years, competing successfully for the past
13 years for grants from NASA. From 1996-1998 I took leave from my
academic position at The Pennsylvania State University to serve as a
payload specialist astronaut, or guest researcher, on the STS-90
Neurolab Spacelab mission, which flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in
1998. Since Neurolab I have had the privilege to serve as a member of
NASA's Research Maximization and Prioritization (ReMAP) Taskforce. More
recently I helped evaluate NASA's Bioastronautics Research Program for
the Institute of Medicine, NASA's International Space Station Research
Plan for the National Research Council, and the progress of the
National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).
During a January 19, 2006 interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Mr.
Griffin shared his thoughts about his first 9 months in the position of
NASA Administrator. When asked about the lessons learned from the
Challenger and Columbia accidents, he stated the following:
If you spend much time on this stuff and aviation accidents, a
common theme is that of not listening to the signals the
hardware is sending--the test results, the flight results, the
dissenting opinions of the people involved. So a common theme
is not listening. And I don't mean actively shutting out. I
mean being so focused on what we're trying to do that we're not
aware of what nature is telling us [emphasis added].
Those insights are remarkably prophetic, and today I find myself
before you as one of those dissenters. I share Mr. Griffin's passion
for the human exploration of space, but I must conclude with equal
conviction that biological adaptation is a serious risk to an extended
human presence in space, and that the scientific research necessary to
ensure the health and safety of future astronaut crews beyond low-Earth
orbit is far from complete.
ReMAP--Antecedent to the Vision for Space Exploration
For several years, NASA has recognized and responded to its need to
complete necessary research in a fiscally responsible manner. In the
spring and summer of 2002 NASA launched the Research Maximization and
Prioritization Task Force, commonly known as ReMAP. Chaired by Rae
Silver of Columbia University, the Task Force included two National
Medal of Science awardees, one Nobel Prize winner, and more than a
dozen members of the National Academy of Sciences, representing the
breadth of translational research in the biological and physical
sciences.
ReMAP was asked to prioritize 41 areas of research in the former
Office of Biological and Physical Research. What was unique to ReMAP
was our challenge to consider both the physical sciences and biological
sciences simultaneously. This resulted in spirited debate and
intellectual foment of the highest caliber. When we completed our task,
highest priority was assigned to 13 areas that informed two broad,
often overlapping, goals: One is the category of intrinsic scientific
importance or impact; research that illuminates our place in the
universe, but cannot be accomplished in a terrestrial environment. The
other goal values research that enables long-term human exploration of
space beyond low-Earth orbit, and develops effective countermeasures to
mitigate the potentially damaging effects of long-term exposure to the
space environment. It should be no surprise to you that over the past
17 years other review panels, both internal and external to NASA, have
named similar goals.
The Task Force wrestled with the question whether one goal could be
prioritized over the other. In the history of the United States space
program both goals have been important, though their relative
importance has changed over time. The limited amount of biological and
physical research that occurred during early space exploration,
particularly the Apollo era, focused on the health and safety of
astronaut crews in a microgravity environment. Significant research
questions that did not contribute directly to a successful Moon landing
received lower priority. In contrast, more regular access to space
provided by the space shuttle afforded an opportunity for ``basic''
research to take higher priority; the proliferation of space based
research in the physical and biological sciences over the past twenty
years is a testament to this fact.
Thus, the relative priority of these two goals of research--
enabling long-term human exploration of space and answering questions
of intrinsic scientific merit--has shifted during NASA's history. This
conclusion is critical, as it suggests that one goal can receive higher
priority over the other, though this ranking may change depending on
NASA's definition of programmatic needs at a particular point in time.
When the President announced the Vision for Space Exploration in
January of 2004, the relative balance between these two categories of
research changed again. Items in NASA's research portfolio that most
contributed to exploration goals would take precedence over experiments
with intrinsic scientific importance and impact, and substantial
realignment has occurred as a result. At the same time, the Office of
Biological and Physical Research, the entity responsible for funding
biological and physical research at NASA, was absorbed into the
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
I share Mr. Griffin's view that aligning research with exploration
goals is a good thing. However, naive or wholesale elimination of
scientific themes is not, and biological and physical research has
certainly suffered from this effect. To the alarm of the scientific
community, the process that began with ReMAP has taken a dangerous
turn. Areas that we rated as highest priority, including those that
contribute to exploration goals, have been de-scoped or eliminated
completely.
Where is ``Science'' at NASA Today?
In many ways, the reorganization of ``science'' at NASA orphaned
biology, and I encourage caution when you and your colleagues use the
term in your discussions. Logically, ``science'' would seem an
appropriate, generic label for research activities that occur
throughout the agency. However, within NASA it appears to have a more
specific meaning, often referring exclusively to the activities funded
by the Science Mission Directorate, which includes the following
disciplines only:
Astrophysics--the study of matter and energy in outer space.
Earth Science--the study of the origins and structure of our
planet.
Heliophysics--the study of planets, interplanetary space,
and the sun.
Planetary Science--the study of the origins, structure, and
features of planets beyond our own.
Please note that the term, ``biology,'' or the study of life, does
not appear at all. To my more skeptical colleagues, the science of
biology is disappearing at NASA.
The available evidence provides some support for this conclusion.
While the Science Mission Directorate has suffered modest cuts, over
the past 2 years, funding for biological and physical research (i.e.,
science not managed by the Science Mission Directorate) has decreased
almost 75 percent, from $1,049 million in FY05 to $274 million in the
FY07 Budget Summit. This includes the cancellation of virtually all
research equipment for the International Space Station that supports
animals and plants, the elimination of 20 percent of the funding for
external research grants, and the premature termination of 84 percent
of these grants. Approximately 500 life science graduate students in 25
states will be affected.
The next generations of space life scientists perceive a bitter
lesson that is difficult to assuage: as the result of a shell game of
agency-wide reorganization, life science is no longer recognized or
valued within NASA.
Biological Research is Essential and Obligatory to the Vision for Space
Exploration
I wholeheartedly endorse the President's goal to return humans to
the Moon and Mars, but the current reductions in biological research
funding appear sorely at odds with this goal. Simply put, the
biological risks associated with exploration-class spaceflight are far
from being mitigated.
This conclusion is based on analysis of 30 years of NASA-sponsored
research. Since the days of Skylab, NASA-funded investigators conducted
an aggressive and successful biological research program that was
robust, comprehensive, and internationally recognized. Beginning with
those early efforts, and continuing with our international partners on
the Mir and the International Space Station, we have built a knowledge
base that defines the rate at which humans adapt during spaceflight up
to six-months duration, with four data points exceeding one-year
duration.
Musculoskeletal deconditioning remains a paramount concern. In the
past 2 years our ability to differentiate the trabecular bone network
in the hip has helped us to appreciate that the risk to bone during
spaceflight may be even greater than we previously anticipated. The
rate of osteoporosis in astronauts equal patients with spinal cord
injury, and exceeds that seen in post-menopausal women by a factor of
10 or more. Extrapolating from published studies of astronauts and
cosmonauts spending up to 6 months in low-Earth orbit, we can offer
preliminary estimates of the changes that would occur if humans made a
30-month trip to Mars today:
100 percent of crew members would lose more than 15 percent
of their bone mineral in the femur and hip.
Approximately 80 percent would lose more than 25 percent of
their bone mineral.
More than 40 percent would lose greater than 50 percent of
their bone mineral.
Approximately 20 percent would lose more than 25 percent of
their exercise capacity.
Approximately 40 percent would experience a decline in leg
muscle strength of 30 percent or more.
Each of these predictions takes into account the fact that
astronauts would be using the best countermeasures available currently!
To my knowledge, no engineer would accept a spaceflight system where
such degradation is expected. Nor should it be so for astronauts.
What is the Status of NASA's Human Biological Risk Mitigation Plan?
In 2005 NASA's Chief Medical Officer asked the Institute of
Medicine to evaluate NASA's Bioastronautics Roadmap, the comprehensive
plan to document and reduce the biological risks to human spaceflight.
Despite the alarming data I just described to you, we found that
concern for these risks varied widely among astronauts, flight
surgeons, and mid-level management. None of the 183 proposed risk
mitigation strategies had been implemented for spaceflight, and
approximately two-thirds of these strategies were considered to be so
incompletely developed that they would not be addressed further.
In his 2001 book, Enlightened Experimentation: The New Imperative
for Innovation, Harvard Business professor Stefan Thomke offered the
following four rules for enlightened experimentation: organize for
rapid experimentation; fail early and often, but avoid mistakes;
anticipate and exploit early information; and combine new and old
technologies. While these principles are recognizable in NASA's
Constellation System architecture, they are wholly absent in the
implementation of NASA's Bioastronautics Roadmap.
We desperately need to increase human capabilities in space by
translating findings from cell culture to reference organisms and
mammalian models such as mice and rats to future flight crews.
Translational research is the ``gold standard'' of the NIH, and it is
what the research community, and the American people, should expect
from the International Space Station. We need the capability to house
and test model organisms on the ISS. But equally important, we need
adequate time for crew to prepare and conduct these experiments, and
that time can be found only when the ISS moves beyond the core complete
configuration. The potential return is immense; the application of this
research to our aging public could become one of the most important
justifications for an extended human presence in space.
Challenges for the Future
Earlier this year, Congress received The National Research
Council's review of NASA's plans for the International Space Station,
which identified several serious concerns about NASA's prioritization
process for current and planned life and physical sciences research.
First, allocations to research did not appear to be based on risk,
but convenience. Second, little emphasis was given to future lunar or
Martian outposts, opting instead for short stays on the Moon. Third,
the current ISS payload and the processes used to prioritize research
areas appeared to be neither aligned with exploration mission needs nor
sufficiently refined to evaluate individual experiments. Finally, no
process was in place to plan or integrate future research needs that
may not be recognized currently.
To restore scientific credibility at NASA, a coordinated strategy
is necessary. I offer several recommendations for your consideration:
First, add sufficient funding to NASA's budget, both to
answer the questions essential to the Vision for Space
Exploration and to replace the Space Shuttle in a timely
fashion. An addition of $150 million would restore biological
funding to the level of the President's FY06 budget request,
but a minimal biological research program, directed primarily
to external investigators, could be conducted with the addition
of approximately $50 million/year.
Second, articulate a time frame for delivering and
completing a risk mitigation plan for humans exploring the Moon
and Mars, and vet both the plan and the time frame with the
external scientific community.
Third, develop a comprehensive plan for conducting research
on board the International Space Station without the space
shuttle, including addition of essential equipment for animal
research, deployment of a crew of at least six people, and
logistics that are sufficient to keep these crews safe and
supplied.
Finally, establish sufficient oversight to hold NASA
accountable to these goals.
Madame Chairperson, members of the Committee, make no mistake about
this: in the long-term, we are retaining and accumulating human risk to
spaceflight in order to progress with an under-funded Vision for Space
Exploration. We have an ethical obligation to our current and future
space explorers, and to the American public, to do better. Given
sufficient resources, I remain optimistic that NASA can deliver the
rigorous translational research program that the scientific community
expects, and the American people deserve. I sincerely thank you for
your vigilant support of the Nation's space program, and the
opportunity to appear before you today.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much.
Dr. Torbert.
STATEMENT OF DR. ROY B. TORBERT, DIRECTOR,
UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE SPACE SCIENCE CENTER
Dr. Torbert. Madam Chair, Senator Sununu, Senator Nelson, I
also want to thank you today for the opportunity to address
important issues about NASA science. My name is Roy Torbert. I
am a professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire
and the Director of the Space Science Center, which
participates in all the divisions of NASA science. I am now a
lead investigator in a strategic mission for the Heliophysics
Division: the Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission, or MMS. I have
served as Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical
Sciences, where the future of a technical workforce was my
daily concern. I also serve on the NASA Advisory Council
Science Subcommittee for Heliophysics, although I do not speak
for them today.
First, I would like to commend the American people, and you
as their representatives, for their significant investment in
NASA science. The United States has benefited a great deal from
this investment. Not only is our technological base
strengthened, but our competitiveness in the world and our
educational investment in the future are greatly enhanced by
NASA science leadership.
However, there is justifiable concern in the space science
community today about future NASA funding. The Administrator
has been forced to reduce the run-out for the Science Mission
Directorate by some $3.1 billion to accommodate the
requirements of the shuttle, the station, and the new Crew
Exploration Vehicle, and even before the Fiscal Year 2007
budget proposals, NASA science had suffered a reduction. The
request for the SMD in Fiscal Year 2007 is now less in real
dollars than was appropriated in Fiscal Year 2004.
I make two points. First, the present budget has some
significant impacts on NASA's ability to carry out its
scientific program. And second, there are structural problems
that drive up the cost of major science missions that are
compounding our problem. Both of these conditions are severely
limiting the frequency and variety of future NASA science
missions.
