[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NASA'S EXPLORATION INITIATIVE:
STATUS AND ISSUES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 3, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-90
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
41-417 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois RALPH M. HALL, Texas
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California Wisconsin
MARK UDALL, Colorado LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
DAVID WU, Oregon DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
NICK LAMPSON, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
JERRY MCNERNEY, California JO BONNER, Alabama
LAURA RICHARDSON, California TOM FEENEY, Florida
PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
JIM MATHESON, Utah MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska
BARON P. HILL, Indiana PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio
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Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
HON. MARK UDALL, Colorado, Chairman
DAVID WU, Oregon TOM FEENEY, Florida
NICK LAMPSON, Texas DANA ROHRABACHER, California
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
MIKE ROSS, Arizona JO BONNER, Alabama
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas
CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana
BART GORDON, Tennessee RALPH M. HALL, Texas
RICHARD OBERMANN Subcommittee Staff Director
PAM WHITNEY Democratic Professional Staff Member
ALLEN LI Democratic Professional Staff Member
KEN MONROE Republican Professional Staff Member
ED FEDDEMAN Republican Professional Staff Member
DEVIN BRYANT Research Assistant
C O N T E N T S
April 3, 2008
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Mark Udall, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 18
Written Statement............................................ 19
Statement by Representative Tom Feeney, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Witnesses:
Dr. Richard J. Gilbrech, Associate Administrator, Exploration
Systems Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA)
Oral Statement............................................... 23
Written Statement............................................ 25
Biography.................................................... 36
Ms. Cristina T. Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, Government Accountability Office
Oral Statement............................................... 36
Written Statement............................................ 38
Biography.................................................... 48
Dr. Noel W. Hinners, Independent Consultant
Oral Statement............................................... 48
Written Statement............................................ 50
Dr. Kathryn C. Thornton, Professor and Associate Dean, School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Virginia
Oral Statement............................................... 56
Written Statement............................................ 58
Biography.................................................... 67
Discussion....................................................... 67
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Richard J. Gilbrech, Associate Administrator, Exploration
Systems Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA).......................................... 90
Ms. Cristina T. Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, Government Accountability Office................... 100
Dr. Noel W. Hinners, Independent Consultant...................... 103
Dr. Kathryn C. Thornton, Professor and Associate Dean, School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Virginia....... 105
NASA's EXPLORATION INITIATIVE: STATUS AND ISSUES
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THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science and Technology,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Udall
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
hearing charter
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NASA's Exploration Initiative:
Status and Issues
thursday, april 3, 2008
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
2318 rayburn house office building
Purpose
On Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 10:00 a.m., the House Committee on
Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics will
hold a hearing to review the status of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration's Exploration Initiative and examine issues
related to its implementation.
Witnesses
Witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing include the
following:
Dr. Richard Gilbrech, Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems
Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Ms. Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management,
Government Accountability Office
Dr. Noel Hinners, Independent Aerospace Consultant
Dr. Kathryn Thornton, Professor of Department of Science, Technology
and Society; Associate Dean of the School of Engineering & Applied
Science University of Virginia
Issues That May Be Raised at the Hearing
Implementing the Vision for Space Exploration:
Does the exploration architecture, as laid out by
NASA, present a technically and programmatically viable
approach for executing exploration beyond low-Earth orbit under
a pay-as-you-go strategy?
Is the United States on the right track to reach the
Moon by 2020, establish an outpost there, and eventually send
humans to Mars, or do any changes need to be made to the
architecture or implementation plan?
How will progress in implementing the architecture be
measured?
How sustainable will NASA's planned exploration
initiative be, given the assumed constrained budgetary outlook
as well as the cutbacks in funding for long-lead exploration
technology development?
How has implementation of the VSE affected ``the
gap'' in U.S. crew access to the International Space Station?
Status of Exploration Initiatives:
Is NASA's strategy in designing the Orion CEV to
first service the ISS and then upgrading it to enable lunar
missions the most cost-effective approach? That is, is the
upgrade approach, rather than designing a crewed vehicle
capable of both missions at the onset, the most cost-effective
approach?
What is the status of NASA's Exploration Program and
associated projects?
What would be the effect on the March 2015
Initial Operating Capability (IOC) date for Orion and
Ares I if NASA is funded at the FY08 level required by
a Continuing Resolution in FY09? Would this reduced
level for Constellation Systems exacerbate the ``gap''
and if so, by how much?
Is it technically and programmatically
possible to accelerate the Orion CEV's Initial
Operating Capability (IOC) to a date earlier than March
2015 and still maintain a confidence level of 65
percent? What funding beyond the President's request
would be needed in FY09, FY10 and the out years to
enable such acceleration? Would currently planned
reviews and testing be retained during the
acceleration?
Will the March 2015 CEV IOC date slip if projected
Shuttle retirement transition costs starting in FY 2011 exceed
NASA's goal of less than $500 million?
How close is NASA to resolving the Ares I thrust
oscillation issue and will this issue have any impact on
milestones leading up to the March 2015 IOC date?
If additional resources are made available to NASA's
Exploration Program, what should they be used for?
Strategies for lunar exploration, science as part of a lunar
exploration program, and international and commercial participation:
What are the most important objectives to be
accomplished in returning humans to the Moon?
To what extent are those objectives prerequisites for
exploration beyond the Moon?
What is NASA's plan and notional timeline for lunar
exploration, and exploration beyond the Moon, once those
objectives have been achieved?
Is the current lunar exploration program adaptable to
changes in national priorities and budgets?
What are the decision points for further exploration
beyond the Moon and what factors will inform those decisions?
How should Congress ensure that the establishment of
a lunar outpost does not divert attention and resources from
exploration beyond the Moon, as articulated in the Vision for
Space Exploration and the NASA Authorization Act of 2005? Does
a lunar outpost need to be permanently occupied, or would a
human-tended outpost be sufficient to meet exploration
objectives?
What is NASA's approach to achieving synergy between
science and exploration, and is it effective?
How can lunar missions be focused to enable a
high potential for scientific return?
Are there organizational issues that can
impede this high potential for scientific return?
How does lunar science fit within the context
of other planetary science priorities?
What major issues need to be addressed before the
United States can move forward on arranging international
partnerships and commercial contributions to carry out the
exploration of the Moon and other destinations, and how should
those issues be addressed?
How important are such international
partnerships and commercial contributions to the
success of the exploration initiative?
How can international collaboration in NASA's
exploration plans be enhanced? Is there a greater role
the international community can play in lunar
exploration? What cost implications would such
international collaboration have on future NASA
budgets?
What are the cost and programmatic
implications of the U.S.'s plan to build the lunar
transportation infrastructure, initial communication
and navigation infrastructure, and initial surface EVA
capability?
What have we learned about maximizing the
effectiveness of international partnerships in the ISS
program that could help us better understand how to
carry out the exploration initiative?
BACKGROUND
Overview
In January 2004, President Bush announced his Vision for Space
Exploration (VSE), which called for NASA to safely return the Space
Shuttle to flight; complete the International Space Station (ISS);
return to the Moon to gain experience and knowledge for human missions
beyond the Moon, beginning with Mars; and increase the use of robotic
exploration to maximize our understanding of the solar system and pave
the way for more ambitious human missions. Congressional support for a
new direction in the Nation's human space flight program was clearly
articulated in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act. Specifically, the Act
directed the NASA Administrator ``to establish a program to develop a
sustained human presence on the Moon, including a robust precursor
program, to promote exploration, science, commerce, and United States
preeminence in space, and as a stepping-stone to future exploration of
Mars and other destinations. The Administrator was further authorized
to develop and conduct appropriate international collaborations in
pursuit of these goals.''
With regards to milestones, the Act directed the Administrator to
manage human space flight programs to strive to achieve the following
milestones:
``Returning Americans to the Moon no later than 2020.
Launching the Crew Exploration Vehicle as close to
2010 as possible.
Increasing knowledge of the impacts of long duration
stays in space on the human body using the most appropriate
facilities available, including the ISS.
Enabling humans to land on and return from Mars and
other destinations on a timetable that is technically and
fiscally possible.''
In September 2005, NASA released the results of the Agency's
exploration architecture study--ESAS--a framework for implementing the
VSE and a blueprint for the next generation of spacecraft to take
humans back to the Moon and on to Mars and other destinations.
According to GAO, NASA plans to spend nearly $230 billion over the next
two decades implementing the VSE plans. Because of the funding needs of
other NASA priorities, the agency has proceeded on a ``pay as you go''
scenario in implementing the VSE. This situation has been further
exacerbated by Presidentially-requested agency budgets that have been
less than those authorized by the Congress and less than those assumed
in the multi-year plan following release of the VSE. However,
inadequate funding is not NASA's only challenge in implementing the
VSE.
NASA's plans to retire the Shuttle and complete the ISS by 2010
make the task of developing new systems more difficult. The resumption
of Space Shuttle flights after the tragic loss of Shuttle Columbia has
enabled significant progress in the assembly of the ISS. However, the
pace of ISS assembly activities is also a reminder that such Shuttle
flights will cease in 2010 at which time the U.S. will need to rely on
partners such as Russia to provide routine transportation and emergency
crew return from the ISS until the new Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle
(CEV) achieves operational status. The period of time during which the
U.S. has no crew transportation capability is referred to as ``the
gap.'' The European ATV supply vehicle recently flown to the ISS marks
a significant new capability. Bringing propellant and supplies to the
ISS, it is scheduled to dock on the date of this hearing. In addition,
while NASA is encouraging the development of a commercial crew and
cargo capability, the availability of such a capability is uncertain at
this time. Thus, in addition to enabling future human lunar missions,
the CEV has taken on a broader significance as the means of ensuring
access by U.S. astronauts to low-Earth orbit once the Shuttle is
retired.
Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Request
The President's proposal for NASA's FY09 budget provides $3.50
billion for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD). From a
direct cost perspective,\1\ the proposed FY09 budget for ESMD is an
increase of $357.4 million from that appropriated in FY08. The ESMD
budget funds the following:
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\1\ As part of the budget restructuring undertaken in the FY09
budget request, NASA shifted from a full-cost budget, in which each
project budget included overhead costs, to a direct cost budget. All
overhead budget estimates are now consolidated into the Cross Agency
Support budget line. NASA has stated that maintaining a full cost
budget with seven appropriations accounts would be overly complex and
inefficient. The direct cost budget shows program budget estimates that
are based entirely on program content. Individual project managers
continue to operate in a full-cost environment, including management of
overhead costs.
Constellation Systems. This includes the development,
demonstration, and deployment of the Orion Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV) and the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) as well
as associated ground and in-orbit infrastructure. The proposed
direct funding for the Constellation Systems Program for FY09
is $2,875.1 million--an increase from the $2,341.4 million
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enacted in FY08.
Commercial Crew and Cargo. The proposed funding for
Commercial Crew and Cargo for FY09 is $173 million--an increase
of $42.5 million from that enacted in FY08. ESMD plans to
complete its demonstration of Commercial Orbital Transportation
Services (COTS) in FY10. The commercial procurement of low-
Earth orbit transportation services (e.g., to the ISS) will be
executed by the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Advanced Capabilities. The proposed funding for
Advanced Capabilities for FY09 is $452.3 million, a decrease of
$218.8 million from the $671.1 million enacted in FY08.
Activities in Advanced capabilities include:
Human research to support ISS and future exploration
by investigating and mitigating risks to astronaut health and
developing human space flight medical and human factors
standards;
Exploration Technology Development to support Orion
and other exploration programs. Requested funding in FY09 for
Exploration Technology Development has been reduced. Despite
the critical role technology development plays in reducing the
risks of future space travel, funding for technology
development is $81.9 million less from that appropriated in
FY08. Exploration Technology Development Program investments
reduce the risk of infusing new technologies into flight
projects by maturing them to the level of demonstration in a
relevant environment; and
A lunar precursor robotic program to provide
knowledge of lunar environment and reduce the risk of crewed
lunar landing.
Assumed Budget Growth for NASA Exploration FY 2009-FY 2013
The President's budget request for NASA's Exploration Systems
Mission Directorate is assumed to grow significantly after the Space
Shuttle is retired in late 2010. In addition to completing development
and testing of Orion and Ares I, design work will begin in earnest on
the Ares V heavy lift launcher and Altair lunar lander that will be
used to return U.S. astronauts to the Moon by the end of the decade,
according to NASA's plans.
Exploration Systems Architecture Study
Shortly after Dr. Griffin was named the new NASA Administrator in
April 2005, he set out to restructure the Exploration Program by making
its priority to accelerate the development of the CEV to reduce or
eliminate the planned gap in U.S. human access to space. Specifically,
he established a goal for the CEV to begin operation in 2011\2\ and to
be capable of ferrying crew and cargo to and from the ISS; prior to his
restructure, there were no plans for the CEV to service the ISS. He
also decided to focus on existing technology and proven approaches for
exploration systems development. In order to reduce the number of
required launches and ease the transition after Space Shuttle
retirement in 2010, the Administrator directed the Agency to examine
the cost and benefits of developing a Shuttle-derived Heavy-Lift Launch
Vehicle to be used in lunar and Mars exploration. As a result, the
Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) team was established to
determine the best exploration architecture and strategy to implement
these changes.
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\2\ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 2005,
NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture Study, NASA-TM-2005-214062: 1-
28
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In November 2005, NASA released the results of the ESAS, an initial
framework for implementing the VSE and a blueprint for the next
generation of spacecraft to take humans back to the Moon and on to Mars
and other destinations. ESAS made specific design recommendations for a
vehicle to carry crews into space, a family of launch vehicles to take
crews to the Moon and beyond, and a lunar mission ``architecture'' for
human lunar exploration.
ESAS presented a time-phased, evolutionary architectural approach
to returning humans to the Moon, servicing the ISS after Space Shuttle
retirement, and eventually transporting humans to Mars. Under the 2005
ESAS plan, a Crew Exploration Vehicle (now called Orion) and Crew
Launch Vehicle (now called Ares I) development activities would begin
immediately, leading to the goal of a first crewed flight to the ISS in
2011. Options for transporting cargo to and from the ISS would be
pursued in cooperation with industry, with a goal of purchasing
transportation services commercially. Lunar robotic precursor missions
would begin immediately with the development and launch of the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission and continue with a series of
landing and orbiting probes to prepare for extended human lunar
exploration. In 2011, the development of the major elements required to
return humans to the Moon would begin--the lunar lander (now called
Altair), heavy lift cargo launcher (now called Ares V), and an Earth
Departure Stage vehicle. These elements would be developed and tested
in an integrated fashion, leading to a human lunar landing in 2018.
Starting in 2018, a series of short-duration lunar sortie missions
would be accomplished, leading up to the deployment of a lunar outpost.
The lunar surface systems (e.g., rovers, habitats, power systems) would
be developed as required. Lunar missions would demonstrate the systems
and technologies needed for eventual human missions to Mars.
This past February, the VSE was re-examined at a workshop co-
sponsored by the Planetary Society and the Department of Aeronautics
and Astronautics at Stanford University. The workshop brought together
a group of space exploration experts, including scientists, former NASA
officials, and some aerospace industry executives. While participants
had differing views on the objectives of exploration, they concluded
that:
``It is time to go beyond LEO with people as
explorers. The purpose of sustained human exploration is to go
to Mars and beyond. The significance of the Moon and other
intermediate destinations is to serve as stepping stones on the
path to that goal.
Bringing together scientists, astronauts, engineers,
policy analysts, and industry executives in a single
conversation created an environment where insights across
traditional boundaries occurred.
Human space exploration is undertaken to serve
national and international interests. It provides important
opportunities to advance science, but science is not the
primary motivation.
Sustained human exploration requires enhanced
international collaboration and offers the United States an
opportunity for global leadership.
NASA has not received the budget increases to support
the mandated human exploration program as well as other vital
parts of the NASA portfolio, including space science,
aeronautics, technology requirements, and especially Earth
observations, given the urgency of global climate change.''
Revisiting the Constellation Architecture
Subsequent to the issuance of ESAS, proposals have been made in
support of alternative launch vehicle designs to those chosen by NASA.
These have included proposals for a ``Direct Derivative'' of the
existing Shuttle Transportation System and modified versions of the
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV).
The Direct Derivative launch vehicle, publicized at the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Space 2007 Conference and
Exposition in September 2007, would make use of proven designs such as
the main engines from the Delta-IV EELV and the solid rocket boosters
used to launch the Shuttle. The proposed Direct Derivative would
require two launches of the same launch vehicle; NASA's current
architecture would require two launches using two different launch
vehicles. In addressing the Space Transportation Association (STA) in
January 2008, the NASA Administrator reviewed the architecture defined
by ESAS and the reasons behind the choices made. After summarizing the
requirements set forth by the President's Vision for Space Exploration
and subsequent NASA Authorization Act of 2005, the Administrator stated
that the requirement for a four-person sortie capability would require
a vehicle with a trans-lunar injection (TLI) mass greater than that of
the Saturn V and necessitate significant modifications to fabrication
and launch infrastructure. The Administrator said that the projected
NASA budget would not allow the development of extensive new ground
infrastructure and after a detailed consideration of the single-launch
option, the agency settled on a dual-launch Earth-orbit rendezvous
(EOR) scheme. He then discussed several of the reasons that the ESAS
team had for rejecting the Direct approach. The Administrator
acknowledged that non-recurring costs would be lower because only one
launch vehicle development is required. However, he said that the
architectural approach of launching two identical vehicles carries
significant liabilities when the broader requirements of NASA's policy
framework are considered. In particular, he stated that a dual-launch
EOR of identical vehicles is ``vastly over-designed for ISS
logistics,'' leading NASA to conclude that ``dual-launch EOR with
vehicles of similar payload class does not meet the requirement to
support the ISS in any sort of cost-effective manner.''
At that same speech, the Administrator acknowledged that the
adoption of the Shuttle-derived approach of the Ares I CLV had been one
of the more controversial decisions related to the exploration
architecture. Among the reasons for NASA's developing the Ares I CLV
instead of modifying existing EELVs, he identified insufficient lift
capacity in existing EELVs, the absence of a growth path to heavy lift
capability, and higher crew risk. In summary, he said that NASA's
analysis showed ``EELV-derived solutions meeting the agency's
performance requirements to be less safe, less reliable, and more
costly than the Shuttle-derived Ares I and Ares V.''
Administrator Griffin's STA speech is included as an attachment to
this hearing charter.
Status of Key Exploration Systems Initiatives and the ``Gap''
Under the aegis of its Constellation Systems Program, NASA has
initiated development of new space transportation capabilities
including the Orion CEV, the Ares I CLV, spacesuits and tools required
by the flight crews, and associated ground and mission operations
infrastructure to support initial low-Earth orbit missions. Orion and
Ares I are currently targeted to begin operational missions by March
2015.
The President's Vision statement directed NASA to have the CEV
operational no later than 2014. Initially, since no plans were made for
the CEV to service the ISS, international partner assets would be
required to ferry U.S. crew and cargo to the ISS after 2010--creating a
significant gap in domestic space access for U.S. astronauts. In its FY
2006 budget request, NASA said that its budget plan would deliver an
operational CEV in 2014. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 directed
the NASA Administrator to ``manage human space flight programs to
strive to achieve . . . launching the Crew Exploration Vehicle as close
to 2010 as possible'' subject to the proviso that the Administrator
shall ``construct an architecture and implementation plan for NASA's
human exploration program that is not critically dependent on the
achievement of milestones by fixed dates.'' Upon being named
Administrator, Dr. Griffin restructured the Exploration Program by
establishing a goal for the CEV to begin operation in 2011 by servicing
the ISS. However, the FY 2007 budget request established a CEV initial
operating date of no later than 2014. NASA subsequently concluded that
``As a result of this analysis over the past two months, the FY 2008
budget request does not support a 2014 initial operational capability,
but March 2015, even before the FY07 CR impact . . .'' At last year's
FY 2008 budget hearing before the Committee, the NASA Administrator
said that while the reduction in funding caused by the 2007 Continuing
Resolution extended the operational date to September of 2015, NASA
terminated some lower priority activities to buy back some schedule for
the CEV. This returned NASA to the March of 2015 date, four years later
than the goal established in ESAS, thus leaving a ``gap'' of almost
five years in U.S. space flight capability due to the retirement of the
shuttle in 2010. The confidence level set by NASA of achieving the
March 2015 date is 65 percent.
The FY09 budget request funds activity levels that maintain NASA's
commitment to reach initial operating capability (IOC) for both Orion
and Ares I by March 2015, although NASA acknowledges that it is
striving to bring the new system on line sooner. Nevertheless, the FY09
budget request does not accelerate the initial operating capability
date. This issue was brought up recently at the NASA FY09 budget
hearing held before the Committee on February 13, 2008. At that time,
Mr. Lampson asked whether a request had been made to OMB for additional
funds to narrow the gap and if so, what happened. The NASA
Administrator responded that ``we have many priorities, many funding
priorities in the Nation, all of which clamor for first attention. And
the funding, the priority of closing the gap between Shuttle retirement
and deployment of new systems did not make it to the top.'' NASA had
previously indicated that accelerating the IOC date to 2013 would
require an additional $1 billion per year in the years FY09 and FY10.
However, even meeting the target March 2015 date will require
timely resolution of design issues that have surfaced, particularly in
the Ares I program. An October 2007 GAO report on Ares I found that
``requirements instability,'' ``technology and hardware development
knowledge gaps,'' an ``aggressive schedule,'' and ``projected funding
shortfalls'' represent significant challenges for the program. And
recently, NASA has found that it needs to study the possibility of
vibration in the Ares I launch vehicle. Depending on what changes might
need to be made to mitigate this potential ``thrust oscillation''
issue, additional costs to both the Ares I launcher and Orion
spacecraft may be needed to address this problem. According to NASA,
the first test flight of the Ares launcher dubbed Ares I-Y is scheduled
for the third quarter of FY09. At that time, a four-segment version of
the final Ares I five-segmented launch vehicle will be tested while
transporting a simulated payload.
Although NASA states that threats to the Orion and Ares I projects
are being addressed through a rigorous risk management process, an area
of concern is the level of reserves in the Constellation program that
are available through FY10 due to its potential impact on NASA's
ability to maintain its scheduled March 2015 operational date. These
reserve levels are characterized by NASA as minimal--less than eight
percent. In discussions with NASA, officials indicated that the $2
billion needed to accelerate the initial operational date would be
primarily used to bolster reserves and thus allow the agency to address
disruptive schedule problems as they occurred.
Major contractors supporting NASA in the development of
Constellation systems currently include:
Lockheed Martin for Orion (Current total contract
value for Schedules A, B, and C: $8.55 billion)
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for Ares I upper stage
engine (Current contract value: $1.2 billion)
ATK Thiokol for Ares I first stage (Current contract
value: $1.8 billion)
Boeing for Ares I upper stage production (Current
contract value: $514.7 million)
Boeing for Ares I upper stage avionics production
($799.5 million)
Initial Lunar Exploration
The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program is currently the most visible
evidence of NASA's lunar exploration activities. The proposed funding
for the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP) for FY09 is $56.3
million, a significant decrease from the $198.2 million enacted in
FY08. The bulk of LPRP funding occurred in FY07 ($247.3 million). This
program includes the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which will
take high-resolution images of the Moon, map resources, and assess the
lunar environment for future exploration, and the Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will help confirm the
presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at
the Moon's South Pole. This is significant since such water, if
discovered in sufficient quantities, potentially could be converted to
rocket fuel and breathable oxygen facilitating the operation of a lunar
base for astronauts. The combined LRO/LCROSS mission is scheduled to
launch in late 2008 on an Atlas V. The spacecraft will be placed in low
polar orbit for a one year mission managed by NASA's Exploration
Systems Mission Directorate. Although the objectives of LRO are
exploratory in nature, the payload includes instruments with heritage
from previous planetary science missions, enabling transition, after
one year, to a scientific phase under NASA's Science Mission
Directorate.
Planning for future sustained lunar exploration is also well
underway. NASA's Lunar Architecture envisions the construction of an
outpost initially at a polar site on the Moon. Infrastructure needs
such as power generation, habitation, mobility, navigation and
communications, and complementary robotic missions are being defined.
Future Human Exploration of the Moon
The Exploration Systems Architecture provides the capability for up
to four crew members to explore any site on the Moon for up to seven
days. These missions, referred to as lunar sorties, are analogous to
the Apollo surface missions and will demonstrate the capability to land
humans on the Moon, have them operate for a limited period on the lunar
surface, and safely return them to Earth.
Scheduled for 2020, the elements needed to perform the mission
include Ares I, Orion (possibly a modification of the version used to
access the ISS), the Ares V Cargo Launch Vehicle, the Altair lunar
lander, and an Earth Departure Stage vehicle. The lunar lander and
Earth Departure Stage vehicle will be pre-deployed in low-Earth orbit
using the Ares V vehicle. Ares I will deliver Orion and its crew to
low-Earth orbit, where the two vehicles will rendezvous and dock. Upon
reaching the Moon, the entire crew will then transfer to Altair, undock
from Orion, and perform a descent to the lunar surface. After up to
seven days on the lunar surface, the Altair ascent stage will return
the crew to lunar orbit where they will dock with Orion. After
transferring back to Orion, the crew will then return to Earth.
NASA's Lunar Architecture envisions extended missions in the
future. The agency recently updated its architecture. Human lunar
missions will be used to build an outpost initially at a polar site.
This will require the establishment of power generation, habitation,
means for mobility such as rovers, and navigation and communication.
NASA's intent is to develop the infrastructure while actively being
engaged in science and exploration. Efforts are underway by NASA to
take a leadership role in establishing an ``open architecture'' for
lunar exploration, which it envisions as conducive to international
cooperation.
International Collaboration in Space Exploration
The U.S. and several other nations have sent or are planning to
send robotic missions to the Moon. This has elevated the need for a
globally coordinated strategy for exploration. In May 2007, 14 space
agencies released the results of 12 months of discussion--The Framework
for Coordination--as part of an overall Global Exploration Strategy.
The Framework is a vision for robotic and human space exploration,
focusing on destinations within the solar system where humans may one
day live and work. The Framework does not propose a single global
exploration program. Instead, it recommends a mechanism through which
nations can collaborate to strengthen both individual projects and
collective efforts. The Framework includes an action plan for
coordinating strategies to help space-faring nations reach their
exploration goals more effectively and safely. In addition, the
Framework recognizes that a partnership between humans and robots is
essential to the success of space exploration. The strength in robotic
spacecraft lies in their ability to be scouts and venture into hostile
environments. Humans, on the other hand, bring flexibility, experience,
and problem-solving skills. In addition, NASA and the European Space
Agency initiated an architecture assessment in January 2008 to outline
potential collaborative scenarios using their respective human and
robotic exploration capabilities. The goal is to identify by May 2008
potential future collaborative scenarios utilizing respective human/
robotic exploration capabilities.
Attachment 1
The Constellation Architecture
Michael D. Griffin
Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Remarks to the
Space Transportation Association
22 January 2008
As those who have attended any speech I've given know, I don't read
well in public. Everyone seems to enjoy the interactive sessions that
typically follow somewhat more. However, I wanted my thoughts on this
topic to be available on the written record, so if my remarks this
morning come across as an engineering lecture, then I have succeeded. I
hope you all had a strong cup of coffee. Today's topic is motivated by
the inquiries I've had lately, in one forum or another, concerning
various aspects of NASA's post-Shuttle space flight architecture. None
of the questions is new, and all of them were elucidated during our
Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). The architecture is
essentially as it was coming out of ESAS back in September 2005, and
the architectural trades we made then when considering mission
requirements, operations concepts, performance, risk, reliability, and
cost hold true today. But more than two years have gone by, and the
logic behind the choices we made has receded into the background.
People come and go, new questioners lacking subject matter background
appear, and the old questions must be answered again if there is to be
general accord that NASA managers are allocating public funds in a
responsible fashion. And so it seemed to me that the time was right to
review, again, why we are developing the post-Shuttle space
architecture in the way that we are.
As many of you know, I used to teach space system engineering at
George Washington University and the University of Maryland, and am
more comfortable discussing engineering design than just about any
other topic. But as NASA Administrator, I must first frame the
Constellation architecture and design in the context of policy and law
that dictate NASA's missions.
Any system architecture must be evaluated first against the tasks
which it is supposed to accomplish. Only afterwards can we consider
whether it accomplishes them efficiently, or presents other advantages
which distinguish it from competing choices. So to start, we need to
review the requirements expressed in Presidential policy and,
subsequently, Congressional direction, that were conveyed to NASA in
2004 and 2005.
The principal documents pertinent to our architecture are President
Bush's January 14th, 2004 speech outlining the Vision for Space
Exploration, and the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Both documents are
a direct result of the policy debate that followed in the wake of the
Columbia tragedy five years ago, and the observation of the Columbia
Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), ``The U.S. civilian space effort
has moved forward for more than thirty years without a guiding
vision.'' Several items of specific direction are captured in the
President's speech: ``Our first goal is to complete the International
Space Station by 2010. We will finish what we have started, we will
meet our obligations to our 15 international partners on this
project.'' ``Research on board the station and here on Earth will help
us better understand and overcome the obstacles that limit exploration.
Through these efforts we will develop the skills and techniques
necessary to sustain further space exploration.'' ``Our second goal is
to develop and test a new spacecraft, the Crew Exploration Vehicle, . .
. and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014. The Crew
Exploration Vehicle will be capable of ferrying astronauts and
scientists to the Space Station after the shuttle is retired. But the
main purpose of this spacecraft will be to carry astronauts beyond our
orbit to other worlds.'' ``Our third goal is to return to the Moon by
2020 . . .'' ``With the experience and knowledge gained on the Moon, we
will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: human
missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.'' After extensive debate, the
Congress offered strong bipartisan approval of these goals, while
adding considerable specificity. From the 2005 Authorization Act for
NASA, ``The Administrator shall establish a program to develop a
sustained human presence on the Moon, including a robust precursor
program, to promote exploration, science, commerce, and United States
preeminence in space, and as a stepping-stone to future exploration of
Mars and other destinations.'' ``The Administrator shall manage human
space flight programs to strive to achieve the following milestones,
(A) Returning Americans to the Moon no later than 2020. (B) Launching
the Crew Exploration Vehicle as close to 2010 as possible. (C)
Increasing knowledge of the impacts of long duration stays in space on
the human body using the most appropriate facilities available,
including the ISS. (D) Enabling humans to land on and return from Mars
and other destinations on a timetable that is technically and fiscally
possible.'' The bill establishes specific requirements for the
International Space Station, noting that it must ``have an ability to
support a crew size of at least six persons,'' codifying a long-
promised design feature in law. It also details statutory requirements
for Shuttle transition, including maximizing the use of Shuttle assets
and infrastructure:
``The Administrator shall, to the fullest extent possible
consistent with a successful development program, use the
personnel, capabilities, assets, and infrastructure of the
Space Shuttle program in developing the Crew Exploration
Vehicle, Crew Launch Vehicle, and a heavy-lift launch
vehicle.''
Collectively, these requirements outline the broad policy framework
for the post-Shuttle U.S. human space flight architecture: We will
manage the U.S. space program so as to complete the International Space
Station by 2010, utilizing the Space Shuttle for that purpose, after
which it will be retired. After completion, the ISS will be used to
``better understand and overcome the obstacles that limit
exploration.'' The Shuttle will be replaced as soon as possible, but
not later than 2014, by a Crew Exploration Vehicle designed to take
humans to the Moon and beyond, but which must also be capable of
servicing the ISS and its crew of six. The architecture must support
human lunar return not later than 2020 and, after that, development of
a sustained human lunar presence, both for its intrinsic benefits and
as a ``stepping stone'' to Mars and beyond. Finally, the new
architecture must take advantage of existing Space Shuttle program
assets ``to the fullest extent possible.'' Not that anyone asked, but I
consider this to be the best civil space policy to be enunciated by a
president, and the best Authorization Act to be approved by the
Congress, since the 1960s. But no policy is perfect, and none will
please everyone. In particular, many in the exploration community, as
well as many of those who pursue space science, were disappointed by
the reaffirmation of our nation's commitment to the ISS.
But a plain reading of policy and law requires us to understand
that, throughout four presidential administrations and twenty-plus
Congressional votes authorizing tens of billions of dollars for its
development, the ISS has remained an established feature of U.S. space
policy. Its support and sustenance cannot be left to chance; the CEV
must and will be capable of fulfilling this requirement, and the
exploration architecture must and will take that into account. This is
nothing more than common sense. The U.S. government will not abandon
its commitment to the development and utilization of low-Earth orbit
(LEO). There continue to be many questions about NASA's long-term
commitment to ISS, so let me clarify. The Bush Administration has made
no decision on the end date for ISS operations. We are, of course,
concerned that Station operating costs after 2016 will detract from our
next major milestone, returning to the Moon by 2020. But while the
budget does not presently allocate funds for operating ISS beyond 2016,
we are taking no action to preclude it. Decisions regarding U.S.
participation in ISS operations after 2016 can only be made by a future
Administration and a future Congress. I am sure these will be based on
discussions with our international partners, progress toward our
Exploration goals, utility of this national laboratory, and the
affordability of projected ISS operations. Again, we plan to keep our
commitments to our partners, utilizing ISS if it makes sense. Now,
returning to our space architecture, note the order of primacy in
requirements. We are not primarily building a system to replace the
Shuttle for access to LEO, and upgrading it later for lunar return.
Instead, we are directed to build a system to ``carry astronauts beyond
our orbit to other worlds,'' but which can be put to the service of the
ISS if needed. In brief, we are designing for the Moon and beyond. That
too is only common sense. Once before, an earlier generation of U.S.
policy-makers approved a space flight architecture intended to optimize
access to LEO. It was expected--or maybe ``hoped'' is the better word--
that, with this capability in hand, the tools to resume deep space
exploration would follow. It didn't happen, and with the funding which
has been allocated to the U.S. civil space program since the late
1960s, it cannot happen. Even though from an engineering perspective it
would be highly desirable to have transportation systems separately
optimized for LEO and deep space, NASA's budget will not support it. We
get one system; it must be capable of serving in multiple roles, and it
must be designed for the more difficult of those roles from the outset.
There are other common-sense requirements which have not been written
down. The most obvious of these, to me, is that the new system will and
should be in use for many decades. Aerospace systems are expensive and
difficult to develop; when such developments are judged successful,
they tend to remain in use far longer than one might at first imagine.