Second, the immediate impacts. The NRC report, An
Assessment of Balance in NASA's Science Programs, shows that
many of NASA's programs have suffered even more than the
overall budget numbers would imply. The Solar Terrestrial
Probe, for example, within SMD now operates with about 75
percent of the funding that it had in 2004. As a result, the
original 2010 launch of my program MMS has now slipped to 2013,
and we find it very hard to recruit new students and engineers
for a program whose launch date recedes faster than real time.
The NASA strategic planning process is stretching out the
missing sequences of programs like Solar Terrestrial Probes by
many years, but in doing so, the ability of key missions,
STEREO, MMS, and the key ionospheric mission, GEC, to support
each other have been compromised. In particular, the GEC
mission has been deferred ``indefinitely'' beyond 2015.
Indefinite postponement certainly forces many scientists to
question the viability of their fields in the future.
In dealing with these impacts, NASA will preserve its
strategic missions. The science community is worried about the
extraordinary reductions in the smaller opportunities that form
the basis for student involvement, and these include the
Explorer, Discovery, and the Earth Pathfinders. They provide
exciting science missions for a modest investment where
students first learn the space science and engineering trade.
But the Explorer program has been cut back by half. There
have been no Explorer AO's since 2003 and none expected for
2008. The Low Cost Access to Space program launch rate has been
cut back by half. This year, in fact, it did not accept any
remote launch site proposals. Even regular sites like the
launch sites like Poker Flat are in danger by 2009. And the
sustaining research and analysis budget has been cut back by 15
percent.
The NASA advisory subcommittees are now concerned about two
findings of the NRC Balance report. I should mention that the
first finding we accept, that NASA really is being required to
do too much with too little at the present time. First, the
balance between large and small missions is no longer optimal,
and the cost to complete space and Earth science missions
really needs to be scrutinized.
Why is it that the costs of major NASA and other space
agency missions have grown far faster than technical inflation?
Most importantly, we simply do not have enough highly
trained citizens to sustain our technical economy as the
Gathering Storm report has made very clear. The retirement of
baby boomers at NASA calls into question how we can sustain the
Vision for Exploration over the long haul. I submit to you that
the NASA science programs are a critical source of this needed
native talent.
Two other factors are in my written testimony, the
management of risk and the full cost accounting procedures at
NASA.
NASA is a mission agency with exciting goals to accomplish,
but it needs a sound technical basis, which is provided by the
proper mix of supporting research and focused development. NASA
should preserve programs that help train the next generation of
space scientists and engineers. NASA should restore the
vitality of the Explorer, Low Cost Access to Space, and the
research and analysis programs, and we would like to ask the
Congress, in considering the budget level for NASA as a whole,
to give high priority to restoring funding for the space
science enterprise as a whole.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Torbert follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Roy B. Torbert, Director,
University of New Hampshire Space Science Center
Introduction
Madame Chair, Senator Sununu, Senators, I want to thank you for the
opportunity today to address important issues that face the NASA
science enterprise. My name is Roy Torbert. I am a professor of physics
at the University of New Hampshire, and I represent the University as
Director of the Space Science Center within the Institute for the Study
of Earth, Oceans and Space. The Institute has 56 faculty who
participate in nearly every division of the NASA science effort, as
well as theoretical and ground activities supported by other state and
Federal agencies, including NSF, NOAA, DOE, and DOD. The Institute
presently supports 30 engineers, 57 graduate students, and over 70
undergraduates. I myself have served as principal investigator on
several scientific instruments for NASA and am now a lead investigator
in an upcoming strategic mission for the Heliophysics Division: the
Magnetospheric MultiScale Mission, or MMS. I have also served the
University as Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences,
where the future of a technical workforce, an issue to which I will
return, was a daily concern. Presently, I also serve on the NASA
Advisory Council Science Subcommittee for Heliophysics. Although this
committee has just been constituted and I cannot speak for the
committee, I will address some of the issues that the committee has
begun to consider.
First, and most importantly, I would like to commend the American
people, and you as their representatives, for their significant
investment in NASA science. Scientists like me know how difficult it
has become to find funding for the many worthy causes that come before
you, and we deeply appreciate your continued support. It is a signature
achievement of our Nation that it finds the means and the will to look
beyond the pressures of everyday concerns, to lift our horizons to
explore questions about our place in the universe, our relations to our
Sun and nearby planets, and how the Earth and its environment have
functioned in the past and how they may fare in the future.
Of course, I also believe that the United States has benefited a
great deal from this investment: not only is the technological base of
our country strengthened by NASA innovations, but our prestige and
competitiveness in the world and our educational investment in the
future technical workforce are greatly enhanced by NASA science
leadership.
The Space Science Budgetary Challenge
However, there is considerable anxiety in the space science
community today about the future of science funding within NASA. In
short, the Administrator has been forced to reduce the 5-year run out
of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) by some $ 3.1 billion to
accommodate the requirements of returning the shuttle to flight status,
to service the ISS, and to develop a new Crew Exploration Vehicle for
service by 2014. The funding for SMD will therefore grow at only 1
percent real dollars over this period, and long-planned projects are
being stretched out beyond the retirement age of many active scientists
in the field. Even before these budgets were proposed for FY07, NASA
science programs had sustained a reduction in scope. When the Vision
for Exploration was first proposed in 2004, the SMD budget was $ 5.5
billion and projected to grow to $7 billion in FY08. The request for
SMD in FY07 before you is now $5.33 billion, which is less in real
dollars than was appropriated in 2004.
In this testimony, I would like to lay before you two main points.
First, the present budget has some significant impacts on the ability
of NASA to carry out its planned scientific program; and second, there
are structural problems, namely, workforce issues, risk management
approaches, and full-cost accounting mechanisms, that, by driving up
the costs of major science missions, make these impacts even more
severe. Both of these conditions are combining to severely limit the
frequency and variety of science opportunities in the near future.
First, let us consider the immediate impacts to our space science
program.
Immediate Impacts in the Basic Space Science Mission
The budget numbers above would certainly require that NASA limit
its plans for science. Some programs have suffered even more than these
numbers imply. As an example, the Solar Terrestrial Probe line, within
SMD, which supports the upcoming STEREO solar mission, and which will
support MMS, now operates with about 75 percent of the funding
projected in 2004. As a result, the 2010 launch date announced in 2004
for MMS has now slipped to 2013. It is very hard to recruit new
students and engineers for a program whose launch date recedes faster
than real time! As detailed in a recent, thorough report of the
National Academy, entitled ``An Assessment of Balance in NASA's Science
Programs,'' many of the programs within other divisions, both within
SMD and also within the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD),
such as microgravity life and physical sciences, have suffered even
more severe reductions.
The science community, through the NASA strategic planning process,
has been attempting to deal with these reductions in an orderly manner,
by stretching out the development and launch plans when possible. Below
are timelines for one such example of the Solar Terrestrial Probes, as
extracted from the ``2005-2035 Roadmap for Heliophysics'' from the SMD
roadmapping effort. The original sequence of missions in 2003, as
diagrammed in the top panel, was thought to contain sufficient overlap
in development so that complementary fields within the Heliophysics
division of SMD, such as solar physics (STEREO mission), magnetospheric
physics (MMS), and ionospheric physics (Geospace Electrodynamics
Connections, GEC) could each contribute to the division goals of
understanding the structure and dynamics of our solar system, its basic
physical principles, and how the Sun influences the space and
atmospheric environment around the Earth. The 2005 roadmap accepted the
new budget realities, as outlined in the bottom panel, but now key
missions have been stretched out. In particular, the GEC mission, which
is the backbone of NASA research into ionospheric physics, has been
deferred ``indefinitely, beyond 2015.'' ``Indefinite postponement,'' as
a development timeline, certainly forces many scientists in the NASA
enterprise to question the viability of their fields in the future.
I must point out that these schedule realignments, as painful as
they are, resulted from budget reductions prior to those proposed for
2007. The new actions forced on the Administrator, as outlined above,
are just beginning to have their impact. It is appropriate that NASA,
as primarily a mission agency, will adjust major mission schedules to
preserve, as much as possible, its strategic vision.
What is causing considerable anxiety in the science community is
the anticipated and extraordinary reductions in the smaller mission
opportunities and sustaining research programs that form the support
for much of the university-based research where students are involved.
Small missions, such as those in the Explorer, Discovery, and Earth
System Science Pathfinders programs, provide projects where new
concepts are tested for a modest investment and where students first
learn the space science and engineering trade.
This is particularly true of the Low Cost Access to Space (LCAS)
effort that provides sounding rockets, balloons, and aircraft flight
opportunities in a time line that falls within the educational program
of a graduate student. Since 2000, the historical launch rate has
dropped in half (from about 30 to 15 missions per year), with
anticipated further reductions as a result of the 2006 budget. This
year, NASA would not accept proposals for remote launch sites for
sounding rockets, a critical capability for this program which often
requires that the scientist and student teams launch their payloads
directly into the specific region of space under study. The present run
out budget places even the regular launch facilities, such as those at
Poker Flat in Alaska, in danger by 2009.
The Explorer Program Is at Risk
The Explorer program (see http://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov/) is
another prime example of these impacts. Explorers are the original
science missions of NASA, dating back to the very first satellite,
Explorer I. They are universally recognized as the most successful
science projects at NASA, providing insights into both the remotest
part of our universe and the detailed dynamics of our local ionosphere.
The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) now stands as our only sentinel
to measure, in-situ, large mass ejections from the sun and the
energetic particles that are a danger to humans in space. TRACE and
RHESSI, study the dynamics of the solar surface where large solar
storms originate, storms that often threaten satellites and other
technological assets that we depend upon. Another Explorer, the
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, continues to provide startling
insights into the early structure of the Big Bang. Explorers are among
the most competitive solicitations in NASA science, and offer
opportunities for all comers to propose new and exciting ideas that are
selected on the basis of science content, relation to overall NASA
strategic goals, and feasibility of execution. The figure below details
the budgetary prospects for Explorers. The FY07 proposed run out for
Explorers will mean a program that is reduced by over half from its
proposed FY04 guidelines.
In the 1990s, the Explorer program size mix was adjusted downward
from the original ``full Explorer'' class to smaller satellites,
labeled Medium-Explorers (MIDEX) and Small Explorers (SMEX). This was
done to enhance the rate of new missions, in the face of limited
funding and the cost growth of Explorers, a growth which had followed
that of missions in general, an issue to which I will return. Even
smaller, so-called ``University Explorers'' or UNEX, were also proposed
but abandoned. For a number of years, this strategy allowed an
Announcement of Opportunity (AO) every year, for either a single MIDEX
or two SMEX class satellites. There has not been a single AO for
Explorers since 2003 and the next possible opportunity is now 2008.
That means there will be a 5-year gap in Explorer launches after the
upcoming IBEX launch in 2008. Many university institutions have
concluded that the years and dollars of up-front investment, necessary
to put forward a successful proposal for the Explorer Program, can no
longer be justified in the face of such limited prospects.
I would encourage the Congress to work with NASA to restore the
vitality of both the Explorer and LCAS programs.
Concerns About the Research and Analysis (R&A) Budgets
A specific concern to university-based scientists is the impact on
the sustaining Research and Analysis (R&A) budgets. The R&A program
initiates many of the new, small scientific avenues that eventually
lead to the major mission concepts that NASA pursues. They are highly
competitive, maximize the science investment of on-going missions by
allowing all scientists to use available data, and are heavily weighted
toward student and young faculty participation. These are moderate-term
efforts, usually lasting three to four years, where new research and
particularly theoretical approaches are explored. The Administrator has
been forced by his budget realities to propose an immediate reduction
of 15 percent in these programs. That may not seem catastrophic at
first sight, but a sudden reduction in any long term program can have
large effects. Because in any given year, approximately two thirds of
the budget is already committed, next year the budget available for new
grants must be reduced accordingly by 50 percent, on average. In some
programs, it has been announced that it will be as much as 80 percent.
If the budget were allowed to inflate, this rate would slowly recover
in the next few years, but, with the present budget prospects, there is
skepticism about its future. There is universal acceptance that these
realities will inevitably reduce the number of new students who enter
university programs like mine.
I have emphasized the budget impacts to programs with which I am
associated, but nearly all science programs, both within SMD and
Exploration Systems, are similarly affected, in some cases even more
so. For example, the Earth Science division depends to a larger extent
on the R&A program, and is therefore more severely reduced. The newly
constituted NASA science advisory subcommittees will be forced to re-
align strategic plans to available budgets and are beginning to study
how the recently completed Roadmaps and the NRC Decadal Study plan can
best be executed. Of particular concern are two findings of the above-
mentioned NRC ``Assessment of Balance'' report (finding #'s 2 and 4):
that the balance between large and small missions within NASA science
activities is not optimal, and that the cost-to-complete of space and
Earth science missions should be scrutinized. As shown here, much of
the mission stretch-out in programs like STP and Explorers occurred
even before the recent FY07 budget proposal, when the NASA Science
Enterprise as a whole enjoyed budgets that were kept at least even with
inflation, and sometimes even better. How much worse will it be if SMD
must live with a declining inflation-adjusted budget?
I would encourage the Congress to augment the small mission and R&A
effort in the NASA science budget.
What Are Factors Increasing the Costs of NASA Missions?
Why is it that the costs of the major NASA and other space agency
missions have grown far faster than inflation? Or even technical
inflation? I will offer three possible reasons, that all probably
contribute, and some recommendations to address these problems.
First, it is clear that nearly all space projects require a great
deal of technical competence, and a correspondingly competent
workforce. There has been a steady erosion of that workforce, not only
at NASA but across the entire country, and this fact has been decried
from many quarters. The NRC report, ``Rising Above the Gathering
Storm,'' makes this case most energetically. Other technical industries
have been able to compensate somewhat by tapping the pool of highly-
trained immigrants and foreign students, and often outsource work
abroad. As spacecraft are ITAR sensitive items, this pool is not
available to NASA or to its outside space-enterprise partners, even to
us at universities, because of the constraints of the law. All the
space programs at NASA, DOE, NOAA, and the DOD feel this shortage
acutely. And the situation will shortly be worse. NASA recently
commissioned the NRC to study how the workforce necessary to carry out
the Vision for Exploration can possibly be maintained, given the
impending retirement of much technical talent with the baby boomers. I
was invited to participate in that study where it became clear that the
real shortage lies in the lack of engineers and scientists who had
actually built, hands-on, space hardware and know how the hardware can
be integrated and function within larger, more complex systems. I
submit to you that the NASA science programs are a critical source of
this needed native talent, whether they remain in NASA science programs
or move out into the larger industrial base. Education at its very best
is a process of discovery, of trial-and-error, and the efficacy of
learning-by-doing has been proven over many years. NASA science is a
natural partner for universities by providing a wide-array of
opportunities for student participation where a mistake does not lead
to a catastrophic loss of life or operational mission capability. I
recently read a sobering article in Newsweek about students at MIT who
opted out of the technical curriculum. They often cited a lack of
excitement that could sustain them through a grueling educational
program: it just wasn't ``cool.'' For many, many students, NASA science
provides the ``coolness'' factor. From robots on Mars, to solar storms,
to questions about the origin of the Universe, NASA science is an
exciting enterprise. In this light and in view of the key role of NASA
science in the ``Gathering Storm'' report, it is unfortunate that NASA
is not a component of the President's new ``American Competitiveness
Initiative.'' It is particularly discouraging that, at the critical
moment when NASA science programs are needed most urgently by our
educational institutions, we are forced to consider how to down-size
their participation.
NASA needs to maintain its investment in space science programs
that allow universities to attract and engage undergraduate and
graduate students in all aspects of mission development and
deployment--from proof of concepts studies, to proposal submittal, to
prototype development, to launch, data analysis, and publication.
Whether these programs have short or long time horizons, there are ways
to allow the next generation of space scientists to participate in all
aspects of an exciting NASA mission.
A second factor in the cost of science projects is the management
of risk. Since the first Explorer I, NASA science projects have been
extraordinarily successful. But over the years, the management
procedures and quality assurance burden for science projects has grown
to an almost unsustainable level, and has been driven to be
commensurate more with manned missions, without any quantifiable impact
in actually improving the final reliability of science missions, as far
as many scientists can discern. I think the American people accept that
the space business is risky, especially during launch and re-entry.
Administrator Griffin has observed that, since 2 percent of these
launches never achieve orbit, it makes no sense to spend hundreds of
millions of dollars on procedures that might improve the reliability of
payloads far beyond that, and I emphasize there is debate whether we
are actually achieving more reliability. We have all learned that
unnecessary risk in manned space programs has tragic consequences and
clearly more must be done to minimize that risk. It is equally true
that not taking risks in leading-edge science projects has undesirable
results: not only must science continue to push the technological
envelope where failure is a risk that accompanies new ideas, but these
projects provide opportunities for training staff and students in an
environment where failure is not life-threatening, where a student can
gain hands-on experience in the real work of building state-of-the-art
instrumentation, and, having gained this expertise, these students can
go on to form the workforce of future operational and manned missions.
Now, no scientist likes the idea of failure. Not only are
increasingly precious resources lost, and explanations to committees
such as yours required, but even more importantly, many valuable years
of all our team members, especially students, and even whole careers,
are put at risk. With my university team, I have watched fifteen years
of hard work vanish in the first few seconds of launch; in this case, a
European launch. I can tell you that the silence that followed was
agonizing. But that team picked itself up, worked with both NASA and
ESA to rebuild those four satellites, and today this mission is on-
orbit and returning remarkable results. Exploration, in its very
nature, engages adversity, and it is the manner in which we overcome it
that defines us as a nation.
I note that NASA SMD is presently undertaking a top-to-bottom
review of the risk categories of its missions, and the processes that
are appropriate for each class of mission. In that review, it is
important that the ``one-NASA'' approach still allow a clear
differentiation of different levels of missions, from manned shuttles
and CEV's to very inexpensive sounding rockets. The scientific
community applauds this effort, and wishes to work with the NASA
centers to fashion procedures and processes that are appropriate to
each of these levels, and that can be both cost effective and
successful.
Third, and finally, there are some issues of accounting for costs
that, quite frankly, are mystifying to the science community. NASA
science centers have recently moved to a new accounting system, so-
called Full Cost Accounting, which, on the surface, is a step forward,
in that missions must account for all the costs associated with their
full execution. Previously, there were center-based budgets, where the
costs of maintaining needed expertise were carried in different
accounts than the missions themselves. If these budgets were re-
distributed to the mission budgets which then paid the costs, we would
achieve more budget transparency. But, we cannot see where this
distribution has been done. Furthermore, there is an inherent risk in
this approach when the number of missions decreases, as seems to be the
present case. If there is a certain amount of funding required to
maintain center expertise, then a smaller number of missions must show
higher required levels of funding to bear the fixed base costs, and
therefore fewer missions and so on. The LCAS program stands in
particular danger from this dilemma as the launch rate slowly dwindles.
Taken to its ridiculous limit, pretty soon you have one single very
expensive mission.
Summary
What is it that the science community is asking of NASA and this
Congress? Through some serious work of the Advisory committees, we will
be examining with NASA the balance of large and small programs. We
realize that NASA is first-and-foremost a mission agency with exciting
goals to accomplish. But these goals and missions cannot be
accomplished without a sound technical and scientific basis which is
provided by the proper mix of supporting research and focused
development. We will be asking NASA to consider programs that help
educate and train the next generation of space scientists and
engineers. We will be asking NASA to evaluate the proper level of risk
for science missions to allow science multiple opportunities to provide
the technical progress and student training so that future manned and
un-manned major missions can be reliably and affordably carried out. We
would like to examine how the new center financial systems can be
structured to provide faithful cost accounting in a manner that does
not improperly burden science missions. And, we would ask the Congress,
in considering the budget level for NASA, to give high priority to
restoring funding for the science enterprise as a whole.
I thank you for this opportunity to discuss the budget implications
for the NASA science program, one of our Nation's precious assets that
we all want to nurture to an ever more inspiring and productive future.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you, Dr. Torbert.
General Bolden.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES F. BOLDEN, JR., MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. MARINE
CORPS (RETIRED); CEO, JackandPanther, LLC
Mr. Bolden. Madam Chairman, Senator Nelson, Senator Sununu,
I am honored to be afforded the opportunity to address you this
afternoon on the very critical issue of budget and programs for
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
As you have already mentioned, Madam Chairman, on my first
flight, it was my honor to serve as a crew mate with a member
of this subcommittee, Senator Bill Nelson, an experience that
established a bond of friendship with him and his family,
Grace, Nan Ellen, and Billy, that my family and I cherish to
this day. Between my third and fourth flights on the Shuttle, I
served as the Assistant Deputy Administrator of NASA here in
Washington under then NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. My primary
responsibilities involved spearheading a review of NASA's
budget and its primary programs and projects and formulation of
recommendations for program restructuring to fit within the
budget constraints established by the Administration and the
Congress of the United States. I left the space agency and
active involvement in our space program in June 1994, so I feel
that it is appropriate that I be classified as an outsider in
offering my perspectives on the issues before this
subcommittee.
NASA today finds itself faced with challenges of redefining
and reorganizing in order to support and carry out the
President's Space Exploration Initiative and enable us to
maintain our scientific and technological leadership in the
world while we progress in a timely manner in our efforts to
return humans to the lunar surface and on to Mars. At this
time, some of us are beginning to understand fully the
statement credited to the late Dr. Bob Gilruth, who was
Director of the Johnson Space Center in what may be called the
golden age of human spaceflight, when he said ``People will
realize how difficult it was to go to the Moon when we try to
return.''
While we have a pretty good grasp on the technology to
accomplish this mission, I am not certain we have the national
will or determination to do it. I do not mean to insult
anyone's intelligence here today, but I do wish to remind all
of us that exploration of any sort is risky, expensive, and
unpredictable. While we may be able to continue many of the
science and exploration programs on which we have been embarked
over the past 40-plus years, we cannot do them on the cheap and
we cannot do them in series. Human exploration and science
experimentation and research are necessarily parallel endeavors
that are mutually supportive if we are to realize success in
either.
From my perspective, you in the Congress and the President
must see your way to expanding funding for NASA by some
marginal amount that would enable Dr. Griffin to retain
emphasis on many of the science and aeronautics programs that
are being reduced or cut. As an example, building a vehicle or
set of vehicles to take humans to the Moon and on to Mars,
without continued emphasis on the life science research to
understand more fully the environmental and human factors
challenges that must be overcome to successfully allow humans
to survive these journeys, is a certain recipe for disaster and
ultimate failure.
Similarly, funding increased science exploration and
experimentation through employment of robotic vehicles and
remote sensing and satellite data-gathering, without continued
improvement in our ability to safely send humans beyond Earth's
bounds and on to other heavenly bodies, literally defeats our
innate human drive and curiosity to explore the unknown and
venture from this planet in search of ways to improve our lives
here at home. In the very simplistic and perhaps somewhat naive
words scribbled on a rough space exploration drawing by a young
third grader in 1992, Samantha Aignier, ``You'll never know
unless you go.'' I think you all have a copy of Samantha's
picture that I keep on my wall to remind me.
Perhaps the greatest casualty of NASA's failure to
adequately fund a balanced program of human exploration and
science and aeronautics research will be the continued
deterioration in interest in science and math among our
elementary and secondary school students, not to mention the
college and post-graduate students who see no value in pursuing
the fields of science and engineering where each year brings
less and less funding for research to the university campuses.
Where once students in elementary school responded with
enthusiasm in large numbers that they wanted to be astronauts
when they grow up, most no longer hold this aspiration when I
visit the campuses around the United States to talk about my
exploits as a test pilot and an astronaut. Many of today's
students do not even know that we still have Americans in space
every single day on the International Space Station. They want
to know when we are going back into space and when are we going
to the moon and on to Mars.
A closing thought on what I believe continues to be one of
the greatest benefits of human space exploration, the
incredible opportunity for international engagement and
cooperation in a common goal. I feel that a primary reason that
Russia exists today in relative peace and prosperity is due to
the continued support and cooperation we gave to them from the
days of the Apollo-Soyuz test project in 1975 through the fall
of the Soviet Union, continuing on to today. We have an
opportunity to forge the same kind of alliance with the people
of China by fully welcoming them into the family of space-
faring nations and opening opportunities to them to join with
us in the peaceful human and robotic exploration of space. As
is a common practice in our military, peaceful engagement with
potential adversaries frequently makes them long-term partners
in pursuit of the common goal of international peace and
stability. Likewise in science and technology research, as well
as human space exploration, engagement with our potential
adversaries has the great advantage of focusing our efforts on
common peaceful pursuits and advancing the cause of humankind
here on Earth.
We already know how difficult it is to get humans safely
into space and back home to Earth. We need not make it even
more difficult by holding the NASA budget down to a level where
we are forced to make the choice between scientific and
technological research and human exploration, thus decreasing
our chances of successfully pursuing either.