Those who doubt this should look around. The DC-3 and the B-52, to name
only two landmark aircraft, remain in service today. The Boeing 747 has
been around for thirty years, and who doubts that it will be going
strong for another thirty? In space, derivatives of Atlas and Delta and
Soyuz are flying a half-century and more after their initial
development. Ariane and its derivatives have been around for three
decades, with no end in sight. Even the Space Shuttle will have been in
service for thirty years by the time it retires. Apart from Saturn/
Apollo, I am hard put to think of a successful aerospace system which
was retired with less than several decades of use, and often more. The
implications of this are profound. We are designing today the systems
that our grandchildren will use as building blocks, not just for lunar
return, but for missions to Mars, to the near-Earth asteroids, to
service great observatories at SunEarth L1, and for other purposes we
have not yet even considered. We need a system with inherent capability
for growth. Elsewhere, I have written that a careful analysis of what
we can do at NASA on constant-dollar budgets leads me to believe that
we can realistically be on Mars by the mid-2030's. It is not credible
to believe that we will return to the Moon and then start with a
``clean sheet of paper'' to design a system for Mars. That's just not
fiscally, technically or politically realistic. We'll be on Mars in
thirty years, and when we go, we'll be using hardware that we're
building today. So we need to keep Mars in mind as we work, even now.
And that means we need to look at both ends of the requirements
spectrum. Our new system needs to be designed for the Moon, but allow
U.S. government access to LEO. Yet, in designing for the Moon, we need
also to provide the maximum possible ``leave behind'' for Mars. If we
don't, then a generation from now there will be a group in this room,
listening to the Administrator of that time ask, about those of us here
today, ``what were they thinking?'' Now, in mentioning ``Mars'' I must
state for the record that I do realize that the $550 billion
Consolidated Appropriations Act signed into law last month stipulated
that no funds appropriated in 2008 ``shall be used for any research,
development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the
human exploration of Mars.'' While I personally consider this to be
shortsighted, and while NASA was in any case spending only a few
million dollars on long-term research and study efforts, we will of
course follow this legislative direction. And while this provision does
not affect work on Ares V, it does call into question the fundamental
rationale for our use of Space Station in long-duration human space
flight research. I hope that this funding restriction can be abandoned
in future years. Further application of common sense also requires us
to acknowledge that now is the time, this is the juncture, and we are
the people to make provisions for the contributions of the commercial
space sector to our nation's overall space enterprise. The development
and exploitation of space has, so far, been accomplished in a fashion
that can be described as ``all government, all the time.'' That's not
the way the American frontier was developed, it's not the way this
nation developed aviation, it's not the way the rest of our economy
works, and it ought not to be good enough for space, either. So, pro-
actively and as a matter of deliberate policy, we need to make
provisions for the first step on the stairway to space to be occupied
by commercial entrepreneurs--whether they reside in big companies or
small ones. The policy decision that the CEV will be designed for the
Moon, while not precluding its ability to provide access to LEO,
strongly reinforces this common sense objective. If designed for the
Moon, the use of the CEV in LEO will inevitably be more expensive than
a system designed for the much easier requirement of LEO access and no
more. This lesser requirement is one that, in my judgment, can be met
today by a bold commercial developer, operating without the close
oversight of the U.S. Government, with the goal of offering
transportation for cargo and crew to LEO on a fee-for-service basis.
This is a policy goal--enabling the development of commercial space
transportation to LEO--that can be met if we in government are willing
to create a protected niche for it. To provide that niche, we must set
the requirements for the next-generation government space flight system
at the lunar-transportation level, well above the LEO threshold. Now
again, common sense dictates that we cannot hold the ISS hostage to
fortune; we cannot gamble the fate of a multi-tens-of-billions-of-
dollar facility on the success of a commercial operation, so the CEV
must be able to operate efficiently in LEO if necessary. But we can
create a clear financial incentive for commercial success, based on the
financial disincentive of using government transportation to LEO at
what will be an inherently higher price. To this end, as I have noted
many times, we must be willing to defer the use of government systems
in favor of commercial services, as and when they reach maturity. When
commercial capability comes on line, we will reduce the level of our
own LEO operations with Ares/Orion to that which is minimally necessary
to preserve capability, and to qualify the system for lunar flight. So
how is all of this--law, policy, and common sense--realized in the
architecture that came out of ESAS? As I have outlined above, policy
and legislation are in some ways quite specific about the requirements
for post-Shuttle U.S. space flight systems. They are less so where it
concerns our lunar goals, beyond the clearly stated requirement to
develop the capability to support a sustained human lunar presence,
both for its intrinsic value and as a step toward Mars. This leaves
considerably more discretion to NASA as the executive agency to set
requirements, and with that considerably more responsibility to get it
right. Again, I think common sense comes to our rescue. There is
general agreement that our next steps to the Moon, toward a goal of
sustained lunar presence, must offer something more than Apollo-class
capability; e.g., sorties by two people for three days to the
equatorial region. To return after fifty years with nothing more than
the capability we once threw away, seems to me to fail whatever test of
common sense might be applied to ourselves and our successors.
Accordingly, then, in developing requirements for ESAS we specified
that the lunar architecture should be capable of the following:
- Initial lunar sortie missions should be capable of
sustaining a crew of four on the lunar surface for a week.
- The architecture will allow missions to any location on the
Moon at any time, and will permit return to Earth at any time.
- The architecture will be designed to support the early
development of an ``outpost'' capability at a location yet to
be specified, with crew rotations planned for six-month
intervals.
One could fill pages debating and justifying these requirements;
mercifully, I will not do that. Perhaps another time. In any case, I
think it is clear that these goals offer capability significantly
beyond Apollo, yet can be achieved with the building blocks--ground
facilities as well as space transportation elements--that we have or
can reasonably envision, given the budgetary resources we might expect.
It is worth noting that the decision to focus on early development of
an outpost--while retaining the capability to conduct a dedicated
sortie mission to any point on the lunar surface that might prove to be
of interest for scientific or other reasons--supports additional key
goals. The most obvious of these is that it provides a more direct
``stepping stone'' to Mars, where even on the very first mission we
will need to live for an extended period on another planetary surface.
But further, even a basic human-tended outpost requires a variety of
infrastructure that is neither necessary nor possible to include in a
sortie mission. Such infrastructure development presents obvious
possibilities for commercial and international partner involvement,
both of which constitute important policy objectives. But if the
capability we are striving for is greater than that of Apollo, so too
is the difficulty. To achieve the basic four-person lunar sortie
capability anytime, anywhere, requires a trans-lunar injection (TLI)
mass of 70-75 metric tons (mT), including appropriate reserve. Saturn V
TLI capability on Apollo 17 was 47 mT without the launch adaptor used
to protect the lunar module. Thus, more than Saturn V capability is
required if we are to go beyond Apollo. I think we should not be
surprised to find that the Apollo engineers got just about as much out
of a single launch of the Saturn V as it was possible to do. If we need
more capability to TLI than can be provided by a single launch of a
Saturn-class vehicle, we can reduce our objectives, build a bigger
rocket, or attain the desired capability by launching more than one
rocket. Setting a lesser objective seems inconsistent with our goal of
developing the capability for a sustained lunar presence, and, as noted
earlier, merely replicating Apollo-era capability is politically
untenable. Building a larger rocket is certainly an attractive option,
at least to me, but to reach the capability needed for a single launch
brings with it the need for significant modifications to fabrication
and launch infrastructure. The Michoud Assembly Facility and the
Vertical Assembly Building were designed for the Saturn V, and have
some growth margin above that. But they will not accommodate a vehicle
that can support our goals for lunar return with a single launch, and
the projected NASA budget does not allow the development of extensive
new ground infrastructure. Further, and crucially, a single-launch
architecture fails to address the requirement for ISS logistics
support. Thus, after detailed consideration of the single-launch
option, we settled on a dual-launch Earth-orbit rendezvous (EOR) scheme
as the means by which a TLI payload of the necessary size would be
assembled. However, the decision to employ EOR in the lunar
transportation architecture implies nothing about how the payload
should be split. Indeed, the most obvious split involves launching two
identical vehicles with approximately equal payloads, mating them in
orbit, and proceeding to the Moon. When EOR was considered for Apollo,
it was this method that was to be employed, and it offers several
advantages. Non-recurring costs are lower because only one launch
vehicle development is required, recurring costs are amortized over a
larger number of flights of a single vehicle, and the knowledge of
system reliability is enhanced by the more rapid accumulation of flight
experience. However, this architectural approach carries significant
liabilities when we consider the broader requirements of the policy
framework discussed earlier. As with the single-launch architecture,
dual-launch EOR of identical vehicles is vastly over-designed for ISS
logistics. It is one thing to design a lunar transportation system and,
if necessary, use it to service ISS while accepting some reduction in
cost-effectiveness relative to a system optimized for LEO access. As
noted earlier, such a plan backstops the requirement to sustain ISS
without offering government competition in what we hope will prove to
be a commercial market niche. But it is quite another thing to render
government logistics support to ISS so expensive that the Station is
immediately judged to be not worth the cost of its support. Dual-launch
EOR with vehicles of similar payload class does not meet the
requirement to support the ISS in any sort of cost-effective manner. On
the other end of the scale, we must judge any proposed architecture
against the requirements for Mars. We aren't going there now, but one
day we will, and it will be within the expected operating lifetime of
the system we are designing today. We know already that, when we go, we
are going to need a Mars ship with a LEO mass equivalent of about a
million pounds, give or take a bit. I'm trying for one-significant-
digit accuracy here, but think ``Space Station,'' in terms of mass. I
hope we're smart enough that we never again try to place such a large
system in orbit by doing it in twenty-ton chunks. I think we all
understand that fewer launches of larger payloads requiring less on-
orbit integration are to be preferred. Thus, a vehicle in the Saturn V
class--some 300,000 lbs in LEO--allows us to envision a Mars mission
assembly sequence requiring some four to six launches, depending on the
packaging efficiency we can attain. This is something we did once and
can do again over the course of a few months, rather than many years,
with the two heavy-lift pads available at KSC Complex 39. But if we
split the EOR lunar architecture into two equal but smaller vehicles,
we will need ten or more launches to obtain the same Mars-bound payload
in LEO, and that is without assuming any loss of packaging efficiency
for the launch of smaller payloads. When we consider that maybe half
the Mars mission mass in LEO is liquid hydrogen, and if we understand
that the control of hydrogen boil-off in space is one of the key
limiting technologies for deep space exploration, the need to conduct
fewer rather than more launches to LEO for early Mars missions becomes
glaringly apparent. So if we want a lunar transportation architecture
that looks back to the ISS LEO logistics requirement, and forward to
the first Mars missions, it becomes apparent that the best approach is
a dual-launch EOR mission, but with the total payload split unequally.
The smaller launch vehicle puts a crew in LEO every time it flies,
whether they are going to the ISS or to the Moon. The larger launch
vehicle puts the lunar (or, later, Mars) cargo in orbit. After
rendezvous and docking, they are off to their final destination. Once
the rationale for this particular dual-launch EOR scenario is
understood, the next question is, logically, ``why don't we use the
existing EELV fleet for the smaller launch?'' I'm sure you will
understand when I tell you that I get this question all the time. And
frankly, it's a logical question. I started with that premise myself,
some years back. To cut to the chase, it will work--as long as you are
willing to define ``Orion'' as that vehicle which can fit on top of an
EELV. Unfortunately, we can't do that. The adoption of the Shuttle-
derived approach of Ares I, with a new lox/hydrogen upper stage on a
reusable solid rocket booster (RSRB) first stage, has been one of our
more controversial decisions. The Ares V heavy-lift design, with its
external-tank-derived core stage augmented by two RSRBs and a new Earth
departure stage (EDS), has been less controversial, but still not
without its detractors. So let me go into a bit of detail concerning
our rationale for the Shuttle-derived approach. The principal factors
we considered were the desired lift capacity, the comparative
reliability, and the development and life cycle costs of competing
approaches. Performance, risk, and cost--I'm sure you are shocked. The
Ares I lift requirement is 20.3 mT for the ISS mission and 23.3 mT for
the lunar mission. EELV lift capacity for both the Delta IV and Atlas V
are insufficient, so a new RL-10 powered upper stage would be required,
similar to the J-2X based upper stage for Ares I. We considered using
additional strap-on solid rocket boosters to increase EELV performance,
but such clustering lowers overall reliability. It is also important to
consider the growth path to heavy lift capability which results from
the choice of a particular launch vehicle family. Again, we are
designing an architecture, not a point solution for access to LEO. To
grow significantly beyond today's EELV family for lunar missions
requires essentially a ``clean sheet of paper'' design, whereas the
Ares V design makes extensive use of existing elements, or
straightforward modifications of existing elements, which are also
common to Ares I. Next up for consideration are mission reliability and
crew risk. EELVs were not originally designed to carry astronauts, and
various human-rating improvements are required to do so. Significant
upgrades to the Atlas V core stage are necessary, and abort from the
Delta IV exceeds allowable g-loads. In the end, the probabilistic risk
assessment (PRA) derived during ESAS indicated that the Shuttle-derived
Ares I was almost twice as safe as that of a human-rated EELV. Finally,
we considered both development and full life cycle costs. I cannot go
into the details of this analysis in a speech, and in any case much of
it involves proprietary data. We have shared the complete analysis with
the DOD, various White House staff offices, CBO, GAO, and our
Congressional oversight committees. Our analysis showed that for the
combined crew and heavy-lift launch vehicles, the development cost of
an EELV-derived architecture is almost 25 percent higher than that of
the Shuttle-derived approach. The recurring cost of the heavy-lift Ares
V is substantially less than competing approaches, and the recurring
cost of an EELV upgraded to meet CEV requirements is, at best,
comparable to that for Ares I. All independent cost analyses have been
in agreement with these conclusions. So, while we might wish that ``off
the shelf'' EELVs could be easily and cheaply modified to meet NASA's
human space flight requirements, the data say otherwise. Careful
analysis showed EELV-derived solutions meeting our performance
requirements to be less safe, less reliable, and more costly than the
Shuttle-derived Ares I and Ares V.
Now is a good time to recall that all of the trades discussed above
assumed the use of a production version of the Space Shuttle Main
Engine (SSME). But, returning to a point I made earlier, we continued
our system analysis following the architecture definition of ESAS,
looking for refinements to enhance performance and reduce risk and
cost. We decided for Ares I to make an early transition to the five-
segment RSRB, and to eliminate the SSME in favor of the J-2X on the
upper stage. Similarly, elimination of the SSME in favor of an upgraded
version of the USAF-developed RS-68 engine for the Ares V core stage,
with the EDS powered by the J-2X, offered numerous benefits. These
changes yielded several billion dollars in life cycle cost savings over
our earlier estimates, and foster the use of a common RS-68 core engine
line for DOD, civil, and commercial users. Praise is tough to come by
in Washington, so I was particularly pleased with the comment about our
decision on the five-segment RSRB and J-2X engine in the recent GAO
review: ``NASA has taken steps toward making sound investment decisions
for Ares I.'' Just for balance, of course, the GAO also provided some
other comments. So, for the record, let me acknowledge on behalf of the
entire Constellation team that, yes, we do realize that there remain
``challenging knowledge gaps,'' as the GAO so quaintly phrased it,
between system concepts today and hardware on the pad tomorrow. Really.
We do.
It's time now for a little perspective. We are developing a new
system to bring new capabilities to the U.S. space program,
capabilities lost to us since the early 1970s. It isn't going to be
easy. Let me pause for a moment and repeat that. It isn't going to be
easy. Did any of you here today think it was going to be easy? May I
see a show of hands? How many of you thought we were going to re-create
a capability for the United States to go to the Moon, a capability well
beyond Apollo, and do it without any development problems? Anyone? So,
no, we don't yet have all the answers to the engineering questions we
will face, and in some cases we don't even know what those questions
will be. That is the nature of engineering development. But we are
going to continue to follow the data in our decision-making, continue
to test our theories, and continue to make changes if necessary.
We have been, I think, extraordinarily open about all of this.
Following the practice I enunciated in my first all-hands on my first
day as Administrator, in connection with the then-pressing concerns
about Shuttle return-to-flight, we are resolved to listen carefully and
respectfully to any technical concern or suggestion which is
respectfully expressed, and to evaluate on their merits any new ideas
brought to us. We are doing that, every day. We will continue to do it.
So, in conclusion, this is the architecture which I think best meets
all of the requirements of law, policy, budget, and common sense that
constrain us the post-Shuttle era. It certainly does not satisfy
everyone, not that I believe that goal to be achievable. To that point,
one of the more common criticisms I receive is that it ``looks too much
like Apollo.'' I'm still struggling to figure out why, if indeed that
is so, it is bad. My considered assessment of the Constellation
Architecture is that while we will encounter a number of engineering
design problems as we move forward, we are not facing any showstoppers.
Constellation is primarily a systems engineering and integration
effort, based on the use of as many flight-proven concepts and hardware
as possible, including the capsule design of Orion, the Shuttle RSRBs
and External Tank, the Apollo-era J-2X upper stage engine, and the RS-
68 core engine. We're capitalizing on the Nation's prior investments in
space technology wherever possible. I am really quite proud of the
progress this multi-disciplinary, geographically dispersed, NASA/
industry engineering team has made thus far. But even so, the
development of new systems remains hard work. It is not for the faint
of heart, or those who are easily distracted. We can do it if, but only
if, we retain our sense of purpose. In this regard, I'm reminded of two
sobering quotes from the CAIB report. First, ``the previous attempts to
develop a replacement vehicle for the aging Shuttle represent a failure
of national leadership.'' Also, the Board noted that such leadership
can only be successful ``if it is sustained over the decade; if by the
time a decision to develop a new vehicle is made there is a clearer
idea of how the new transportation system fits into the Nation's
overall plans for space; and if the U.S. Government is willing at the
time a development decision is made to commit the substantial resources
required to implement it.'' That sort of commitment is what the mantle
of leadership in space exploration means, and the engineers working to
build Constellation know it every day. Thus, I can only hope to inspire
them, and you, with the immortal words of that great engineer,
Montgomery Scott, of the USS Enterprise: ``I'm givin' 'er all she's
got, Captain.''
Thank you.
Chairman Udall. Good morning. This hearing will come to
order. And good morning. I want to welcome our witnesses, and I
look forward to your testimony.
Today's hearing continues the Subcommittee's oversight of
NASA's major program areas and will focus on the Agency's
exploration initiative.
In many ways, NASA's Exploration Initiative exemplifies
both the strengths and weaknesses of the Agency at this point
in its history.
Begun in 2004 to implement the President's Vision for Space
Exploration, NASA's initiative was conceived to be a broad and
sustained program of human and robotic exploration of the solar
system.
It was to be a step-by-step approach to exploration,
starting with the completion of the International Space Station
and subsequent retirement of the Space Shuttle, development of
a new human space transportation system, and a return to the
Moon as an initial step in a long-term journey to explore the
solar system. It was also to include an ambitious set of
robotic exploration activities and scientific investigations.
Yet from its beginning, NASA's Exploration Initiative has
suffered from chronic under-funding, with a once-in-a-
generation project to develop a new space transportation system
shoe-horned into a NASA budget that in some years hasn't even
kept pace with inflation.
That same under-funding has led to cutbacks in the Space
Station research and critical exploration technology
investments that will be needed if NASA's initiative is to go
beyond simply being simply a repeat of the 1960's era Apollo
project, albeit on a somewhat larger scale.
This is in no way a criticism of the dedicated NASA team
that is developing the systems needed to take America's
astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit.
They are working hard to make the best of a tough
situation, and we want them to succeed. To that end, today we
will hear from NASA about what has been accomplished to date,
and we will examine what NASA is going to have to do to bring
those new systems into operation.
Yet we also have to take a hard look at what it is going to
take to make the initiative both sustainable and worth the
money.
A good number of my colleagues agree with me that we should
be investing more in NASA, but there isn't necessarily a
consensus on what those funds should be used to accomplish.
For example, I think exploration is a worthwhile endeavor,
and I do support it. However, it is also clear to me that
NASA's core missions in aeronautics and science, especially
Earth science and climate research, are highly relevant to
addressing the Nation's needs and must be better supported than
they have been.
Thus, if the next Administration keeps NASA's budget as
constrained as it has been under this Administration, and I
certainly hope it doesn't, then the pace of exploration is
going to have to be adjusted to ensure that NASA's other
important activities do not wind up being cannibalized.
Yet, whether or not NASA gets more money, we also need to
ensure that the money NASA does get is spent as effectively as
possible. Thus, at a minimum, NASA needs to follow good program
management practices and do its best to control costs,
something the GAO witness will discuss.
NASA also needs to do a better job of keeping Congress
informed of its progress on critical initiatives so we can
determine if they are proceeding in the right way and on
budget.
In addition, it means that we need to make sure that NASA's
program is structured in a way that ensures that the critical
long-term exploration research and technology investments will
be made.
It also means that we need to ensure that the activities we
carry out on the Moon don't become a counterproductive drain on
NASA's and the Nation's resources but instead help further our
long-term exploration goals.
Finally, it means we need to ensure that we don't succumb
to a temptation to rerun a space race that we already won
nearly 40 years ago. Instead I think we need to be reaching out
to fashion a new, internationally cooperative approach to
exploration.
That, more than any nationalistically driven competition,
will ensure that U.S. leadership in space is maintained in a
way that will deliver the maximum benefits to our citizens for
decades to come.
We have got a great deal to discuss today, and we have an
expert panel to help us sort through all of these issues.
I again want to welcome you, and we appreciate your
willingness to testify before us today.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Udall follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Mark Udall
Good morning. I want to welcome our witnesses, and I look forward
to your testimony.
Today's hearing continues the Subcommittee's oversight of NASA's
major program areas and will focus on the Agency's Exploration
initiative.
In many ways, NASA's Exploration initiative exemplifies both the
strengths and weaknesses of the agency at this point in its history.
Begun in 2004 to implement the President's Vision for Space
Exploration, NASA's Exploration initiative was conceived to be a broad
and sustained program of human and robotic exploration of the solar
system.
It was to be a step-by-step approach to exploration, starting with
the completion of the International Space Station and subsequent
retirement of the Space Shuttle, development of a new human space
transportation system, and a return to the Moon as an initial step in a
long-term journey to explore the solar system. It was also to include
an ambitious set of robotic exploration activities and scientific
investigations.
Yet from its beginning, NASA's Exploration initiative has suffered
from chronic underfunding, with a ``once-in-a-generation'' project to
develop a new space transportation system ``shoe-horned'' into a NASA
budget that in some years hasn't even kept pace with inflation.
That same underfunding has led to cutbacks in the Space Station
research and critical exploration technology investments that will be
needed if NASA's Exploration initiative is to go beyond simply being
simply a repeat of the 1960's era Apollo project, albeit on a somewhat
larger scale.
This is in no way a criticism of the dedicated NASA team that is
developing the systems needed to take American astronauts beyond low-
Earth orbit.
They are working hard to make the best of a tough situation, and we
want them to succeed.
To that end, today we will hear from NASA about what has been
accomplished to date, and we will examine what NASA is going to have to
do to bring those new systems into operation.
Yet we also have to take a hard look at what it's going to take to
make the Exploration initiative both sustainable and worth the money.
A good number of my colleagues agree with me that we should be
investing more in NASA--but there isn't necessarily a consensus on what
those funds should be used to accomplish.
For example, I think exploration is a worthwhile endeavor, and I
support it.
However, it is also clear to me that NASA's core missions in
aeronautics and science--and especially Earth science and climate
research--are highly relevant to addressing the Nation's needs and must
be better supported than they have been.
Thus, if the next Administration keeps NASA's budget as constrained
as it has been under this Administration--and I hope it doesn't--then
the pace of Exploration is going to have to be adjusted to ensure that
NASA's other important activities do not wind up being cannibalized.
Yet, whether or not NASA gets more money, we also need to ensure
that the money NASA does get is spent as effectively as possible.
Thus, at a minimum, NASA needs to follow good program management
practices and do its best to control costs, something the GAO witness
will discuss.
NASA also needs to do a better job of keeping Congress informed of
its progress on critical initiatives, so we can determine if they are
proceeding in the right way and on budget.
In addition, it means that we need to make sure that NASA's
Exploration Program is structured in a way that ensures that the
critical long-term exploration research and technology investments will
be made.
It also means that we need to ensure that the activities we carry
out on the Moon don't become a counterproductive drain on NASA's--and
the Nation's--resources but instead help further our long-term
exploration goals.
Finally, it means we need to ensure that we don't succumb to the
temptation to rerun a ``space race'' that we won nearly forty years
ago. Instead I think we need to be reaching out to fashion a new,
internationally cooperative approach to exploration.
That, more than any nationalistically driven competition, will
ensure that U.S. leadership in space is maintained in a way that will
deliver the maximum benefits to our citizens for decades to come.
Well, we have a great deal to discuss today, and we have an expert
panel to help us sort through all of these issues.
I again want to welcome you, and we appreciate your willingness to
testify before us today.
Chairman Udall. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Feeney for an
opening statement, the Ranking Member.
Mr. Feeney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am grateful for your
holding today's important hearing on NASA's Exploration
Initiative. I also want to thank all of our witnesses for
coming, one of whom is wearing a proud Florida Gators cap, and
we are always glad to see Florida Gators here in our presence.
Your perspectives and expertise are immensely valuable as
we carry our oversight responsibilities and prepare legislation
to reauthorize NASA.
Human space exploration defines America as the world's
preeminent space-faring Nation. Images of Shuttle and Apollo
are deeply engrained in American culture, both our domestic
version and the version exported to the rest of the world.
Thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of Americans and
foreigners come to Florida's Space Coast to witness a Shuttle
launch. And for the latest launch held at 2:28 a.m., a sizable
Congressional delegation flew down after final votes in order
to watch the night turn into day in front of their very eyes.
For all the respect and support I have for NASA's satellite
missions, those launches simply don't draw those crowds.
NASA's human space flight program is in the midst of a one-
in-a-generation transformation brought about by the Columbia
accident. We are excited by the promise of human exploration
beyond low-Earth orbit for the first time in over 35 years.
NASA's Constellation Program is developing the Orion crew
exploration vehicle and the Ares I and the Ares V launch
vehicles. This architecture will give NASA the ability to
return Americans to the Moon by 2019 and to establish a
scientific outpost so we can gain the expertise to advance
human exploration beyond the Moon.
But these changes come with significant costs. Earlier this
week, NASA released preliminary estimates of the impact to the
human space flight workforce from this transition to a new
generation of space flight vehicles. I know this hearing is not
intended to focus on transition issues, but I do want to
reiterate my concern about the length of this gap and the
potential loss of the skilled workforce needed to continue
human space flight under the Constellation program.
Mr. Chairman, I understand that you intend to hold a
hearing later this year to examine NASA's Shuttle transition
planning, and I am very grateful for that proposed hearing. I
look forward to working with you on that hearing because it is
of utmost importance of Florida's Space Coast and I believe the
Nation as well.
In the wake of the Columbia accident, the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board correctly observed that America's human
space flight program lacked a strategy and a direction. We have
halted that drift. America has established a strategy and an
architecture of how to achieve our goals. Now we need
stability. We have had enough turmoil and change. If we change
the strategy and architecture every few years, we will revert
to pre-Columbia behavior, and we will have similar results
including the very real prospect of being grounded for several
years while other nations, especially China, strive for space
preeminence.
And I am grateful for the Chairman's remarks about avoiding
an unnecessary space race. I intend to go to China the third
week of April for the first Global Space Summit. I am adding
this off the script. I think it is certainly very aggressive of
the Chinese to host the first Global Space Summit but not very
surprising, given their announced intentions to be very
aggressively pursuing space capabilities.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board correctly noted,
``It is the view of the Board that the previous attempts to
develop a replacement vehicle for the aging Shuttle represented
a failure of national leadership.'' Since Columbia, we
collectively, the President, Congress, and the space community,
have demonstrated the necessary leadership. The Chairman is
right. We haven't funded adequately all of the things we ask
NASA to do, but in terms of establishing a vision that is very
doable that will lead us into the next age of space
exploration, I think that all of us have done our parts in a
relatively responsible way.
In over five years, we have come a long way since those
terrible dark days in February of 2003. Let us keep that
progress in mind as we look forward to the challenges ahead. I
look forward from hearing from our witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Feeney follows:]
Prepared Statement of Representative Tom Feeney
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's important hearing on
NASA's Exploration Initiative. I also want to thank our witnesses for
appearing. Your perspectives and expertise are immensely valuable as we
carry out our oversight responsibilities and prepare legislation to
reauthorize NASA.
Human space exploration defines America as the world's preeminent
space-faring Nation. Images of Shuttle and Apollo are deeply ingrained
in American culture--both our domestic version and the version exported
to the rest of the world. Thousands--sometimes hundreds of thousands--
of Americans and foreigners come to Florida's Space Coast to witness a
Shuttle launch. And for the latest launch held at 2:28 AM, a sizable
Congressional delegation flew down after final votes in order to watch
night turn into day. For all the respect and support I have for NASA's
satellite missions, those launches don't draw these crowds.
NASA's human space flight program is in the midst of a once in a
generation transformation brought about by the Columbia accident. We
are excited by the promise of human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit
for the first time in over 35 years. NASA's Constellation Program is
developing the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the Ares I and Ares V
launch vehicles. This architecture will give NASA the ability to return
Americans to the Moon by 2019 and establish a scientific outpost so we
can gain the expertise to advance human exploration beyond the Moon.
But these changes come with significant costs. Earlier this week
NASA released preliminary estimates of the impact to the human space
flight workforce from this transition to a new generation of space
flight vehicles. I know this hearing is not intended to focus on
transition issues. But I want to reiterate my concern about the length
of this gap and the potential loss of the skilled workforce needed to
continue human space flight under the Constellation program. Mr.
Chairman, I understand that you intend to hold a hearing later this
year to examine NASA's Shuttle transition planning. I look forward to
working with you on that hearing because of its utmost importance to
Florida's Space Coast.
In the wake of the Columbia accident, the Columbia Accident
Investigation Board correctly observed that America's human space
flight program lacked a strategy and direction. We have halted that
drift. America has established a strategy and an architecture of how to
achieve our goals.
We now need stability. We have had enough turmoil and change. If we
change the strategy and architecture every few years, we will revert to
pre-Columbia behavior. And we will have similar results including the
very real prospect of being grounded for several years while other
nations - especially China--strive for space preeminence.
As the Columbia Accident Investigation Board correctly noted:
It is the view of the Board that the previous attempts to
develop a replacement vehicle for the aging Shuttle represented
a failure of national leadership.
Since Columbia, we--the President, Congress, and the space
community--have demonstrated the needed leadership. In over five years,
we have come a long way since those terrible dark days in February
2003. Let's keep that progress in mind as we look forward to the
challenges ahead.
Chairman Udall. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. If there are Members
who wish to submit additional opening statements, your
statements will be added to the record. Without objection, so
ordered.
Let me turn now to our excellent panel of witnesses. I
would like to introduce each one of you in turn, and then we
will turn to our first witness and he can begin the testimony
this morning. First, we do have Dr. Richard Gilbrech who is
NASA's Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems
Mission Directorate. Next to him, Ms. Cristina Chaplain who is
the Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management at the
Government Accountability Office. Third on the panel, Dr. Noel
Hinners who is a former Lockheed-Martin executive and worked on
the Apollo program during his tenure at NASA, and finally, we
have Dr. Kathryn Thornton who is a veteran of four Shuttle
missions and is currently a Professor, Associate Dean for the
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of
Virginia. Welcome again to all of you.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each after which the Members of the
Subcommittee will have five minutes each to ask questions. We
will start with Dr. Gilbrech.
STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD J. GILBRECH, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,
EXPLORATION SYSTEMS MISSION DIRECTORATE, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS
AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)
Dr. Gilbrech. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today as NASA's Associate Administrator for
the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. When I joined
NASA, I had two dreams. One was to be an astronaut and the
other was to be part of the next Moon landing. A heart murmur
dashed my first dream but here I am today thrilled to be
leading the effort to achieve my second dream.
Much has happened since Americans first landed on the Moon.
Today space affects everything we do in more ways than I count
here today. The global space economy receives more than $220
billion annually, and NASA is just a small but integral
component of that critical global economic engine. Fiscal year
2009, NASA has requested $3.5 billion for our exploration
systems programs and projects. This budget request fully
reinstates our $500 million commitment to the Commercial
Orbital Transportation Services Program. It also demonstrates
the President's continued commitment to our nation's leadership
in space, especially during a time when there are other
competing demands for our nation's financial resources. Budget
stability is critical to maintaining the March 2015 initial
operating capability for the Orion crew exploration vehicle and
the Ares I crew launch vehicles.
Therefore, I ask for Congress' support for this budget
request as well as your continued support for NASA's efforts to
successfully transition its workforce and infrastructure from
Shuttle to Constellation.
NASA's 2009 budget request also continues our efforts to
return Americans to the Moon by 2020. On the Moon, astronauts
plan to build an outpost to support a long-term human presence
there, and in doing so, the Moon will become a proving ground
for technologies needed for future human missions to Mars and
other destinations. NASA has put together a team of some of its
best scientists and engineers to work on the lunar program, and
we also are working with 13 other international space agencies
in the commercial sector on this important endeavor.
Today, Constellation is making real progress. We are
testing real hardware. We have tested landing systems, we have
logged thousands of hours in wind tunnels to simulate how the
current Ares I vehicle designs perform in flight. By the end of
the year, Exploration Systems will launch its first lunar
spacecraft from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Together, the lunar reconnaissance orbiter and the lunar crater
observation and sensing satellite above this spacecraft will
help NASA scout for potential lunar landing sites and outposts.
For someone like me who started my career in propulsion
technology, this is an exciting time to be leading the team
that is building our nation's next generation of human space
flight vehicles. Future astronauts will ride to orbit in the
Orion crew capsule on top of the Ares I. The Ares I first stage
uses a five-segment solid rocket booster derived from the
Shuttle's four-segment booster. In the second stage, we use a
J-2X engine and will provide the navigation, guidance, control,
and propulsion for the rocket's continued assent. Although the
J-2X has heritage parts, the J-2X is essentially a new engine
because of the significant redesign required for the Ares I
propulsion. Having grown up around rocket engine stands, I am
very confident that NASA will be successful in developing this
new engine to support both the upper stage and the eventual
Earth departure stage that will return humans to the Moon.
However, with any new rocket development program, there
will be some technical challenges. One of the most recently
discovered issues is a problem with thrust oscillation produced
by the five-segment first stage booster. Thrust oscillation is
caused by vortex shedding inside the solid rocket motor,
similar to the wake that follows a fast-moving boat. It is a
problem that is common to all solid-rocket motors and one we
take seriously. When early analysis indicated there would be
high levels of vibration throughout the entire vehicle, NASA
assigned our best talent to attack the problem. I am pleased to
report today that NASA has made great progress in better
understanding the issue and identifying numerous mitigations
for thrust oscillation.