Thank you again for this opportunity to share some of my
thoughts with you today. I too look forward to questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles F. Bolden Jr., Major General,
U.S. Marine Corps (Retired); CEO, JackandPanther, LLC
Madam Chairman and distinguished Members of this Subcommittee: I am
honored to be afforded the opportunity to address you this afternoon on
the very critical issue of budget and programs for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). A quick review of my
background and qualifications to be here might be appropriate. I am a
career officer of the United States Marine Corps, now retired after
34\1/2\ years of active service, 14 of which were spent assigned to the
NASA Astronaut Office at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston,
Texas as a pilot astronaut. At the time of my retirement, I was
completing my service as Commanding General of the Third Marine
Aircraft Wing headquartered at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar,
San Diego, California. During my tenure in the Astronaut Office, I flew
four space shuttle missions--two as a shuttle pilot and two as mission
commander. On my first flight it was my honor to serve as a crew mate
with a Member of this Subcommittee, Senator Bill Nelson, an experience
that established a bond of friendship with him and his family--Grace,
Nan Ellen, and Billy--that my family and I cherish to this day. Between
my third and fourth flights on the shuttle, I served as the Assistant
Deputy Administrator of NASA here in Washington under then NASA
Administrator, Dan Goldin. My primary responsibilities involved
spearheading a review of NASA's budget and its primary programs and
projects and formulation of recommendations for program restructuring
to fit within the budget constraints established by the Administration
and the Congress of the United States. I left the space agency and
active involvement in our space program in June 1994, so I feel that it
is appropriate that I be classified as an outsider in offering my
perspectives on the issues before this Subcommittee.
As was the case in 1992 when I came to Washington to assist with
Administrator Goldin's efforts to redefine and streamline the agency,
NASA today finds itself faced with the challenges of redefining and
reorganizing in order to support and carry out the President's Space
Exploration Initiative and enable us to maintain our scientific and
technological leadership in the world while we progress in a timely
manner in our efforts to return humans to the lunar surface and on to
Mars. At this time some of us are beginning to understand fully the
statement credited to the late Dr. Bob Gilruth, Director of the Johnson
Space Center in what may be called the golden age of human space
flight, when he said ``People will realize how difficult it was to go
to the Moon when we try to return.'' While we have a pretty good grasp
on the technology to accomplish this mission, I'm not certain we have
the national will power or determination. I do not mean to insult
anyone's intelligence today, but I do wish to remind all of us that
exploration of any sort is risky, expensive, and unpredictable. While
we may be able to continue many of the science and exploration programs
on which we have been embarked over the past forty plus years, we
cannot do them on the cheap and we cannot do them in series. Human
exploration and science experimentation and research are necessarily
parallel endeavors that are mutually supportive if we are to realize
success in either. While the NASA Administrator, Dr. Mike Griffin, is
making a very commendable effort to fit it all into today's NASA
budget, it's like trying to fit fifteen pounds of stuff into a five
pound sack. From my perspective, you in the Congress and the President
must see your way to expanding the funding for NASA by some marginal
amount that will enable Dr. Griffin to retain emphasis on many of the
science and aeronautics programs that are being reduced or cut. As an
example, building a vehicle or set of vehicles to take humans to the
Moon and on to Mars without continued emphasis on the life science
research to understand more fully the environmental and human factors
challenges that must be overcome to successfully allow humans to
survive these journeys is a certain recipe for disaster and ultimate
failure. Similarly, funding increased science exploration and
experimentation through employment of robotic vehicles and remote
sensing and satellite data gathering without continued improvement in
our ability to safely send humans beyond Earth's bounds and on to other
heavenly bodies literally defeats our innate human drive and curiosity
to explore the unknown and venture from this planet in search of ways
to improve our lives here at home. In the very simplistic and perhaps
somewhat naive words scribbled on a rough space exploration drawing by
a young third grader in 1992, Samantha Aignier, ``We'll never know if
we don't go!''
Perhaps the greatest casualty of NASA's failure to adequately fund
a balanced program of human exploration and science and aeronautics
research will be the continued deterioration in interest in science and
math among our elementary and secondary school students, not to mention
the college and post graduate students who see no value in pursuing the
fields of science and engineering where each year brings less and less
funding for research to the university campuses. Where once students in
elementary school responded with enthusiasm in large numbers that they
wanted to be astronauts when they grow up, most no longer hold this
aspiration when I visit the campuses around the U.S. to talk about my
exploits as a test pilot and astronaut. Many of today's students don't
even know that we still have Americans in space every single day on the
International Space Station. They want to know when we're going to
return to space and go to the Moon and Mars.
I'd like to offer a closing thought on what I believe continues to
be one of the greatest benefits of human space exploration--the
incredible opportunity for international engagement and cooperation in
a common goal of furthering our understanding of this universe in which
we live. Experts site all kinds of reasons for the peaceful cooperation
of Russia and the United States today, but I feel that a primary reason
that Russia even exists today in relative peace and prosperity is due
to the continued support and cooperation we gave to them from the days
of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 through the fall of the Soviet
Union continuing to today. We have an opportunity to forge the same
kind of alliance with the people of China by fully welcoming them into
the family of space-faring nations and opening opportunities to them to
join with us in the peaceful human and robotic exploration of space. As
is a common practice in our military, peaceful engagement with
potential adversaries frequently makes them long-term partners in
pursuit of the common goal of international peace and stability.
Likewise in science and technology research as well as human space
exploration, engagement with our potential adversaries has the great
advantage of focusing our efforts on common, peaceful pursuits and
advancing the cause of humankind here on Earth. We already know how
difficult it is to get humans safely into space and back home to Earth.
We needn't make it even more difficult by holding the NASA budget down
to a level where we are forced to make the choice between scientific
and technological research and human exploration thus decreasing our
chances of successfully pursuing either.
Thank you again for this opportunity to share some of my thoughts
with you today. Best wishes in your deliberations on the future of our
national space program and the legacies it will leave to future
generations.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of
your viewpoints.
I want to start, Dr. Voorhees, with you. You suggest that
the research in microgravity has matured substantially over the
years, but now we may be in danger of losing that momentum.
Could you lay out what would be the next step? What do you see
out there in the near term that we may be missing because we
are not pursuing what we can do in the International Space
Station?
Dr. Voorhees. I think there are so many things that we are
going to be missing that it is difficult to contain them in a
short answer to your question, but let me hit on some
highlights.
There are questions in fundamental research that stretch
from things such as how fluids behave in a microgravity
environment. Experiments are going on right now, amazingly
enough, even with all the challenges on the Station, looking at
how colloids behave in space. These are models for
crystallization of materials that are used on the ground. So we
have this basic research effort underway on this that is
underway in the microgravity program.
Senator Hutchison. Expand on that a little bit. What does a
colloid crystal----
Dr. Voorhees. OK. Imagine if you took a liquid and you
disperse it and it is in very, very small particles, and these
are particles that are smaller than the diameter of your hair,
for the most part. In microgravity, you do not have to worry
about these colloids settling down as you do on the ground.
These colloids are marvelous models for the behavior of
materials on the ground, how materials transform from a liquid
to a solid. You start off with a random array of atoms in a
liquid and it becomes a solid. The same sort of thing happens
with colloidal crystals in space. So that is a very basic
fundamental question that the microgravity program has been
addressing.
But there are also issues that bear directly on the human
exploration of space effort. I mentioned the combustion
program. This is not just me saying that combustion is
important. Every National Research Council study that has
looked at the microgravity program in the past 10 years has
recommended this is an important area to do research in. We
simply do not understand how combustion works in a microgravity
environment, and let me give you some examples.
If you were to start a fire on this piece of paper and you
had a slow flow of air along the paper, on the ground the fire
may burn in this direction. In microgravity, it burns in the
other direction. So qualitatively different behavior in what
you see in space and you see on the ground. And you would not
know this unless you had the combustion research program
underway within NASA.
The thing that we have found is that the NASA engineers are
extremely interested in this information and very quickly
incorporate this information into spaceflight safety
procedures. But if you are not doing the research, you are
never going to know.
Let me give you one other example. There is a very popular
program that the National Institute of Standards and Technology
makes, and it is a program that can be used to understand how
fires propagate in buildings. It has been downloaded many
thousands of times. If you were to ask NASA what happens in a
fire on a lunar base, do you have a program that would simulate
the evolution of the fire through this lunar base or through a
spacecraft, the answer is it does not exist. And it is only
through research in the combustion area that these programs can
be developed.
So there is this enormous range of research underway from
the very basic, which is the colloids, to the very applied,
very closely related to human exploration and development in
the space effort.
Senator Hutchison. One of the things that we put in the
authorization bill that was new, in an effort to be creative on
the money side, was to designate the U.S. portion of the Space
Station a national laboratory. We did that because we thought
perhaps there would be private sector research that would be
beneficial to a company that could help pay for the cost of the
Station and hopefully mitigate some of the reductions in
funding from NASA that are not going into the research that we
would all like to see.
This is open to anyone. Do you have any thoughts about how
we could start pursuing those outside sources for the research
in microgravity conditions that would stretch our dollars? We
have public/private partnerships in NIH and ACI and there is no
reason not to have it on the Space Station. Can you help us
flush that out?
Dr. Voorhees. I think the challenge of industrial research
on the Station is the expense involved in transporting
equipment and samples up to the Station and getting them back
down. So that means for industries in general to do research on
the Station, you have to find research that involves very
lightweight materials, very lightweight experiments, and one
that can be turned around relatively quickly, which is why some
of the research that industry has been interested in, in the
biological crystallization area, is a potential candidate for
this.
The challenge of doing that kind of research like
biological crystallization, for example, is the turnaround time
and the difficulty of getting samples up and samples back and
doing it quickly and on a timely basis. The time scale for
biological crystallization research is very, very short, and so
it has been difficult, I think, to engage many companies to
become involved in that research. So I think it is a difficult
thing to do actually.
On the other hand, I think designating the ISS as a
national laboratory is a fantastic idea, one that I have been
saying is exactly what we should be doing a long time because
it is essentially a laboratory that allows people to do
experiments in reduced gravity. That is what it really is and I
think that is the way it should be looked at.
Senator Hutchison. Well, any other ideas on that subject?
We are certainly looking for ways to maximize that designation
and get some things going. So maybe if you think about it, you
could provide written ideas later.
Senator Nelson.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well, I think the testimony from each
of you has dramatically demonstrated why you cannot put 10
pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound sack and why we need to do each
of the things that you have talked about: studies on the
magnetosphere, Dr. Torbert; particles and how they behave in
space, Dr. Voorhees; Dr. Pawelczyk, what is going to happen to
the life sciences. Are the three of us, as former astronauts,
going to mutate?
Dr. Pawelczyk. Hopefully not.
[Laughter.]
Senator Bill Nelson. And, General Bolden, as that little
girl said, you are not going to know unless you do it.
So all of this should come together. And that is what
supposedly we have a science program in NASA for. That is why
we have an International Space Station, which, by the way, I
would like to see the Chinese involved with, General Bolden, as
well. You were very accurate that as the thaw occurred between
the United States and the Soviet Union, we already had this
relationship in space that started way back at the time that we
were mortal enemies, as two super powers. But here we have an
International Space Station that we can do part of what you all
are talking about and still keep the human dream and spirit and
character of the American people alive, which is to explore the
unknown.
So I am going to continue to agitate in what Senator
Hutchison and I helped put together last year as a thoughtful
approach to how NASA ought to be funded over the next 3 years.
I will continue to agitate to try to fund to that level.
Otherwise, you have the choices that are being made very
painfully by Dr. Griffin.
Mr. Bolden. Senator Nelson, if I can say something. Because
of where you come from, you understand the need for continued
emphasis on space exploration from the standpoint of a
technology workforce. It is the same thing in academics and in
science and engineering. If we drive students and post-doctoral
scholars away from the sciences and engineering because we do
not have the money to fund it right now, you cannot turn it
back on. It does not happen. Someone does not get a Ph.D. in
weeks, and unless we maintain the interest in the life sciences
and materials sciences and the other types of things that we
have done both on the Shuttle and the International Space
Station, we are going to find ourselves falling even more
behind than many of us feel we are doing right now in terms of
technological countries in the world. So for what it is worth.
Senator Bill Nelson. Yes, sir, Dr. Torbert.
Dr. Torbert. Senator Nelson, I would like to add two
points, both of which you mentioned there. One is this business
about the ongoing programs for students, how you really cannot
turn it off. I mentioned the GEC, which stands for the Geospace
Electrodynamics Connection. This is a program in ionospheres
which is really suffering. It is not a program I work in right
now, but it is a classic case. There is a wonderful group at
the University of Texas at Dallas, Senator, which has led the
way in this research, which in fact suffers exactly this
problem, that if opportunities do not come along that they can
continue, then that whole line of research, that whole line of
student interest may soon vanish.
The other one is that in science, as well as the manned
program, the international aspect is really important. Science
is an international effort. I myself have launched on a
European spacecraft that ended up being launched on a Soviet
launch vehicle. It was a wonderful experience and just like the
manned program, it really is a way to foster peace, and it is
an excellent program for the country to support.
Dr. Voorhees. I would like to amplify on this issue as well
because the microgravity program is an example of what happens
when you do not put a program together carefully. If you look
at the early pre-1990s microgravity program, the research that
was done for the most part was rather ill-conceived and did not
lead to very new and interesting science. In 1990, NASA decided
to start building up this community, and it took about 10 years
to do this. So if NASA was to cut the research now and not fund
going forward, it will be another 10 years just to get back to
where we are now.
Dr. Pawelczyk. If I may pick up with that exact comment in
the life sciences arena, I can assure you with the way that the
ISS is designed at this point in time, we will never be able to
do the research that we were able to do in the 1990s, and it is
for the simple reason that we will have no capability to house
or support research animals on board the International Space
Station.
We talk about these issues such as bone research, and only
within the past 2 years did we recognize what a mistake we had
been making with that among Americans. Many of you have had
bone scans, DEXA studies, and you get your rate of bone mineral
loss. Well, that is sort of a lumped figure. We take a slice
through a bone and we put the density of it all together. We
now have the ability, only in the past 2 years, to
compartmentalize that, look at the inside of bone versus
outside of bone. What we have learned from astronauts is that
the rate there is about 2.5 percent in that spongy trabecular
bone. It is much, much greater than the outside part.
The only way we can look at that any further is to actually
go in and sample that bone. We cannot do it in a human. We need
a research animal to do that, and we do not have that
capability, the capability that we did have when we were flying
laboratories on the Shuttle.
Senator Bill Nelson. Well, you all have made my case very
eloquently I might add. I would just add to what General Bolden
has said, that we are here in a once-in-a-generation transition
in human launch capability. You cannot delay this because the
Shuttle is going to be shut down. We have a multi-billion
dollar investment up there, the International Space Station,
that we need to have the ability to get to with a sufficient
crew so that we can do some of these experiments. So we have
got to do this transition.
Now, how do you get it all done if you do not have enough
money? And you do not. And that is the thesis of this whole
thing. I think it is going to be incumbent upon us to go to
work on this.
Madam Chairman, I would just say, as I would point out to
everybody, that General Bolden has just been inducted last
month into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. That is just like other
halls of fame that you have heard about, the baseball, the
football, and so forth. It is a distinct honor to be named to
that. So my congratulations to General Bolden.
Mr. Bolden. Thank you, sir.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you.
Senator Sununu.
Senator Sununu. Thank you.
Dr. Torbert, you mentioned GEC. In your testimony you talk
about the indefinite postponement and the message that that
sends and the impact that it has on individual researchers
looking at their chosen path, their chosen field.
Could you talk a little bit more about this type of
situation and the impact it can have on recruiting? And in the
particular case of GEC, what does happen to those researchers?
Are there other opportunities that they can pursue? What might
be typical for a situation where a mission is postponed for the
individual researcher? Where might they end up?
Dr. Torbert. Usually what happens in that case, this
particular individual like in GEC is a tenured faculty member
like myself, they will try to keep themselves entertained. That
is usually what we went into science for. And they usually can.
Some part of the research can continue. He is an individual
about my age and so it is hard to teach older dogs newer
tricks.
The real impact is that the line of students that he can
recruit into that program, the line of students who may stay in
space science or go into industry or go into the technological
base, that line is stopped. Then the faculty look for different
ways to invest their faculty resources, which are about our
most precious level of resource.
So in that sense, over a long period, programs can
accommodate. We will look for new areas of research. They may
not be in the NASA area. I think that is a tragic loss. But
they may go into different areas that--either physics or
chemistry or whatever--they deem appropriate.
The real loss is that in this particular case, there are
key questions of low-Earth orbit, ionospheric interaction with
spacecraft, how the atmosphere interacts with the ionosphere
with the sun and the input in the materials that we do put in
the atmosphere and how that transports into the whole dynamics
of that system. That whole line of thought is lost. Then it
takes sometimes 50 years for somebody to say well, we did work
on this 50 years ago. Let us try to remember what we did.
Senator Sununu. Are there any skill sets or areas of
expertise where you are particularly concerned at this point in
time, given where you see the budget is headed?
Dr. Torbert. I would say the biggest impact--and I should
mention I participated in an NRC panel that was invited by NASA
to look for the future workforce in the Vision for Exploration.
It was concluded in that panel that the key lack was scientists
and engineers who had really performed hands on, built space
instrumentation and knew how it functioned among larger
systems. In that case, if you do not have those individuals,
what we found--and this is a big driver, I think, in some of
the cost of missions--you tend to overplan, overmanage. You
tend to go through a whole period in which you do not know and
have to train yourself instead of having gone through that
procedure first and having gone through those mistakes.
I know when I was a graduate student, we had a very
sensitive instrument, a detector, that we had to use, and it
was always said by the graduate students you really were not a
graduate student until you broke it. Like all the other
graduate students, I said, well, that is not going to happen to
me. I can tell you the look on my face when I went in to my
faculty member and said, well, I just broke the equivalent of
my entire year's salary. What are we going to do about this?
Fortunately, I only broke it once, and that is the way that
graduate students learn.
Exploration really challenges adversity, really challenges
the limits, and we must train scientists and engineers to go
through that process so that when we do plan big manned
missions, big operational missions, we have people who know
what they are doing. This is a critical part.
Senator Sununu. Dr. Voorhees, I want to ask you the same
question. In your area of expertise and in your personal
experience, is there a particular skill set that you are most
concerned about given the projected changes in the science
budget?
Dr. Voorhees. I think the issue is engaging graduate
students in the future. I have had this experience just
recently in my laboratory with an experiment that was formerly
canceled and now has been reenergized or refunded as a result
of the 15 percent funding that has been given to the Station. I
went in to one of my students and I said, well, it looks like
we are going to be able to finally do the spaceflight
experiment. She was just enamored. She was so excited about
this. That excitement is what you lose when you do not have the
funding that is connected with NASA.
A number of my students have worked with NASA engineers. A
number of the students in this microgravity program have ended
up at NASA field centers as scientists. That pipeline will
entirely disappear if there is not the seed corn that is being
put into the research program in the universities.
Senator Sununu. Dr. Torbert, it seems to me that we
maximize that benefit, the inspiration, excitement,
recruitment, when we are able to fund a variety of different
types of investigations, a variety of different types of
experiments that draw on different disciplines and different
expertise. You mentioned in your testimony the value of the
smaller mission opportunities. You mentioned Explorer,
Discovery, and Pathfinder programs. Can you provide any other
specific examples of smaller science missions and what you view
their value and success to be?
Dr. Torbert. I should not say just in our missions. There
is the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe I mentioned in my
testimony. That is from the astrophysics side. There are
planetary discoveries to asteroids. There are also planetary
missions that may be even larger that do not come to the multi-
billion level, such as Cassini and the former Galileo program.
I also mentioned the sounding rocket program, and this goes
across all the disciplines at NASA, the microgravity, also
aircraft opportunities in the sounding rocket program, balloon
programs. These are programs that come in the lifetime of a
graduate student so that there is a particular ownership they
take from designing the experiment, all the way through flying
it, all the way through analyzing it.
Senator Sununu. I am sorry. What do you consider the life
of a graduate student to be?
Dr. Torbert. I will not talk about my life.
Senator Sununu. Is that 12 or 15 years or is that 3----
Dr. Torbert. Hopefully not. We shoot for 4 to 5 years of a
graduate student.
Senator Sununu. So a 4- to 5-year time frame. And what kind
of an overall cost for these lower cost missions?
Dr. Torbert. Well, a typical satellite mission, which is
probably mid between those, usually will support three to four
graduate students during that period, and with the NASA center
costs and whatever, it comes to a couple of million dollars.
Senator Sununu. Which is extremely small compared to some
of the larger missions.
Dr. Torbert. We think we get a lot of bang for the buck.
Senator Sununu. General Bolden or Dr. Pawelczyk, do you
have any thoughts about striking the right balance between
bigger efforts, bigger scientific missions and some of these
lower cost missions?
Dr. Pawelczyk. Senator, I am not sure I would choose the
bigger cost versus lower cost as the metric there, but I would
try to think about scientific return. You have heard the theme
here of graduate students as well. I would also think about
that, projects that can fund large numbers of students and can
continue to maintain technological excellence in the United
States.
Let me give you a couple thoughts related to that. I think
graduate students are the greatest virtue that I have working
at a university. I refer to them as boundless enthusiasm
unchecked by reality, and they teach me every day that they can
do things that I never thought that they were able to do.
I also know, being at Penn State University, that we have a
couple things that we value greatly. We value the longevity of
our football coaches. We also value our land grant status, and
we greatly value our space grant status as well in providing
that. We have not even mentioned the space grant program here
yet, which has also received enormous cuts and goes directly
into funding students throughout each of the 50 States. As that
program is scaled back, that is going to have an additional
impact here that is really going to hurt us. We need to think
about that one as well.
So I would really think about that student metric. I think
you can quantify it pretty well. NASA has pretty good databases
started on that. And you will see that effect right there. I
see it every week when students come in and say I would love to
work with you, and I say, I am sorry, but we have just lost our
funding in that area and you are going to have to go somewhere
else.
Senator Sununu. General?
Mr. Bolden. Senator, let me talk a little bit about my
experience in the Marine Corps 9 years after leaving the space
program. I was amazed at how much we use technology developed
to support humans in space. Today when you send a Marine out
with 150, sometimes 200 pounds on his or her back, you would
like not to be able to do that. You would like to be able to
give them a lot less stuff to pack but with the same
capability. In some cases we can do that with communication
systems, with, quote/unquote, guidance and navigation systems
that have come through basic research, 6-1, 6-2 research.
I have sat on study boards for the National Academy looking
at science and technology development for the Navy and the
Marine Corps. One was called, ``Navy Needs in Space,'' and it
was amazing when you have people who tell you I do not need
space, just give me my Classic Wizard and my GPS.
There is nothing that we do today in the military that does
not rely on technology developed in space or for space. People
talk about wasting money in space exploration. I have not seen
a dime that we have spent in space to date. It all gets spent
down here to develop systems that come about from the research
that we do on orbit or just trying to get somewhere.
Sometimes we fail, but that also helps us determine a way
not to do things. When you go back and look at electrophoresis
operations in space that was the big thing--several staffers
probably remember that. We were going to make very pure drugs
because we were going to do it in microgravity. Well, it turned
out that was not necessarily the best place to do it, but we
were able to determine ways to change the process, to alter and
perfect the process, so that it could be done much more cost
effectively and much better here on Earth, but it was because
of what we had found in doing that experimentation in space.
Like I said, space exploration is expensive, risky, and
unpredictable. Frequently we come up with something
serendipitously that we never, ever imagined, and it goes off
to the military or it goes off to some laboratory or something.
But basic research has got to be done. It has got to be
funded by DOD, by NASA, by somebody, and it is best done so
that we get the most bang for the buck when it is done across
the board. NASA is not the only government organization that is
cutting back on funding for basic research today. We are not
unique in that respect, and that does trouble me.
Senator Sununu. Well, I thank you. I want to close with one
observation and one invitation.
The observation is certainly related to that last point. We
have discussed and debated in this committee and in other
committees in Congress the concept of a competitiveness
initiative, and by and large, the core element of that has been
increases in our funding for basic sciences. The chair and
others have advocated for a greater emphasis on fundamental
research, investment in the physical sciences through the
National Science Foundation and other avenues. This science
mission at NASA should obviously be part of that. To the best
of my knowledge, it was not made a part of the Administration's
competitiveness proposal, and I think that is something that we
need to look at.
There have been a number of proposals related to
competitiveness that I have not supported because they have not
been sufficiently focused on basic sciences. But if we are
going to do anything in this area, I think that the science
elements within NASA and the science budgets within NASA ought
to be part of that.
Finally, the invitation is to each of our panelists. Is
there anything that you would like to offer that we have not
been insightful enough to question you on?
Dr. Pawelczyk. Let me just offer one area of research very
briefly, and that is the area of fractional gravity. We have
spoken a great deal about going to space and accessing space,
but being in space provides us the opportunity to look at the
range of gravitational fields that are less than what we
experience here on Earth when we are in that free-fall
environment and rotate something to induce the centrifugal
field.
When I gave you the projections I did, I gave them to you
assuming that the Martian environment would confer no safety to
human bone or muscle or the cardiovascular system. That is the
conservative estimate that I have to apply because I am worried
about people like Charlie. I do not know if I am right or not.