Last year the U.S. Government Accountability Office
acknowledged that NASA has taken steps toward making sound
investment decisions for the Ares I project. Let me assure that
NASA fully intends to make sure that all of our projects, not
just the Ares I, reach the appropriate level of maturity at
each milestone before proceeding further.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, NASA looks
forward to continuing with you on this exciting journey of
exploration, a journey that will drive new technologies, enable
new economic activity, and engage and inspire our technical and
engineering workforce. We do not live in a static world. Other
countries will explore the cosmos, whether the United States
does or not, and these will be the Earth's great nations in the
years and centuries to come. Bold plans and strategies require
bold leadership and robust follow-through, and together we can
create a legacy for generations to come. I thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today, and I would be pleased
to answer any questions you might have.
Chairman Udall. Thank you, Dr. Gilbrech. Before I recognize
Ms. Chaplain, I notice you have some models here, and maybe for
the viewers and citizens in attendance you might just take
another minute and identify these models to your right for us.
Mr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir, I would be glad to. Show and tell
always helps. What we have here on the far end of the table is
the Ares I crew exploration crew launch vehicle rocket. We are
using the five-segment solid rocket booster that is derived
from the Space Shuttle Program as the first stage. The orange
section up at the top is the new upper stage that will house
the J-2X engine that we are developing, and then the white
portion at the very tip is the service module and the Orion
crew exploration vehicle, and the little pointy stick at the
top is the actual launch abort system which gives us
reliability and the ability to save the crew in the event there
is a mishap on our way uphill.
The large rocket to the left is the Ares V which uses a lot
of the common hardware that we are using with the Ares I. We
again have the two, five-segment solid rocket boosters on each
side. We are using a core stage which has five RS-68 engines
which are the engines that power the Delta IV rockets today. We
have the departure stage at the top here which is actually we
use the same, common J-2X engine. And then we also have up top
the faring that houses the lunar surface access module. We
actually have the Orion, a little bit bigger picture here but
the idea is the larger rocket will put the lunar surface access
module in orbit. The crew will be put up on the Orion capsule.
They will mate in Earth orbit rendezvous and then go on their
way to the
oon, and we will send all four astronauts down to the
lunar surface for seven day sorties in the beginning.
So that is the baseline of the architecture.
Chairman Udall. But what are the blue arrays that----
Mr. Gilbrech. Those are the solar arrays for powering the
Orion capsule since it is much more efficient with the lunar
program to use the solar arrays to maximize the energy and
minimize the amount of batteries and other types of things we
have to have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gilbrech follows:]
Prepared Statement of Richard J. Gilbrech
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to make my first appearance before you today as the
Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate
(ESMD) to discuss NASA's Exploration Program.
In 2007, ESMD delivered on its promises, and we will continue to do
so in 2008. Major development work is underway; contracts are in place,
and our future Exploration plan is executable. By the end of 2008, NASA
will see its first lunar spacecraft launched from the Agency's Kennedy
Space Center (KSC) in Florida. This Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
and the Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will help
NASA scout for potential lunar landing and outpost sites. Additionally,
in 2008, NASA will continue to plan how best to transition any needed
Shuttle workforce and infrastructure to the Constellation program.
The FY 2009 budget request of $3.5 billion for ESMD will support
continued development of new U.S. human space flight capabilities and
will enable sustained and affordable human space exploration after the
Space Shuttle is retired at the end of FY 2010. The budget request
provides stable funding to allow NASA to continue developing our next-
generation U.S. human space flight vehicles while also providing
research and developing technologies for the longer-term development of
a sustained human Exploration of the Moon and other destinations.
Budget stability in FY 2009 is crucial to maintaining a March 2015
Initial Operational Capability (IOC) for the Orion Crew Exploration
Vehicle and Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle. There is minimum flexibility
through 2010, so Congressional support for the full FY 2009 budget
request is critical. In addition, NASA will continue to work with other
nations and the commercial sector to coordinate planning, leverage
investment, and identify opportunities for specific collaboration on
lunar data collection and lunar surface activities.
The FY 2009 budget request continues our national momentum toward
returning American astronauts to the Moon by 2020. NASA plans to build
an outpost on the Moon to advance U.S. scientific, security, and
economic interests as part of a sustained and affordable human and
robotic program of solar system Exploration. Astronauts will learn to
use resources already on the Moon, preparing for possible future
journeys to Mars or other destinations in the solar system. Successful
lunar exploration is not just about developing a lander or a habitat.
It will require development of a system of Exploration elements,
including a transportation system, habitation, rovers, space walking
systems, surface power, and communication. NASA has put together a team
of some of its best scientists and engineers to work on these projects.
We also are working with 13 international partners and the commercial
sector to coordinate planning, leverage investment, and identify
opportunities for specific collaboration on lunar data collection and
lunar surface activities.
Much has happened since Americans first landed on the Moon, but in
particular the scope, breadth and importance of space activity has
grown significantly. Today, the global space economy exceeds more than
$220 billion annually, and that figure is growing rapidly each year.
NASA is a small, but integral component of this critical global
economic engine. Today, we live in a time when space has become a
globally utilized resource and when other nations have the ability to
launch humans into space. Today, the skies are filled with satellites
that impact the lives of billions of people on planet Earth. Today,
American astronauts are living in space with international colleagues
aboard the International Space Station (ISS), and scientists worldwide
are studying our solar system via robotic missions. Simply put, space
affects everything we do.
Thanks to the support of the President and Congress, our nation
once again has a vision for the future that addresses space Exploration
on all fronts. It is therefore only fitting that we have begun on an
adventure to return Americans to the Moon as part of that broader
policy and vision. This adventure will drive us toward new
technologies; will enable a new area of economic activity; will
strengthen our national security; will engage our technical and
engineering workforce; will provide an opportunity to collaborate on
important missions with our international partners; and, will inspire a
new generation of scientists and engineers to participate in America's
space program. NASA's Exploration program will also ensure that our
nation's space program continues to organize and inspire the best of
our energies and skills for generations to come.
NASA is committed to carrying out our nation's civil space program,
and we pledge to keep the Congress fully informed about our efforts and
achievements. As requested in the invitation to testify today, the
remainder of my testimony outlines NASA's progress, and some of the
Agency's challenges, in implementing the Orion and Ares projects. My
testimony also addresses NASA's evolving lunar architecture, which will
return Americans to the Moon by 2020 in preparation for human
Exploration of Mars and other destinations.
Constellation Program Status
The FY 2009 budget request for Constellation Systems is
approximately $3.0 billion. The Constellation program includes funding
for the Orion and Ares projects, as well as for ground operations,
mission operations, and extra vehicular activity projects and a
dedicated in-house effort for systems engineering and integration. NASA
recognizes that challenges lay ahead for the Agency, and we are making
progress in managing these challenges. Our greatest challenge is safely
flying the Space Shuttle to complete assembly of the ISS prior to
retiring the Shuttle in 2010, while at the same time, developing new
U.S. human space flight capabilities of the Constellation program and
successfully transitioning our workforce between Shuttle and
Constellation activities. Full funding of NASA's FY 2009 budget request
for Constellation is needed so that we can continue successful
transition between the Shuttle and the Orion and Ares I. The FY 2009
budget request maintains Orion IOC in March 2015 at a 65 percent
confidence level and full operational capability (FOC) in FY 2016,
though NASA is striving to bring this new vehicle online sooner.
The FY 2009 budget request for Constellation will support a total
of three uncrewed test flights prior to IOC in FY 2015. The IOC is
defined as the first crewed flight of Orion to the ISS, enabling fight
test astronauts to fly the Orion on its maiden voyage. Following IOC,
there will be one additional crewed test flight of Ares I and Orion to
the ISS before NASA declares FOC. The FOC milestone is defined as the
date when Orion transports crew to the ISS; remains at the ISS for up
to 180 days; and then safely returns the crew to Earth.
NASA has planned and paced the multi-decade Constellation program
to live within its means, while carefully identifying and mitigating
the threats to mission success. Within the Constellation program, NASA
is making important decisions to stay within budget and on schedule by
striving for the lowest life-cycle costs possible. NASA has established
an initial plan for Constellation's designs and integrated flight tests
to ensure that the Agency adequately tests systems prior to their
operational use and allows appropriate time to implement critical
lessons learned from these tests.
NASA's Constellation program has moved beyond being just a mere
concept on paper; we are making real progress. We have tested hardware;
we have tested landing systems; and we have logged thousands of hours
in wind tunnels. So far, the Ares I project has conducted more than
4,000 hours of wind tunnel testing on sub-scale models of the Ares I to
simulate how the current vehicle design performs in flight. These tests
support development of the J-2X engine for the Ares I and the Earth
Departure Stage of the Ares V. By December 2007, all major elements of
the Orion and Ares vehicles were placed under contract. This year,
Constellation will be busy with hardware activities which include
fabrication of the First Stage Development Motors 1 and 2 for Ares I;
complete construction of the Upper Stage Common Bulkhead Demonstration
article and also deliver the first Ares I-X demonstration test flight
hardware to KSC in October 2008. Orion will be just as busy,
culminating the year with a test of its launch abort system at the U.S.
Army's White Sands Missile Range (WSRM) in New Mexico.
NASA has a dedicated group of civil servants and contractors who
work together to check and crosscheck the multiple variables that go
into designing and eventually operating these future Exploration
vehicles. Constellation also has an integrated schedule and we are
meeting our early milestones. In 2007, Constellation completed a
``Season of System Requirements Reviews'' for the program and its
projects. Design reviews are essential to good engineering practice.
The year culminated with an Orion Point of Departure (POD) design and a
green light to move forward to the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). An
Integrated Stack Technical Interchange Meeting also was a great success
with all top issues being resolved. Thus, the Constellation program was
able to strike a technical baseline from which integrated assessments
can be formed. The program closed the architecture for going back to
ISS; has identified the areas necessary to do the same for lunar; and
now has a clearer understanding of its growth path toward that goal.
Constellation also has the green light to move forward in developing
systems for a lunar capable vehicle that meets our budgets and schedule
needs. Agency leadership has embraced the results of this season of
reviews and has approved the Constellation program to move forward to
PDR for both Orion and Ares I by this fall.
For background, a PDR is a crucial milestone because it is the
first major review of the detailed design and is normally held prior to
the preparation of formal design drawings. During a PDR, the program
verifies that the preliminary design meets all requirements within
acceptable risk limits and within the cost and schedule constraints.
The completion of the PDR and the closure of any actions generated by
the review become the basis for the start of the detailed drafting and
design effort and the purchase of parts, materials, and equipment
needed.
Currently, NASA has civil servants and contractors on board for the
Constellation program serving at all ten field Centers. Last fall, the
Agency assigned new leadership roles and responsibilities for
Exploration and Science missions to NASA's ten field Centers in order
to help restore the core technical capabilities across the Agency as we
transition from the Space Shuttle to new capabilities. This action
included assigning preliminary work assignments covering elements of
the Altair human lunar lander and lunar surface operations, as well as
the Ares V and Earth Departure Stage necessary for lunar Exploration.
This year, NASA will continue efforts to define the specific work the
field Centers will perform in order to enable astronauts to again
explore the Moon, while paving the way for human Exploration of Mars
and other destinations. It is also important to note that NASA's
Constellation program involves industry partners from more than 20
states across the country, which makes Constellation a truly Nationwide
effort.
In addition, NASA is making infrastructure improvements at many of
our Centers including:
Modifications to the Space Power Facility (SPF) at
Glenn Research Center's Plum Brook Station (Ohio) in support of
Orion environmental testing, enabling the SPF to perform
vibration and vibro-acoustic testing;
Construction of a new high-altitude test stand at
Stennis Space Center (SSC) in Mississippi for testing the J-2X
Upper State engine under simulated high-altitude conditions;
Construction of Orion abort system testing facilities
at WSMR;
Major refurbishment of the Operations and Check-out
Building at KSC in support of Orion final assembly and test;
Major refurbishment of building 29 at Johnson Space
Center (JSC) in Texas to support a Constellation Avionics
Integration Lab in support of Orion; and,
Minor and major modifications to Arc Jet Heaters
located at JSC and Ames Research Center in California in
support of Orion heat shield development and qualification.
Status of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle
By 2020, America will send a new generation of explorers to the
Moon aboard the Orion crew module, thereby enabling a sustained human
presence beyond low-Earth Orbit (LEO). With its IOC of March 2015,
Orion is a critical capability for the Nation to support Exploration
and to ensure U.S. access by American astronauts to all regions of LEO
and the Moon. The Orion also opens the door to Mars and other
destinations.
NASA is continuing the design process for the Orion and is pleased
with the progress made so far. The current design configuration
establishes a robust vehicle and meets the weight requirements,
including meeting the more demanding lunar configurations. Orion's
design borrows its shape from the capsules of the past, but takes
advantage of 21st century technology in computers, electronics, life
support, propulsion, and heat protection systems. Orion will carry up
to four crew members on lunar missions and up to six crew members to
and from the ISS. By 2020, the new capsule will be able to rendezvous
with a lunar landing module, which will carry astronauts to the Moon's
surface. Orion also will be the vehicle that returns our astronauts
safely to Earth.
During 2007, the Orion project tested numerous options for landing
systems, including air bag systems of varying configurations, and the
project began fabrication of a flight test article for Pad Abort Test-
1. Both the Orion and Ares projects also conducted numerous recovery
parachute drop tests in Yuma, Arizona to better understand the reefing
performance of the drogue, pilot and main chutes. Last year also
included a season of design reviews for the Orion project. After
completing a System Definition Review (SDR) in August, the Orion team
realized that the Orion configuration was too heavy, so NASA began an
effort to establish a POD configuration for the Orion spacecraft that
would meet requirements for mass, power and cost. In November 2007,
NASA senior leaders, including Administrator Michael Griffin, approved
the POD and approved Orion to move forward into the PDR design cycle,
which is scheduled to conclude this fall.
As approved in November, the POD configuration:
Establishes a robust vehicle;
Meets weight requirements for lunar and ISS missions;
and
Meets the more demanding lunar configuration with
2,000 lb of Manager's Reserve (MR) and 15 percent average
Weight Growth Allowance; This MR covers the 90th percentile of
mass threats and opportunities identified.
Between now and the conclusion of PDR this fall, NASA will continue
to work these issues:
Crew support for safety;
Ensuring the vehicle adequately supports the crew in
the event of contingency landings when the crew may have to
spend an extended period of time in the vehicle prior to
recovery by ground support teams;
Assessing landing scenarios, leading to a final
decision about whether Orion will land on land or water during
nominal landings;
Assessing mass threats and opportunities against the
Orion PDR POD configuration; and
Understanding the vulnerabilities of the POD vehicle
and understand the Loss of Crew and Loss of Mission
probabilities.
Another integral part of the Orion project is a Launch Abort System
(LAS), which will offer a safe, reliable method of moving the entire
crew out of danger in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or
during the climb to Earth orbit. Mounted at the top of the Orion and
Ares I launch vehicle stack, the abort system will be capable of
automatically separating the Orion from the rocket and positioning the
Orion for a safe landing. The planned LAS implementation uses a solid
rocket motor that is positioned on a tower atop the crew module that
will pull the Orion and its crew to safety. NASA plans a series of
tests to characterize the LAS. Pad Abort (PA)-1 is the first of these
tests and will address what happens if an emergency occurs while the
Orion and the launch vehicle are still on the launch pad. This test is
scheduled for December 2008 at WSMR. The Orion crew module test article
was shipped to Dryden Flight Research Center, California, on March 27
for outfitting. It will then be shipped to White Sands for integration
with the launch vehicle and LAS for the December 2008 PA-1 test.
Status of the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle
Ares I is an in-line, two-stage rocket that will carry Orion to LEO
and will becomes NASA's primary vehicle for human exploration in the
next decade. Ares I will be able to lift more than 25 metric tons
(55,600 pounds) to LEO. Its First Stage will use a single five-segment
solid rocket booster--a derivative of the Space Shuttle's solid rocket
booster, which also will be a critical element of the Ares V heavy lift
launch vehicle. The Ares V will consist of two five segment strap-on
boosters, which will enable the Ares V to carry up to 65 metric tons
(143,299 pounds) of payload to trans-lunar injection orbit or 135
metric tons (297,624 pounds) to LEO. The Ares V represents a capability
far beyond that of today's global launch systems, opening the door to
exploration and to a range of national and scientific applications in
all regions of space. The Second Stage of the Ares I, also known as the
Upper Stage, will provide the navigation, guidance, control and
propulsion required for the Second Stage of the rocket's ascent. It
will consist of a J-2X engine, a fuel tank for liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen propellants and associated avionics. Like the solid rocket
booster, the J-2X will contribute to our plans for human lunar
exploration by powering the Earth Departure Stage (the vehicle carrying
the Orion and a human lunar lander) to the Moon.
The J-2X is an evolved version of two historic predecessors: the
powerful J-2 engine that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn I-B and Saturn
V rockets, and the J-2S, a simplified version of the J-2 that was
developed and tested in the early 1970s. By utilizing the J-2X, NASA
eliminates the need to develop, modify, and certify an expendable Space
Shuttle engine for the Ares I. NASA expects the J-2X to be less
expensive and easier to manufacture than the Space Shuttle main engine.
Changing from the four-segment First Stage solid rocket motor to the
five-stage segment for the Ares I also represents a significant and
direct down payment on the Ares V, enabling an earlier delivery date
for Ares V.
Although the J-2X is based on the J-2 and J-2S engines used on the
Saturn V, it also leverages knowledge from the X-33 and RS-68. NASA
also is planning significant upgrades to the engine, which essentially
makes the J-2X a new engine development program. Therefore, NASA has
taken steps to mitigate J-2X risks by increasing the amount of
component-level testing; procuring additional development hardware; and
working to make a third test stand available to the contractor earlier
than originally planned. On August 23, 2007, NASA broke ground on a new
rocket engine test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The
test stand will provide altitude testing for the J-2X engine and will
allow engineers to simulate flight conditions at different altitudes.
Testing on the A-3 stand is scheduled to begin in late 2010.
Last year, the Ares project office conducted a season of SDRs for
its major elements: First Stage, Upper State and Upper Stage engine.
These activities concluded with the integrated Ares I SDR in October
2007. In support of Orion and Ares I SDRs, a series of integrated
vehicle analyses were conducted to characterize performance of the
Orion/Ares I stack. During these reviews, NASA discussed a thrust
oscillation issue during First Stage operation. Thrust oscillation is
not an uncommon risk in solid rocket motors because thrust oscillation
or resonant burning is a characteristic of all solid rocket motors,
like the First Stage of the Ares I launch vehicle. It is caused by
vortex shedding inside the solid rocket motor, similar to the wake that
follows a fast moving boat. When the vortex shedding coincides with the
acoustic modes of the motor combustion chamber, pressure oscillations
generate longitudinal forces that may impact the loads experienced by
the Ares I during flight, and may exceed allowable loads on various
portions of the vehicle and allowable forces on the astronaut crew.
In November 2007, NASA chartered the Thrust Oscillation Focus Team
to precisely define the frequency spectrum and oscillation amplitudes
that the five segment motor is expected to produce. These analyses are
being accomplished using a combination of available ground test motor
data as well as early Shuttle solid rocket motor flight data. Efforts
are underway to update the existing data set by adding instrumentation
on several upcoming Shuttle flights. In parallel, the team is
evaluating vehicle structural assessments in order to provide
additional vibration isolation to critical launch vehicle systems and
uncouple the vehicle's natural frequency from motor induced loads.
Since upper stage elements and the command/service module are not yet
fully designed, this is an excellent time to factor in thrust
oscillation load mitigation should that be required. The team's
analysis has already led to several mitigation strategies, including
the removal of a significant amount of conservatism from within
existing models, correlating to significantly lower loads by a factor
of almost two. Additionally the team was able to remove the first
longitudinal mode as an issue--the remaining effects are now in a
narrow, manageable region in the 12Hz frequency range. NASA will
conduct additional analysis coupled with upcoming flight test on the
Shuttle (STS 125, planned for August 2008) and Ares I-X (planned for
April 2009) to better characterize this phenomenon, which may further
reduce loads. In summary, NASA is confident in its ability to mitigate
the risks associated with thrust oscillation, and we will keep the
Congress and this subcommittee informed of our progress.
Last year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
acknowledged that NASA has taken steps toward making sound investment
decisions for the Ares I launch vehicle. GAO reported that NASA is
relying on established technology to support the project and is
adopting an acquisition strategy that emphasizes attaining knowledge on
cost, schedule and technical and development feasibility before
commitments are made to long-term investments. The GAO also rightly
identified many of the challenges that still remain for the Ares I
project--requirements complexities, design details, and a challenging
schedule are particularly highlighted, among others. NASA has made a
great deal of progress to date on Ares I; we have accomplished much in
a short period. However, I am well aware that there is still much to be
done. The GAO recommends that NASA develop firm requirements, a
preliminary design, and realistic cost estimates in time for the Ares I
PDR late this summer. This is exactly our intent--to make sure that all
of our projects, not just Ares I, reach the appropriate level of
maturity at each milestone before they proceed further. I have every
confidence that our team will build on our recent progress, overcome
the challenges immediately before us, and successfully reach our next
goal.
In December 2008, NASA will complete the integrated stack sync
point for Orion and Ares I, which is a key milestone in the development
progress of these projects. The integrated stack sync point will
demonstrate that Ares I and Orion preliminary designs, as well as the
integrated stack analyses, have met all system requirements within
acceptable risk and within the cost and schedule constraints. The sync
point establishes the basis for proceeding to the Constellation
Program-level PDR. The integrated sync point also will show that the
correct design options have been selected; interfaces have been
identified; and verification methods have been described. The Orion and
Ares I project offices are currently finalizing data products required
to meet their individual project-level PDRs. Should key information not
be available by December 2008, the program will evaluate delinquent
data product status and provide a strategy to ensure products are
available to support the program PDR. The program office would then
apply appropriate resources to mitigate delinquent product risks.
Let me re-emphasize that the Constellation program has moved beyond
just drawings and into real hardware fabrication and testing. For
example, beginning in late 2006 and continuing into 2008, sub-scale
main injector hardware underwent hot-fire testing to support
development of the Upper Stage engine for NASA's Ares I crew launch
vehicle and Earth Departure Stage of the Ares V cargo launch vehicle.
The hot-fire tests are part of efforts to investigate design options
for, and maximize performance of, the J-2X Upper Stage engine. NASA
engineers also have conducted more than 4,000 hours of wind tunnel
testing on sub-scale models of the Ares I to simulate how the current
vehicle design performs in flight. These tests will lay the ground work
for NASA's first scheduled demonstration test flight for Ares I, called
Ares I-X, scheduled for April 2009. That is just a mere 12 months from
now.
Ares I-X will be the first demonstration flight of the technologies
for and components of the new U.S. Exploration launch vehicle system.
Important technical highlights of the Ares I-X test flight are:
demonstration of First Stage separation sequencing; an assessment of
First Stage atmospheric reentry characteristics; an assessment of
vehicle roll torque while in flight; and a demonstration of assembly
and recovery activities for a new launch vehicle at KSC. NASA
recognizes that there are technical challenges related to parachute
testing, modal testing and loads and environments, and we are working
to mitigate those risks.
The Commercial Crew and Cargo Program
In FY 2009, NASA is requesting $173 million for the Commercial Crew
and Cargo Program and its associated Commercial Orbital Transportation
Services (COTS) projects. Full funding is essential to maintaining
NASA's promised $500 million investment in this program to spur the
development of U.S. commercial space transportation services to and
from low-Earth orbit (LEO) while also providing substantial savings to
the taxpayer compared to NASA Government-owned and operated
capabilities.
The objectives of this program are to: 1) implement U.S. Space
Exploration policy with an investment to stimulate commercial
enterprises in space; 2) spur the development of U.S. commercial space
transportation services to and from LEO; and, 3) enhance U.S. access to
LEO and the ISS while also providing substantial savings to the
taxpayer compared to NASA Government-owned and operated capabilities.
The availability of safe, reliable and economical service to LEO will
help NASA achieve the Nation's goals of retiring the Space Shuttle,
servicing the ISS (designated as a National Lab pursuant to the NASA
Authorization Act of 2005, 109-155), and building a new transportation
system that expands our nation's sphere of economic and scientific
influence on the Moon and beyond.
COTS is envisioned for execution in two phases. Phase 1 is a period
of development and demonstration by private industry, in coordination
with NASA via funded and unfunded Space Act Agreements (SAAs), of
various space transportation capabilities to and from low-Earth orbit
determined to be most desirable for the government and other customers.
Once a capability is demonstrated, NASA will enter into the second
phase, which will be a competitive procurement of orbital
transportation services to supply the ISS. A commercial services
resupply contract will be managed by NASA's Space Operations Mission
Directorate. A draft Request for Proposals for this contract was issued
on February 28, 2008, and a final RFP is on track to be issued later
this month.
As part of Phase I, NASA has negotiated funded SAAs with two
partners. Each SAA has individualized milestones and objective criteria
that spell out in detail a schedule of performance milestones that each
participant is expected to achieve along with a fixed payment to be
made upon completion. These milestones culminate in a flight
demonstration where the participant's vehicle will launch, rendezvous
and berth with the ISS, and in the case of one partner's demonstration,
return safely to Earth. The funded partners are paid a pre-negotiated
fixed amount only if they successfully complete a milestone. If they do
not complete the milestone to NASA's satisfaction, they are not paid.
These milestones can be technical (for example, a successful design
review or hardware test) or financial (i.e., raising a certain amount
of private funding).
Altogether, NASA is providing about $500 million over five years to
stimulate the commercial space transportation market to help develop
safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from LEO:
In August 2006, NASA signed a funded SAA with Space
Exploration Technologies Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., also
known as SpaceX. The company is scheduled to receive $278
million to supplement its privately funded efforts and is
planning to conduct a demonstration flight to the ISS in March
2010. In early February, SpaceX formally notified NASA that it
was projecting a six to nine month delay in the launch of the
Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft demonstration
missions. On Feb. 28, 2008, NASA executed an amendment to the
SpaceX SAA, renegotiating milestones to align the current
development and demonstration schedule with ISS integration
activities. Also, several milestones were added and others
modified to allow additional insight and clarification of
objective measures of progress of the demonstration program.
SpaceX has met all milestones to date and continues to make
excellent progress in the development of its launch vehicle and
cargo capsule. The total NASA investment in this agreement of
up to $278 million remains unchanged, although individual
performance payments for some milestones have been adjusted.
SpaceX has received a total of $139 million for successfully
completing the first eight milestones.
On Feb. 19, 2008, NASA announced the selection of
Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., for a second
funded SAA to replace the Space Act agreement that NASA
terminated with Rocketplane-Kistler (RpK) in October 2007 for
RpK's failure to perform under the terms of the agreement.
Orbital will receive approximately $170 million to supplement
its privately funded efforts and is planning to conduct a
demonstration flight to ISS in December 2010. The funds made
available for Orbital's award were funds not previously used by
RpK.
NASA also has entered into unfunded SAAs with five
other companies--Constellation Services International,
PlanetSpace, SpaceDev, SpaceHab, and Transformational Space
Corp (t/Space).
Lunar Implementation
A human space flight program with no plan to send people beyond the
orbiting ISS certainly is not in our nation's best economic or
strategic interest. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB),
which examined the 2003 loss of the Shuttle and its crew, acknowledged
that for the foreseeable future, space travel is going to be expensive,
difficult and dangerous, but emphasized that U.S. human space flight is
not only strategic, but also what makes us a great nation. The report
noted that not developing a replacement vehicle for the Space Shuttle
demonstrated a failure of National leadership and also declared that if
we are going to send humans into space, the goals ought to be worthy of
the cost, the risk and the difficulty.
President Bush responded to the CAIB report. The Administration
looked at where we had been in space and concluded that we needed to do
more, to go further. The result was the Vision for Space Exploration,
announced nearly four years ago, which commits the United States to
using the Shuttle to complete the ISS, then retiring the Shuttle and
building a new generation of spacecraft to venture out into the solar
system. Congress ratified that position with an overwhelming bipartisan
majority, making the Vision the law of the land in 2005 upon the
adoption of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Congress specifically
directed NASA ``to establish a program to develop a sustained human
presence on the Moon, including a robust precursor program to promote
exploration, science, commerce and U.S. preeminence in space, and as a
stepping stone to future exploration of Mars and other destinations.''
As NASA Administrator Michael Griffin eloquently outlined in a 2007
speech, NASA is moving forward with a new focus for its human space
program--to go out beyond LEO for purposes of human Exploration and
scientific discovery. If humans are indeed going to travel to Mars, if
we're going to go beyond, we have to learn how to live on other
planetary surfaces, to use what we find there and bend it to our will.
If we are to maintain our global leadership as a space-faring nation,
we have to survive in other forbidding, faraway places across the
vastness of space. The Moon is a crucially important stepping stone
along that path; it is an alien world, yet one that is only a three-day
journey from Earth.
In 2006, NASA and 12 international partners established the Global
Exploration Strategy (GES) team to identify primary themes and
objectives for lunar Exploration. These objectives were grouped into
six themes: 1) human civilization; 2) scientific knowledge; 3)
Exploration preparation; 4) global partnerships; 5) economic expansion;
and 6) public outreach. These themes and objectives serve as the
foundation for the development of the lunar architecture currently
under development. More specifically, NASA identified several guiding
principles for the lunar architecture which include:
Human lunar missions will be used to build an outpost
initially at a polar site;
Preserve the option for an outpost at other lunar
locations;
Preserve the ability to fly human sorties and cargo
missions with the human lander;
Initial power architecture will be solar with the
potential for augmentation with nuclear power later;
The United States will build the transportation
infrastructure, initial communication and navigation
infrastructure, and initial surface extra vehicular activity
(EVA) capability (i.e., Moon walk);
Open Architecture: NASA will welcome parallel
development and development of lunar surface infrastructure by
international and commercial interests;
Early exploration: Reduced assembly through pre-
integrated habitats;
Modular mobile habitation:
Facilitates ``super sortie'' mobility for 100's km
distances from the outpost
Facilitates greater lunar access to capture
exploration and science objectives beyond LAT1 results;
and,
Early small pressurized rover
Augments EVA operations by allowing astronauts to
explore in shirt sleeve environment using EVA
judiciously.
Utilizing these guiding principles, NASA is conducting early
concept studies for an outpost on the Moon. An Agency-wide team has
been hard at work, looking at concepts for habitation, rovers and space
suits. When NASA returns Americans to the Moon in 2020, astronauts will
set up a lunar outpost, possibly at the south pole, possibly at a site
called the Shackleton Crater, where they will conduct scientific
research, as well as test technologies and techniques for Exploration
of Mars and other destinations. The architecture concept utilizes a
building block approach to maintain the maximum amount of flexibility
should NASA want to be able to land at varying locations on the lunar
surface.
Data from the LRO and LCROSS missions will enable future outpost
site selection and new information about resources within the
permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. The LRO/LCROSS
missions also represent NASA's first steps in returning to the Moon.
More specifically, the LRO will develop a highly detailed, topographic
map of the lunar surface to help prepare the way for humans to return
in the next decade. Information from the robotic spacecraft will be
used to select safe landing sites for the next generation of lunar
explorers. LRO also will provide valuable information about the
environment and resource availability on the lunar surface. While the
Apollo missions focused on gaining Science from the area around the
Moon's equator, the LRO will circle the poles. It will spend at least
one year in low, polar orbit, with instruments working simultaneously
to collect detailed information about the lunar environment. The
mission objective is to collect the highest resolution and most
comprehensive data set ever returned from the Moon. The LRO, which is
being built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, will
carry six instruments and a technology demonstration payload. The LRO
is scheduled to be launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket from KSC by the end
of the year. The same rocket also is scheduled to loft the LCROSS
spacecraft, which is designed to detect water in a permanently-shadowed
crater at the lunar south pole.
In response to Congressional direction contained in the Explanatory
Statement accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (P.L.
110-161), NASA will fund a robotic lander project managed by the
Agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama as a pathfinder for an
anticipated network of small science robotic landers based on
requirements for NASA's expanded lunar Science program. The first
robotic lander mission is planned to fly in 2013-2014. NASA's
Exploration and Science Mission Directorates will continue to work
together, as they do on numerous projects, to combine resources to
ensure that the goals of the Science robotic lander are achieved.
Work on the human lunar lander also is progressing. On March 17,
2008, NASA's Constellation Program awarded a 210-day study contract to
five space-related companies to independently evaluate NASA's in-house
design concept for the lunar lander that will deliver four astronauts
to the surface of the Moon by 2020. The awards total approximately $1.5
million, with a maximum individual award of $350,000. The study
recommendations will be used to increase the technical maturity of the
existing design, in preparation for the development of vehicle
requirements. These studies will provide valuable input for developing
a sound set of requirement for the Altair lunar lander.
Once astronauts set foot on the Moon, they will need some place to
live. NASA had been considering integrated habitation units emplaced by
a cargo lander. The team is also discussing the possibility of a mobile
habitat module that would allow one module of the outpost to relocate
to other lunar destinations as mission needs dictate. The outpost
approach provides the flexibility needed to incorporate international
and commercial contributions to the lunar outpost architecture.
International collaboration can help achieve global exploration
objectives faster than if NASA attempted to deploy the entire lunar
Exploration architectural elements alone.
As part of the lunar architecture, NASA is considering utilizing
small, pressurized rovers that would be key to productive operations on
the Moon's surface. Engineers envision rovers that could travel in
pairs--two astronauts in each rover--and could be driven nearly 100
kilometers away from the outpost to conduct Science and other
activities. Astronauts inside the rovers wouldn't need special clothing
because the pressurized rovers would have what's called a ``shirt-
sleeve environment.'' It is envisioned that the spacesuits would be
attached to the exterior of the rover. Astronauts could crawl directly
from the rovers into the suits to begin a Moon walk.
NASA has been engaged with its international partners since 2005,
particularly following the GES team's establishment in 2006. Since
then, NASA has worked hard to effectively communicate our plans to our
international partners about our efforts to develop the transportation
systems required to travel between the Earth surface and the lunar
surface. We also have clearly communicated our desire and interest in
open collaboration on outpost elements. After several months of
collaboration, NASA and 12 other international agencies developed a
joint document titled, The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework
for Coordination. The Framework Document, as it is commonly referred
to, identifies the common themes that all nations can identify with in
the course of exploring space and establishes some basic principles for
cooperation. During future discussions, NASA will work with our
partners to define standard interface information to minimize to the
greatest extent possible integration costs. We have recently completed
discussions with our international partners on lunar communication
standards.
Additionally, NASA is already working with both the Japanese and
Indian space agencies on two projects that will help better inform our
lunar efforts. Last September, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration
Agency launched its SELENE/Kaguya mission, which will provide NASA with
altimetry data to help improve our targeting for the LCROSS mission.
NASA also is planning to include two instruments this summer on the
Chandrayaan-1 mission, which the Indian Space Research Organization
plans to launch this summer. These instruments will help us better
understand the formation and evolution of the Moon, for the needs of
both NASA's ESMD and SMD programs and projects. Using radar, we will
also be able to look into the permanently shadowed craters at the poles
of the Moon, and since the LCROSS impactor will be sent to one of these
craters, it is important for us to have an initial idea of the surface
characteristics of the possible target sites for the LCROSS impact.
Advanced Capabilities
The Agency's FY 2009 budget request also provides $452 million for
activities in ESMD's Advanced Capabilities theme, which seeks ways to
reduce the risks for human explorers of the Moon and beyond by
conducting research and developing and maturing new technologies. This
year, NASA's Human Research Program will focus on the highest risks to
crew health and performance during exploration missions. We also will
develop and validate technologies that serve to reduce medical risks
associated with human space flight. For example, NASA will continue its
work to understand the effect of space radiation on humans and to
develop effective mitigation strategies. Next year, the Advanced
Capabilities Exploration Technology Development program will conduct a
range of activities, including testing prototype ablative heat shield
materials; throttleable liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines suitable
for a human lunar lander; and lightweight life support systems for
Orion. The program also will deploy and test advanced environmental
monitoring systems on the ISS to advance the safety of crew members,
and will continue to test in-situ resource utilization technologies as
well as life support and cryogenic fluid management.
For ESMD, the Advanced Capabilities Division has the lead for
research on-board the ISS. During 2008, NASA will continue to conduct
research on-board ISS that will include experiments on human adaptation
to microgravity, as well as biological and microgravity experiments. It
is important to note that the ISS will support astronaut return to the
Moon by providing a reduced gravity environment for studying human
health effects and effective countermeasures. While the Moon does have
gravity, it is unknown if its small fractional gravity will be enough
so that normal physiological function can occur over longer durations.
Information from ISS will provide a basis for the types of
countermeasures that we will need to develop for long-range lunar
habitation and the eventual long-transit journeys to Mars and beyond.
NASA will adjust these countermeasures as we get additional data from
initial lunar human explorers. In the meantime, we will use ground-
based analogs to help us gain additional insight into fractional
gravity and its effect on astronaut explorers.
NASA is balancing its portfolio to meet the requirements of the
NASA Authorization Act of 2005, pertaining to non-Exploration research.
In the FY 2009 budget, NASA budgeted $138 million for Exploration-
related research and $30 million for non-Exploration research,
resulting in 18 percent of the ISS research budget being spent on non-
Exploration research.
NASA is developing long-range plans to utilize the ISS and free
flyers beyond 2010. Non-Exploration payloads for ISS will use existing
or soon to be delivered science facilities and racks. NASA is
aggressively working to utilize the ISS for both Exploration and non-
Exploration payloads. During 2007, NASA participated with a Russian
biomedical institute to investigate fundamental biological processes in
a number of living organisms through experiments using a Russian free
flying spacecraft, the Foton M3. NASA continued development work on a
nanosat that will investigate the effectiveness of anti-fungal agents
on fungi in microgravity. That mission is scheduled to launch on the
TacSat 3 mission this fall. On the ISS, fundamental physical science
payloads, such as the Binary Colloidal Alloy Test and the Capillary
Flow Experiment will provide fundamental information and validate
hypotheses concerning the behavior of physical systems in microgravity.
NASA continues to integrate Science and Exploration initiatives on
several fronts. For example, the two mission directorates are
collaborating on plans for Radioisotope Power Systems. Additionally,
ESMD and SMD are cooperating on the LRO. The LRO has been designed,
developed, and will be launched and operated by ESMD for the first year
in order to develop a topographic map of the Moon for the
identification of lunar landing sites, and will later be transitioned
to SMD for additional Scientific activities. In addition, ESMD and SMD
have established an Outpost Science and Exploration Working Group to
coordinate lunar exploration activities between the two directorates.
One of the group's key objectives is to jointly identify Science
requirements that could affect the Exploration architecture prior to
lunar systems PDRs. Architecture considerations driven by Science
community recommendations could include requirements such as
telerobotic capabilities from both the outpost or ground stations and
mobility greater than 100 km from the outpost.
Seeking Synergies Between Constellation and Lunar Architectures
In your invitation today, you asked me to address how NASA plans to
accommodate its goals for the Constellation and lunar programs while
also dealing with constrained budgets. As stated before, full funding
of NASA's FY 2009 budget request for Constellation is needed so that
NASA can continue successful transition between the Shuttle and the
Orion and Ares I. The FY 2009 budget request maintains Orion IOC in
March 2015 and FOC in FY 2016 and provides stable funding in the out
years. NASA stands behind the President's budget and the Exploration
roadmap that it supports. In doing so, NASA pledges to consistently
look for ways to optimize performance, decrease costs, increase
reliability and sustain safety, while also maintaining alignment with
the goals and objectives outlined by the President and the Congress for
this multi-decadal Exploration endeavor.
To mitigate some risk, NASA is consistently looking for synergies
between the Constellation and lunar architectures. For example, NASA
has defined a transportation architecture that maximizes subsystem
commonality between crew access to ISS and the lunar program. Benefits
of this common design approach include a comprehensive decrease in
Design, Development Test & Evaluation (DDT&E) nonrecurring expenses,
and lower recurring vehicle manufacturing, logistics, processing, and
maintenance costs realized through commonality of tooling, ground
support equipment, launch pad interfaces, and mission scenarios.
Developing common Ares I and Ares V propulsion systems means that
manufacturing facilities, ground support systems, and launch site
infrastructure modifications and improvements can be jointly applicable
and leveraged to reducing both recurring and nonrecurring operations
costs throughout the life cycle of each system.
NASA also plans to reap benefits and efficiencies by partnering
with the Shuttle program and by deciding to utilize a five-segment
reusable solid rocket booster (RSRB) for the Ares I First Stage.
Specifically, developing the five-segment RSRB for the Ares I and later
migrating it to the Ares V Core Stage propulsion system will result in
significant out-year savings on DDT&E costs. Aside from cost savings
associated with this approach, this approach may potentially enable
earlier Ares V availability, given that the risks associated with
developing the five-segment RSRB would have been resolved before
embarking on other core stage propulsion element work.
Conclusion
Throughout history, the great nations have been the ones at the
forefront of the frontiers of their time. Britain became great in the
17th century through its exploration and mastery of the seas. America's
greatness in the 20th century stemmed largely from its mastery of the
air. In this new century, those who effectively utilize space will
enjoy added prosperity and security and will hold a substantial
advantage over those who do not. In order to increase knowledge,
discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance National security, the
United States must have robust, effective, and efficient space
capabilities. We do not live in a static world--other countries will
explore the cosmos, whether the United States does or not, and those
will be Earth's great nations in the years and centuries to come. Bold
plans and strategies require bold leadership and robust follow-through.
Together we can create a bold legacy for generations to come.
Today I have highlighted for you some of NASA's progress in
developing the Constellation and lunar architectures--and some of the
challenges that lay ahead. NASA knows it has a lot of hard work, but we
are continuing to make steady progress. In the span of a few short
years, we have already taken long strides in the formulation of
strategies and programs that will take us back to the Moon and on to
Mars and other destinations in our solar system. Indeed, a generation
from now, astronauts on the Moon and Mars will be flying in and living
aboard hardware America is funding and designing today, and will be
building in the near future. This is a heady legacy to which we can
aspire as we develop the next U.S. human space exploration vehicles.
The foundation of this legacy will include work we plan to carry out in
FY 2009.
I want to stress the criticality to the Nation of meeting our goal
of successfully transitioning from the retirement of the Space Shuttle
to the operation of Orion and Ares I. NASA's Exploration Systems and
Space Operations Mission Directorates are continuing to work closely to
determine how best to transition our valuable infrastructure and
workforce to the Constellation program in support of our Exploration
plans. Our transition plan continues to be refined which will closely
align Shuttle and Constellation activities and outline clear milestones
to achieve the synergies required. I would like to ask this
Subcommittee for your continued support as we effectively transition
key elements of our Space Shuttle workforce, infrastructure and
equipment for our nation's Exploration objectives. Our efforts are
complex and intertwined between ESMD and SOMD, and that is why
sustained purpose, direction and budget stability are particularly
important.
NASA is at the beginning of a new adventure. It is an adventure
that presents challenges that are appropriate for the talents and
resources of our nation; fitting to the profound impact of space
activities on a global scale; and respectful of the sacrifices that
have been made in the continued pursuit of space Exploration. For my
part, I look forward to the challenge of Exploration and to working
with you and an energized NASA workforce to accomplish our goals.
Mr. Chairman, with your support and that of this subcommittee, we
are making the right strategic choices for our nation's space program.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I
would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have.
Biography for Richard J. Gilbrech
Richard J. Gilbrech is Associate Administrator for NASA's
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. He leads the Agency in the
development of the Nation's new spacecraft that will return astronauts
to the Moon and travel to Mars and other destinations in the solar
system.
Gilbrech previously served as Director of NASA's Stennis Space
Center near Bay St. Louis, Missouri, where he provided overall
leadership, planning, policy direction, management and coordination for
all activities implementing NASA's mission directorates.
Before being named Director of Stennis, Gilbrech served as Deputy
Center Director of NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia.
Prior to that he was Deputy Director of the NASA Engineering and Safety
Center, located at Langley.
Gilbrech started his NASA career in 1991 at Stennis in the area of
propulsion test technology. In 1995, he was selected as the Stennis
national aerospace plane project manager responsible for the
construction, activation and operation of a facility to test actively-
cooled structures. Later in 1995, he was named the X33 project manager,
responsible for converting the A-1 test stand at Stennis from Space
Shuttle main engine testing to linear aerospike turbopump single- and
dual-engine testing. From 1998 to 2000, he served as chief of the
Propulsion Test Engineering Division within the Propulsion Test
Directorate at Stennis.
Gilbrech earned a Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from
Mississippi State University. He earned Master's and doctorate degrees
in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology with a minor
in planetary science.
The recipient of numerous awards, Gilbrech has received NASA's
prestigious Outstanding Leadership and Exceptional Achievement Medal.
Chairman Udall. Thank you for that tutorial. Ms. Chaplain,
the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF MS. CRISTINA T. CHAPLAIN, DIRECTOR, ACQUISITION
AND SOURCING MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. Chaplain. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me here today
to discuss our work related to NASA's future space exploration
efforts. We have been focusing on work primarily on the Ares I
launch vehicle and the Orion crew exploration vehicle as they
are among the first major efforts conducted as part of the
Constellation Program and represent a substantial investment.
Over $7 billion in contracts has already been awarded and
nearly $230 billion is estimated to ultimately be spent over
the next two decades for Constellation.
NASA is currently working toward preliminary design reviews
for these vehicles. This is a milestone that successful
organizations use to make hard decisions about whether a
program should proceed forward with development. The phase
leading up to a preliminary design review is a time for
discovery and risk reduction. As such, it is expected that
there will be unknowns as to whether program plans can be
executed within schedule goals as well as what they will
ultimately cost as practice organizations close these knowledge
gaps by the time they commit to programs which is usually
shortly after the preliminary design review.
We have identified several issues that should be under
close watch for the Ares I and Orion projects leading up to
their preliminary design reviews. These include, first,
progress and requirements definition and related impacts on
weight of the vehicles. NASA cannot accurately estimate cost
schedules until requirements are defined. At this time,
requirements such as those relating to how the Orion will
return to Earth are among those still in development.
Second, progress and technology development, particularly
with the J-2X upper-stage engine and the Orion heat shield
since they require significant work. Our reviews of space
programs consistently find that the later technology discovery
occurs in a program, the higher the risk of cost increases and
schedule delays.
Third, schedule slippage. Delays in setting requirements in
technology development have resulted in some schedule slips
which may increase costs. Moreover, there is a high degree of
concurrency in both schedules. While this approach can save
time, it can also create delays and cost increases since
additional rework may be required to address unexpected
problems.
Fourth, progress in resolving thrust oscillation programs.
As Dr. Gilbrech has just commented, NASA recognizes this is a
serious risk and it is taking reasonable measures for dealing
with it.
Fifth, progress toward adding testing resources. Existing
facilities have been insufficient so far to adequately test the
J-2X engine and the heat shield for the Orion. However, NASA
has appropriately increased attention to this area, too.
In responding to our recent report on Ares I, NASA agreed
that these are high-risk areas and committed to delay
preliminary design reviews if it has not yet attained critical
knowledge on them. This is important. The long-term nature of
the vision, its inherent challenges, and the magnitude of the
investment at stake make it vital that the right decisions be
made early on and that senior leaders have the right knowledge
going forward so they can make informed decisions.
It is also important that NASA continue to be realistic and
open about the progress it is making and to be willing to make
changes to the program if technical problems cannot be solved
with overly compromising performance. This is difficult to do
in any large government acquisition; the need to make
adjustments is often unwelcome news, particularly if they may
require more funding or time than originally promised. But
pushing off problems in fear of losing commitments to a program
invariably leads to much more time delays and cost growth and
thus less resources for other needed investments.
We appreciate the candor of the program officials to date,
and we look forward to continued discussions on progress.
This concludes my statement, and I am happy to answer any
questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Chaplain follows:]
Prepared Statement of Cristina T. Chaplain
Ares I and Orion Project Risks and Key Indicators to Measure Progress
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss challenges that the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) faces in
developing the systems to achieve its goals for the President's Vision
for Space Exploration.\1\ We have been focusing our work primarily on
the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle and the Orion Crew Exploration
Vehicle,\2\ as they are among the first major efforts conducted as part
of NASA's Constellation Program to support implementation of the Vision
and represent a substantial investment for NASA. Over $7 billion in
contracts has already been awarded--and nearly $230 billion is
estimated to be ultimately spent over the next two decades. Moreover,
NASA is under pressure to develop the vehicles quickly, as the Space
Shuttle's retirement in 2010 means that there could be at least a five-
year gap in our nation's ability to send humans to space.
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\1\ The Vision includes a return to the Moon that is intended
ultimately to enable future exploration of Mars and other destinations.
To accomplish this, NASA initially plans to (1) complete its work on
the international Space Station by 2010, fulfilling its commitment to
15 international partner countries; (2) begin developing a new manned
exploration vehicle to replace the Space Shuttle; and (3) return to the
Moon in preparation for future, more ambitious missions.
\2\ GAO, NASA: Agency Has Taken Steps Toward Making Sound
Investment Decisions for Ares I but Still Faces Challenging Knowledge
Gaps, GAO-08--51 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 31, 2007) and GAO, NASA: Long-
Term Commitment to and Investment in Space Exploration Program Requires
More Knowledge, GAO-06-817R (Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2006).
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In summary, NASA is currently working toward preliminary design
reviews for the vehicles--a milestone that successful development
organizations use to make hard decisions about whether a program should
proceed with development. While this is a phase for discovery and risk
reduction, there are considerable unknowns as to whether NASA's plans
for the Ares I and Orion vehicles can be executed within schedule
goals, as well as what these efforts will ultimately cost. In fact, we
do not know yet whether the architecture and design solutions selected
by NASA will work as intended. This is primarily because NASA is still
in the process of defining both of the projects' performance
requirements and some of these uncertainties could affect the mass,
loads, and weight requirements for the vehicles. It is also working
through significant technical risks, such as oscillation within the
first stage of the Ares I vehicle, which computer modeling indicates
could cause unacceptable structural vibrations.
NASA is aiming to complete preliminary design reviews for the Ares
I and Orion this year, scheduled for August 2008 Ares I and September
2008 respectively, but it will be challenged in doing so given the
level of knowledge that still needs to be attained. In addition, to
minimize the gap in human space flight caused by the Shuttle's
retirement, there is a high degree of concurrency within the projects.
Our prior work has shown that concurrent development, especially when
new technologies are involved, increases the risk that significant
problems will be discovered as the systems' designs are integrated that
could result in cost and schedule delays. NASA's schedule leaves little
room for the unexpected. If something goes wrong with the development
of the Ares I or the Orion, the entire Constellation Program could be
thrown off course and the return to human space flight delayed.
NASA recognizes the risks involved with its approach and has taken
steps to mitigate some of these risks. It is important that, in
mitigating risks, NASA continually assess the viability of its plans
for the Ares I and Orion. The current state of play requires that NASA
remain open to the possibility that it may need to revisit decisions on
its architecture and design as these vehicles are expected to be in use
for decades to come and decisions made now will have long-term
consequences.
Moreover, with additional significant investment decisions still
ahead, it is important that agency decision-makers and Congress
maintain clear insight into the progress the projects are making as
well as any potential problems. This type of oversight is important,
not just for the Ares I and Orion vehicles, but for the entire future
exploration effort--since resources available to fund the Vision are
constrained, as competition for resources increases within the Federal
Government over the next several decades. In this regard, our work has
identified specific markers that can be used to (1) assess NASA's
progress in closing critical knowledge gaps and (2) identify issues
that could result in cost growth, schedule delays, or decreased
performance. In other words, they can be used to assess whether there
is a viable business case for pressing forward with the projects.
We have issued a number of reports and testimonies that touch on
various aspects of NASA's Constellation Program and in particular the
development efforts underway for the Orion and Ares I projects. These
reports and testimonies have questioned the affordability and overall
acquisition strategy for each project. In July 2006 we recommended that
NASA modify the Orion Crew Vehicle acquisition strategy to ensure the
agency did not commit itself to a long-term contractual obligation
prior to establishing a sound business case. Although initially NASA
disagreed with our recommendation, the agency subsequently revised its
acquisition strategy to address some of the concerns we raised. In
October 2007 we recommended that NASA develop a sound business case
supported by firm requirements, mature technologies, a preliminary
design, a realistic cost estimate, and sufficient funding and time-
before proceeding beyond preliminary design review. NASA concurred with
this recommendation and subsequently slipped the Ares I preliminary
design review from July 2008 to August 2008.
My statement today is based on these products, as well as updated
information based on our continual monitoring of the projects at the
request of Members of Congress. To conduct these reviews, we analyzed
relevant project documentation, prior GAO reports, NASA documents, and
contractor information; interviewed program and project officials; and
reviewed NASA's risk management system for the Constellation Program.
Based on this work, my statement will specifically address the
challenges that NASA faces developing the Ares I and Orion vehicles
with regard to requirements definition, technology and hardware gaps,
cost and schedule estimates, and facilities needs. Further, I will
provide key indicators that decision-makers could use to assess risks
as the two development efforts move forward. We conducted this
performance audit from October 2007 through April 2008 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards
require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient,
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence
obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions
based on our audit objectives.
Background
In September 2005, NASA outlined an initial framework for
implementing the President's Vision for Space Exploration in its
Exploration Systems Architecture Study. NASA is now implementing the
recommendations from this study within the Constellation Program, which
includes three major development projects--the Ares I Crew Launch
Vehicle, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, and the Ares V Cargo
Launch Vehicle as shown in Figure 1.
To reduce cost and minimize risk in developing these projects, NASA
planned to maximize the use of heritage systems and technology. Since
2005, however, NASA has made changes to the basic architecture for the
Ares I and Orion designs\3\ that have resulted in the diminished use of
heritage systems. This is due to the ability to achieve greater cost
savings with alternate technology and the inability to recreate
heritage technology. For example, the initial design was predicated on
using the main engines and the solid rocket boosters from the Space
Shuttle Program. However, NASA is no longer using the Space Shuttle
Main Engines because greater long-term cost savings are anticipated
through the use of the J-2X engine. In another example, NASA increased
the number of segments on the Ares I first-stage reusable solid rocket
booster from four to five to increase commonality between the Ares I
and Ares V, and eliminate the need to develop, modify, and certify both
a four-segment reusable solid rocket booster and an expendable Space
Shuttle main engine for the Ares I. Finally, according to the Orion
program executive the Orion project originally intended to use the heat
shield from the Apollo program as a fall-back technology for the Orion
thermal protection system, but was unable to recreate the Apollo
material.
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\3\ Heritage systems are systems with characteristics similar to
the one being developed. A heritage system is often the one the new
program is replacing.
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NASA has authorized the Ares I and Orion projects to proceed with
awarding development contracts. In April 2006, NASA awarded a $1.8
billion contract for design, development, test, and evaluation of the
Ares I first stage to Alliant Techsystems. NASA also awarded a $1.2
billion contract for design, development, test, and evaluation of the
Ares I upper stage engine--the J-2X--to Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne in
June 2006. NASA is developing the upper stage and the upper stage
instrument unit, which contains the control systems and avionics for
the Ares I, in-house. However, NASA awarded a $514.7 million contract
for design support and production of the Ares I upper stage to the
Boeing Company in August 2007. In August 2006, NASA awarded Lockheed
Martin a $3.9 billion contract to design, test, and build the Orion
crew exploration vehicle.\4\ According to NASA, the contract was
modified in April 2007, namely by adding two years to the design phase
and two test flights of Orion's launch abort system and by deleting the
production of an cargo variant for the International Space Station.
NASA indicates that these changes increased the contract value to $4.3
billion. Federal procurement data shows that an additional modification
has been signed which increased the value of the contract by an
additional $59 million.
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\4\ The actual value of the contract could be greater than $3.9
billion if NASA exercises options on the contract for production and
sustainment or issues orders against the indefinite delivery/indefinite
quantity portion of the contract.
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NASA has completed or is in the process of completing key reviews
on both the Ares I and Orion projects. NASA has completed the system
requirements review for each project and is in the midst of finalizing
the system definition reviews.\5\ At the systems requirements review,
NASA establishes a requirements baseline that serves as the basis for
ongoing design analysis work and systems testing. Systems definition
reviews focus on emerging designs for all transportation elements and
compare the predicted performance of each element against the currently
baselined requirements. Figure 2 shows the timeline for Ares I and
Orion critical reviews.
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\5\ The system requirements review is intended to examine the
function and performance requirements defined for the system and the
preliminary project plan and ensure that the requirements and the
selected concept will satisfy the mission. The system definition review
examines the proposed system design and the flow-down of that design to
all functional elements of the system. The system requirements review
and system definition review process culminates with key decision point
B wherein NASA determines the project's readiness to move forward.
NASA is using its Web-based Integrated Risk Management Application
to help monitor and mitigate the risks with the Ares I and Orion
development efforts and for the overall Constellation Program. The risk
management application identifies and documents risks, categorizes
risks--as high, medium, and low based on both the likelihood of an
undesirable event as well as the consequences of that event to the
project--and tracks performance against mitigation plans. For the Ares
I project, the application is tracking 101 risks, 36 of which are
considered high-risk areas.\6\ For the Orion project, NASA is tracking
193 risks, including 71 high-risk areas.\7\ NASA is developing and
implementing plans to mitigate some of these risks.
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\6\ This is the total number of open risks for the Ares I project
as of March 25, 2008. It does not include risks that have been closed
or risks that NASA considers sensitive.
\7\ This is the total number of open risks for the Orion project as
of March 25, 2008. It does not include risks that have been closed or
risks that NASA considers sensitive.
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Requirements Setting Is a Primary Challenge for Both the Ares I and
Orion Projects
Although project level requirements were baselined at both systems
requirements reviews, continued uncertainty about the systems'
requirements have led to considerable unknowns as to whether NASA's
plans for the Ares I and Orion vehicles can be executed within schedule
goals, as well as what these efforts will ultimately cost. Such
uncertainty has created knowledge gaps that are affecting many aspects
of both projects. Because the Orion vehicle is the payload that the
Ares I must deliver to orbit, changes in the Orion design, especially
those that affect weight, directly affect Ares I lift requirements.
Likewise, the lift capacity of the Ares I drives the Orion design. Both
the Orion and Ares I vehicles have a history of weight and mass growth,
and NASA is still defining the mass, loads, and weight requirements for
both vehicles. According to agency officials, continuing weight growth
led NASA to rebaseline the Orion vehicle design in fall 2007. This
process involved ``scrubbing'' the Orion Vehicle to establish a zero-
based design capable of meeting minimal mission requirements but not
safe for human flight. Beginning with the zero-based design NASA first
added back the systems necessary to ensure crew safety and then
conducted a series of engineering trade-offs to determine what other
systems should be included to maximize the probability of mission
success while minimizing the system's weight. As a result of these
trade-offs, NASA modified the requirement for nominal landing on land
to nominal landing in water, thereby gaining 1500 lbs of trade space in
the Orion design.
NASA recognizes that continued weight growth and requirements
instability are key risks facing the Orion project and that continued
instability in the Orion design is a risk facing the Ares I project.
The Ares I and Orion projects are working on these issues but have not
yet finalized requirements or design. Our previous work on systems
acquisition work shows that the preliminary design phase is an
appropriate place to conduct systems engineering to support requirement
and resource trade-off decisions. For the Ares I project, this phase is
scheduled to be completed in August 2008, whereas for the Orion
project, it is September 2008--leaving NASA only four and five months
respectively to close gaps in requirements knowledge. NASA will be
challenged to close such gaps, given that it is still defining
requirements at a relatively high level and much work remains to be
done at the lower levels. Moreover, given the complexity of the Orion
and Ares I efforts and their interdependencies, as long as requirements
are in flux, it will be extremely difficult to establish firm cost
estimates and schedule baselines.
Technology and Hardware Gaps Along With Requirements Uncertainty Are
Increasing Risk
Currently, nearly every major segment of Ares I and Orion faces
knowledge gaps in the development of required hardware and technology
and many are being affected by uncertainty in requirements. For
example, computer modeling is showing that thrust oscillation within
the first stage of the Ares I could cause excessive vibration
throughout the Ares I and Orion. Resolving this issue could require
redesigns to both the Ares I and Orion vehicles that could ultimately
impact cost, schedule, and performance. Furthermore, the addition of a
fifth segment to the Ares I first stage has the potential to impact
qualification efforts for the first stage and could result in costly
requalification and redesign efforts. Additionally, the J-2X engine
represents a new engine development effort that, both NASA and Pratt
and Whitney Rocketdyne recognize, is likely to experience failures
during development. Addressing these failures is likely to lead to
design changes that could impact the project's cost and schedule. With
regard to the Orion project, there is currently no industry capability
for producing a thermal protection system of the size required by the
Orion. NASA has yet to develop a solution for this gap, and given the
size of the vehicle and the tight development schedule, a feasible
thermal protection system may not be available for initial operational
capability to the space station. The Table 1 describes these and other
examples of knowledge gaps in the development of the Ares I and Orion
vehicles.
Constellation Cost Estimates Are Preliminary Due to Requirements
Uncertainty
NASA's preliminary cost estimates for the Constellation Program are
likely to change when requirements are better defined. NASA will
establish a preliminary estimate of life cycle costs for the Ares I and
Orion in support of each project's system definition review. A formal
baseline of cost, however, is not expected until the projects'
preliminary design reviews are completed. NASA is working under a self-
imposed deadline to deliver the new launch vehicles no later than 2015
in order to minimize the gap in human space flight between the Space
Shuttle's retirement in 2010 and the availability of new transportation
vehicles. The Constellation Program's budget request maintains a
confidence level of 65 percent (i.e., NASA is 65 percent certain that
the actual cost of the program will either meet or be less than the
estimate) for program estimates based upon a 2015 initial operational
capability. Internally, however, the Ares I and Orion projects are
working toward an earlier initial operational capability (2013), but at
a reduced budget confidence level--33 percent. However, NASA cannot
reliably estimate the money needed to complete technology development,
design, and production for the Ares I and Orion projects until
requirements are fully understood.
NASA has identified the potential for a life cycle cost increase as
a risk for the Orion program. According to NASA's risk database, given
the historical cost overruns of past NASA systems and the known level
of uncertainty in the current Orion requirements, there is a
possibility that Orion's life cycle cost estimate may increase over
time. NASA acknowledges that such increases are often caused by the
unknown impacts of decisions made during development. One factor
currently contributing to cost increases is the addition of new
requirements. NASA is working to formulate the best life cycle cost
estimate possible during development, is identifying and monitoring
costs threats, and is implementing management tools all aimed at
addressing this risk.
Schedule Pressures Add Additional Risks for Ares I and Orion
There are considerable schedule pressures facing both the Ares I
and Orion projects. These are largely rooted in NASA's desire to
minimize the gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and
availability of the new vehicles. Because of this scheduling goal, NASA
is planning to conduct many interdependent development activities
concurrently--meaning if one activity should slip in schedule, it could
have cascading effects on other activities. Moreover, some aspects of
the program are already experiencing scheduling delays due to the fact
that high-level requirements are still being defined.
Ares I
The development schedule for the J-2X is aggressive, allowing less
than seven years from development start to first flight, and highly
concurrent. Due to the tight schedule and long-lead nature of engine
development, the J-2X project was required to start out earlier in its
development than the other elements on the Ares I vehicle. This
approach has introduced a high degree of concurrency between the
setting of overall Ares I requirements and the development of the J-2X
design and hardware. Consequently, the engine development is out of
sync with the first stage and upper stage in the flow-down and
decomposition of requirements, an approach our past work has shown to
be fraught with risk. NASA acknowledges that the engine development is
proceeding with an accepted risk that future requirements changes may
affect the engine design and that the engine may not complete
development as scheduled in December 2012. The J-2X development effort
represents a critical path for the Ares I project. Subsequently, delays
in the J-2X schedule for design, development, test, and evaluation
would have a ripple effect of cost and schedule impacts throughout the
entire Ares I project.
The schedule for the first stage also presents a potential issue
for the entire Ares I project. Specifically, the critical design review
for the first stage is out of sync with the Ares I project-level
critical design review. NASA has scheduled two critical design reviews
for the first stage. The first critical design review is scheduled for
November 2009, five months before the Ares I project critical design
review. At this point, however, the project will not have fully tested
the first stage development motors. The second critical design review,
in December 2010, occurs after additional testing of developmental
motors is conducted. By conducting the Ares I critical design review
before the first stage project critical design review, the project
could prematurely begin full-scale test and integration activities a
full nine months before the first stage design has demonstrated
maturity. If problems are found in the first stage design during the
later testing, implementing solutions could result in costly rework and
redesign and delay the overall project schedule.
Orion
Cost and schedule reporting on the Orion project indicates that the
Orion project's efforts to mature requirements and design and to
resolve weight issues is placing pressure on the Orion schedule.
Specifically, activities aimed at assessing alternate designs to reduce
overall vehicle mass, rework to tooling concepts, and late requirements
definition have contributed to the project falling behind schedule.
Further, the Orion risk system indicates that schedule delays
associated with testing may occur. The current Orion design has high
predicted vibration and acoustic levels. Historically, components
designed and qualified for uncertain vibration and acoustic
environments have resulted in some failures and required subsequent
redesign and retest. Failures during qualification testing of Orion
components may lead to schedule delays associated with redesigning
components.
NASA's Administrator has publicly stated that if Congress provided
the Agency an additional $2 billion that NASA could accelerate the
Constellation program's initial operational capability date to 2013. We
believe that this assessment is highly optimistic. The development
schedule for the J-2X engine, the critical path for the Ares I
development, is already recognized as aggressive, allowing less than
seven years for development. The development of the Space Shuttle Main
engine by comparison took nine years. Further, NASA anticipates that
the J-2X engine is likely to require 29 rework cycles to correct
problems identified during testing. Given the linear nature of a
traditional test-analyze-fix-test cycle, even large funding increases
offer no guarantee of program acceleration, particularly when the
current schedule is already compressed and existing NASA test
facilities are already maximized.
Test Facilities for Ares I and Orion Insufficient
According to NASA, at this time, existing test facilities are
insufficient to adequately test the Ares I and Orion systems. Existing
altitude test facilities are insufficient to test the J-2X engine in a
relevant environment. To address this issue, NASA is in the process of
constructing a new altitude test facility at Stennis Space Center for
the J-2X. Also, current facilities are inadequate to replicate the
Orion vibration and acoustic environment. Further, Pratt and Whitney
Rocketdyne--the J-2X upper stage engine contractor--indicated that
existing test stands that could support J-2X testing will be tied up
supporting the Space Shuttle program until 2010. NASA has taken steps
to mitigate J-2X risks by increasing the amount of component-level
testing, procuring additional development hardware and test facilities,
and working to make a third test stand available to the contractor
earlier than originally planned. NASA has compensated for this schedule
pressure on the Ares I project by adding funds for testing and other
critical activities. But it is not certain that added resources will
enable NASA to deliver the Ares I when expected.
With respect to Orion's thermal protection system, facilities
available from the Apollo era for testing large-scale heat shields no
longer exist. Therefore, NASA must rely on two facilities that fall
short in providing the necessary capability and scheduling to test
ablative materials needed for Orion. Additionally, NASA has no
scheduled test to demonstrate the thermal protection system needed for
lunar missions. NASA is exploring other options, including adding a
lunar return flight test and building a new improved test facility. Due
to the scheduled first lunar flight, any issues identified during such
testing would need to be addressed in the time between the flight test
and the first flight.
Oversight Based on Best Practices and Key Indicators Important for
Program Success
NASA is poised to invest a significant amount of resources to
implement the Vision over the long-term and specifically to develop the
Ares I and Orion projects over the next several years. Accordingly, you
asked us to articulate indicators that Congress could use to assess
progress. Our prior work has shown that investment decisions of this
magnitude need to be based on an established and executable business
case and that there are several key indicators that Congress could be
informed of to assess progress throughout development. These include
areas commonly underestimated in space programs, such as weight growth
and software complexity, as well as indicators used by best practice
organizations to assess readiness to move forward in the development
cycle. Space programs which we have studied in detail in the past have
tended to underestimate cost in some of these areas.
Weight Growth
Our previous work on government-funded space systems has shown that
weight growth is often not anticipated even though it is among the
highest drivers of cost growth for space systems. Weight growth can
affect the hardware needed to support a system, and, in the case of
launch vehicles, the power or thrust required for the system. As the
weight of a particular system increases, the power or thrust required
for that system will also increase. This could result in the need to
develop additional power or thrust capability to lift the system,
leading to additional costs, or to stripping down the vehicle to
accommodate current power or thrust capability. For example, NASA went
through the process to zero-base the design for the Orion to address
weight concerns. Continual monitoring of system weight and required
power/thrust, as well as margins or reserves for additional growth, can
provide decision-makers with an indicator of whether cost increases can
be anticipated.
Software Complexity
The complexity of software development on a system, often denoted
by the number of lines of code on a system, can also be used as an
indicator to monitor whether a program will meet cost and schedule
goals. In our work on software development best practices, we have
reported that the Department of Defense has attributed significant cost
and schedule overruns on software-intensive systems to developing and
delivering software. Generally, the greater the number of lines of
code, the more complicated the system development. Changes to the
amount of code needed to be produced can indicate potential cost and
schedule problems. Decision-makers can monitor this indicator by
continually asking for information on the estimated amount of code
needed on a system and inquiring about any increases in need and their
impact on cost and schedule.