What if that fractional environment does confer some
benefit? Then a lot of these problems go away. We do not have
to worry about whether or not we are going to need to rotate
that Martian spacecraft to induce a gravitational field. Those
are things in the structures that will be required to do that.
We do not know those things, the answers to those questions
right now, because we have not put that capability or we have
removed that capability from the ISS, where storing fractional
gravity research environments on the ISS is of extreme value
for down the road, and it really is an investment in the
future.
Dr. Voorhees. You brought up the competitiveness
initiative. In the microgravity sciences, the overlap between
what gets done at NASA and in many other agencies is close but,
nevertheless, distinct. So in this area, the ISS and access to
these microgravity platforms is like going to a national
laboratory, like taking a sample to a synchrotron, for example,
an x-ray source. The same sort of basic research that is done
in the microgravity sciences is very much related to the things
that go in the other agencies in the competitive initiative.
Dr. Torbert. One item that I mentioned I do think we need
to work on ourselves. It is certainly the case that NASA
desperately needs some remediation in the area of funding, but
I mentioned the area of risk. I think this is important. You
heard it in two aspects. You heard the fact that we take risks
in doing exploration. That is an important thing. It is also
important in science to have a variety of missions, and the
more that we can fund, more inexpensive missions, reduce the
cost of science missions, or as I pointed out in my testimony,
differentiate the level of risk so that at the lower level we
can take more risks. At the higher manned space level, of
course, we have to be as risk-free as we can, but it is not
absolutely risk-free. There is nothing risk-free about that
endeavor. I think this is an important thing for NASA and its
colleagues in universities to work together to do because if we
can reduce the costs of these missions, then we can have more
variety of them, we can take more chances, we can find some of
those things out that we do not know, and this is an important
contribution to the Nation's space program.
Senator Sununu. And do you think there is too great a level
of discouraging risk at this point?
Dr. Torbert. At present, most of the science community is
discouraged by the level of risk mitigation. That is a natural
thing. Let me tell you how it comes about. NASA tries to be, as
I said, a ``one-NASA'' organization. There are very good
processes and procedures that go throughout the program. And
the good thing about it is there are managers and engineers who
work with the manned space program, and then they come and work
on various science programs. That way the NASA science
personnel get a variety of experiences, which is all for the
good.
But that has a sort of a diffusion tendency by which the
procedure we had in this manned program can be applied to the
sounding rocket program. Well, that is all good and true if you
have those kind of resources, but we want more flights and to
take the risk in the sounding rocket program which we cannot
take in the manned program and everywhere in between. This is
something we need to work on.
By the way, the SMD, the Science Mission Directorate, has
just started a top-to-bottom review of its risk processes and
we will be working very hard with that committee to see that we
can fashion procedures that are both cost-effective and
successful.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you. Thank you very much.
By the way, the concern you stated is one that I have, that
NASA should be every bit as much a focus in the competitiveness
initiative. We did try to push that along with cooperation
agreements and requirements in the most recent bill that we
passed on the competitiveness initiative, but I would love for
you to look at it, if there are other things we can do. NASA
has a uniqueness because of the Space Station and the
microgravity conditions that no one else is going to have and
fully utilize. So we do need to make sure that we are as
committed to NASA and certainly the National Science Foundation
in this competitiveness initiative as we can be.
Dr. Pawelczyk, you said that we are not using animals
anymore and that has degraded the potential for the life
sciences. Is the reason that we are not using animals because
of funding cuts or is it because we are not putting the
laboratory in the Space Station that would allow us to do that
type of research?
Dr. Pawelczyk. The answer is both of the above. So the
facilities for housing animals on the International Space
Station have been eliminated, the animal habitats. So they are
not being funded anymore. They were approaching flight
readiness.
If you look at then the constraining factors, assuming that
were restored, there are sort of three different things that
you have to balance and think about. You have to think about
just getting stuff up there, how much mass you can actually
take up on the shuttle with you, and we are sorely constrained
on that now. It is a reason to encourage as rapid a development
as possible of the cargo version of the crew exploration
vehicle because it will provide a great deal of uncrewed up-
mass.
We are also constrained by crew time. You are going to want
people who are going to want to check in on these research
animals as well, and that is part of the thing of getting to
the six-person crew.
And then power is the last one as well.
When you look at all three of those, probably the most
constraining factor is the up-mass, and that then also leads
you to think more creatively about what can we do with our
international partners in terms of looking at the autonomous
transfer vehicle, for example, to bring up animals on board
with that.
We will probably not be able to do all of the in-depth
research, given the cancellation of things like the centrifuge
accommodation module, but there is great value in simply having
an animal up there for a long period of time and trying to look
for the floor effect--to what point do some of these systems
degrade--and then to using interventions like, for example,
nutraceutical approaches. How can we modify with diet, for
example, rates of bone loss and certainly pharmaceutical trials
as well. So just having animals up there alone will provide
some benefit.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you. That is very helpful.
As you know, in our Authorization Act of 2005, we did
provide the necessity for NASA to give us a research plan for
the International Space Station, and it is now on the website
as of last week. Have any of you looked at that and is there
anything that needs to be added to the body of knowledge that
we have put forward today regarding that particular research
plan, its inadequacies, anything else that you would want to
focus on that it is not doing? Or, if there are good parts of
it, tell us that as well.
Dr. Pawelczyk. I have not reviewed the research plan at
this point, but there is one key issue associated with any of
these plans that I think is absolutely essential and that is
the time frame at which it is done. We need clear milestones
and simply saying we are going to push something to the right
is no longer acceptable to us.
I will take the example back to the students. If I knew,
for example, that there would be funding coming on board to
mitigate these very important risks 5 years hence, well, I
could at least begin to assemble with my life sciences
colleagues ways to bridge that 5-year period. We would look at
virtual classes, pooling across the Nation. And we do this very
well with video technology now. We would look at ways to pool
our resources to keep some nascent kernel going to that 5-year
goal when we can then explode with that research opportunity.
If we do not have that time frame, essentially it is out in the
vapor. We do not know when it is going to happen. So a reliable
time frame, something we can stick to, is essential.
Senator Hutchison. Any other comments on the scientific
plan?
[No response.]
Senator Hutchison. My chief clerk says that we can
distribute that plan to you as well, and if you do have
comments, we would like to have them.
Well, thank you very much.
Senator Bill Nelson. Let me just make one concluding
comment?
Senator Hutchison. Yes.
Senator Bill Nelson. I think there is a theme running
through all of their testimony that the excitement generated by
science and science research and spaceflight can do wondrous
things for us for the future. Several of you have described it
in terms of your students. We certainly saw this a generation
ago when a President said we are going to the moon and return
in 9 years, and that brought forth a whole new generation of
engineers and scientists and mathematicians that, by the way,
in the global context has kept us competitive in the global
economic arena. That is the challenge for us in the future.
So I appreciate each of you bringing out that particular
aspect in the importance of this little agency and what we are
doing with this budget. I think it has enormous consequences.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Senator Hutchison. Thank you, Senator Nelson, and thank all
of you for the time and the great information that you have
given us today. We are committed on this subcommittee and
certainly I think we have made great strides in focusing on the
scientific basis that is the mission of NASA, and we will
continue to pursue it. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ted Stevens, U.S. Senator from Alaska
I welcome our panel of witnesses today, who represent a range of
interests in NASA programs, especially science and research at NASA.
I am well aware of widespread concerns being expressed that NASA is
having to cut into valuable science and research programs in order to
pay for building a replacement to the Space Shuttle as soon as
possible, among other things needed to move forward with the Vision for
Exploration.
I will urge this Committee to support the President's Vision for
Exploration. And we support a strong commitment to a broad range of
science at NASA.
NASA has always played an important role in maintaining America's
technological and scientific excellence and enhancing our competitive
position in the world.
The Competitiveness and Innovation bill recently reported by the
Commerce Committee recognizes NASA's continuing importance and the need
for maintaining a strong commitment to basic research.
The NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which was initiated by Senators
Hutchison and Nelson, and which I was an original co-sponsor of, along
with Senator Inouye, was signed into law last December. It provided a
sufficient level of funding authority that would have avoided making
most of the cuts in NASA science programs that we are hearing about
today.
Unfortunately, the requested amount for NASA for FY 2007 is over a
billion dollars less than we authorized.
We hope that additional moneys can be found to increase NASA's
overall funding levels, and will continue efforts to make that happen,
in working with our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee.
I hope that our witnesses today can help us explain why that
additional funding is necessary, and how those additional funds would
be used if they are made available by the Congress.
I thank the Subcommittee Chairman and Ranking Member for convening
this hearing and look forward to hearing the panel of witnesses and
reviewing other material to be submitted for the record.
______
Prepared Statement of John Karas, Vice President, Space Exploration,
Lockheed Martin
Madam Chair and members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank
you for inviting me to provide Lockheed Martin's perspective for your
hearing on the NASA Budget and Programs.
Lockheed Martin has interests in all of NASA's mission areas. We
are excited about, and strongly support, the Nation's Vision for Space
Exploration. We have a long successful history of providing spacecraft
and mission operations support for NASA's Earth science and planetary
exploration programs. We provide key systems for the Space Shuttle and
International Space Station programs. And we depend on NASA's
aeronautics research to design and develop systems for our military
aircraft programs.
My statement today addresses U.S. leadership in space exploration
and the following four issues:
1. The criticality of safe and timely return to flight of the
Space Shuttle.
2. The imperative to utilize and effectively transition the
skilled and dedicated workforce of the Shuttle program during
the Shuttle phase-out by 2010.
3. The challenge of balancing priorities of space exploration,
science, and aeronautics.
4. The importance of inspiring and educating the Nation's next
generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers.
Safe and Timely Return to Flight of the Space Shuttle
Lockheed Martin is strongly committed to NASA's number one
priority: return the Space Shuttle to flight and continue safe
operation of the Nation's Human Spaceflight program. Lockheed Martin is
a proud industrial partner with NASA on the Space Shuttle Program. As
the contractor for the External Tank, we are acutely aware of the
difficulties and challenges inherent in Human spaceflight. Our
employees have worked hand-in-hand with NASA to create a safer external
tank. As you know, the Gulf Coast region has been slow to recover from
the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. Lockheed Martin has
provided salary and other financial incentives to help retain employees
in the Gulf Coast, and initiated a Hurricane Katrina relief fund
comprised of corporate and employee contributions. We completed the
Return to Flight II External Tank one week ahead of schedule, and have
just barged the back-up External Tank (ET-118) to the Kennedy Space
Center. We stand prepared to support the upcoming flight in July. I
know I can speak for all of NASA's industrial partners when I say that
we are all dedicated to fly the Space Shuttle safely until its
retirement in 2010.
Effective Transition of Skilled Workforce
Workforce transition is the key to ensuring mission success while
developing next generation systems and minimizing the gap in human
spaceflight capabilities. NASA's Human Spaceflight Centers, with their
talented and dedicated workforce, are the crown jewels of this
country's Civil Space program. NASA is now addressing serious workforce
and industrial base challenges to ensure successful execution of the
Vision for Space Exploration. To compound the challenge, it is critical
that during this transition, NASA and their industry contractors must
also continue to safely fly the Shuttle and complete the International
Space Station. A transition on the scale that NASA must undertake
requires the combined efforts of local, state, and Federal Governments
as well as industry if it is to be successful. It has been over 20
years since the United States has developed a new human spacecraft. The
current skill mix--focused on Shuttle and Station operations--is not
the same mix that is needed for development of a new system. Change is
always traumatic, but it is within the crucible of change that
innovation is born. There is precedence for such a transition. Lockheed
Martin and the Air Force have retired the venerable Titan launch
vehicle and several key spacecraft programs. Lockheed Martin
successfully transitioned thousands of employees from these programs to
other Lockheed Martin programs. During these transitions, we have
worked closely with our customers to minimize contract termination
liabilities; ensure supplier base continuity, including critical 2nd-
tier suppliers; and ease the start-up of next generation systems.
Balancing Priorities of Space Exploration, Science, and Aeronautics
Since Lockheed Martin has interests in all of NASA's mission areas,
any significant changes to NASA's budget allocations across their
Mission Directorates impact our business base and earnings. However, we
understand that we must join NASA in assessing the big picture,
adjusting our strategic plans to reflect the Nation's most pressing
Civil Space priorities. While it is important that we continue to
aggressively pursue scientific discoveries in our solar system--
deploying Earth science and weather satellites; autonomously searching
for the origins, nature, and destiny of our universe; continuing the
robotic search for life--it is also critical that the U.S. remain at
the forefront of human space exploration. In fact, robotic scientific
research and human exploration complement one another. As Dr. Griffin
has succinctly stated, ``the Vision for Space Exploration asserts that
the proper goal of the Nation's space program is that of human and
robotic exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.'' For example, current
planetary orbiters and landers have applicable technologies for Human
spaceflight. Administrator Griffin has admirably stepped up to these
challenges and assumed responsibility for some very difficult
decisions. Lockheed Martin strongly supports the Nation's Vision for
Space Exploration, and we stand ready to help NASA overcome these
challenges.