There are other areas, such as the use of heritage systems and
industrial base capability that are commonly underestimated in space
programs as well. However, weight increases and software growth are
more quantifiable and thus useful for oversight purposes.
Indicators That Can be Used to Assess Knowledge Gap at Key Junctures
Additionally, since the mid-1990s, GAO has studied the best
practices of leading commercial companies. On the basis of this
information, and taking into account the differences between commercial
product development and major federal acquisitions, we have outlined a
best practices product development model--known as a knowledge-based
approach to system development. This type of approach calls for
investment decisions to be made on the basis of specific, measurable
levels of knowledge at critical junctures before investing more money
and proceeding with development.
Importantly, our work has shown the most leveraged decision point
is matching the customer's needs with the developer's resources (time,
dollars, technology, people, etc.) because it sets the stage for the
eventual outcome--desirable or problematic. The match is ultimately
achieved in every development program, but in successful development
programs, it occurs before product development is formally initiated
(usually the preliminary design review). If the knowledge attained at
this and other critical junctures does not confirm the business case on
which the acquisition was originally justified, the best practice
organizations we have studied do not allow the program to go forward.
We have highlighted the three critical junctures at which
developers must have knowledge to make large investment decisions-the
preliminary design review, the critical design review, and the
production review-and the numerous key indicators that can be used to
increase the chances of successful outcomes.
In assessing the Orion and Ares programs, the Congress and NASA
decision-makers can use these indicators in order to reliably gauge
whether there is a sufficient business case for allowing the programs
to proceed forward.
Preliminary design review: Before product development is started, a
match must be made between the customers' needs and the available
resources--technical and engineering knowledge, time, and funding. To
provide oversight at this juncture, NASA could provide Congress with
information to verify that the following have indicators been met:
All critical technologies are demonstrated to a high
level of technology maturity, that is demonstrated that they
can perform in a realistic or, more preferably, operational
environment. A technology readiness level 6 or 7 would indicate
that this has been achieved. One approach to ensure that
technology readiness is reliably assessed is to use independent
testing;
Project requirements are defined and informed by the
systems engineering process;
Cost and schedule estimates established for the
project are based on knowledge from the preliminary design
using systems engineering tools;
Additional resources are in place, including needed
workforce, and a decision review is conducted following
completion of the preliminary design review.
A critical enabler for success in this phase of development is
performance and requirements flexibility. Customers and product
developers both need to be open to reducing expectations, deferring
them to future programs, or to investing more resources up front to
eliminate gaps between resources and expectations. In successful
programs we have studied, requirements were flexible until a decision
was made to commit to product development because both customers and
developers wanted to limit cycle time. This makes it acceptable to
reduce, eliminate, or defer some customer wants so that the product's
requirements could be matched with the resources available to deliver
the product within the desired cycle time.
Critical design review: A product's design must demonstrate its ability
to meet performance requirements and be stable about midway through
development. To provide oversight at this juncture, NASA could provide
Congress with information to verify that the following indicators have
been met:
At least 90 percent of engineering drawings are
complete;
All subsystem and system design reviews have been
completed;
The design meets requirements demonstrated through
modeling, simulation, or prototypes;
Stakeholders' concurrence that drawings are complete
and producible is obtained;
Failure modes and effects analysis have been
completed;
Key system characteristics are identified;
Critical manufacturing processes are identified;
Reliability targets are established and a growth plan
based on demonstrated reliability rates of components and
subsystems is developed; and
A decision review is conducted following the
completion of the critical design review.
Production Review: The developer must show that the product can be
manufactured within cost, schedule, and quality targets and is
demonstrated to be reliable before production begins. To provide
oversight at this juncture, NASA could provide Congress with
information to verify that the following indicators have been met:
Manufacturing processes have been demonstrated;
Production representative prototypes have been built;
Production representative prototypes have been tested
and have achieved reliability goals;
Production representative prototypes have been
demonstrated in an operational environment through testing;
Statistical process control data have been collected;
Critical processes have been demonstrated to be
capable and that they are in statistical control;
A decision review is conducted following completion
of the production readiness review.
Over the past two years, we have recommended that NASA incorporate
a knowledge-based approach in its policies and take steps to implement
this type of approach in its programs and projects.\8\ NASA has
incorporated some knowledge-based concepts into its acquisition
policies. For example, NASA now requires a decision review between each
major phase of the acquisition life cycle and has established general
entrance and success criteria for the decision reviews. In addition, we
have reported that this type of approach is being embraced by the Ares
I project.
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\8\ GAO, NASA: Implementing a Knowledge-Based Acquisition Framework
Could Lead to Better Investment Decisions and Project Outcomes, GAO-06-
218 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 21, 2005); GAO, NASA: Long-Term Commitment
to and Investment in Space Exploration Program Requires More Knowledge,
GAO-06-817R (Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2006); and GAO, NASA's James
Webb Space Telescope: Knowledge-Based Acquisition Approach Key to
Addressing Program Challenges, GAO-06-634 (Washington, D.C.: July 14,
2006).
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Concluding Observations
In conclusion, the President's Vision for Space Exploration is an
ambitious effort, not just because there will be technical and design
challenges to building systems needed to achieve the Vision's goals,
but because there are limited resources within which this can be
accomplished. Moreover, the long-term nature of the Vision means that
commitments for funding and to the goals of the Vision will need to be
sustained across presidential administrations and changes in
congressional leadership. For these reasons, it is exceedingly
important that the right decisions are made early on and that decision-
makers have the right knowledge going forward so that they can make
informed investment decisions.
In looking at the first major investments, the Ares I and Orion
projects, it is important to recognize that they are risky endeavors,
largely due to their complexity, scope, and interdependencies. It is
also important to recognize that the desire to minimize the gap in
human space flight adds considerable risk, since it could limit NASA's
ability to study emerging problems and pursue alternative ways of
addressing them. For these reasons, as well as the magnitude of
investment at stake, it is imperative that NASA be realistic and open
about the progress it is making and to be willing to make changes to
the architecture and design if technical problems cannot be solved
without overly compromising performance. Additionally, Congress needs
to be well-informed about the extent to which knowledge gaps remain and
what tradeoffs or additional resources are needed to close those gaps
and to support changes if they are determined to be necessary. The
upcoming preliminary design review milestones represent perhaps the
most critical juncture where these assessments can take place and where
hard decisions can be made as to whether the programs should proceed
forward. It may well be the last opportunity to make significant
adjustments before billions of dollars are spent and long-term
commitments become solidified.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be
pleased to answer any questions that you may have at this time.
Individuals making key contributions to this statement include
James L. Morrison, Meredith A. Kimmitt, Lily Chin, Neil Feldman, Rachel
Girshick, Shelby S. Oakley, and John S. Warren, Jr.
Biography for Cristina T. Chaplain
Ms. Chaplain currently serves as a Director, Acquisition and
Sourcing Management, at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. She
has responsibility for GAO assessments of military and civilian space
acquisitions, other National Aeronautical Space Administration
programs, and DOD space science and technology programs. Ms. Chaplain
has also led a variety of DOD-wide contracting-related and best
practice evaluations for the GAO. Before her current position, Ms.
Chaplain worked with GAO's financial management and information
technology teams. Ms. Chaplain has been with GAO for 17 years. She
received a Bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, International Relations
from Boston University and a Masters Degree in Journalism from Columbia
University.
Chairman Udall. Thank you very much. Dr. Hinners, the floor
is yours.
STATEMENT OF DR. NOEL W. HINNERS, INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT
Dr. Hinners. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to share with you
some of my perceptions of aspects of NASA's Exploration
Program. Those include the incorporation of science in
exploration, the current architecture, and international
cooperation.
Mr. Feeney, I appreciate your recognition of the Gator. I
also propose that the Gator might be a good logo for the
Congressional witness protection program.
Ever since Sputnik, there has been a not always
constructive tension between space science and human space
flight. This is based on the fact that they are largely two
different cultures driven by different motivations. Each has
much to offer the other as was early demonstrated in the Apollo
program during which incredible leaps of scientific knowledge
accrued, despite the fact that Apollo was politically
motivated.
Science also became a major component of Skylab, Shuttle,
Space Lab, and the International Space Station. The National
Research Council Space Studies Board undertook a major review
which I had the honor of chairing of science to human space
flight for inhuman space flight in the 1990s with the goal of
improving science contributions to human space flight and
gaining from it. In conducting the study, it became evident
that there are management principles that, if followed, improve
the return on investment. Those formed part of the basis of the
management recommendations in the recent Space Studies Board
Report, The Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon.
They were extended to account for specifics of the proposed
lunar exploration architecture. Briefly we propose that NASA
develop an integrated human robotic program, recognizing the
incredible leap of capability in robotics as evidenced by the
current Mars exploration rovers. Making clear the priority
between multiple goals of exploration is essential to
minimizing misunderstandings, for example, a lunar outpost
primarily as a stepping stone preparation for eventual Mars
human exploration versus sortie missions which are primarily
for science benefit.
Establishing an Apollo-style management structure can help
in productively merging the two cultures of science and human
space flight. Given the almost 50 years between Apollo and
current plans for return to the Moon by 2020 or so, it is
imperative to bring advanced technology and instrumentation
into play both for lunar surface applications and for upgrading
the capability to analyze return samples. Many of these
recommendations have major budget implications for both NASA's
exploration mission and science mission directorates. Given the
already-stressed NASA budget, it is not at all clear that NASA
can implement an effective lunar exploration program. Its goals
are more ambitious than Apollo, yet without the generous
funding that enabled Apollo. A go-as-you-pay philosophy will
ultimately cost much more than an optimally funded program as
we have so painfully seen with the International Space Station.
The vision for space exploration contains a goal eventually
exploring Mars with humans, a goal that today is impossible to
accomplish in a technical, if not budgetary, sense. The lunar
architecture for exploration is then based largely on the
precept of using an incremental approach to developing the
eventual capability of exploring Mars with humans. The overall
planning implies a leap from lunar exploration to going to Mars
some time in the decade of the '30s. Given that the lunar
program can develop only a very small part of the capability to
explore Mars, the absence of a step-wise approach using, for
example, missions to libration points and/or asteroids, begs
for development of a total exploration architecture. Such
should include a lunar exit strategy that will avoid the kinds
of issues we now face in trying to transition from the Shuttle
and the Space Station.
We must not ignore the contributions we have made to
eventual human exploration of Mars by the Robotic Mars
Exploration Program. It is a highlight of NASA's programs, one
that has truly captured the public interest. It is revealing a
Mars not envisioned a short four years ago and provides further
reason to believe that Mars holds the greatest likelihood of
advancing our understanding for the potential of life
originating elsewhere than on Earth. Recent NASA cuts to that
program are ill-founded and have the prospects for doing
serious damage, just as the plans for a Mars sample return have
been rejuvenated. A well-structured, properly funded and thus
vigorous Mars robotic program will add immensely to determining
what it is that humans will eventually do on Mars, and as
important, obtain data critical to determining the very
feasibility of such.
NASA's program plans are clearly ambitious. Required and
desirable is that many of them be done as international
collaborations. This can take advantage of both the increased
abilities and desires of potential partners. Obtaining program
commitments and proper budgetary support in which Congress can
help and relieving some of the more burdensome aspects of the
International Traffic and Arms Regulations can go far to help
bring about productive collaborations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hinners follows:]
Prepared Statement of Noel W. Hinners
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I thank you for
inviting me here to testify today. I am Noel Hinners, an independent
consultant on aerospace, working primarily with NASA and several of its
contractor community. Starting in 1963, I have had the incredible
privilege of participating in the Nation's human and robotic space
program, first on the science associated with Apollo and subsequently
as NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Science (1974-1979) and
Director of Goddard Space Flight Center (1982-1987). Between those two
careers, I saw firsthand the public impact of our space and aeronautics
programs as Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
(1979-1982) and the inspirational influence on students in association
with my activity at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for
Atmospheric and Space Physics and its Aerospace Engineering Sciences
Department. A post-NASA career with Lockheed Martin's Civil Space
taught me the importance, intricacies and perspective of working with
NASA's contractor community. In aggregate, these experiences molded me
into an advocate of both human and robotic space exploration and
provided the foundation for a belief that a synergistic collaboration
between the historically two cultures is in the Nation's best interest.
I will now address the specific questions you posed in your
invitation letter requesting that I testify before you today.
Management of Science in the Vision for Space Exploration
You asked that I elaborate on the management recommendations in The
Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon that might optimize
the scientific return of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) and to
discuss the lessons learned from the Apollo program. Before going into
the specifics, I'd like first to set the context for the
recommendations.
The management recommendations are based largely upon the third
report issued in the 1990's by the NRC Space Studies Board Committee on
Human Exploration (CHEX), a committee that I chaired. The impetus for
the CHEX study was the short-lived Space Exploration Initiative (SEI)
of 1989 and although the SEI did not survive we felt that it was only a
matter of time before a reincarnation would occur. We thus took
advantage of the ``lull'' and produced our study. The recent re-look
convinces me that the conclusions remain valid and do indeed apply to
the VSE.
Our overall intent was to better define the role of science in
human space flight and to reduce the historical friction existing
between the ``two cultures'' of robotic and human space flight. It was
our conviction that by so doing there would be improvement in the
science return from and contributions to human space exploration. The
management report was not initially envisioned; rather it was an
outgrowth of our two earlier studies on science prerequisites for and
science enabled by human exploration during which it became apparent
that the quality of the science accomplished on human space flight
programs was in large part a function of how it was organized and
implemented. Thus we (qualitatively) assessed the science accomplished
on Apollo, Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), Skylab and Shuttle/
Spacelab and correlated our findings with the management structures and
funding sources. The overall conclusion was that the Apollo Program,
after many fits and starts in the early to mid-60's, evolved an
excellent model for productively integrating science requirements and
implementation into human space flight and that deviations from that
model contributed to a lessening of the science quality and in the
overall satisfaction of the science community.
It is instructive to elucidate some key aspects of the Apollo model
to aid in assessing the applicability to the VSE. Those include the
organizational elements and funding. Human space flight in Apollo was
the purview of the Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF) under Dr.
George Mueller. It in turn had an experienced, technically and
managerially strong Apollo Program Office at Headquarters, led through
Apollo 11 by Apollo Program Director Gen. Sam Phillips and subsequently
by Dr. Rocco Petrone. The Apollo Program Office included an Apollo
Lunar Exploration Office which incorporated a novel management
approach: the science and engineering staff of the Apollo Lunar
Exploration Office reported jointly to the Office of Space Science and
Applications (OSSA) and to the OMSF. Science goals, objectives,
prioritization and requirements, science and scientist selection and
analysis of data were the prerogative of OSSA and conformed to its
established policies and procedures. Mission implementation, including
engineering and operations, was the responsibility of the OMSF. This
arrangement proved on balance to be congenial and cooperative. It does
not mean that there were no disagreements or frustrations but there
were clear paths to issue resolution with no ambiguity on decision
authority: Dr. Mueller. He was advised by his Manned Space Flight
Experiments Board which dealt with science, technology and engineering
experiments and which included representatives from the science and
technology organizations. Dr. Mueller also had a Science and Technology
Advisory Committee led by Dr. Charles Townes that provided advice
directly to him on science in the Apollo program. In Dr. Mueller's
words: ``I set up the Science and Technology Advisory Committee to be
sure that we incorporated the maximum and the best possible science in
the Apollo program.''
Many were the vigorous discussions of what to do on the Moon, how
to do it and where to go. The mission implementation was largely
through the Johnson Space Center. A key success element in the view of
CHEX was the establishment at JSC of a science division headed by an
experienced scientist. This gave an in-house voice to science and
provided expert liaison with the OSSA and the external science
community. This was most effectively augmented by the establishment of
the geographically adjacent Lunar Science Institute (now the Lunar and
Planetary Institute). These two organizational elements provided a
degree of science ownership and buy-in in an otherwise engineering
dominated culture.
Returning now to the report, the first management recommendation
is:
NASA should increase the potential to successfully accomplish
science in the VSE by (1) developing an integrated human/robotic
science strategy,(2) clearly stating where science fits in the
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate's (ESMD's) goals and
priorities, and (3) establishing a science office embedded in the ESMD
to plan and implement science in the VSE. Following the Apollo model,
such an office should report jointly to the Science Mission Directorate
and the ESMD, with the science office controlling the proven end-to-end
science process.
There is a process underway in NASA to develop such an integrated
human/robotic science strategy. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,
scheduled for launch late this year, has finally had its management
approach resolved with ESMD responsible for the first year of
operations and data collection needed to satisfy their requirements.
LRO will then be transferred to SMD for continued use as a science
mission. Among numerous collaborative efforts within NASA there is an
ESMD/SMD Outpost Science and Exploration Working Group. The recently
established NASA Lunar Science Institute is jointly supported by SMD
and ESMD. Further, the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group brings together
both internal and external scientists into ESMD/SMD planning. It is
groups such as these that will help clarify the relative roles of lunar
science and exploration preparation.
An office equivalent to the Apollo Lunar Exploration Office does
not exist within ESMD. I recognize that we are over a decade away from
implementation of the human element of lunar exploration. However,
establishing the nucleus of such an office now could do much to
establish the path, clarify processes and give further impetus to the
integration of science into exploration. It would solidify a management
structure that just might survive the all-to-frequent changes in
leadership at the AA level in NASA.
Recommendation 2 addresses the need to initiate early the process
of landing site selection and mission planning. This does not mean
identifying now the specific sites where crews will land but should
include developing criteria that can lead to optimization of the
science in the context of the overall exploration goals and priorities.
Such will be significantly different for sortie missions and an
outpost. Sortie missions, to the degree that they occur, will be
largely science-driven while an outpost will be driven as much or more
so by exploration preparation. Site selection will be an ongoing
process with results influenced greatly by data yet to be acquired
(e.g., is there really accessible water in the polar regions and is In
Situ Resource Utilization a practical objective?). It is possible that
the requirements for ``Exploration Preparation,'' a major VSE theme,
can be met by one of a large number of lunar site locations and that
the science optimization can play a prime role in which specific
location is finally selected. The considerations for an outpost
location should include the potential to serve as a servicing and
laboratory node for robotic exploration.
Recommendation 3 relates to the need to identify and develop
advanced technology and instrumentation. This recognizes that there
does not exist an inventory of applicable technology and capability.
This results from what will be, by 2019, close to a 50-year gap in
human and most robotic lunar exploration. It also derives from a much
changed capability from the days of Apollo and envisions a more
collaborative robotic/human effort. For example, much of the Apollo
lunar surface traverse time was used in going to locations selected on
the basis of relatively low resolution, panchromatic photography.
Today, through the use of instrumentation such as on LRO and the use of
Mars Exploration Rover (MER) type rovers, one could identify in detail
locations worthy of detailed follow-up by astronauts. As a thought
experiment, think of the MER sites on Mars and how efficiently we could
explore those sites with astronauts. Similarly, emplacement of some
geophysical instrumentation can be done robotically rather than
primarily by Apollo ALSEP-type deployments; indeed, that is the basis
of the recent SMD announcement of initiation of two elements of a
robotically emplaced geophysical network. If a pressurized crewed rover
is developed, the potential to use it in a robotic mode when not crewed
can greatly extend the science utility of either an outpost or sortie
missions.
Our last recommendation, 4, urges a thorough review and subsequent
upgrading of the capability to collect, preserve, analyze and curate
lunar samples both on the Moon and upon return of the samples to Earth.
This is based on the fact that the major science return from Apollo was
in the immediate and ongoing analyses of the samples, an activity that
continues today. The Lunar Curatorial Facility at JSC is the key to
this. While it has maintained a degree of modernity through the ongoing
curation of Apollo samples, meteorites, cosmic dust and solar wind, it
is not prepared to handle the ``next generation'' of acquired lunar
samples. An outpost on the Moon will add further challenge in meeting
the need for conducting preliminary analyses and curation on the Moon,
both to enable real-time feedback into the exploration and to ``high-
grade'' samples for return to Earth.
I will now address the second tangible, funding. This was not an
inherent part of the NRC study yet the budgetary implications of the
study are enormous with major implications for the scientific success
or lack thereof in the exploration program.
Funding of lunar science in conjunction with human exploration in
the VSE is a major problem not yet overtly faced by NASA. It is a
latent issue guaranteed to create major tensions some five or so years
downstream and can negate the best of intentions. This problem did not
exist in Apollo; had it, I can only believe that Apollo would not have
been nearly as successful as turned out. Apollo was extremely well
funded and it paid for the implementation of essentially all of the
Apollo science (OSSA funded the science and Apollo site-certification
robotic precursors such as the Rangers, Surveyors and Lunar Orbiters).
Today ESMD is having difficulty adequately funding (on a rational
development schedule) the infrastructure basics of the future lunar
architecture: Ares I and V, Orion and Altair. Until those developments
are largely completed, there is not much room to start development of
``auxiliary'' equipment, i.e., that which allows one to use the
infrastructure for a purpose.
The seeds of the science related funding problem are evident in the
elements of the lunar architecture. The priority is to establish a
lunar outpost with the goal of learning how to live and operate for
extended time on a planetary surface. It is stated that such an outpost
provides needed experience as a feed-forward to eventual human
exploration of Mars. Many of the presumed auxiliary equipments
potentially useful for scientific exploration--rovers, advanced
habitats, advanced EVA suits, lab facilities, etc.--are ``open for
contribution'' from potential international partners. Let us hope that
such contributions are offered in a timely manner. An ancillary, not
insignificant, funding issue is recognizable in the discussions of
``sortie'' missions. Sorties are advocated by the science community to
accomplish the exploration of multiple, geologically diverse lunar
sites for relatively short time periods (up to seven days); this is
essentially an extension of Apollo type missions. ESMD indicates that
it is planning to have a capability in the Lunar Surface Access Module,
(LSAM, recently named Altair), to conduct sortie missions. Consider,
however, that the Administrator of NASA has noted many times that we
are not returning to the Moon for science. Fair enough (although the
Lunar Architecture Global Exploration Strategy lists ``Science
Knowledge'' as one of the prime themes). At the Tempe lunar workshop in
February of 2007, the Administrator (via call-in) noted that scientists
are free to buy a sortie mission at some $2B per sortie which, he
noted, is similar to the cost of a Science Mission Directorate flagship
mission. I do not anticipate that SMD will pay for such a privilege
very frequently given that the bulk of lunar science is not
demonstrably competitive with the other space science at that level of
funding. I note that one might make the case for the science value of a
sortie mission to the South Pole-Aitken Basin which if done robotically
might well be in the flagship category. I do not want to leave an
impression that there is not good lunar science to be done. There is,
as is detailed in the NRC report The Scientific Context for the
Exploration of the Moon, and much of which can and ought to be done
robotically. Indeed, the recently proposed on-going lunar robotic
mission budget of ?$60M per year, in conjunction with international
missions, is a reasonable start on that approach. How much lunar
science is worth doing depends on its relative competitiveness with all
that is on the plate in SMD. This is the basis of a recommendation in
the 2005 NRC report Science in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration:
``Science that is enabled by human exploration is properly competed
directly with ``decadal survey'' science and then ranked and
prioritized according to the same rigorous criteria.''
There is no implication in the above that either the NASA
Administrator or those in ESMD are anti-science. Quite the contrary:
Administrator Griffin has unabashedly supported Earth and space science
and ESMD is working closely with SMD to understand and define a science
component for exploration. It is simply a matter of facing a stark
fact: NASA's budget today and in the outlook is grossly inadequate to
enable NASA to properly fund the human lunar exploration to accomplish
significant science. The import of that conclusion is considerable--and
ironic: we are not returning to the Moon to do science yet the conduct
of science is virtually the singular major activity associated with
lunar exploration other than attending to the mechanics of living there
(in situ resource utilization has yet to be convincingly developed as a
near-term major activity either in an engineering or economic sense).
Observations on the Exploration Architecture
The second topic I have been asked to address is my perspective
regarding the exploration architecture and how it relates to preparing
for exploration beyond the Moon. As a starting point I take the NASA
Authorization Act of 2005: ``The Administrator shall establish a
program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon, including a
robust precursor program to promote exploration, science, commerce and
U.S. preeminence in space, and as a stepping stone to future
exploration of Mars and other destinations.'' This indeed sets the
high-level goal. I and many others assume Mars as the prime and
tantalizing future destination yet also include Near Earth Objects
(NEOs) and Sun-Earth libration points (with astronomical observatory
servicing/construction potential) as among other feasible and desirable
destinations for both science and stepping stone reasons. The Global
Exploration Strategy theme of ``Exploration Preparation'' is supportive
of this in theory yet the Exploration Systems Architecture Study of
Nov. 2005 contains no mention of NEOs or Sun-Earth libration points. It
thus implies a leap directly from the Moon to Mars.
How does lunar exploration serve as a stepping stone? In the lunar
architecture plans (e.g., LAT2) there is an incorporation of Moon to
Mars stepping-stone elements and the very selection of a focus on
outposts instead of sortie missions is based on the greater
contribution of outposts vis-a-vis sorties to exploration beyond the
Moon. That said, I believe that we do not yet have as comprehensive an
understanding as one should have. of how the Moon--or any other pre-
Mars destination--can optimally contribute to getting to Mars. There
does not today exist a inclusive, fully-developed, accepted long-range
(e.g., 30-year) architecture for exploration, a void that hinders more
efficiently structuring a lunar architecture and strategy and getting
the most out of it for ``Exploration Preparation.'' In an ideal world
in which one aspires to the human exploration of Mars as the goal for
which we are incrementally preparing, one would first establish the
requirements for Martian human exploration and feed them back into
``precursor'' architectures for the Moon and other pre-Mars
destinations and for preparatory ``precursor'' robotic exploration of
Mars. Recognizing that need, last year the NASA Administrator asked
that an up-dated Mars reference architecture be developed. Work was
initiated and an excellent start made. It is thus unfortunate that the
work on an updated Mars Design Reference Mission has been halted just
when it was starting to be productive in developing requirements,
assessing risks and identifying technology and precursor needs that
could be used to guide precursor lunar and other architectures. It is
not NASA's choice to stop: it is a direct result of language in the
Appropriations Act of 2008: ``Finally, bill language is included, as
proposed by the House, prohibiting funding of any research,
development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the
human exploration of Mars.'' That direction is not in the best
interests of structuring an integrated human exploration program
architecture that gives the Nation an optimum return on its investment.
I urge the Committee to reverse the restriction and let NASA conduct
those studies essential to providing the best possible total,
integrated human exploration program. Indeed, I would go so far as to
suggest the Committee direct NASA to conduct such studies and
demonstrate to the Congress that there is a logical, economically
feasible, technically effective progression of human exploration
endeavors that is efficient and in consonance with the Authorization of
2005.
The lack of an updated detailed Mars architecture does not prohibit
top-level strategizing and planning for exploration beyond the Moon.
Indeed, NASA has taken a major first step in that direction in its
determination that the basic launch capability being structured for the
return to the Moon must have applicability to Mars. The planned heavy-
lift cargo vehicle Ares V clearly fits that requirement. There are many
other things we know today that are obviously required and that have
feed-back implications: long-duration human flight (up to three years)
with attendant crew-related questions dealing with radiation, micro-
gravity, isolation, health and safety, etc., and those treating the
hardware and software systems that support the exploration. There are
``operational'' considerations: aerocapture vs. direct entry, the
actual entry, descent and landing; the potential use of in situ
resources to reduce mass (thus cost), logistics, science planning, the
effects of dust, possible toxicity of Martian soil, mobility and
trafficability, etc.
A lunar outpost-centric program can contribute to learning about
the long-duration planetary surface operations component of
``Exploration Preparation.'' It will not contribute to many of the key
elements noted above. The lander, Altair, e.g., has virtually no
applicability to landing humans on Mars. Today, budgets aside, we dare
not embark on a Mars human exploration program despite some ill-founded
hallucinatory calls external to NASA for so doing. We simply cannot do
it. As the top example of non-readiness, consider safe and reliable
long-duration space flight such as required for Mars. We simply do not
have crews or crew systems that are ``flight qualified'' for three year
sojourns. Short-duration flights to the Moon will not add to that
development any more that Apollo did. Jumping right to development of a
three-year Mars system, while theoretically feasible, is not
reasonable. Rather, a step-wise, evolutionary development building on
Orion in a ``Block X'' approach would be more rational. This is where a
long-range, comprehensive exploration architecture development might
show, for example, how using first the International Space Station as a
realistic prototyping local (getting some ROI on the $35B
investment), thence proceeding to libration missions of a month's
duration followed by longer duration asteroid missions of several
months leads more realistically to Mars. Such a sequence could be
accomplished over a span of some 10 to 15 years. It is also consistent
with an obvious conclusion that one gets the most data at lowest cost
on Earth, and progressively less data more expensively as one moves to
LEO, Moon, NEO or L-point and, finally, Mars. The obvious question is
not so much one of can such a plan be constructed; rather it is can
such a plan be implemented while conducting a lunar program that
appears capable of consuming the entire available budget through at
least 2030. This question is part of what lurks behind the sometimes
heard phrase ``stuck on the Moon.'' Ideally the lunar program would be
constructed and implemented in a way that allows for simultaneous
development of non-lunar, pre-Mars missions. Budget reality might well
preclude that approach, a likelihood that also applies to the
simultaneous development of a Mars capability as implied in the ESAS.
All of this suggests avoiding a large build-up of lunar infrastructure.
In any case, one should have a lunar program exit strategy: when will
the lunar program provide the required data in support of ``Exploration
Preparation'' and how does one disengage from the Moon? Hoped for turn-
over of lunar infrastructure to commercial and/or international
partners does not seem particularly realistic.
Thus far I've discussed mostly the human mission aspect of
exploration architectures. There is a corollary aspect that begs
discussion and that is the role of robotics. Noted above is the new
lunar robotic program and ESMD lunar thinking considers using robotics
in association with an outpost or using crewed rovers in a robotic mode
when not crewed. This is all to the good and is consistent with our
recommendation in The Scientific Context for the Exploration of the
Moon for development on an integrated human/robotic program. It thus
seems logical that a similar approach would apply to Mars for which
today we can conduct only robotic exploration.
What is the relationship of the Mars Exploration Program (MEP) to
eventual human exploration? It provides, or can provide, two critical
contributions. First, science. As is the case with the Moon, science
will be a major activity of human exploration of Mars as is noted in
the recent report of the Human Exploration of Mars Science Working
Group. The MEP of the last decade has been a remarkable demonstration
of how rapidly and productively science progresses when there is a
strategically guided, methodical, scientifically focused, superbly
engineered program. In accord with this, the Appropriations Act of 2008
makes clear the Congressional intent that there continues to be a
strong MEP with missions at every Mars opportunity. Such is apparently
not to be. Testimony at the March 13, 2008 hearing of this committee
addressed the major cutting of the MEP in the President's proposed 2009
budget and the damage that will accrue to the MEP. While adding my
congratulations to Dr. Alan Stern for doing much to improve the overall
status of space science, I do not believe that the cuts to the MEP are
either warranted or acceptable. I come to that conclusion based on the
observation that the MEP is arguably NASA's most successful robotic
exploration program in terms of continued, step-wise public-engaging
exploration (I note the difference between a program and individual
projects such as Hubble and Cassini). It has taken a decade of Mars
missions to develop the engineering and scientific communities able to
both implement and understand how to explore Mars. That capability can
be lost in just a couple of years. The ``case study'' of the potential
damage can be readily seen as NASA is now working hard and paying the
price to recreate an engineering workforce capable of developing the
Ares vehicles, Orion and Altair. The new NASA Lunar Science Institute
was formed partly in order to help recreate a community of lunar
scientists.
There is further a direct link between the MEP and the needs of the
VSE. We need to keep Mars in the public eye as an ongoing indication of
the import of Mars, regardless of the VSE; the public is having a
difficult time understanding where the return to the Moon fits in.
Mars, along with Earth, is a special planet, not one that should be
subject to equipartition of attention in the solar system. In the MEP,
and supported by Dr. Stern, is a Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission
envisioned towards the end of the next decade. Adequate funding for
that is tenuous as you heard on March 13. A sample return from Mars
will have incredible science value. Moreover, it will provide
absolutely essential precursor information for eventual human
exploration. Specifically, we must understand the precise nature of the
highly oxidizing Martian soil, will it be toxic to humans and, if so,
how does one counter that? What is the nature of the dust particles in
an engineering sense. Just as dust is a major concern on the Moon, it
is of equal or greater concern on Mars (with active dust storms) and
one must have returned sample to adequately treat the issues. One might
argue that human exploration of Mars is a long way off, so what's the
rush? My response is that the sooner we know and deal with what might
be real impediments to human exploration of Mars, the better. Waiting
to find out until 2030 or so would be irresponsible given the
likelihood that a significant technology development may be required to
deal with the results (note that several years ago there was active
participation of ESMD in the MEP but was stopped due to budget issues).
Lastly, an MSR mission will be proof-of-concept of a Mars round-trip, a
not inconsequential demonstration. Many will be the ``Oh my goodness''
aspects that will need to be considered before we commit to the human
adventure.
International Cooperation: Opportunities and Challenges
The final topic you asked me to address relates to the potential
opportunities and challenges of international cooperation for human
exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and what things might NASA and
Congress do now to enhance the potential. The opportunities are in a
sense obvious: we cannot afford the exploration we'd like to implement;
without significant international contributions the architecture is
moot and must be scaled back or stretched out to the point of marginal
value for the investment. The latter can force one into the approach of
``go as you pay'' which is deceptively attractive. There is, however,
an ugly potential downside of ``go as you pay'' in that if there is not
enough ``pay,'' the largest budget increment goes to sustaining the
infrastructure on Earth. The drawn-out ``level-funding'' development of
the ISS gives some hint of that impact.
Many of the world's space faring nations have developed
sufficiently in skill and desire that we should look to them as
desirable partners for their own sake and not simply as a source of
funding to solve our budget shortfalls after we have announced ``Our
Vision.'' Bringing potential partners in early, in the concept
formulation phase where they contribute to structuring the basic
approach strikes me as the right way to approach international
cooperation. That is indeed the way NASA is now approaching the
possible international participation in a Mars sample return mission
(the recent budget cuts in the MEP do not provide confidence to
potential partners that we are serious in our commitment). The Global
Exploration Strategy Framework for Cooperation certainly contains a
basis for building to eventual closer collaboration.
As we develop more and more collaborative programs, today's trend,
it is likely that we shall have to develop a degree of trust that goes
beyond what we are historically comfortable with. It is always good if
collaborations are not on what is called the ``critical path'' in which
the failure of one party to produce sinks the ship. This becomes more
important the larger the program and its collaboration dependency such
as in the VSE or MSR. While there are few guarantees for these
ventures, having overt, consistent political support from the Congress
and Administration can substantially enhance the stability and
probability of success. That kind of support was a stabilizing element
of the cooperation with the Soviet Union (later Russia) in the Apollo
Soyuz Test Project and ISS program.
The politically motivated and largely successful historic
cooperation with the Soviet Union naturally raises the question of
China, a country clearly aspiring to emulate much of what we do or have
done. It is worth examining and questioning whether there is a
comparable role with China to what we did with the Soviet Union at the
height of the Cold War--recognizing that we are absent much of the Cold
War rhetoric and threats. However, there is obviously an embedded
political issue regarding military implications and I leave that for
others to wrestle with.
There does remain a thorn in the side of international cooperation
and that is the ITAR regulations. While few of us would argue that ITAR
does not serve a good purpose in preventing a damaging transfer of
technology, the restrictions seem at times to be excessive and
unnecessarily make it more difficult to obtain the ease of dialogue
necessary for effective cooperation and on occasion lead to a vocal
negative response from potential partners. Congressional support for
assessing and appropriately easing the restrictions would be welcome.
Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee Members, you have my appreciation for
the opportunity to testify today. I hope that my comments are taken as
an attempt to contribute to improving the long-term outlook for the
NASA space programs in an extremely challenging budgetary and technical
environment.
Chairman Udall. Dr. Thornton.
STATEMENT OF DR. KATHRYN C. THORNTON, PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE
DEAN, SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF
VIRGINIA
Dr. Thornton. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to be
here today. My name is Kathryn Thornton. I am a Professor at
the University of Virginia, but I appear here today not in my
faculty role but as an organizer and co-chair of an independent
workshop entitled Examining the Vision, Balancing Exploration
and Science that was held last February at Stanford University.
The workshop was co-hosted by Stanford University Department of
Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Planetary Society. Other
organizers were co-chair Scott Hubbard from Stanford
University, Lou Friedman of The Planetary Society, and Wes
Huntress of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The intent of the workshop was to critically examine the
current implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration as
announced by President Bush in January 2004. The Vision as
originally put forth was rich in scientific goals aimed at
finding life elsewhere in the universe pointed toward Mars as
the ultimate target for human exploration and couched
exploration of the Moon in those terms. Four years later,
implementation of the vision has focused on a small subset of
the original concepts: finishing the International Space
Station for our international partners, retiring the Space
Shuttle by 2010, developing new launch vehicles and a new crew
vehicle, and the Moon as the near-term goal of human
exploration.
Much of the originally planned funding for the human
exploration mandates has not materialized and instead has come
from science, aeronautics, and technology.
With these concerns as the motivation, the workshop was
planned as a two-day, behind-closed-doors discussion of the
goals and implementation of the Presidential directive, and the
issue of balance between exploration and science. Organizers
sought to bring together scientists, astronauts, engineers,
policy analysts, and industry executives in a single
conversation where insights across traditional boundaries could
occur. Invitations were extended to individuals whom the
organizers felt would bring great diversity of thought, as well
as expertise. Each participant was invited to take off his or
her corporate, institutional or advocate hat, and engage in
discussion that will help this nation have the best possible
space exploration program. To the extent that the outcome might
be critical of current plans, progress, or goals, criticism was
intended to be constructive and consistent with strong support
for space exploration. As expected, lively discussions ensued.
There was some doubt that fifty individuals, selected
specifically for their differing specialties and divergent
views, could reach a consensus on the goals and directions for
America's space exploration program over the course of a two-
day workshop. Therefore there was no predetermined workshop
report or product, but rather the expectation that these
discussion would lead to further study and output in some form.
Nevertheless, workshop participants did reach consensus on four
substantive statements which in essence endorse the Vision as
announced in 2004. Those statements are listed in my written
testimony as well as in the workshop joint communique.
I would like to expand on the workshop consensus from my
own perspective. It is time for humans to go beyond low-Earth
orbit. To be sure, the ISS must be completed in order to
fulfill obligations to our international partners, but in the
longer term the Space Shuttle and ISS serve to anchor humans in
lower-Earth orbit, and orbiting the Earth, as thrilling as it
is, is not exploring space. This nation must move forward with
the development of a space transportation system that will do
more than just orbit the Earth, but will enable humans to
explore in space.
Although Mars and beyond as the goal of human exploration
is a consensus of workshop participants, the question of
intermediate steps was debated at length with no overall
agreement. A stepping stone approach to Mars might include
sorties to the Moon, the Sun-Earth Lagrange points, near-Earth
asteroids, and the Martian moons. The important point is that
each of the stepping stones, whichever they may be, should
advance the science and technology needed for the next, more
ambitious objective and the eventual human exploration of Mars,
and none should be considered as permanent outposts that would
again anchor us in place for decades.
Exploration should be goal driven, not schedule driven.
Practical engineering for meeting exploration milestones is
bound by three major constraints: budget, schedule, and
requirements. If you change one of these three, the other two
must change accordingly. Particularly if the budget is over-
constrained, either schedule or requirements must give. It is
important to remain focused on the goal, not the schedule, and
proceed as efficiently and safely as technology and budget will
allow.
Sustained human exploration requires international
collaboration. We can debate the value of science objectives
and exploration goals, but the value of international
cooperation in space ventures over the last decade cannot be
challenged. Inviting meaningful international participation in
the exploration architecture may reduce cost, accelerate the
timelines, provide additional capability, bring a measure of
stability through numerous budget cycles and administrations,
while engaging rivals and allies in a shared commitment to
extend the boundaries of humankind into new domains.
In summary, it is time to go beyond LEO with humans as
explorers. To do so, we must have a space transportation system
that will enable humans to travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond;
without it any debate of destinations for human exploration is
pointless. Finally, with the goal clearly in focus, budgets and
schedules must be balanced for an affordable, sustainable and
successful space exploration program.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the Subcommittee for your
staunch support of the Space Exploration Program and the
opportunity to express my views today, and I would be pleased
to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Thornton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kathryn C. Thornton
Chairman Udall, Ranking Member Feeney, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. My
name is Kathryn Thornton and I am a Professor and Associate Dean in the
School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of
Virginia. I appear here this morning not in my faculty role but as an
organizer and co-chair of an independent workshop entitled Examining
the Vision: Balancing Exploration and Science held last February at
Stanford University. The workshop was co-hosted by Stanford University
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and The Planetary Society.
Other organizers were Co-Chair Professor G. Scott Hubbard from Stanford
University, Dr. Louis Friedman of The Planetary Society, and Dr. Wesley
T. Huntress, Jr., of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The post-
workshop joint communique and a partial list of participants are
attached.
The intent of the workshop was to critically examine the current
implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration as announced by
President Bush in January 2004, especially to help prepare for a new
Administration's consideration of its broad space program goals and
plans. The Vision for Space Exploration in its original plan was a
major redirection of the human space flight program with an
accompanying emphasis on scientific exploration. Whatever changes might
be made in its implementation in the next Administration, we wanted to
identify, highlight and support the best parts of the current concept.
Our goal was to create a report intended to be useful in the next stage
of policy planning, and potentially to define follow-on studies of the
issues.
The Vision for Space Exploration provided specific targets, defined
human and robotic exploration objectives and set timetables. The Vision
as originally put forth was rich in scientific goals aimed at finding
life elsewhere in the Universe. In addition, the Vision continually
pointed toward Mars as the ultimate target for human exploration and
couched exploration of the Moon in those terms. Four years later,
implementation of the Vision has focused on a small subset of the
original concept: finishing the International Space Station (ISS) for
international partners, retiring the Space Shuttle by 2010 and
developing new launch vehicles (Ares I and V) and a new crew vehicle
(Orion), and the Moon as the near-term goal of human exploration.
With the fixed requirements, fixed schedule and NASA's flat budget,
funding to meet the Vision has come from science, aeronautics and
technology. Aeronautics has been reduced radically, life sciences have
been largely eliminated, the entire crosscutting technology budget has
been redirected, and more than $3B over five years was taken from the
space and Earth science budget. Much of the originally planned funding
for the human exploration mandates has not materialized, while the cost
of returning the Space Shuttle to flight and its impeding retirement
has risen.
With these concerns as the motivation, the workshop was planned as
a two-day, behind-closed-doors discussion of the goals and
implementation of the Presidential directive, and the issue of balance
between exploration and science. Organizers sought to bring together
scientists, astronauts, engineers, policy analysts, and industry
executives in a single conversation where insights across traditional
boundaries could occur.
The discussions were organized around the following topics:
1. Scientific Exploration of the Universe, in particular the
role of a Mars Sample Return mission as a major milestone in
scientific and robotic exploration as well as a precursor for
human exploration.
2. The Earth Science and Climate Change: What should the U.S.
be doing to provide policy-makers with the best available
information.
3. Access to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and Beyond: Plans for and
capabilities of the Constellation system
4. The Role of Lunar Exploration in the human exploration
strategy
5. Human Missions to Mars
6. Alternative Destinations for Human Exploration
7, Humans and Robots in Exploration: when is a human the tool
of choice for solar system exploration
8. The Role of the Emerging Entrepreneurial Space Industry
9. International Collaboration in Space Exploration
Invitations were extended to individuals whom the organizers felt
would bring great diversity of thought, as well as expertise, on those
topics. Each participant was invited to take off his or her corporate,
institutional or advocate hat, and engage in discussion that will help
this nation have the best possible space exploration program. To the
extent that the outcome might be critical of the current plans,
progress or goals, criticism was intended to be constructive and
consistent with strong support for space exploration. As expected,
lively discussions ensued.
Pre-workshop reporting predicted that the outcome of the workshop
would be a repudiation of at least some of major the goals of the
Vision. There was some doubt that fifty individuals, selected
specifically for their differing specialties and divergent views, could
reach a consensus on the goals and directions for America's space
exploration program over the course of a two day workshop. Therefore
there was no predetermined workshop report or product, but rather the
expectation that these discussion would lead to further study and
output in some form. Nevertheless, workshop participants did reach
consensus on the following statements which in essence endorse the
Vision as announced in 2004.
It is time to go beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with
people as explorers. The purpose of sustained human exploration
is to go to Mars and beyond. The significance of the Moon and
other intermediate destinations is to serve as stepping stones
on the path to that goal.
Human space exploration is undertaken to serve
national and international interests. It provides important
opportunities to advance science, but science is not the
primary motivation.
Sustained human exploration requires enhanced
international collaboration and offers the United States an
opportunity for global leadership.
NASA has not received the budget increases to support
the mandated human exploration program as well as other vital
parts of the NASA portfolio, including space science,
aeronautics, technology requirements, and especially Earth
observations, given the urgency of global climate change.
These statements represent consensus among all workshop
participants. I would like to expand on them from my own perspective.
It is time for humans to go beyond low-Earth orbit. The post-Apollo
space program traded exploration for utilization; exploration on the
Moon was exchanged for the prospect of a permanent laboratory, factory,
and satellite repair station orbiting within a few hundred miles of the
Earth's surface. The resulting quest for a permanent presence and
routine access to space resulted in the Space Shuttle and later in the
International Space Station (ISS). While both are remarkable
technological achievements, neither has quite lived up to its promise,
and just as the Space Shuttle today bears only a slight resemblance to
early concepts for a fully reusable spacecraft, the ISS we have now is
not the station that was envisioned more than two decades ago. To be
sure, the ISS must be completed in order to fulfill obligations to our
international partners. But in the longer-term the Space Shuttle and
the ISS serve to anchor humans in low-Earth orbit, and orbiting the
Earth, as thrilling as it is, is not exploring space. This nation must
move forward with the development of a space transportation system that
will do more than just orbit the Earth, but will enable humans to
explore in space.
Mars and beyond is the goal of human exploration. Although ``Mars and
beyond'' as the goal is a consensus of workshop participants, the
question of intermediate steps was debated at length without overall
agreement. A stepping stone approach to Mars might include some or all
of the following intermediate steps: sorties to the Moon and the Sun-
Earth Lagrange points (L2) as the first step out of LEO; longer
missions of perhaps a year's duration to a near-Earth asteroid as the
first step out of the Earth's gravity well; and expeditions to the
Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, which would be of similar duration to
Mars missions but without the need for complex and risky landing and
launch systems. The important point is that each of the stepping
stones, whichever they may be, should advance the science and
technology needed for the next, more ambitious objective and for the
eventual human exploration of Mars, and none should be considered as
permanent outposts that would again anchor us in place for decades.
Exploration should be goal driven, not schedule driven. The exploration
goal has been repeatedly found to be the basis of public excitement and
interest in the space program. In the aftermath of the tragic loss of
Columbia and her crew, this was forcefully reasserted in the
discussions of why human space flight is worth the cost and the risk.
Indeed it was in that aftermath that the Vision for Space Exploration
was born. Exploration is open-ended, it has no limits. But it has
interim objectives and those also should be publicly engaging and seen
as milestones on a longer road. Practical engineering for meeting
milestones is bound by three major constraints: budget, schedule and
requirements. If you change one of these three, the other two must
change accordingly. Particularly if the budget is over-constrained,
either schedule or requirements must give--and that is what is
happening today. As a result, the ``gap years'' in which there will be
no US human space launch capability stretch to or beyond the middle of
the next decade. At the same time human missions to the Moon by the
year 2020, as specified in the Vision, are exceedingly unlikely. I
strongly believe the goals of the Vision are valid, but recognize that
budget difficulties will remain. It is important to remain focused on
the goals, not the schedule, and proceed as efficiently and safely as
technology and budget will allow.
Science is enabled by human exploration, but is not the goal of
exploration. To be sure, there are compelling science objectives at
each of the intermediate destinations en route to Mars, and important
scientific questions that must be answered before humans can venture
beyond LEO. But the motivations for science and human exploration are
different, even as they are synergistic. Science seeks to answer
questions of the origin of the universe and of ourselves, and the
processes that govern nature. Motivation for human exploration is
largely derived from innate human characteristics such as curiosity,
imagination and the desire not just to understand but to experience,
the drive to compete and more recently the need to cooperate.
Geopolitical influences shape our exploration goals as much now as they
did in the 1960s.
One of the questions posed in the workshop was, ``When is a human
the tool of choice for solar system exploration,'' to which one
participant responded, ``as soon as possible when exploration has
transitioned from reconnaissance to meaning.'' Humans solve puzzles and
find meaning in data, albeit at a higher cost than our robotic
surrogates. We could debate the relative value of humans versus robots
at great length but, in fact, we would be missing the point. Humans are
explorers. Whether deep under the ocean, on the frigid plateaus of
Antarctica, or above the atmosphere, humans are programmed to indulge
our unquenchable thirst for knowledge--not only scientific data but
human experiences. We are unwilling to surrender those domains solely
to robotic surrogates and forego the human experience of adventure and
discovery.
We must balance science and exploration, and manage expectations as we
move forward. NASA's portfolio includes Earth and space science,
aeronautics, and technology as well as exploration, and a healthy
balance must be maintained among the sciences, and between science and
exploration. Science is of enormous benefit and interest to the public
and to our future generations--the inspiration derived from Hubble and
the Mars rovers are but two examples, the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics
for work that was based on measurements from COBE is yet another. The
science budget should not be used to compensate for the underfunding of
the Vision goals.
Furthermore, science programs are not just budget lines, they are
people. They cannot be turned on and off without consequence. As NASA's
aging workforce reaches retirement, how are we going to attract the
next generation of scientists and engineers who will continue exploring
the universe? I believe we must pull rather than push; pull students
into science and engineering with the promise of interesting work and a
fulfilling career. What more powerful pull can there be than the
opportunity to explore the universe? When budgets are redirected and
the very programs that attracted young scientists are summarily
terminated, they are forced to retool, retrain and reeducate themselves
for other careers. They are in all likelihood lost to the NASA
workforce forever and we are all poorer for it.
The entire field of microgravity science was based on the
expectation of a space station for long-term experimentation. Drop
towers, zero-G flights and even two week flights on the Space Shuttle
were just warms up for the permanent laboratory in space. Young
scientists built their careers on that promise. Even as ISS grew in
orbit, opportunities for its use as a world class laboratory for
microgravity science were shrinking. Microgravity science, born in the
1980s, was effectively killed in 2004.
As we execute the Vision for Space Exploration, it is important to
be realistic about the goals, funding and timeline for science and
exploration. Should we cast a net widely within the science community
to find all possibilities for exploration and research that could be
accomplished on the Moon, and therefore solicit the broadest possible
support within the science communities for a lunar program, or should
we focus from the outset on science objectives that support the next
step in the overall exploration strategy? Let's not repeat the
microgravity science experience on the Moon.
Sustained human exploration requires international collaboration. From
the very beginning, human exploration has been driven by geopolitical
factors, in the U.S. as well as in the Soviet Union then and in Russia
now. As we make plans to explore beyond Earth, it is appropriate that
those political forces have led to cooperation rather than competition.
The U.S. is the unquestioned leader in space exploration, a
position that we are unwilling relinquish. International collaborative
exploration initiatives offer the United States an opportunity to
maintain global leadership in a cooperative environment. Collaboration
with international partners provides opportunities for countries who
may be competitors in global political or economic arenas to work
together to increase human knowledge and promote peaceful utilization
of the solar system.
The road to Mars will be a very long one, and any architecture must
survive many one-year budget cycles and four-year administrations.
After several near-death experiences, the ISS is still alive and will
be completed because of our international commitments. The overriding
importance of multi-national cooperation justifies the risk and cost of
continuing the Space Shuttle program long enough to satisfy our
obligations.
We can debate the value of science objectives or exploration goals,
but the value of international cooperation in space ventures over the
past decade cannot be challenged. Inviting meaningful international
participation in the exploration architecture may reduce cost,
accelerate the timeline, provide additional capability, bring a measure
of stability through numerous budget cycles and administrations, while
engaging rivals and allies in a shared commitment to extend the
boundaries of humankind into new domains.
The role of entrepreneurial space ventures should be to help NASA get
out of the business of routine transportation to LEO for cargo and
crews as soon as practical. Non-government entities have transported
cargo to space for decades, but only NASA and the Russian Space Agency
transport humans to the ISS. As we have seen over the past two decades,
our space transportation system has at times left us stuck on the
ground. U.S. flights were suspended for almost three years after
Challenger, more than two years after the Columbia accident and will be
suspended for some number of years after the retirement of the Space
Shuttle in 2010. Shorter down-times of months to one year have resulted
from problems with helium leaks and external tank insulation shedding.
As long as NASA is the owner, operator and sole customer of
transportation services to LEO in this country, there is no competition
for services and limited access to space.
The emerging entrepreneurial space industry projects growing demand
for access to space by foreign governments who want to get into the
space business, from multinational corporations and from tourists. NASA
is investing in commercial space transportation services through the
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services project (COTS) for cargo to
the ISS, and eventually crew transport as well. Bigelow Aerospace and
Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services are engaged in discussions
on the Atlas 5 as the launch vehicle to provide crew and cargo
transportation services to a Bigelow-built space complex in the near-
term.
As NASA refocuses on exploration, commercial ventures that will
replace NASA as the sole U.S. human space transportation system should
be encouraged and incentivized by NASA and by Congress. Assurances that
NASA will become a customer, not a competitor, in LEO would strengthen
the business case for companies who are investing in this venture.
NASA has not received budget increases to support the mandates of the
Vision for Space Exploration and the other elements of its portfolio
even in the most optimistic scenarios. Each year since 2004 when the
Vision was announced, the NASA budget has fallen short of that required
to achieve the mandated exploration goals and milestones. Science,
aeronautics and technology have suffered severely to compensate for the
shortfall. Costs associated with the Space Shuttle retirement are not
budgeted. The gap between Space Shuttle retirement and Orion crew
exploration vehicle (CEV) initial operational capability is widening.
In short, there is a mismatch between aspirations and appropriations
that no amount of spin can disguise.
Faced with inadequate budgets, the other two elements of the
budget--schedule--requirements triad must be reassessed. Again I urge
that we focus on the goals of the Vision, not the schedule, and proceed
in the most efficient, cost-effective and safe manner possible.
Is the Constellation system a vehicle for science as well as human
exploration? I was asked to address potential advantages of using
Constellation systems for science exploration missions, a question not
considered at the workshop, but is the subject of an on-going NRC
study. Constellation systems being designed primarily to achieve human
exploration goals would enable larger, heavier and more capable
spacecraft as well as human servicing options to meet science
objectives that are synergistic with or independent of Vision goals.
The Ares V launch vehicle, as envisioned, would offer significant
increases in payload volume and payload mass at a significantly higher
cost when compared with Delta and Atlas families of launch vehicles
available today. In general, the advantages of launching ``flagship''-
class science missions on an Ares V are:
Larger diameter payload fairing would allow larger
optics (mirrors) for a significant improvement in high
resolution imaging. The proposed Ares V 10-m (8.8-m usable)
diameter payload fairing is roughly twice the diameter of the
largest fairings available on the Atlas 5 or Delta IV
(collectively referred to as EELV).
Larger payload volume could lower complexity and
mission risk by reducing the number of deployment mechanisms
required to fit a spacecraft into a EELV-sized payload fairing.
Larger payload volume may also reduce or eliminate the need for
in-space robotic assembly of larger spacecraft.
Larger payload mass would allow for redundant
components for longer service life, and additional instruments,
propulsion elements and propellant. Mission concepts that
require multiple EELV launches could be consolidated into a
single Ares V launch with integration of as much hardware as
possible prior to launch.
Future derivatives of the Orion crew capsule that
include provisions for extra vehicular activities (EVA) could
enable astronauts to assemble, service, repair and modernize
science spacecraft outside of LEO, for instance at Sun-Earth L2
which is the proposed location for several large astronomical
instruments and a potential stepping stone destination on the
path to Mars. In the same way that the Hubble Space Telescope
has been rejuvenated four times over its 18-year life, human
servicing capability at L2 could greatly extend the useful life
of spacecraft and instruments.
I am not aware of any reliable cost estimates for an Ares V launch,
but it seems reasonable to assume that the incremental cost of a launch
vehicle capable of putting 140 MT into LEO would be several times the
cost of a 25 MT-capable launcher. Similarly, the cost of a science
payload that requires such lift capability or would take advantage of
the payload volume of the Ares V would be considerably more costly than
``flagship'' missions currently being developed for launch on EELV.
If Ares V launch vehicles were available for science missions in
2025 or later, there would undoubtedly be a number of mission concepts
that would enable a qualitative new approach to the important
scientific questions in fields such as astronomy, astrophysics,
heliophysics, Earth science, or planetary science to name a few.
However, the greatly increased payload capability promised by Ares V
would also result in more costly science payloads and significantly
more expensive launch vehicles. One billion dollar ``flagship'' class
missions could well be superseded by $5B to $10B ``super flagship''
missions.
Unless the space science budget grows as the launcher capability
grows, science missions that take full advantage of the capabilities of
the Ares V cannot reasonably be flown on a routine basis.
Two post-workshop follow-on activities are in progress at this time.
Workshop organizers are in the process of writing a detailed summary of
the presentations and discussions that led to the consensus statements.
Not seeking a consensus of all workshop participants, the intention is
to represent the nuances of the discussions and various points of view,
and to provide recommendations for the next Administration's
consideration. The Planetary Society, a co-host of the workshop, is
conducting a series of ``town hall meetings'' at several cities around
the country to gain an understanding of public opinion on topics
addressed at the workshop. The Society will use the results of these
discussions to produce a roadmap for space exploration for the next
Administration and Congress. The roadmap will cover robotic missions of
exploration, human space flight, international activities, and public
interests. The first of the town hall meetings was held on March 29 in
Brookline, MA.
In summary, it is time to go beyond LEO with humans as explorers. To do
so, we must have a space transportation system that will enable humans
to travel to the Moon, Mars and beyond; without it any debate of
destinations and goals for human space exploration is pointless. We
will explore with multinational partners to serve our own national and
international interests, as well as to advance knowledge. With the
goals clearly in focus, budgets and schedules must be balanced for an
affordable, sustainable and successful space exploration program.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the Committee for your staunch
support of the space exploration program and the opportunity to express
my views today. I would be happy to answer any questions.
[THE JOINT COMMUNIQUE ISSUED REPRESENTING THE CONSENSUS VIEW OF THE
WORKSHOP]
Space Experts Say: Restore Funding and Enhance International Outreach
to Put Humans on Mars While Sustaining NASA's Science Mission
The Planetary Society
STANFORD, CA--NASA's program for human exploration must lead to Mars
and beyond, and achieving that goal will require future presidents to
embrace international collaboration and to fund NASA at a level that
will also sustain its vital science programs, stated the organizers of
a space exploration workshop today after intensive discussions Feb 12
and 13.
``This workshop achieved a consensus that NASA's resources have not
been commensurate with its mandated missions of exploration and
science,'' said G. Scott Hubbard, former Director of NASA's Ames
Research Laboratory in Mountain View, California, and a consulting
professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford.
``The next administration should make the human space flight goal
an international venture focused on Mars--both to bring in more public
support and to sustain the program politically,'' added Louis Friedman,
Executive Director of The Planetary Society in Pasadena, California.
Friedman; Hubbard; Kathryn Thornton, a former astronaut and current
Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the
University of Virginia; and Wesley T. Huntress, Geophysical Laboratory,
Carnegie Institution of Washington co-organized the workshop.
The Workshop Joint Communique
In particular the attendees agreed to the following set of six
statements:
It is time to go beyond LEO with people as explorers.
The purpose of sustained human exploration is to go to Mars and
beyond. The significance of the Moon and other intermediate
destinations is to serve as stepping stones on the path to that
goal.
Bringing together scientists, astronauts, engineers,
policy analysts, and industry executives in a single
conversation created an environment where insights across
traditional boundaries occurred.
Human space exploration is undertaken to serve
national and international interests. It provides important
opportunities to advance science, but science is not the
primary motivation.
Sustained human exploration requires enhanced
international collaboration and offers the United States an
opportunity for global leadership.
NASA has not received the budget increases to support
the mandated human exploration program as well as other vital
parts of the NASA portfolio, including space science,
aeronautics, technology requirements, and especially Earth
observations, given the urgency of global climate change.
Additional recommendations will be provided by the
organizers and participants in this workshop.
About the workshop
The two-day workshop, co-sponsored by The Planetary Society and the
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, was
an invitation-only meeting of 45 space exploration experts, including
top scientists, former NASA officials, and leading aerospace industry
executives. Eight of the attendees were former astronauts (for the
agenda and attendees see http://soe.stanford.edu/research/evlist.html
or http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/
space-advocacy/examining-the-vision.pdf
).
The group gathered privately to engage in a frank, wide-ranging
discussion of the Bush Administration's Vision for Space Exploration
and the policy options facing the new administration that will take
office in January 2009.
Topics discussed by the attendees in a series of 90-minute panels
included scientific exploration; Earth science and climate change;
lunar exploration; sending humans to Mars; alternate human exploration
destinations; humans versus robots for exploration; vehicles for
accessing low-Earth orbits and beyond; emerging entrepreneurial space
activity; and international collaboration.
``The Space Shuttle has been an incredible workhorse in low-Earth
orbit for more than 25 years, but now it is time for humans to move out
into the solar system,'' Thornton said.
Examining the Vision Workshop:
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/
space-advocacy/2008-workshop.html
Biography for Kathryn C. Thornton
Kathryn C. Thornton is a Professor at the University of Virginia in
the School of Engineering and Applied Science in the Department of
Science, Technology and Society and Associate Dean for Graduate
Programs in Engineering. She earned her Masters of Science and Ph.D. in
physics from the University of Virginia in 1977 and 1979, respectively,
and a Bachelor's of Science in physics from Auburn University in 1974.
From 1984 to 1996, Thornton was a NASA astronaut and is a veteran of
four Space Shuttle missions. She has logged over 975 hours in space,
including more than 21 hours of extra vehicular activity (EVA).
Thornton was a mission specialist on the crew of STS-33 which
launched at night from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, in 1989 aboard
the Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission carried Department of Defense
payloads and other secondary payloads. In 1992 on her second flight,
Thornton served on the crew of STS-49 on board the maiden flight of the
new Space Shuttle Endeavour. During the mission the crew performed four
EVAs (space walks) to retrieve, repair and deploy the International
Telecommunications Satellite (INTELSAT), and to demonstrate and
evaluate numerous EVA tasks to be used for the assembly of Space
Station Freedom. The following year Thornton was again a mission
specialist EVA crew member aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the
STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing and repair mission.
During the 11-day flight, the HST was captured and restored to full
capacity through a five space walks by four astronauts. On her final
mission in 1995, Thornton served aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-
73, as the payload commander of the second United States Microgravity
Laboratory mission. The mission focused on materials science,
biotechnology, combustion science, the physics of fluids, and other
scientific experiments housed in the pressurized Spacelab module.
Since leaving NASA, Thornton has served on several review
committees and task groups, including the NASA Mars Program Independent
Assessment Team and the Return to Flight Task Group which evaluated
NASA's work in meeting goals set by the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board prior to resumption of Space Shuttle flights. Dr. Thornton also
served on the NRC Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, the
Committee for Technological Literacy, and the Committee on Meeting the
Workforce Needs for the National Vision for Space Exploration, and is
currently a member of an NRC Committee assessing science opportunities
enabled by NASA's Constellation system. She also is a co-author on
Pearson Scott Foresman's K-6 grade Science program. Prior to becoming
an astronaut, Thornton was employed as a physicist at the U.S. Army
Foreign Science and Technology Center in Charlottesville, VA.
Dr. Thornton is the recipient of numerous awards including NASA
Space Flight Medals, the Explorer Club Lowell Thomas Award, the
University of Virginia Distinguished Alumna Award, the Freedom
Foundation Freedom Spirit Award, and the National Intelligence Medal of
Achievement.
Discussion
Chairman Udall. Thank you, Dr. Thornton. Speaking as a
Member of this committee, I want to express my appreciation for
the Stanford workshop, and you undertook that effort with the
same spirit of risk that you undertook the four missions to
Shuttle as an astronaut. So thank you.
I know the members of the panel here noted with interest
your term lively to describe the discussions you had. We have a
lot of lively discussions here in the United States House of
Representatives as well.
At this point, we will open our first round of questions.
The Chair recognizes himself for five minutes, and I would like
to start with Dr. Gilbrech, focusing on Constellation and
particularly the status of the CEV and the CLV projects. First,
are there any Constellation-related contract modifications in
process or being contemplated that would alter, add tasks, or
change performance requirements; and if so, what are they, why
are they needed, and what is the cost impact of the changes?
Easy set of questions, I know.
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir. Well, as you are aware, we have
gotten all the stack under contract. We finished all the Ares I
contracts by the end of 2007. We have been working with
Lockheed-Martin in the Orion arena. We had done one contract
mod in April of last year that accounted for several of the
changes that were as a result of things like moving the date
from 2011 to 2013. Some of the launch abort system tasks that
we had added, so we have made that contract mod and that value
went from $3.9 billion to $4.3 billion. Right now we are in the
process of going to PDR, so we have got our best take on the
requirements that we have and we are negotiating with Lockheed-
Martin. We will inform this committee as soon as we have those
negotiations firm. Those are all negotiated terms that are
within the reserves of the project, so we don't expect that
there should be any challenges presented by that and we will be
happy to report those.
Chairman Udall. Thank you, and the Committee looks forward
to those ongoing reports and any additional information you
might want to add to fill out the question I asked.
Ms. Chaplain, if I could turn to you, what do you see as
the greatest risks to the successful development of the
Constellation system and are you satisfied that NASA has
developed a sufficiently detailed risk management process to
help monitor and mitigate risks for Ares and Orion?
Ms. Chaplain. We haven't assessed their risk management
process in and of itself, but we have certainly relied on it to
help us identify the risk areas, and it has been very useful in
that regard. So I think the technical and requirements risks
are very well-understood. When it comes to developing risk
mitigation strategies, the important thing is to see how they
are tied to dollars and schedule; and I believe that is what
NASA has been doing.
In terms of the overall risks we just see going forward,
they are pretty much what I mentioned in the testimony at this
point. It is making sure requirements are fully defined by the
time you hit that preliminary design review and then gaining
all the knowledge you need on technology development,
especially with the components that are requiring a bit of new
work, like the J-2X engine. And going forward, the two things
that we will always be looking at are things like funding
commitments and making sure they are sustained. Whenever you
have disruptions, you have a lot of reverberating effects on a
program. So if there are future things like continuing
resolutions, we would be looking to see what the subsequent
impacts of those things are.
You just mentioned requirements changes or contract changes
which are normal at this point in the cycle. What we would look
at going further once you have committed to the program, you
pass your preliminary design review, what kinds of changes do
you make at that point and what kind of consequences do they
have on the program.
Chairman Udall. When you mentioned continuing resolutions,
of course, the United States Congress plays a role in getting
resolutions up. I appreciate your reminding us of that
important responsibility.
If I could turn back to Dr. Gilbrech, do you agree with the
GAO's assessment of the risks and uncertainties that remain;
and in your opinion, what are the leading risk areas associated
with the CEV and the CLV and how do you propose to mitigate
them?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. We have worked with
GAO on their report, and we appreciate the responsibility they
have in reporting to Congress. We always want to maintain
visibility and transparency so that you are comfortable that we
are spending the taxpayers' dollars wisely. So we have worked
with them closely on their reports, and we agree with their
findings and are implementing their recommendations.
You asked about risks. Probably the biggest risk to me is
not really technical, it is the stability that was mentioned in
some of the other opening statements, of the program. The
funding, ability for us to stay the course and be able to go
through administration changes and Congressional cycles and be
able to stay on a longer term path. It really does take that
long-term commitment to execute a program of this magnitude.
This is the first time we have had a new space policy direction
in 35 years, and it doesn't turn on a dime. So again, that is
kind of my overarching, what keeps me awake at night problem.
But if you get down to the second one, technically integration
across all the different elements, the Orion, the first stage,
the upper stage, the Orion, making sure that everything is
properly integrated is one of the other biggest challenges in
my mind. We have other technical issues as any new rocket
development program will have. Among those we have got some of
the thrust oscillation issues that you have been hearing about
and I mentioned in my opening statement. To me that is nothing
that is alarming, it is nothing that was unexpected. These are
the types of things you run across when you start to develop
new rockets and try to integrate them, and you get smarter as
you try to mature towards PDR. The J-2X was also mentioned. We
have taken strides to add extra hardware to the program. We
have also--one of the concerns of the GAO was having enough
test facilities. We have worked with the Space Shuttle
Management Program to not only have the A1 Test Stand down at
Stennis which is currently doing J-2X testing, but also to
secure the A2 Test Stand to do some more early testing that we
know will be challenged to do. We typically know that there are
as many as 29 rework cycles in developing a new engine, and so
you require an awful lot of testing to do that. But we feel
like now we have a robust test program and a test plan, and we
are marching forward with that.
Another risk is a launch abort system which is a new system
that actually contains three new solid rocket motors. They are
small scale but they are new solid rocket development programs.