Inspiring and Educating the Next Generation of Scientists, Engineers,
and Explorers
Finally, any discussion about the future of space exploration must
focus on inspiring and educating the next generation of engineers,
scientists, and explorers. It is our responsibility--in industry, at
NASA, across academia, and throughout government--to make sure we are
providing the opportunity and the motivation for our young people to
enter careers of science, engineering, and mathematics. This is the
only way the United States will remain a leader in developing the
critical technologies to take us beyond low-Earth orbit, revitalize our
Nation's industrial base, and guarantee a strong defense and national
security. Lockheed Martin provides financial support to undergraduate
engineering schools, and embraces a number of recruitment and mentoring
programs to make certain that the talent pipeline stays full. To quote
Lockheed Martin's CEO, Bob Stevens, ``Talent is the critical resource
that's going to drive success in the 21st century, period.''
Thank you for the opportunity to provide my statement on this
important topic. Lockheed Martin appreciates the Committee's interest
in maintaining United States leadership in space exploration. We look
forward to continuing to work closely with you on these important
issues.
______
Prepared Statement of Mark J. Lewis, Chief Scientist, U.S. Air Force
On October 3, 1967, Major William ``Pete'' Knight set a piloted
airplane speed record in the X-15A-2 rocket plane, flying at more than
4,500 miles per hour, over six-and-a-half times greater than the speed
of sound. Nearly four decades later, this milestone accomplishment
still holds the record for the fastest flight of a human being within a
piloted aircraft. Pete Knight's flight was one of many great
accomplishments in the X-15 program, which included over 199 flights
beginning in 1959, and running through the decade of the 1960s.
The X-15 pioneered the air-space frontier, gathering valuable
information that lead to the successful development of reentry and
launch vehicles including the Space Shuttle. And it also represented
one of many great aviation collaborations between the National
Aeronautics and Space Agency and the United States Air Force.
Indeed, there is a time-honored tradition of cooperation between
the civilian government aviation sector and military aeronautics
research. The record of collaboration between NASA and the Air Force
dates to the era of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA) and the U.S. Army Air Corps, the precursors of both today's NASA
and our modern U.S. Air Force. In the 1920s, NACA performed landmark
work on engine drag reduction, resulting in the so-called ``NACA cowl''
that greatly reduced the drag force on propeller-driven engines, and
made possible economical airliners such as the DC-3 that catapulted
American aviation to world dominance. Used successfully in civilian
aircraft, including racing planes in the 1930s flown by one of my
predecessors in the U.S. Air Force Chief Scientist's office, General
James H. ``Jimmy'' Doolittle, the NACA cowl also greatly improved the
performance of military aircraft in the years leading up to World War
II. NACA's contribution to the military continued throughout the war,
including solving problems such as tail buffeting and wing icing,
improving the overall range and altitude of bombers, and increasing the
speed of fighters by up to 50 mph by reducing unnecessary drag. NACA's
contributions to military aviation performance were widely recognized
outside the United States; the Battle of Britain was fought over London
between German and British fighters that both used NACA-developed
airfoils. When the superlative P-51 Mustang appeared in German skies in
1944-1945, Nazi military and scientific leaders marveled at its
performance, made possible by NACA airfoil research applied to military
fighter aircraft design.
After World War II, this fruitful civilian and military partnership
in aviation continued. Then-Major Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1 flew beyond
the speed of sound in October 1947 as part of a joint NACA-USAF
cooperative program. Both organizations contributed their expertise to
the development and flight testing of the X-1 series aircraft, and it
is fitting that the prestigious Collier Trophy was awarded in 1947 to a
team that included Yeager representing the USAF, NACA engineer John
Stack, and the president of manufacturer Bell Aircraft, Lawrence D.
Bell. In the years that followed, NACA contributed directly to the
design of supersonic fighter jets for the Air Force and the Navy,
developing the design principles that enabled routine penetration into
the high-speed flight regime.
The intrinsic value of military and civilian cooperation was
clearly recognized in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958,
which stated that the new agency's:
``aeronautical and space activities . . . shall be conducted so
as to contribute materially to . . . the making available to
agencies directly concerned with national defense of
discoveries that have military value or significance, and the
furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established
to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space
activities, of information as to discoveries which have value
or significance to that agency . . . ''
The Space Act also mandated:
``. . . close cooperation among all interested agencies of the
United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of
effort, facilities, and equipment.''
In this spirit, cooperation with the Air Force continued once the
Space Act was enacted and NASA was created from the various elements
comprising the original NACA plus those from the Army's ballistic
missile program. Whether in the use of military test pilots as the
original astronauts or the application of NASA wind tunnels and
materials to the design and development of high speed military
interceptor aircraft, the Air Force and NASA have cooperated at all
levels of their organizations. Today, there is not a single aircraft in
service with the United States Air Force or, for that matter, any of
our military branches, that does not benefit from NASA's aeronautical
input. Recognizing the importance of continuing this legacy of shared
cooperative achievement, leaders of both NASA and the Air Force have
renewed their commitment to maintaining and strengthening cooperative
ties between the organizations. This focus on cooperation leverages the
capabilities of the two organizations, and though it is endorsed at the
top-most levels it permeates the functional organizations and is
ultimately enabled by numerous individual researchers.
Cooperation does not mean duplication, nor does it mean that either
agency is performing the other's mission. Rather, it reflects the
healthy relationship of two mature organizations that have strong
specialties but who are, as well, united in a common purpose: ensuring
continued American air and space dominance in the 21st century. The Air
Force is responsible for system development, test and evaluation, and
acquisition of military craft. NASA, on the other hand, has the mission
of performing cutting-edge aeronautics research, leaving system
development and acquisition to the civil aeronautics industry.
This fundamental difference means that, while NASA and the Air
Force have similar levels of relative involvement in basic
(fundamental) research, their respective roles diverge as activities
move into the development arena. Since NASA also has responsibility for
the operation and maintenance of numerous aeronautical test facilities,
there is also opportunity for mutual cooperation in test and evaluation
activities. Thus, while the missions of NASA and the Air Force are
independent, their common research goals in aeronautics dictate a close
research partnership that benefits both parties.
The original Space Act mandated that NASA has the responsibility
for the ``preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in
aeronautical and space science and technology.'' Given that the
military aeronautics revolution is now almost a century old, and the
invention of the airplane already over a century, it is understandable
that some may ask if a continued investment in aeronautical research
and development is still relevant to NASA's mission, or for that
matter, to that of the Air Force. After all, we have over a century of
experience designing aircraft; what more is there to learn or do? Have
airplanes really changed very much in recent history, and are they
likely to change much more in the future? Have we solved the most
important problems in aeronautical engineering, and are our analysis,
design, and testing techniques as good as they will ever need to be?
Along with such questions is one of overriding concern to the American
taxpayer: should the resources originally dedicated to atmospheric
flight be redirected to more promising research areas?
The answer to all of these questions, for the military, commercial
and scientific sectors, is that aeronautics remains a vital and
blossoming field of human endeavor. It is a discipline that is
continuing to advance and develop, with great unanswered questions and
incredible potential for future applications. Aeronautics continues to
drive technology in other technical disciplines, ranging from computing
to materials to energy utilization, and it remains an important part of
our military capability as well as a key component for the continued
exploration of space.
Some might adopt a view that aeronautics is ``mature'' because the
rapid advances that characterized the opening decades of flight seem to
overshadow more recent accomplishments in the field, at least under
superficial inspection. Indeed, the 20th Century did see an increase in
airplane speed from 10 mph of the original Wright Flyer to over 2,500
mph for the SR-71 Blackbird; an increase in altitudes from a few feet
above the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk to the fringes of the atmosphere;
and the introduction of such revolutionary technologies as jet engines,
automatic flight controls, pressurized cabins, and regular passenger
air transportation. The first century of aviation transformed our
civilian world and ushered in a new era of military effectiveness with
hitherto undreamed-of capabilities made possible by air power. Such
capabilities as stealth technology and unmanned systems are among the
most recent of these successes. We can be certain that advances in this
second century of aviation may be less overtly spectacular, but
ultimately will be no less spectacular in the fundamental and profound
impacts they will have on both the commercial and military sectors.
Several important trends are apparent as we look at aviation
progress in the decades to come:
1. Aerospace engineers will continue to push the boundaries of
aircraft height, speed, and performance. Automation and
unmanned systems will play an ever-increasing role in air
power, building on the success of Predator and the Globalhawk
unmanned aircraft. Technologies will be developed that will
allow us to operate at higher altitudes for more persistence
and permit us to fly at very high speeds to strike fleeting
targets rapidly and accurately. As closing the ``sensor to
shooter'' loop has enhanced our ability to detect and fire upon
a foe, closing the ``shooter to target'' loop with high-speed
weapons will further degrade the ability of any foe to act
against us. This might be a cruise missile able to accurately
reach targets 1,000 miles away within mere minutes, or a
supersonic-cruising UCAV dispensing advanced penetrating smart
munitions. This same technology may allow us to use an
airplane-like operational model to reduce the cost of launching
spacecraft into Earth orbit and provide unprecedented access to
the space environment.
2. Aeronautics will continue to play a key role in the
development of space technology for both the Air Force and
NASA. Space vehicles are subject to significant aerodynamic
forces during launch and reentry. In the modern era, air and
space vehicles are interdependent, not independent. Each is
critically dependent upon a robust understanding of the other.
This is an area for continuing aeronautics research, and the
general topic of flow over reentering surfaces will be of great
importance in the development of future manned and unmanned
spacecraft, including NASA's planned return to the Moon and
visits to Mars. In fact, at this very moment, engineers from
NASA's Langley Research Center are working with an Air Force
team to test a heat shield for the Mars Science Laboratory in
the Air Force's Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel in White Oak,
Maryland, just a few miles north of Washington, D.C. In the
fall, this same NASA-Air Force team will begin testing designs
for NASA's manned Crew Return Vehicle, the craft that will
bring astronauts home from the next series of lunar missions.
3. Fuel costs and availability, as well as environmental and
operational concerns, will also drive another important
aviation research push: greater fuel efficiency and use of non-
traditional energy sources. To further increase efficiency and
improve performance, the tremendous advances in material
science and computers will enable us to build and fly aircraft
that can change their shapes in flight.
In each of these areas, engineers at NASA and the USAF are bringing
their unique capabilities, resources, and mission perspectives to the
challenges at hand, for the good of our Nation. These cooperative
efforts span the range from formal, executive-level committees to
informal technical exchanges between individual researchers; and cut
across programs, projects, personnel, test facilities, and
infrastructure.
Three principal mechanisms describe the nature of Air Force and
NASA cooperation:
Strategic Partnerships are defined as cooperative
arrangements where each organization shares program goals at
the highest level consistent with national policy. High-level,
long-term agreements are currently in place ensuring that Air
Force's and NASA's unique capabilities are closely coordinated.
This close coordination of strategic goals and objectives
supports long-term mission planning, provides a significant
reduction in potential duplication of effort, and supports the
potential identification of specific cooperative initiatives.
Cooperation and collaboration in areas of Mutual Technology
Interest encompass scenarios where the agencies share common
technology interests but not necessarily common programmatic
end goals and are typically technology advancement oriented. In
this type of cooperation, Air Force organizations and NASA
leverage mutual interests in technology development to pool
financial resources, add unique capabilities and/or expertise,
and reduce risk by coordinating and sharing results from
complementary RDT&E tasks and programs.
The third mechanism for cooperation is Transactional. Here
one organization ``purchases'' an expertise or resource from
the other organization. In this scenario the providing agency
does not necessarily have an interest in the activity being
undertaken, only a specialized skill or resource, to include
facilities, needed for that program.
A comprehensive list of each of the areas of NASA and Air Force
cooperation would fill volumes. I will however highlight just a few of
the exciting topics we are working on together.
1. As mentioned above, both NASA and the Air Force have a
strong interest in high-speed flight, into the so-called
``hypersonics'' regime of Mach 5 and above. For the Air Force,
this is a field that will enable high-speed weapons and
eventually better access to space; for NASA, hypersonics is
important for the design of reentry craft, as well as launch
and eventual civil applications. A key flight test vehicle that
will answer many of our questions regarding hypersonic flight
is the Air Force's X-51, and we are drawing on NASA expertise
to make this program a success. NASA has already flown its own
hypersonic craft, the X-43A, which set a record for Mach 10
airplane flight in November 2004. But whereas the Air Force's
X-51 would have application primarily to weapons systems, the
X-43A was a test of a civilian aircraft configuration, fitting
well with NASA's mission. Drawing on knowledge that they gained
in designing and flying the hypersonic X-43 aircraft, NASA has
provided important and valued support to the X-51 program.