We again have a robust test program to address that. We have
been doing some of the early motor firings. We actually just
have delivered the Pad Abort-1 Orion Simulator out to Dryden
Research Facility to be outfitted with avionics. That will be
sent to White Sands Missile Range where we will be doing an
actual pad abort test by the end of this calendar year, and we
have a series of those abort tests planned to prove out the
concepts before we actually fly and put humans on board.
Chairman Udall. Thank you for that helpful analysis of
where we are.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr. Feeney,
from Florida for five minutes.
Mr. Feeney. Thank you, and I would like to follow up where
the Chairman left off. Ms. Chaplain, you have pointed out some
of the challenges. We manage the program into the future, you
have got an extensive report which we appreciate. Do you agree
with Dr. Gilbrech that despite the technical issues and despite
the definitional issues that you described that the biggest
risk to the program is stability and Congressional and
presidential leadership in the coming years?
Ms. Chaplain. I think because it is a very long-term
effort, that a commitment is absolutely needed through
administrations as well as funding stability. One of the number
one things that tends to disrupt programs that we review are
funding shifts, stops and starts; and it really hampers what
the program managers are trying to do in terms of execution,
especially in space efforts where you have a lot of long lead
items that you need to purchase.
At the same time, you know, there are other common things
that programs tend to face that don't have to deal with
funding, and those issues are like requirements, changes, and
some technical challenges; and I think those are always going
to be present and need to be watched as this program moves
forward.
Mr. Feeney. Some of those you have laid out in your report.
Ms. Chaplain. Yes.
Mr. Feeney. Would you agree that it is fair to say that
while your report is very comprehensive in noting the
challenges ahead, that there have been no serious or fatal
flaws thus far in advancing toward the program on NASA's part?
Ms. Chaplain. None that we have determined to be a fatal
flaw.
Mr. Feeney. Dr. Gilbrech, while our best scientists have
been preparing to take humans beyond low-Earth orbit, you may
or may not have noticed that Americans have been involved in a
political election year. And one of the potential collateral
effects of that is we may in fact have a continuing resolution
which Ms. Chaplain--a lot of us on this committee, you know,
would like to see something different. But if we have a
continuing resolution for 2009 that effectively provides 2008
funding, what does that do for the March 2015 schedule that
NASA is trying to obtain?
Dr. Gilbrech. Congressman, we have looked at that, and it
depends on the length of the continuing resolution. If it is a
part-year resolution, then we do wind up with a 2009 funded
level--we get that passed and it wouldn't be as big of an
impact. But if we did wind up with another year-long continuing
resolution like we did in 2007, our 2008 budget to 2009 would
be decreased by about $350 million in exploration; and as we
said, our rule of thumb in the program is about $100 million
cut----
Mr. Feeney. A month.
Dr. Gilbrech.--a month, so about four months of scheduled
delay on the March 2015.
Mr. Feeney. Okay. Ms. Chaplain, again, I thought your
report was very comprehensive. With respect to Congress' role,
how should we take the challenges that you have laid out, and
what should Congress be focused on? Should we be focused on
definitional issues, milestones, critical decision points,
program reviews? You know, if you were the Chairman and the
Ranking Member, what would you be planning to do the next three
or four years as oversight? Other than getting funding, which
is a given.
Ms. Chaplain. Right. We always focus on several key
milestones in a development program where we know that best
practice organizations have gained certain pieces of knowledge
at that point that makes them know it is okay to move forward.
They have the assurance they need that what they are trying to
do can be executed well.
The first major milestone is this preliminary design review
coming up, and what we like to see at that point is whether new
technologies being developed are mature to a point where you
can estimate costs and time and whether requirements are
stable. So do you know what you are setting out to achieve and
do you know that you have the resources to achieve that? And
that would be this upcoming preliminary design review.
Then the mid-point of a program is usually the critical
design review, and there we really look to see whether design
is stable; and the common measure that is used is the number of
design drawings that are releasable. And the indicator there,
if there is about 90 percent drawings releasable, you have a
good assurance that design is stable and you are ready to move
forward to the next stages. Then when we get close to
production, we look at some production indicators, whether the
processes that are going to be used in production are stable or
not.
So with those three key gates, there are indicators you can
use to see how the program is progressing. In addition to that,
we always track things like software growth and whether
assumptions about the use of heritage technologies and hardware
are still valid in the program. And we also track things like
weight growth because in space programs, that tends to be a
particular issue if weight just creeps up during the
development and if it is not addressed.
Mr. Feeney. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I hope with
the indulgence of the Committee, we may have an opportunity for
a second round subject to votes. But I would like to point out
if I may that Ms. Chaplain's report is very comprehensive. She
did state in her testimony that she hopes NASA will continue to
be as candid as it has been thus far, and I think we ought to
recognize that candor will be important for the GAO, for
Congress, and the public; and we do appreciate the candor thus
far.
With that, I will yield back.
Chairman Udall. I thank the Ranking Member, and I also
would note that the Ranking Member in his comments alluded to a
job that all of us here on the Committee in regards to our
presidential--potential presidential nominees, so I am counting
on Congressman Feeney to make sure that Senator McCain
understands the importance of the Exploration Initiative and I
know Congressman Lampson and I and other Members on this side
of the aisle will make sure that Senator Obama and Senator
Clinton know this not only is important to NASA but it is
important to the country's economic future.
Mr. Feeney. If I can respond just briefly, I want to assure
the Chairman that I, along with some great leaders at the Space
Coast and around the country really, for space, gave an
absolutely brilliant briefing on the importance of the Space
Program. Unfortunately, we gave it to Governor Romney who I had
supported at the time. But we are in practice.
Chairman Udall. On that note, it is a great pleasure to
recognize the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and
Environment, the Member from Texas, Mr. Lampson, for five
minutes.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Feeney, get ready
to make that presentation again as soon as you possibly can.
Dr. Thornton, I think you are certainly right. It is indeed
time for humans to go beyond low-Earth orbit. I just hope that
those humans are from the United States of America, that we
don't lose the commitment that we have been talking about here
and let someone else beat us to it. So obviously that is why we
are here, and I hope that we can keep our focus and understand
what unbelievable returns we have gotten for our standard of
living and quality of life and economy and everything else that
NASA has given to us because of these dreams that we have
achieved--strived to achieve and have indeed achieved, no
question.
But Dr. Gilbrech, if you were provided with a significant
funding increase to the Constellation Program on the order of a
billion or $2 billion, what would you use the money for in
specific terms and how much of an impact would the extra
funding have?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir, Congressman and of course we
support the President's budget, but if the Congress would enact
extra funds, we reported previously in hearings that $1 billion
in fiscal year 2009 and $1 billion in fiscal year 2010 would
accelerate the initial operating capability at the 65 percent
confidence level that we are currently holding back to
September 2013, we would simply have the reserves in the year
that we need to address the kind of problems that we see that
would bring us back into the 2013 timeframe. I personally would
also like to look at adding more robust flight test programs.
That is something that we can never do enough of, is test what
we fly. You want to always fly and learn in the early test
programs because all the ground analysis and ground tests never
really quite fill in all the gaps that a flight test program
does.
Mr. Lampson. If United States access to the International
Space Station was accelerated by this extra funding, would this
have a commensurate affect on a projected human lunar landing
date?
Dr. Gilbrech. Right now, we are just in the early
formulations for the human lunar return, and as was stated, our
current goal is by 2019 is to put boots back on the Moon. So
certainly progress in the early stages with the Ares I and the
Orion would certainly make that much more--higher confidence
and potentially pull that up, but it is a little far in the
future for us to put that kind of fidelity to it. I think it
would certainly make our 2020 commitment firm, our 2019 target
much more achievable and could potentially accelerate that
date.
Mr. Lampson. Ms. Chaplain, your testimony indicates that
NASA's assessment that it could accelerate the Constellation
Program's initial operational capability date to 2013 with an
additional $2 billion as highly optimistic. You go on to state
that given the linear nature of a traditional test-analyze-fix-
test cycle, even large funding increases offer no guarantee of
program acceleration. Given the difficult situation we find
ourselves in with the possibility of a five-year gap, what
credible options do we have for closing that gap if we don't
add more money to the Constellation Program?
Ms. Chaplain. I think I agree with what Dr. Gilbrech was
saying, that the funding could be used to increase your
confidence levels of hitting that 2013 rate. It doesn't
necessarily mean that it is going to speed up activities that
are already laid out on the books because they are already
pretty highly compressed, and testing does have to occur in
sequence. So I am not doubting that they could have more
confidence to the 2013 date. What we meant to say is there is
only so much you can do to shrink what is already there for
certain aspects of the program. That would be the J-2X engine
and the upper stage, that there is--it is highly unlikely that
you are going to get those things to come under what schedules
they have now. As I understand it, the schedules are sort of
laid out to hit the 2013 mark. Extra money would help. You have
more confidence in that. Even at a 65 percent confidence level,
you still have to recognize that is 35 percent confidence. You
might not hit that--you won't hit that date.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Gilbrech, do you agree with Ms. Chaplain's
assessment of the feasibility of accelerating the Constellation
Program if more money was added? If not, why not? What are your
thoughts?
Dr. Gilbrech. I think we are in agreement that the reserves
allow us to tackle problems against that aggressive 2013
schedule date, but again, our external commitment is the March
2015 because we know we can sign up and meet that date at the
65 percent. I don't want to get hung up on 65 percent because I
really see this as a very achievable architecture. I have
worked a lot of programs that have tried to replace the
Shuttle, so I have some scars underneath my jacket here. The X-
30 program was the Ronald Reagan era of the Orient Express. It
was an air breather that was supposed to take us up to orbit, a
huge technological challenge and a revolutionary leap in
technology. I also worked the X-33, and there again, we were
trying to go single stage to orbit. It was a composite vehicle,
had a linear aerospike engine which worked beautifully, but
unfortunately, the fuel tank technology wound up burying that
program.
So we are using a very evolved technology approach here. We
are using Shuttle solid-rocket boosters that have a rich flight
heritage. We are using upper stage which J-2X engines have
their roots in Apollo heritage. So for my mind, the schedule, I
have a very high confidence in the 2015 date and if there were
additional money, the 65 percent would just buy us additional
confidence in the 2013 aggressive date. So I view it more as we
have a very evolved, achievable technology path ahead of us
than anything I have seen in the past.
Mr. Lampson. My time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Udall. Mr. Lampson, Dr. Hinners, I couldn't help
but note that you mentioned the witness protection program
earlier in your remarks. I know of no witnesses coming before
this committee that has needed the witness protection program.
I do, however, suggest that given what I know about Mr.
Lampson's Congressional District and Mr. Rohrabacher's
Congressional District, that they may at some point need the
witness protection program.
On that note, I did want to recognize the gentleman from
California. He is a very engaged and productive and
contributing Member of the Committee, Dr. Congressman
Rohrabacher from the great State of California. I don't think
he is actually a doctor but we treat him as one. Mr.
Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Just one note, after you have been here 20 years, the most
visible aspect is that from up here, when I got here 20 years
ago, the witnesses were all older than I was, and they seem to
be younger than I am. And over that 20 years, I have noticed,
and I certainly understand and I have heard this before, about
the instability of our funding and the effect that it has on a
long-term space program and long-term goals. Let me just note
that what I perceive is that instability of funding can be
traced back to the fact that it is almost impossible for people
to prioritize spending. And if we were able to prioritize in
the beginning, we would have much more stability. That lack of
ability to prioritize is not just on the part of Congress,
however, it is also on the part of the space community. So what
I would ask you now--and of course, Dr. Martin, of course, who
just came for this robust discussion, what areas have been
identified as the least justified spending that is going on our
space program today? Dr. Thornton, let me start with you. Did
anyone identify--see, everyone can talk about what should be
plussed up, but no one is willing to talk about what should not
be in the budget. So maybe you could help me. Was there any
discussion about things that were not justified that we are
spending money on today?
Dr. Thornton. I don't know that I can say there was a
discussion of not justified, but I think there was pretty
widespread agreement that what has happened on the Space
Station has not captured the public's attention. And orbiting
the Earth over and over and over again is not capturing or
holding the public's attention. What we need to do is have
these goals. Maybe Mars is too far into the future.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And so you're saying your recommendation
would be to cut funds for the Space Station Program, is that
right?
Dr. Thornton. Well, I think that we have to finish it for
international partners.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you want to actually spend more money
on it? Okay. Frankly, this is what we got. For the last 20
years, that is what I have identified. Not one witness--I have
asked this question a dozen times--has ever been able to tell
me what is the least-justified spending. They are always
willing to say, well, they all have their own special program.
They want to plus up. Does anyone have anything else they want
to jump in as well?
Dr. Thornton. I think I said that we needed to balance
expectations and budget. You know, I think that----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am not asking for balance, I am asking
for what you would like to cut spending on----
Dr. Thornton. Nothing.
Mr. Rohrabacher.--and if we could get----
Dr. Thornton. Nothing.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Nothing? Okay. Well, that is why we don't
have a stable program because no one is willing to say it. Are
there any other witnesses willing to tell me where it is the
least-justified? Okay. So nothing has changed. Let me just
notice, it is not just the responsibility of Members of
Congress. It is also the responsibility of you and the rest of
the people in the space community to tell us this. Now, all we
get is people telling us where we need to spend more. Well, if
we want stable spending, we have got to find out where we need
to spend less and get some good expertise advice on it so we
can set priorities.
One of the things that I have seen that might help us out
in terms of making sure that we have the resources available to
meet the goals, which of course, people are willing to say we
need to spend more money on, is perhaps a initiative that would
not cost money, initiatives that would not cost actually more
money but that actually might give us more bang for the buck.
One would be, which I pushed on, is trying to find as many
opportunities for commercial space endeavors which could then
bring new revenue into our whole concept. Are there any
opportunities there that you see in terms of space exploration
and programs you are talking about in terms of attracting new
commercial endeavors?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, Congressman Rohrabacher, as I said in my
statement, we reinstated full funding for the Commercial
Orbital Transportation Services. We now have two funded
partners with SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences was recently added.
We also have five unfunded partners in our Space Act
agreements, and we are very encouraged with the progress they
are making and we want--we would really like to stimulate this
market and get us out of the responsibility of low-Earth orbit
cargo delivery. So I see that as budding.
And then we also are encouraged by Google X prize and some
of the other things that are really capturing the imagination--
--
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. I see my time is up.
If the Chairman would indulge me one last thought, quickly, one
of the other--space commercialization is of course something
that could give us more resources. Another area that I have
identified is more expanded space cooperation, especially in
the Moon effort. I would think anybody who is committed to this
project, which I am, would think that the new President of the
Untied States or the current President or hopefully a future
president, Democrat or Republican, could go and see our friends
in Russia and establish a whole new initiative based on a
partnership to go to the Moon which the Russians have a lot to
contribute which would then open up resources for us to expand
our efforts. So I call on the new president to make a new,
major initiative with Russia to see if they can become partners
in our whole Moon endeavor.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lampson. [Presiding] Many other partners probably would
be interested in that, Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you. And while
that line of questioning was going on, Chairman Udall had to
respond to another matter and left the chair and has turned
over the gavel to me. So I will be sitting in this chair for
the next few minutes, and with that, as we move to the second
round of questioning, I will recognize myself as acting Chair
for the next five minutes.
And let me just throw a question out there for your
comments for just a minute, anybody who would like to make a
comment on it. Putting aside for a moment the issues that we
have discussed today about how best to implement a human
exploration program, it appears to me that each of you thinks
it is worthwhile for the Nation to undertake human exploration
beyond low-Earth orbit. Why do you think it is important for
the Nation to explore beyond low-Earth orbit? Who would like to
begin?
Dr. Gilbrech. I would certainly lead off since it is my
prime job of wanting to get us there. I believe we need to lead
space exploration to really be viewed as a global leader and
maintain our global preeminence. I also see it as a strategic
capability. Whenever you see things that pop up all across in
different applications, you should recognize them as strategic
capabilities. The Department of Defense uses space, NASA uses
space, Marshall is interested in space, our international
partners are interested in human exploration of space. So I
view that as us to maintain our edge as global leadership. That
is probably the key reason.
As was mentioned here, I view also that the Moon is a
stepping stone to Mars. Some of the Mars missions, even if I
were told that was my prime directorate tomorrow, I would not
alter the path I am on today. We have so much to learn from the
Moon, and being three days away from home, it would prove out
the technologies that we need for a 30-month mission to Mars. I
see that as the most responsible and achievable way we can
build that kind of an architect. I personally believe there is
also a lot of science interest left to be discovered on the
Moon. I mean, we had with the Apollo program for all of its
accomplishments, we put 12 people on the surface for three-day
stints at a time and it is a land mass or surface area the size
of Africa; and to say we have exhausted all the scientific
discovery there just doesn't compute to me.
Mr. Lampson. Anybody else want to make a comment?
Dr. Hinners. Yes, I would like add to that. You have raised
a very basic question, though, essentially, why humans in
space? To me it does go beyond the science. Indeed, astronauts
can conduct a lot of science activity but also we can do a lot
and maybe even a lot more robotically. But humans can add to
the accomplishment of science to do things which today and even
in the near future are not possible to do robotically or would
cost almost as much to do robotically as they do by having the
added cost of humans in space.
But I would also add that there is an element of humans
that you do not do robotically. Some 30 years ago I was asked
that question, and to me it was one of you don't transmit the
human spirit through an antenna. You need to be there, in
place, in person. So I do support it. And I see that in the
young people, the University of Colorado, the engineering
students and the science students. They are motivated in space-
related things by two things, robotics and human exploration.
These kids have something in their psyche that says there is
something exceptional about humans leaving the Earth and going
out to explore, becoming part of the larger cosmos.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you, Dr. Hinners. Dr. Thornton, you
testified that human missions to the Moon by the year 2020 are
exceedingly unlikely. Why do you feel that?
Dr. Thornton. Well, I have to say that is not based on any
engineering analysis, it is a guess based on Murphy's Law and
it is corollary that stuff happens. And stuff that happens
rarely accelerates the schedule or reduces the cost. So as I
said, it is a guess.
Mr. Lampson. Okay. Let me step back from the near-term
issues related to CEV and CLV and take a look at the broader
exploration program. This Committee and this Congress will be
reauthorizing NASA in 2008. What questions and issues do you
think are the most important ones for Congress to consider as
it examines NASA's plans for exploration beyond low-Earth
orbit? Dr. Gilbrech?
Dr. Gilbrech. Well, as been stated here, the question is do
we want to get out of low-Earth orbit and go onto our
exploration journey, and again, as I said, that requires
stability. The answers we are trying to provide is not just an
Apollo capability. We are providing an expanded capability that
really does build the architecture to go beyond lunar and onto
Mars and other destinations. So our architecture will put four
people on the surface of the Moon compared to the Apollo
program that put three down, three-day stays versus seven-day
stays that we will be doing, also, the outpost that we will go
into for six-month stays. All of this builds the infrastructure
to put the mass in orbit that we will need for the eventual
Mars missions. So that would be my answer.
Mr. Lampson. Would anyone else comment on that before----
Dr. Thornton. I would like to know that we have an end-goal
in mind, and every step that happens for the next 30 years
points toward that goal and not toward dead-ends or false
starts.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Hinners?
Dr. Hinners. Yes. In the 2008 appropriations bill, there is
language that prohibits NASA from doing research development or
studies on things that are exclusively related to human
exploration of Mars. That has a perverse effect of preventing
NASA from constructing an integrated exploration architecture.
In my mind, one would start with requirements for Mars, feed
that back into a lunar architecture, rather than the other way
around. And I would like to see the Congress reverse that
restriction so that NASA can better construct an integrated,
long-term architecture to assure that we are doing the most
sensible things in our earlier stepping stones.
Mr. Lampson. I will be happy to give you the name of one or
two Members of Congress who specifically feel very strongly in
this area, and I would love to go with you to go visit them. I
might even arrange that meeting if I could get you to come.
Dr. Hinners. I would be happy to participate.
Mr. Lampson. Ms. Chaplain, did you want to make a comment?
Ms. Chaplain. The decision to go beyond low-Earth orbit is
a very costly endeavor, so that kind of decision needs to be
weighed against all the other discretionary priorities
competing for funding and not just within NASA but external to
NASA.
It was mentioned earlier that we have issues with terms of
prioritizing programs for funding, and that is across the
entire government. So when you are looking at something like
this that is very long term, it is going to be very costly. You
need to make that decision in light of your other priorities.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you very much. My time is expired. I
recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Feeney.
Mr. Feeney. Thank you. The Chair has invited me to
participate in that meeting to, and I will be glad to go. On
that note, Dr. Gilbrech, Congress as a matter of policy for
reasons of compromise which is what we have to do to get things
done up here, actually prohibited any money from being spent on
the Mars Exploration Program. So at least for this year's
budget, we are prohibited from doing what Dr. Hinners has
suggested. Has that significantly impacted NASA's development
of the Constellation program?
Dr. Gilbrech. Well, as I said, it does have a somewhat
chilling effect down at the lower levels because engineers see
that and they think, well, you are not even to think of Mars as
opposed to the letter of the language that says we will not
spend 2008 on anything specific to human landing on Mars. So we
are of course following the law. We would hope to see that
change in future years. We are trying to develop all of our
lunar plans that will be extensible to Mars, and I think that
is one of the flexibilities and the beauties of our
architecture is that all the things that we are going to do and
need to do to survive and prove out these technologies on the
Moon will eventually some day pay off for a Mars mission.
Mr. Feeney. And Dr. Thornton, Mr. Lampson just asked a
question about why it is important to have humans in space to
do this exploration. A number of scientists have pointed out
that it is less risky, it is less costly, and more efficient
for some purposes to send robots or to send machines. I note
that one of the people that participated in your workshop said
that humans should replace unmanned opportunities as soon as
possible when exploration has transitioned from reconnaissance
to meaning. It went on to say that humans solve puzzles and
find meaning in data, albeit at a higher cost than our robotic
surrogates. I recently watched one of the new shows suggesting
that robots are being developed that can, how do I put this
delicately, become romantic partners for humans. I am delighted
to hear somebody defend our species, number one, and number
two, were there other people who participated in that workshop
that gave--in addition to what we have heard from Dr. Gilbrech
and Dr. Hinners--reasons why humans need to be part of space
exploration?
Dr. Thornton. We did talk about the goals of science and
exploration being different. Whereas humans can help science
and science certainly enables the human expansion into the
solar system. The basic motivations for that is entirely
different. I had a conversation earlier in the week with a
professor of anthropology about the migrations of humans around
the planet over the last however many thousands of years, and
he told me that it is cultures that don't recognize their
limits that tend to expand and colonize. Well, I hope that we
don't recognize our limits, and I hope that this isn't the
generation that decides this is it, we have hit our limits. We
are not going anywhere else. So I think it is that inspiration
that is part of it. I think it is that drive in us that is part
of us. In another workshop, a participant remarked, they don't
name high schools after robots. And so it is--you know, I think
that is the drive for us to do it. Certainly we need to enable
science--the participant who said that humans should replace
robots when exploration is transitioned from reconnaissance to
meaning was actually one of the scientists, and I was very
surprised that the support from the scientists in the group for
human exploration as a tool for them. Some of them were very
adamant that there are things that humans can do that robots
cannot, the intellectual, the putting together of the pieces,
the understanding which rock to go after is innate to humans
and we don't build robots to do that yet.
Mr. Feeney. Well, and I have some of the same fears you do
that it might be, if we are not careful, 2019 or so before we
get back to the Moon, you cited Murphy's Law and others to
suggest that that is what you basically get a sense, and that
things simply don't get accelerated. But I would point out that
at some times on rare instances things do get accelerated
around here, and I am afraid that we may need another Sputnik
type moment. The Chinese have over 100 universities working on,
for example, lunar rover equipment. That is what they admit to.
Most of it is done within their defense department which is
very shadowy. And Chairman Udall suggested that we don't hope
we get back into a space race. The truth of the matter is we
just don't know what the Chinese long-term intentions are. They
are not part of our international partners. One of the reasons
I am going to China is to explore what they are up to and how
we can cooperate if possible. But if not, I hope it doesn't
take another Sputnik type moment for us to re-energize our
human exploration capabilities. And if it does, I sure hope it
doesn't come too late to put our program and the workforce and
the talents back together. It is a fear I think about every
day.
With that, I will yield back.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you, Mr. Feeney. I think Sputnik is
here. I think the fact that the Japanese have a satellite
around our Moon right now, the fact that China has just said
that they will beat us to the surface of the Moon. If we don't
wake up and respond to that, why should we not believe others
will begin to claim our position of technological leadership in
this world--if we allow it to happen I believe.
Mr. Rohrabacher. More words of wisdom.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. I too am concerned
about the Chinese, while at the same time I am certainly very
positive about cooperation with the Russians. I think the
Chinese still maintain the world's worst human rights abusers
as a part of their government. I would be very supportive of
any efforts that we might have to ensure that the Chinese do
not overtake us in space endeavors. And one of the ways we can
do that is to make sure that we are being realistic with the
limited resources that we have, and I just want to make sure
that people who read this record of this hearing that they do
not come away thinking there is any type of a consensus that we
should be making Mars the driving force for prioritizing our
spending. That would be perverse. That would be giving up what
we can accomplish today for something that is a majestic dream
as we march to the future. But that is not the way to have a
realistic and a responsible policy of America's space
exploration. Let me just for the record say that I am 100
percent in favor of that limitation saying that we should not
be spending money on things that are exclusively for
accomplishing a future manned Mars mission. We have other
things that we need to do. Do we need to fix the Hubble
telescope? The Chairman of this Subcommittee took the
leadership on ensuring that we did not just let that asset go,
and that cost us some money. Quite frankly, I supported that.
Should we be making sure that we have a very robust system for
identifying near-Earth objects that may indeed be a threat to
the Earth and should we establish a system on how to counteract
those threats if we find something headed in our direction? The
answer is yes. Should we be utilizing space so we can put a
greater effort into conserving and utilizing the Earth's
resources for the benefit of humankind? Yes. All of those
things cost money. It would be a horrible disservice to the
people of the world and especially to the taxpayers of the
United States for us to start prioritizing our spending based
on the idea of stepping a human foot on Mars 30 or 40 years
down the road. That would be a horrible misuse of the money
when we have other things that we need to do that can help
people right now. So let me make sure that that is thoroughly
on the record.
And again, how are we going to make sure that we utilize
the resources that we have more effectively? And we have talked
about, at least I have brought up today, commercialization and
cooperation, and my colleagues have talked about cooperation as
well. So let me just say that does not mean that the United
States of America should step back from developing its own
technology in making sure that we are the leaders in space
technology. We can do that by relying perhaps with others to
help us produce let us say the less-advanced technologies or
give us some insights. Just one last question. I see my time is
running out here. Does anyone on this panel have any, and this
is just inquiry, does anyone on this panel have any information
about any Federal Government agency, including NASA, being
involved in any way in anti-gravity research? Just say yes or
no, that I do know or don't know. Just right down the line. You
don't know? You don't know? Okay. This is just for my own
edification. Thank you very much.
Mr. Lampson. I have more questions, so if you don't mind,
we can continue our questioning.
Dr. Gilbrech, one of the more controversial decisions in
the Exploration Program was the decision to develop the Ares I
and Ares V launch vehicles rather than modifying the existing
evolved, expendable launch vehicle, EELV, family used by DOD.
In addition, some have criticized NASA for developing two new
launch vehicles rather than a single launch vehicle as proposed
in the so-called direct concept. Did NASA examine the
alternatives of using either an EELV based architecture or a
direct architecture instead of the Ares I and Ares V approach?
If so, why did you wind up rejecting those approaches? You can
provide a more detailed answer on the record if you want to.
Give me whatever you can now.
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir, Congressman. And Mike Griffin
elaborated it much more eloquently than I did in his recent
speech which was part of the charter of the hearing today. But
in summary, yes, those were traded very thoroughly using the
evolved expendable launch vehicle as a starting point for our
current architecture. It had several weaknesses as far as
having to human rate that rocket which has been expendable and
not been human rated. It would have also required an upper
stage development like the Ares I rocket, so those are some of
the challenges there. It also didn't address the heavy lift
element that would have required us to go with the Ares V
development that we are doing here. So in terms of cost,
schedule, and risk, it just did not trade equally with the
current architecture that we picked. And that was reviewed and
vetted with the Department of Defense, the Government
Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and all
agreed that we had picked the best scenario.
The other one you mentioned, the direct launcher, there was
a similar architecture like that that was in that exploration
systems architecture study. The claims for the direct launcher,
we have actually had our Ares projects look at that and we
can't justify based on laws of physics the performance that are
being claimed by that approach. So we don't claim to have a
market on good ideas. We also like to go investigate them and
make sure they are credible, and we believe we have the best
architecture on the books.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Gilbrech, Dr. Hinners testified that
bringing potential partners in early in the concept formation
phase where they contribute to structuring the basic approach
strikes me as the right way to approach international
cooperation. Do you agree? And if no, why not?
Dr. Gilbrech. I agree whole heartedly. In fact, we just had
announced our lunar assignments back in October, and we were
intentionally leaving the architecture, certain elements of
that open to international and commercial participation. We
cordoned off certain things we think are critical such as the
base transportation infrastructure to get there, the lunar
lander, the architecture here, the space suit systems, and the
navigation and communication. We want to make sure that those
elements get established and that there are certain--for us to
lead the specs and the standards of what that does. It is kind
of common to--if you fly around the world today, air traffic
controllers speak English no matter which airline you are on
and there is a reason for that. So there are advantages to
taking control of certain aspects of early exploration.
But also are very much engaged. We have a global
exploration strategy team that started in 2006. There was over
1,000 participants. Fourteen space agencies have participated.
We took over 800 objectives for the lunar environment, both
robotic and scientific, and we boiled those down to 180
objectives, and we have also stated six specific goals and that
involves all the international communities that are interested
in participating with us.
Mr. Lampson. NASA was involved in formulating the Global
Exploration Strategy Framework for Cooperation. What if any
steps has NASA taken since then, is there a concrete plan to
implement the strategy, and what are the next steps as you see
them?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir. There is a follow-up working group
that will continue to meet and mature ideas. We are working
with all the agencies as we go through our cycles of what we
think the surface and power systems on the Moon, all the other
elements that are up for cooperation as they mature. We want to
match each country's desires and their strengths to what we
believe they can fill in the lunar architecture so I think we
have a very robust communication with the international
community and have an open door to them to participate.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Hinners, you indicated in your testimony
that ITAR is an impediment to effective cooperation in NASA's
Exploration Initiative. Do you have a sense of how much of an
impact ITAR could have on our ability to carry out a
cooperative lunar exploration program?
Dr. Hinners. I can't give you a quantitative answer to
that, yet I have seen over the years that the ITAR has made it
more difficult to first even bring foreign participants onto a
site, whether it be a jet propulsion lab or Lockheed-Martin and
creates an antagonism that results in an atmosphere of
cooperating with you is such a headache, and I am not sure I
want to do it. To the degree that we can ease some of the
restrictions and make it easier for our foreign partners to
actually work directly with us and not feel as if they are
outsiders we let in only on a very selective basis, I think we
would get better cooperation. I say this all realizing that
ITAR has well-intended and necessary functions, so I am not
suggesting we try to get rid of ITAR, but to work closely with
NASA and the State Department to see if there are ways to make
it easier to bring our foreign partners into a closer
cooperative environment with us.
Mr. Lampson. Anyone else want to comment? Yes, ma'am? Ms.
Chaplain?
Ms. Chaplain. I am not an ITAR expert but I know that GAO
has issued several reports that show that programs can do a lot
to mitigate all the challenges with ITAR if they do planning
very much early ahead. And the joint Strike Fighter program was
one such program that had to learn how to think through what
things they had to work with in ITAR several years in advance.
I also believe the Space Station effort has probably given NASA
a lot of lessons learned in terms of working under ITAR, so
they should go back now and see, like, what kind of foundation
do we need to lay now so that we don't have some of these
issues later on.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you very much. Mr. Feeney, you are
recognized.
Mr. Feeney. Yeah, just on the ITAR point, one of the things
that the Administrator asked us for this year is relief from
the ITAR situation with respect to the Soyuz which
unfortunately will be serving the International Space Station
for a short period. I know that some folks that like me want to
narrow or eliminate the gap have suggested that we simply not
re-enact ITAR to force Congress' hands to fund an elimination
of the gap. I think that is a very high-risk strategy and would
be worried about people who are suggesting that must be buying
lottery tickets to take care of their retirement years because
that is a big gamble.
By the way, I think Congressman Rohrabacher is no longer
here. I think he said it right, when there is no consensus
about whether we ought to go to Mars, I think he must clearly
think that that is a great ultimate destination that will help
inform, I think as Dr. Hinners has suggested, the way we take
the interim steps. But in addition to Mars, are there other
destinations, near-Earth objects for example? Every dozen or
couple dozen billion years we have an asteroid, you know, that
literally strikes--or meteorite that strikes and not just does
damage but dramatically changes the planet and we have a lot
more potential impacts on a smaller scale. Are there
destinations that would be useful in the ultimate goals of the
vision as set out? And Dr. Hinners or Dr. Thornton, do you want
to address that?
Dr. Thornton. There are some----
Mr. Feeney. Somewhere in between Moon and Mars.
Dr. Thornton. There are some intermediate goals that we
could look at both for technology development and for science.
One is near-Earth asteroids. Those missions could be a year or
so, and that could be our first step out of the Earth's gravity
well and longer duration flights. Also, missions to the moons
of Mars which would be similar duration to Mars missions but
would not require landing and launch systems to get people
there and back. And so there are some destinations that would
advance both the technology and the science between now and a
mission to Mars.
Mr. Feeney. Dr. Hinners, anything to add?
Dr. Hinners. I would agree with what Dr. Thornton has said,
and missions to Sun-Earth Lagrangian points as they are called
and then near-Earth objects can incrementally what I call
stress the systems. Today you would not dare undertake a three-
year transit to and from Mars, and developing that capability
is not going to be easy. But I think doing it incrementally and
not going for three years first but maybe one month to the
Lagrangian points and then many months, maybe half-a-year, to a
near-Earth object could cause us to get on a path of
incremental development. Also that would feed back into using
LEO which still has some uses to develop some of these
capabilities. The International Space Station in which we have
invested somewhere between $35 and $40 billion just in
development exclusive of launch costs, if you put a major
investment there, let us milk that investment, not excessively
obviously, but let us make the best use of that investment to
help develop these future capabilities.
Mr. Feeney. Well, on that note, Dr. Gilbrech, we are
getting down into some of the details of the programs that we
are working on. The COTS Program was originally conceived to
include opportunities for both cargo to the station and crew.