Personnel from NASA's Langley Research Center have played a
principal role in the X-51 design process, including
propulsion, aerodynamics, and wind tunnel tests. In fact,
because of the unavailability of Air Force facilities, the
Langley Research Center has stepped in as the lead X-51 engine
test site and has worked tirelessly since last November to
ready one of their wind tunnels for that purpose.
2. NASA is also helping the Air Force with FRESH-FX, an
experimental program on the fundamental physics of hypersonic
flight. This activity will launch low-cost experiments on
sounding rockets under joint funding with the Australian
government. The product of this effort will be an
``experimental flight laboratory'' for the evaluation of
numerous high-speed flight phenomena and aerospace systems
technologies. The scope of this program will include the
examination of basic phenomena deemed critical to the eventual
development of hypersonic technologies; for example, chemical
kinetics and combustion in airbreathing propulsion,
aerodynamics, physics of surface flows and shock waves, high
temperature effects, integrated adaptive guidance and control
systems, sensors, materials and structures, and new
instrumentation. An extensive NASA team reaching across five
NASA Centers will provide technical guidance, computational
support, and experimental validation and consultation. Our NASA
partners will perform computational analysis and experimental
validation, and will execute both aerodynamic and propulsion
tests at NASA Langley, as they are doing now for X-51. Last,
NASA personnel from Dryden and Wallops Island will support the
flight activities with systems integration and launch
operations.
3. Some of our collaborations are occurring in lower-speed
regimes, but are no less exciting. One such effort is the
Morphing Wing program, exploring airplanes that can change
their shapes in flight to perform better over a wide range of
mission objectives. Success in this area may one day produce a
single aircraft capable of conducting attack, reconnaissance,
and perhaps other types of missions. Rudimentary examples of
morphing technology are flying today, including variable-sweep
wings of the Navy's F-14 fighter and B-1B bomber, as well as
the flaps located on the trailing edge of nearly all military
and civilian aircraft wings. Compared to these current
examples, future applications of this technology will seem
light-years ahead, using so-called smart materials and advanced
actuators to produce large-scale changes in shape and wing
function. An airplane thus equipped could extend its wings for
slow, loitering flight, then fold them up and reshape them for
enhanced maneuverability and speed. The military applications
are obvious, but much of the expertise to accomplish this
resides with the engineers at NASA. And the results may
eventually lead to better civilian aircraft as well.
4. A closely-related program in Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW)
technology is also bringing engineers from NASA and the Air
Force together in a multidisciplinary technology that
integrates aerodynamics, controls, and structures to maximize
aircraft performance. This concept is actually a throwback to
the very first airplane: rather than use ailerons or flaps to
maneuver their Kitty Hawk Flyer, the Wright Brothers' employed
twist or ``warping'' of the wingtips to control its motion.
Like that first Wright Brothers' plane, the wings of today's
high-speed aircraft also warp or twist at very high speeds. But
unlike the Wright Brothers' plane, this high-speed warping is
not deliberate, and usually has negative effects. The Air
Force, in cooperation with NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
and the Boeing Phantom Works, is studying a ``wing warping''
approach to control this twisting for a net benefit. Once this
technology is transitioned to operational aircraft, it promises
to significantly improve the high-speed roll maneuverability of
the aircraft by actively controlling the wing shape.
These programs and more demonstrate the value of synergy between
the U.S. Air Force and our colleagues at NASA. Today we are also
working with NASA to apply airplane concepts that they developed for
scientific missions, specifically long duration atmospheric sampling,
to give us long-loitering high-altitude reconnaissance. Because of our
keen interest in reducing fuel expenses and reliance on foreign fuel
supplies, the Air Force is working with NASA to identify entirely new
shapes for airplanes that will be more energy efficient. The result of
these activities will be concepts for more fuel-efficient airplanes
that will make for better long-haul airlines or long-range bombers.
Concern about aircraft maintenance and combat readiness is leading to
joint activities in sustainment, inspection, and repair. We are also
working together across the board on the exploration of new materials
for both military and commercial aircraft and spacecraft. Yet another
important success story is that NASA and the Air Force are now working
closely to coordinate our wind tunnel facilities. We want to prevent
duplication but be certain that the Nation's aerodynamic testing needs
are properly served.
Finally, I offer some observations regarding NASA's renewed
commitment to inter-agency cooperation. Put simply, the Department of
Defense, and the Air Force in particular, could not have a better
partner than the present NASA leadership. When Administrator Michael
Griffin arrived at NASA, he made it very clear that cooperation and
interaction with the Department of Defense would be a high priority,
and he has honored this commitment. Dr. Griffin and the Associate
Administrator for Aeronautics, Dr. Lisa Porter, have been extremely
enthusiastic about teaming with us and have built a strong working
relationship. From the Air Force's view, Dr. Porter is rebuilding and
revitalizing an aeronautics program at NASA that had sadly declined
over many years. Their efforts are logically conceived and
intelligently implemented, doing the sorts of things that NASA should
be doing while recapturing the spark of excitement on the frontiers of
aeronautics. Dr. Porter has been receptive toward including Department
of Defense mission goals among the systems applications that NASA's
foundational research efforts will enable. She has visited DOD
facilities, included DOD experts in review panels, hosted DOD visitors
to NASA, and encouraged NASA's workforce to seek expanded ties to their
colleagues in the Pentagon and the service laboratories. To this end,
we are in the process right now of ratifying a Memorandum of
Understanding between the U.S. Air Force and NASA, to formalize and
codify the close relationship that is already in place.
As we begin this second century of flight, the United States Air
Force sees NASA as a valued, indeed critical, partner. Where our
mission areas are synergistic, we want to pursue logical connections.
As we expand upon this special relationship, the Air Force appreciates
the important differences between NASA's mission and ours, as well as
the special responsibilities that NASA has in preserving and continuing
America's leadership in aeronautics. Our goal is not to subsume NASA
under the DOD, nor redirect NASA's work to military-only activities.
Rather, we seek mutual benefit and intelligent coordination to maximize
the benefits of our Nation's investments in aeronautics. Together, we
are greater than our sum.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison to
Dr. Roy B. Torbert
Question 1. I was struck by several references in your statement to
student interest and involvement in space sciences research. Would you
agree that an important reason to consider sustaining this sort of
research at NASA is to help meet the growing crisis in Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education?
Answer. I believe that this is a major collateral benefit of the
investment we make in NASA science. The availability of real
experiences for students is an educational asset like no other.
Question 2. To what extent do you believe there are opportunities
for cooperative research between NASA and NSF in the science
disciplines with which you are familiar?
Answer. There are may cooperative efforts that are continually
undertaken at present. NASA and NSF have an arrangement that divides
the responsibilities between them, that has worked very well, but they
continue to collaborate where it makes sense.
Question 3. In your written statement, you make reference to launch
sites such as Poker Flats, run by the University of Alaska in
Fairbanks, being threatened by cutbacks in small launch payloads. What
kind of scientific research is represented by those payloads? Do they
typically involve students and faculty in the experiments?
Answer. Poker Flat is the primary remote launch site for the sub-
orbital rocket program that NASA manages out of Wallops Island (part of
GSFC). It probably has the largest component of student research of any
effort within NASA. Primarily they do upper atmospheric and ionospheric
research.
Question 4. The Space Sciences portion of NASA's budget has
steadily increased over the past fifteen years to now represent roughly
33 percent of NASA's total budget. The FY 2007 request slows that
growth rate to 1.5 percent for FY 2007 and 1 percent per year after
that. It appears from those facts that Space Science is not being
``cut'' but that the potential or previously-planned increase has been
reduced. What do you believe the ideal ratio of space science funding
should be for NASA in the future?
Answer. It is correct that the science portion per se has seen an
increase over the last 5 years, but it is also correct that the number
and diversity of space science projects has also dramatically decreased
in the last 5 years, as I make clear in my written testimony. The
science community is reacting to the huge loss of projects that have
been planned for a long time. This is the conundrum of increased costs
that I discussed. I believe that NASA and the science committees must
really address this dilemma. It will affect even more the financial
viability of the Vision for Exploration.
______
Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison to
Dr. Peter W. Voorhees
Question 1. What are some of the physical science disciplines or
areas of research that have the highest potential for benefits on
Earth?
Answer. The physical science program contains research that spans
the spectrum from applied to basic. Given the rigorous peer review to
which the projects have been subjected, it is highly likely that these
projects will have an impact on the scientific fields of which they are
part. and hence provide great benefit to the Nation's scientific and
engineering enterprise.
It is difficult to predict the impact of basic research. For
example, NASA invested considerable resources aimed at understanding
how variations in the surface tension of a liquid-vapor interface can
lead to flow of the liquid. These projects lead to numerous advances in
our fundamental understanding of surface tension driven flows. The
technological impact of this basic research has recently become clear
in the development of microchips, such as those used in DNA analysis. A
leading approach to move the fluid through the channels on these chips
is to use gradients in the liquid-vapor surface tension. The
understanding of surface tension driven flows fostered by NASA funding
has been used in the design of these chips. This example shows that
basic microgravity research can have many unexpected benefits to
problems of great concern here on Earth. Thus in assessing the
potential impact of the physical sciences program one cannot neglect
areas such as the fundamental physics effort with its focus on atomic
clocks and low temperature physics.
Many of the programs in the physical sciences directly impact
issues of concern here on Earth. The need to generate and use energy
efficiently will be important in sustaining the economic growth that we
have seen in the past. Many of the areas funded by NASA impact this
effort. For example, microgravity experiments can be used to quantify
the chemical kinetics of combustion. This information is critical in
predicting the behavior of combustion engines used in automobiles and
aircraft. New materials are needed to reduce the weight of vehicles and
to increase the operating temperature of turbines that are used for
propulsion and energy generation. NASA's work on phase formation,
solidification, and computational materials science will all contribute
to this effort. Multiphase flow and boiling are important in
transferring heat from one region to another. NASA's work on multiphase
flow will provide new understanding of these complex phenomena. Other
areas where physical sciences research can impact life on Earth is the
study of the granular flows that are central to many chemical processes
on Earth. the wetting and spreading of fluids on surfaces that are so
prevalent in many industrial processes, and understanding the process
by which soot is produced by jet and diesel engines.
Question 2. Your prepared statement makes reference to research in
flame propagation and fire detection and suppression. You describe the
value of this research for long-duration space flight. What about the
value of this research right here on Earth? Can it help in controlling
or preventing such things as forest fires and fires in remote
locations?
Answer.The heat generated by combustion on the Earth leads to
strong convection. In a microgravity environment this convection is
largely absent. Since this important perturbing effect is not present
in microgravity, it is possible to study combustion phenomena in
fundamentally new ways. The understanding that will be developed in
such studies will unquestionably be central to our ability to detect
and control fires on Earth.
Question 3. In what ways do you believe research in the physical
sciences can enhance U.S. innovation and competitiveness?
Answer. As has been noted in the ``American Competitiveness
Initiative'' by the Domestic Policy Council of the Office of Science
and Technology Policy, innovation and competitiveness are fostered by a
robust research program in the physical and engineering sciences,
support for large scale facilities in which unique measurements can be
made, and training the next generation of scientists and engineers. The
physical sciences program at NASA contributes to all these goals. NASA
research in the physical sciences impacts both current and future
technologies. As mentioned above a future technology, microchips for
bio and chemical assays, has been impacted by NASA's basic research on
surface-tension driven flows. Research sponsored by NASA's physical
sciences program has also impacted current technologies by drastically
reducing the cost of producing liquid-phase sintered cutting tools, a
$1.8 billion industry. The International Space Station (ISS) has the
potential to be a large-scale research facility, similar to the
Nation's accelerators and synchrotrons. Assuming that the necessary
facilities, crew time and transport to and from the ISS are available,
the ISS could function as a facility that eliminates the influence of
gravity on a wide range of physical processes. As has been outlined in
many National Research Council studies, this will allow a host of
unique experiments to be performed from ultra sensitive atomic clocks
to pattern formation during crystal growth. The vast majority of the
grants supported by the Physical Sciences Division at NASA were given
to universities. Thus, prior to the budget cuts in the Physical
Sciences program, it supported approximately 1,700 graduate and
undergraduate students. This support not only trained the next
generation of scientists and engineers that are needed for the Nation
to remain competitive, but through exposing undergraduates to research
encouraged them to pursue careers in science and engineering.