We have not funded any of the crew potential. Is that a
priority for NASA? If it is something that you had some
additional funding, would you prioritize? What is the potential
for crew development capabilities before 2015 when we have the
Constellation up and working?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, well, you are correct. Right now. Our
funded agreements only go through the uncrewed, the cargo
capabilities. So we are currently doing analysis on what it
would take to accelerate that crew capability with our current
COTS partners of the commercial market right now, and we are in
the final stages of vetting that and we would be happy to share
some of the details of that with this committee. We view any
and all sources to close the gap as ones we should be pursuing
vigorously.
Mr. Feeney. And Ms. Chaplain, that is one private program
that is not under NASA direct management and control. What
should Congress be watching for as COTS is developed
specifically?
Ms. Chaplain. You are correct that this is under a
different kind of funding mechanism, and traditionally
government agencies don't get that same kind of insight that
they have when it is a more traditional contracting mechanism.
But as I understand it in this case, NASA does have some
insight into these key gates that the COTS program will be
passing through, things like critical design review and the
flight readiness testing. So again, as with the Ares and the
Orion, at these key gates, you want to take some criteria and
see how well the programs bounce up against it, including
technology readiness, design readiness, production readiness.
There is a pretty important test coming up on SpaceX. Their
return to flight mission for their Falcon 1 vehicle, and that
will tell us a lot, if they have good standing going forward
for participating with the Space Station, if this test coming
up is successful.
Mr. Feeney. And just briefly, Dr. Gilbrech, do you have
some high level of confidence that COTS is on target right now
based on NASA's involvement?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir. This first element of COTS that we
funded in exploration is the Space Act Agreement, and that is
where NASA is basically a co-investor in development
technology. And we track them and their milestones, and that
includes the reviews that Ms. Chaplain identified. We also work
with them on visiting vehicle requirements. It ensures they
know how to approach and dock with the International Space
Station safely. So, they are making good progress. This is a
tough business. SpaceX, we recently renegotiated some of their
milestones. They are all technical problems that we would
normally expect in any type of a new rocket development
program. So that resulted in a six-month slip from their
original planned demo of cargo in September 2009 to March 2010,
but again, this is nothing out of the ordinary that alarms us
so we have high confidence.
Mr. Feeney. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. If I could
ask one more question, I think I am done for the day. Thank you
for your indulgence and your leadership here.
I mentioned that I am going to China. I have some real
concerns because I don't believe we know the long-term
intentions of the Chinese. I think that they will be fairly
friendly until after the Summer Olympics this year. After that,
you know, a lot of us just don't know what their intentions
are; but their capabilities with respect to developing deeper
water naval capabilities, a dramatic increase in defense
funding, and especially in space are very impressive and I
think we have to pay close attention. Having said that, one
area that I sort of lean towards immediate cooperation with the
Chinese is to share the potential capability for the Chinese
Shenzhou vehicle to hook up with the Space Station without
necessarily agreeing to do it or not. It would be an
alternative to relying on the Russians or the potential
development of COTS crew capabilities. Does anybody have some
last-minute advice before I head off to Beijing on that
specific issue?
Dr. Gilbrech. Well, I think from my perspective, you know,
China is participating in the Global Exploration Strategy but
we have no current collaboration with them, and I would have to
defer to my counterpart in Space Operations and our
Administrator for those discussions.
Mr. Feeney. Okay. Dr. Hinners?
Dr. Hinners. I would add I would encourage you on your
trip, I was a participant in the '70s in working with the
Soviets and made six not-so-fun trips to Russia, at that time
the Soviet Union.
Mr. Feeney. Vodka is good, isn't it?
Dr. Hinners. But in that environment which was not a
friendly environment at top levels during the Cold War, we did
make good progress. We were able to I think use the Space
Program as a political arm if you will and accomplish things
jointly that contributed to furthering the eventual Soviet
Union, now Russia, that is more democratic.
So I look on the Space Program as an opportunity to help
work some of the world's political problems.
Mr. Feeney. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you, Mr. Feeney, good questions. Dr.
Gilbrech, it has been reported that NASA's planned Ares V
heavy-lift vehicle is not able to meet its lunar mission
requirements as currently conceived and will need some beefing
up. Consequently, the agency is said to be studying a variety
of options to boost the lift capability of the big, new rocket.
If this is so--is this so, first of all, and if so, what
options are under consideration?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, sir. This is a very challenging mission,
and as I said before, we are putting much more capability on
the lunar surface to be able to go potentially to a six-month
outpost. That requires a lot of lift capability to trans-lunar
injection. And right now our current target for Ares V is 65
metric tons of lift, and we see that with the capabilities that
we are maturing for our lunar architecture that we would like
to push that beyond that. And we have concepts now to take it
up to 75 metric tons and involve upgrades of the solid-rocket
motor with the propellant grains. There are concepts of going
from five R68 engines to six R68 engines. We are looking at
other weight-saving measures as far as composite casings for
the five-segment booster, potentially making them--not
recovering them, making them expendable and saving some weight
in the parachute system. So we have got a suite of options that
we are considering, and again, we will just have to mature
those. But it is a challenge.
Mr. Lampson. What is it likely to do to the five-year
funding requirements?
Dr. Gilbrech. Well, the Ares V funding really doesn't kick
in until 2011, so right now our current budgets--these are all
just trades that we are looking at, concept trades, as the
deign matures. So right now I don't see any impact in our
current budget horizon, but we certainly would inform the
Congress if we saw that that was going to be an issue that we
needed to raise up.
Mr. Lampson. Thanks. Dr. Hinners, what do we need to
accomplish on the Moon to enable human exploration of Mars or
other potential destinations as called for in the President's
Vision for Space Exploration and what enabling techniques
required for human exploration to Mars cannot be accomplished
on the Moon?
Dr. Hinners. From what I have seen of the lunar
architecture, one of the prime things it will contribute is how
to even exist and operate for a long time on a planetary
surface, and lunar habitat at an outpost would help accomplish
those goals. What it will not do is develop the capability for
the long duration space flight that is necessary for a Mars
mission. We talked about that previously. There are other
elements of Mars. The environment at Mars is so different from
that at the Moon that a lot of things you do on the surface of
the Moon have relatively little applicability to eventual Mars
human exploration. For example, the in-situ resource
utilization, on Mars you would use probably, at first go-
around, the atmosphere--of course, on the Moon there is no
atmosphere--for developing a technique to use lunar regolith
might not have much capability but it would advance some of the
engineering, where the whole concept of in-situ resource
utilization is [inaudible] potential engineering problems that
we have and started to face.
So in many ways I think the lunar exploration is a stepping
stone but not the most important ones that we will eventually
need if we are going to Mars with humans.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Thornton, would you comment?
Dr. Thornton. I would agree with that. I agree with Dr.
Hinners about the engineering challenges of building a semi-
permanent outpost on the Moon, can lead us to solving some of
those problems on Mars. The physiological issues of getting
from Earth to Mars in long duration space flight are something
we probably will not solve on the Moon, but some of the other
intermediate steps of going to the Earth-Sun Lagrange points or
going to near-Earth asteroids can lead us a step further down
the road to solving those sorts of problems.
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Hinners, let me ask some questions
regarding NASA exploration's architecture. What do you see as
the greatest risk that needs to be addressed in preparing for
human exploration beyond the low-Earth orbit?
Dr. Hinners. The greatest risk in my view is inadequate
budgets that will cause us to either so reduce the requirements
that we are not making much real progress in developing a
capability or stretching it out so far that we are investing
the bulk of our funding in just staying in place and not making
good progress in getting beyond where we are today.
Mr. Lampson. I was going to ask you about something that
would lead slightly differently. I thought maybe you would give
a little different answer than that, but how do we address
that? I was going to ask you to address the perspectives on
NASA on how NASA would address that risk, but how should
Congress address the risk that you just presented to us of
funding?
Dr. Hinners. I wish I had a good answer for you. The old
proverbial one of more money obviously is not an acceptable
answer today with the budget situation that we have. The only
alternative is for NASA to very carefully look at its step-wise
approach to be sure that we are doing just those things that
will lead to the development of the essential ingredients of
the lunar architecture. Let me give you an example, and some of
my science friends would not be very enamored with this. But
the outpost, if you are looking at stepping stones, has much
more utility than science-driven sortie missions, even though
science sortie missions may give you more immediate return. So
if one has to make a choice, I would say do the outpost and not
the sortie missions. You may have to make choices like that.
Mr. Lampson. Do you believe that NASA's exploration
architecture is robust and capable of accommodating risks?
Dr. Hinners. I can't answer that. I don't know enough about
the details. You could answer on that?
Mr. Lampson. Dr. Gilbrech or anybody else, would you care
to comment on any of those questions?
Dr. Gilbrech. Yes, I would be glad to. I believe the
architecture is robust, it is flexible, it can handle the pay-
as-you-go environment that we find ourselves in. We also, as
far as being stuck in a lunar outpost mode, we have talked
about that with the lunar architecture teams as far as what is
logical exit strategies, when do we consider we have learned
enough to say that we don't need a permanently manned outpost
at the lunar surface. Some of the things that we have learned
on the International Space Station, which has humans
permanently in space for the last seven and one-half years is
we learn a lot more with that extended presence than we do on
14-day Shuttle missions. So really, the outpost has a lot of
value in the fact it will drive out a lot of problems we
wouldn't necessarily find on seven-day sortie missions. They
complement each other, but I think they are both necessary.
We also are learning a lot on the International Space
Station about the six-month transit time that it takes to go to
Mars. There is a lot of things we are learning about
microgravity, bone loss, muscle atrophy, radiation exposure,
some of the things that we worry about for the astronauts on
that long journey. The Moon is a good analog for Mars as far as
the gravity effects and whether one-sixth gravity on the Moon,
you have one-third Earth gravity on Mars. Howe does that
counteract some of these bone loss and other effects that we
see in microgravity.
So we hope that we can answer some of those long-range
questions with the lunar analog. And as far as in-situ resource
utilization, we also want to follow the water, and if we can
find water on the Moon which is why we are choosing some of our
landing sites at the south pole, we can learn how to make fuel,
oxygen that we could potentially apply to a Martian site if we
were to find water on Mars.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you very, very much. I would be remiss
if I would allow the comments that Mr. Rohrabacher made about
not wanting to make a priority about going to Mars. I think
that he maybe slightly misunderstood some of the point that was
made here. Obviously, we want to learn things, regardless of
what we are doing through our efforts. I would hate to see us
turn a blind eye to Mars and not include that in the mix as we
go through all of this. But my point, and then I will call on
you, Dr. Thornton, was what we learned when there were those
who said we shouldn't even be trying to go to the Moon. But it
affected me personally when I had my Lasik surgery. The
tracking that the machines the ophthalmologist used was an
adaptation from what we have used and do use in docking and
even weapons and many other kinds of things that we have used
in space. The advancements that have been made on heart surgery
I had a year ago are significant. Those things are affecting
millions of lives on this planet. The return that we get from
our exploration, from our willingness to explore where we
haven't been I think is absolutely critical.
What would you like to say or add?
Dr. Thornton. In the 1980's, the tag line for the
International Space Station, and as an astronaut I was part of
the PR machine, started out, the next logical step, and then it
morphed to a permanent outpost in space, when we lost sight of
what that was a step to. And in the process, NASA engaged a lot
of scientists in areas of microgravity science and life science
and nurtured those fields and grew them and funded them because
they would be the users of the permanent outpost in space.
Again, I was part of that and my last mission was a Space Lab
mission, and a lot of those experiments were on there only
because it was a warm-up for their permanent stay on a space
station. In 2004, we changed our mind and we turned off a lot
of those people, we unfunded a lot of those people, we
basically ended their career in that field. We ended those
fields. In retrospect, not having a view of what this was a
step to was not responsible as far as how we treated people,
nor how we handle the taxpayers' money. And that is what I
would like to not see on the Moon. I think there are a lot of
things we can learn on the Moon on our way to Mars but to not
have a vision of what it is a step to I think is what is
irresponsible.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you very, very much, and you are going
to be making the last word. Well, no, you are not. Mr. Feeney?
Mr. Feeney. I don't have anymore questions, but I just
wanted to on the international cooperation front share with the
Committee and the people in the audience that at 10:45 today
the ATV hooked up with the International Space Station. The
European Space Agency now is a prominent national space
enterprise. I think we have--do we have some people in the
audience from the European Space Agency? If you don't mind
raising your hand, well, congratulations. We were very thrilled
with the news, and with that I want to thank the witnesses and
the Chairman again.
Mr. Lampson. Thank you, Mr. Feeney, and I thank each and
every one of you for being here. I think it has been an
interesting conversation, and I look forward to more of them,
to future meetings.
If there is no objection, the record will remain open for
additional statements from Members and for answers to any
follow-up questions that the Subcommittee may ask of the
witnesses. Without objection, so ordered. This hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix:
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Richard J. Gilbrech, Associate Administrator, Exploration
Systems Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA)
Questions submitted by Chairman Mark Udall
Q1. Cost growth and systems that do not work are often attributed to
inadequate oversight and abrogated testing. NASA systems have had their
share of cost growth, lengthened schedules, and terminations in the
past. Is it technically and programmatically feasible to accelerate
Orion's Initial Operating Capability (IOC) to earlier than March 2015
and still conform to the thorough review and testing process required
by NASA's own agency-wide program management guidance? If not, what
requirements is NASA considering relaxing?
A1. Yes, it is technically and programmatically feasible to accelerate
IOC. NASA has planned and paced the multi-decade Constellation program
to live within its means, while carefully identifying and mitigating
the threats to mission success. Within the Constellation program, NASA
is making important decisions to stay within budget and on schedule by
striving for the lowest life cycle costs possible. NASA has established
an initial plan for Constellation's designs and integrated flight tests
to ensure that the Agency adequately tests systems prior to their
operational use and allows appropriate time to implement critical
lessons learned from these tests.
Full funding of NASA's FY 2009 budget request for Constellation is
needed so that NASA can continue successful transition between the
Shuttle and the Orion and Ares I. The FY 2009 budget request maintains
Orion IOC in March 2015, at a 65 percent cost confidence level, and
full operational capability (FOC) in FY 2016, though NASA is working to
bring this new vehicle online sooner.
NASA has a dedicated group of civil servants and contractors who
work together to check and cross-check the multiple variables that go
into designing and eventually operating these future Exploration
vehicles. As such, NASA has sufficient insight into the progress and
status of the program/project with inserted key decision points that
determine the readiness of the program/project to progress to the next
phase of the life cycle. These phases are defined such that they
provide a natural point for a ``Go/No-go'' decisions to proceed based
on pre-defined exit criteria for that phase.
Currently, all activities are on schedule. The Ares I and Orion
projects recently completed their Systems Definition Review (SDR) and
the Preliminary Non-Advocate Reviews, which confirmed that NASA is
employing a strong systems engineering approach to refine the current
program requirements and properly allocate those requirements at the
project level. The Constellation Program does not anticipate relaxing
any requirements. Orion and Ares I Projects are currently proceeding
toward their individual project level Preliminary Design Reviews (PDR)
by the end of this year.
These reviews provide opportunities to confirm that the subject
activities, products, and process control requirements have been
adequately distributed to--and implemented within--the projects. The
projects, along with the programs, are tracking all products required
for PDR to insure all data is available on time and at the appropriate
maturity level.
Q2. We understand that NASA engineers are adding instrumentation to
the first full scale Ares I-X flight vehicle to gather data about the
severity of possible vibrations from the solid-fuel first stage. What
is the range of possible mitigation approaches under consideration and
what are the commensurate estimated cost and performance impacts of
each? Will the funds needed to address this issue come from
Constellation's reserves? How serious would the issue need to be before
the March 2015 IOC date was determined to be in jeopardy?
A2. Thrust oscillation is a common risk in solid rocket motors because
thrust oscillation or resonant burning is a characteristic of all solid
rocket motors, like the First Stage of the Ares I launch vehicle. In
November 2007, NASA chartered the Thrust Oscillation Focus Team (TOFT)
to review the forcing functions, models and analysis results to verify
the current predicted dynamic responses of the integrated stack,
identify and assess options to reduce predicted responses, validate and
quantify the risk to the Ares I vehicle, Orion spacecraft, crew, and
other sensitive subsystems and components, to the extent allowed by the
Ares I/Orion design maturity, and establish and prioritize mitigation
strategies and establish mitigation plans consistent with the
Constellation Systems Program (CxP) integrated schedule.
Mitigation strategies being reviewed include reducing or
eliminating the forcing function; canceling or isolating the forcing
function; de-tuning the stack from the forcing function; and reducing
loads conservatism that initially made the scale seem more serious.
NASA is evaluating tuned mass absorbers to reduce loads. We are
collecting motor performance data on the upcoming Ares I-X and Shuttle
flights as well as launch acceleration data at the crew seats. NASA
chartered a small team to evaluate and propose potential concepts to
de-tune system frequencies. Finally, we are evaluating internal motor
design modifications that could potentially reduce thrust oscillation.
The TOFT results will be factored back into the Ares and Orion
projects this summer and cost estimates will be developed as the
projects progress to PDR this year. As stated before, thrust
oscillation is not uncommon during the development of solid rocket
motors, and NASA is confident in its ability to mitigate this risk.
Therefore, thrust oscillation should have no impact on the March 2015
IOC.
Q3. What, if any, role is NASA considering for Ares V to support
future science missions? Would a role for science missions be
considered as ancillary or central to the development of Ares V?
A3. The Ares V launch vehicle is in the formulation stage of design and
development. The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is taking
initial steps to understand the potential value of this heavy launch
system to the space and Earth science missions of the future.
In November 2007, SMD requested that the National Research Council
(NRC) initiate a study on the science applicability of the Ares I, Ares
V, and Orion Constellation system elements based on a comparison of
projected capabilities of these systems with available long range
mission concepts for space and Earth science.
The NRC recently released the interim report from this study, an
initial survey based on already-available analyses of a portfolio of 11
``Vision Mission'' concepts provided by NASA. The NRC found that, of
the 11 candidates, seven appeared likely enough to benefit from the
Ares V capability (as compared to an EELV implementation) to warrant
further study for implementation on a heavy lift vehicle. However, the
NRC also found that the greatly-increased payload mass enabled by an
Ares V launch could result in significant total mission costs.
In parallel with development of the initial report, the NRC issued
a Request for Information (RFI) to explicitly evaluate the increased
payload mass capability of Ares V on science mission concepts. In
addition, NASA's recent workshop, held at the Ames Research Center,
focused on astronomy mission opportunities presented specifically by
the Ares V. The findings of this workshop, which considered seven
missions (three in common with the Vision Missions set) and a number of
relevant technology topics, is being provided to the NRC for its second
phase study. There are plans for a second Ames workshop in early August
to broaden the range of planetary science mission candidates available
for analysis. The final report of the NRC study should be available in
November 2008.
Ultimately, each of the concepts evaluated through these workshops
and studies, and any other Ares V candidates, will be appraised by the
appropriate upcoming NRC decadal survey to find its place in SMD's
priority queue for implementation.
Note that the primary requirements for Ares V will be dictated by
the U.S. Space Exploration Policy's goal of exploration of the solar
system; science will be a secondary use of the capability. NASA is
working proactively to understand potential scientific use and identify
opportunities to optimize science applicability of exploration systems
via design changes that do not interfere with their primary function.
Q4. Dr. Hinners testified that ``one should have a lunar program exit
strategy. . ..'' Does NASA have an exit strategy from the Moon, and if
not are there any plans to create one?
A4. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-155) specifically
calls on NASA to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon for a
number of inherently valuable reasons in itself and also as a stepping
stone to the exploration of Mars and other destinations. While no
specific ``exit strategy'' exists, NASA is proceeding in a manner that
builds towards future exploration of other destinations and with an
``open'' architecture that seeks to build up international and
commercial involvement in the lunar outpost, in part, to help NASA
ensure it has the ability with time to venture beyond the Moon.
The challenges of missions to future destinations beyond the Moon
are the same as those for any significant exploration endeavor beyond
low-Earth orbit: long-duration space flight and non-Earth gravity
effects on human physiology and psychology; orbital assembly of a
spacecraft with the transportation technologies and crew support
systems for a successful journey; living, operating, and surviving on
planetary environments with inhospitable environments; and many others.
These challenges are technically complex and interrelated. NASA is
designing its lunar efforts, as much as possible, to reap the unique
benefits of returning to the Moon in its own right, as well as building
forward, decreasing risk and as test-bed for future exploration beyond
the Moon.
NASA is proceeding in a manner which both maximizes learning
opportunities and leverages international and commercial participation.
NASA is implementing a strategic approach to this direction, creating a
coordinated global approach toward exploration beyond low-Earth orbit,
and will establish an infrastructure that can efficiently support all
human exploration missions regardless of destination. Over the long-
term, this infrastructure should remove the burden from the U.S. tax
payer for paying all costs of development and operations in human space
flight, making any eventual mission to Mars and other destinations more
affordable.
It is NASA's belief that establishing a sustainable presence on the
Moon provides the broadest possible suite of opportunities relevant to
learning about Mars and other exploration destinations (e.g., living
and operating on another planet, learning about complex assembly of
space systems and gravitational transitions on the human body). More
importantly, however, it provides the best opportunity for creating
that global infrastructure, as these technology developments provide
opportunities for new services and industries dedicated to the support
of human space exploration. Additionally, creating a sustainable lunar
presence provides diverse opportunities for fostering partnerships and
collaborations with international space agencies and preparing the
larger community for space exploration.
Q5. The National Research Council just released its report ``Managing
Space Radiation Risk in the New Era of Space Exploration.'' The report
was requested by NASA. NRC was tasked to establish a committee to
evaluate the radiation shielding requirements for lunar missions and to
recommend a strategic plan for developing the radiation mitigation
capabilities needed to enable the planned lunar mission architecture.
Do you agree with the findings and recommendations in the report? What
are you doing to implement its recommendations?
A5. NASA agrees with the major recommendations of the NRC Report, and
is implementing a program that is as well-balanced as possible within
available resources to implement the recommendations and their
respective priorities.
The Report noted that the biological uncertainty in
assessing the health risks from space radiation exposure is the
most important problem for managing space radiation risk to
human explorers. This assessment agrees with previous
recommendations from the NRC and the IOM, and the current
funding distribution in space radiation in the Human Research
Program reflects primary importance in understanding and
quantifying human health risks, especially cancer.
The ability to accurately predict solar particle
events is essential in preventing astronaut exposure to acute
radiation exposure. In this area, NASA has relied on its own
space research (currently in Science Mission Directorate) along
with a history of successful collaboration with other federal
agencies, especially National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) and National Science Foundation (NSF).
Intra-agency and interagency discussions are ongoing to
continue this collaboration and assure that appropriate solar
monitoring systems are in place during exploration missions to
the Moon and beyond.
This NRC Report made numerous recommendations on
shielding technology, engineering and design. NASA agrees with
these recommendations and is working internally to assure that
as much materials research as prudent and possible is conducted
to enable mission and system designers to implement radiation
protection at all phases of planning and implementation.
Finally, the NRC pointed out that there are important
health risks other than cancer that may result from exposure to
space radiation, e.g., cataract, nervous system, and
cardiovascular risks. NASA agrees that this is an important
problem, and is implementing research in this area within its
current resources.
Q6. The NRC report also lists a number of technology investments to
enable lunar missions with astronauts. These include radiation biology
research, research on solar particle events, and experimental data for
shielding design. How will NASA translate these recommended investments
into funding requirements? Where will such funding likely be placed?
A6. The Human Research and Exploration Technology Development Programs
within the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) support a
variety of radiation biology and shielding research projects. The Human
Research Program is conducting ground and space-based research to
reduce the large uncertainties in radiation exposure risk. Experiments
to evaluate the effectiveness of shielding materials and to validate
radiation transport models are being performed at the Brookhaven
National Laboratory. In FY 2011, NASA is planning to begin a new
project to develop radiation protection technologies in the Exploration
Technology Development Program. This project is scheduled to start
sufficiently early to ensure that radiation shielding will be ready in
time to support construction of the lunar outpost. Funding requirements
will be determined during project formulation by assessing the
remaining uncertainties in radiation exposure risk and the
effectiveness of state-of-the-art shielding materials, and then
developing a plan to advance shielding technology to meet performance
targets. NASA is flying the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of
Radiation (CRaTER) instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
mission to help agency planners understand the radiation environment
around the Moon. LRO is planned to launch by the end of the year.
Research on solar particle events is conducted within NASA in the
Science Mission Directorate (SMD). ESMD is currently coordinating its
solar particle research needs and ``space weather'' predicting needs
with SMD and other agencies through the NASA Office of Chief Engineer,
which has developed a ``cross-cutting'' technology implementation
process to ensure that NASA's immediate research and operational needs
are optimized in this important area, including coordination with other
agencies. NASA considers current investment levels and priorities
timely to enable human lunar exploration in the post-2020 time frame.
Q7. You testified that NASA is looking into various options for
increasing the capability of Ares V and that ``we will just have to
mature those.'' What is your timeline for further analysis of these
options and when would you expect to have the information needed to
make a decision?
A7. NASA is currently reviewing lunar operations and surface concepts
to provide parameters for the Constellation program transportation
requirements. This will ensure we have the transportation system
understood well enough to proceed with Ares V requirements development.
As a component of this review, NASA is developing options to meet
potential transportation needs. The review will be completed this
summer, at which time NASA will mature the appropriate options. Results
will be factored into the Ares V development efforts as it progresses
through its formulation activities.
Q8a. You testified that ``technically integration across all elements,
the Orion, the first stage, the upper stage . . . making sure that
everything is properly integrated is one of the biggest challenges in
my mind.'' How do you plan to deal with this risk?
A8a. NASA understood from the beginning that integrating all the
diverse systems (Orion, Ares, Ground Systems, Mission Control, etc.)
would be one of the biggest challenges of the Constellation Program.
Integration challenges are natural occurrences within any endeavor that
is not an ``off-the-shelf'' commodity procurement. Acquisition of a
complex system first requires clear program authorities. With this in
mind, NASA established a clear program and project structure by which
to manage the end-to-end system level requirements and empowered the
Constellation Program Office to oversee the system integration of the
Program elements. The second step is to have a clear process by which
to communicate needs and difficulties up the chain of authority so
Agency and Program resources (i.e., experts, tools, funding, etc.) can
be brought to bear quickly on the inevitable problems that will occur.
Third, resource reserves must be readily available within the Program's
execution year budget so the issues that arise can be effectively dealt
with by the Program and Project managers. If funding reserves are not
sufficient in the execution year, then existing ``fixed'' resources
have to be re-prioritized which will result in work deferral and
schedule slippage.
Q8b. Are you confident that the current NASA Constellation workforce
has the depth of systems integration experience to handle the
integration risks you describe?
A8b. NASA is very confident in the caliber and ability of our
Constellation team, which includes both government and industry, to
accomplish this complex system acquisition. The Agency is not dependent
on the development of exotic new technologies to make this program a
reality. Our challenge is the integration of complex systems that must
work together. Issues will inevitably arise. The question is how we
respond when they do arise and whether we have the necessary resources
at hand to solve the issues. Efforts to date show great promise, as
evidenced by our work solving the issues related to thrust oscillation.
Q8c. What other inputs would help to mitigate this risk?
A8c. Another key input to mitigate this risk is for the Congress to
enact stable funding consistent with NASA's budget requests in order to
have adequate resources at hand to implement program activities and
resolve challenges that arise.
Questions submitted by Representative Nick Lampson
Q1. Dr. Hinners testified that ``one should have a lunar program exit
strategy. . ..'' Does NASA have an exit strategy from the Moon, and if
not are there any plans to create one?
A1. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-155) specifically
calls on NASA to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon for a
number of inherently valuable reasons in itself and also as a stepping
stone to the exploration of Mars and other destinations. While no
specific ``exit strategy'' exists, NASA is proceeding in a manner that
builds towards future exploration of other destinations and with an
``open'' architecture that seeks to build up international and
commercial involvement in the lunar outpost, in part, to help NASA
ensure it has the ability with time to venture beyond the Moon.
The challenges of missions to future destinations beyond the Moon
are the same as those for any significant exploration endeavor beyond
low-Earth orbit: long-duration space flight and non-Earth gravity
effects on human physiology and psychology; orbital assembly of a
spacecraft with the transportation technologies and crew support
systems for a successful journey; living, operating, and surviving on
planetary environments with inhospitable environments; and many others.
These challenges are technically complex and interrelated. NASA is
designing its lunar efforts, as much as possible, to reap the unique
benefits of returning to the Moon in its own right, as well as building
forward, decreasing risk and as test-bed for future exploration beyond
the Moon.
NASA is proceeding in a manner that both maximizes learning
opportunities and leverages international and commercial participation.
NASA is implementing a strategic approach to this direction, creating a
coordinated global approach toward exploration beyond low-Earth orbit,
and will establish an infrastructure that can efficiently support all
human exploration missions regardless of destination. Over the long-
term, this infrastructure should remove the burden from the U.S. tax
payer for paying all costs of development and operations in human space
flight, making any eventual mission to Mars and other destinations more
affordable.
It is NASA's belief that establishing a sustainable presence on the
Moon provides the broadest possible suite of opportunities relevant to
learning about Mars and other exploration destinations (e.g., living
and operating on another planet, learning about complex assembly of
space systems and gravitational transitions on the human body). More
importantly, however, it provides the best opportunity for creating
that global infrastructure, as these technology developments provide
opportunities for new services and industries dedicated to the support
of human space exploration. Additionally, creating a sustainable lunar
presence provides diverse opportunities for fostering partnerships and
collaborations with international space agencies and preparing the
larger community for space exploration.
Q2. In responding to my question on what you would do with a
significant funding increase, you identified more robust flight test
programs as one of the areas you would target. Please expand on your
response, including what risks NASA is taking with less flight testing
and how you are mitigation such risks.
A2. NASA's current flight test program for its Constellation Program is
robust and meets mission needs. The flight test program is designed to
provide risk mitigation opportunities by providing in-flight
assessments of the design and operational characteristics of the
hardware from early development through the first crewed flights. The
flight test program begins with two non-orbital developmental flights
that will provide early engineering data for the Ares and Orion Project
Critical Design Reviews. The first of these two development flights is
the first pad abort test at the White Sands Missile Range in New
Mexico, planned for December 2008. This will be followed up with the
Ares I-X flight from the Kennedy Space Center planned for spring 2009.
The Ares I-X flight will use a simulated upper stage with a simulated
Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and will provide flight data to verify
our predictions from wind tunnel testing on vehicle flight dynamics and
controllability.
The second phase of the Constellation test program (after the two
developmental flights) includes the continuation of the Orion launch
abort system test campaign, and the continuation of the vehicle flight
tests. The Orion launch abort system test campaign is designed to
gather information at key operational envelope boundaries and under
simulated failure conditions and the flight tests will provide
engineering evaluation of the new design and gather additional critical
flight data to validate engineering models used for design
certification. Current plans call for testing the high altitude abort
case in combination with flight testing of the first five-segment first
stage on the Ares I-Y mission. Ares I-Y will test the first stage
motor's thrust oscillation behavior and the dampening features being
designed. It will also test the separation of the first and upper
stages before triggering a high altitude abort.
Ares I-Y is followed by the Orion 1 flight, planned to be the first
dress rehearsal for the end-to-end flight of the entire integrated Ares
and Orion vehicle using all actual flight hardware. Orion 1 is
scheduled to take place before flying a crew on the Orion 2 flight at
Initial Operating Capability, scheduled for March 2015. The multiple
and significant test objectives for Orion 1 are aimed at evaluating all
aspects of the design and operation of the flight and ground systems
that can be accomplished without an on-board crew. (Later tests,
however, will involve a crew on-board.) In addition, the engineers will
utilize the non-crewed Orion 1 orbital flight to evaluate the Orion
systems on-orbit. During that flight, the mission controllers will be
able to gain experience operating the entire actual flight hardware
system and validate the training simulations.
As stated earlier, NASA believes its current flight test program is
adequate to meet mission needs. However, additional testing within any
program or project can yield benefits.
Additional test flights could provide opportunities in three areas:
First, an additional unmanned orbital flight would allow objectives
to be shared across two flights, and would provide a built-in
opportunity to retest given the reasonable expectation that we will
experience in-flight technical anomalies. Further, given the early
formulation phase of the development, Orion 1 flight planning is not
yet mature enough to know which test objectives can't be accomplished
on a single flight and must be deferred to subsequent crewed flights.
Second, additional test flights would provide additional experience
and data on the inherent reliability of the launch system, including
data on the critical staging event and test of the upper stage and
modified J-2X engine.
Finally, an additional orbital flight test would allow a second re-
entry test using alternate or backup controls on a dispersed or
emergency trajectory to assess stability and heat shield performance.
Q3. NASA's ability to secure a $3.3 billion increase to the
Constellation budget in FY 2011 is predicated on the full availability
of funds freed up from retiring the Shuttle. However, transition costs
after retiring the Shuttle will not be known until the FY 2010 budget,
at the earliest. Will the March 2015 IOC date slip if projected Shuttle
retirement transition costs exceed NASA's cost goal of less than $500
million? If not, what will be the impact on the rest of NASA's
programs?
A3. NASA is preparing an integrated Shuttle Transition and Retirement
(T&R) cost estimate as part of the FY 2010 budget formulation process
that will become the basis for a T&R budget line in the FY 2010
President's budget request for NASA. Currently, both the phasing and
estimate are in work, thus it would be speculative to assess impacts
given the complex interactions. The Constellation program is currently
carrying Shuttle T&R costs as a threat against their budget starting in
FY 2011 and NASA is working a number of options to reduce the estimated
cost. Preliminary indications are favorable, and NASA currently does
not envision an impact to the March 2015 initial operational capability
of Orion/Ares from T&R costs.
Q4. Dr. Hinners testified on NRC report recommendations for
successfully conducting scientific activities within an exploration
program and on collaborations between the Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate and the Science Mission Directorate regarding science in
the exploration initiative.
Q4a. How do you see science fitting into exploration and how would you
describe that fit?
A4a. The fundamental goal of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy is to
advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a
robust space exploration program. While U.S. scientific interests are
not the sole driver for returning to the Moon, these interests have
been represented in the architecture development process from the
beginning.
NASA has numerous mechanisms to ensure scientific analysis and
input are integral components of its lunar exploration planning. Both
of NASA's Lunar Architecture Teams (LAT-1 and -2) included active
Science Focus Elements with representation from Science Mission
Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters, Constellation, and scientists
across the Agency. As the definition of the lunar architecture has
matured, the LAT Science Focus Element Team has engaged scientific and
other external communities in workshops, studies, and community events,
including NASA Advisory Council's (NAC) Workshop on Science Associated
with the Lunar Exploration Architecture (Tempe Workshop) and the
Workshop on Architecture Issues Associated with Sampling (in
conjunction with the LEAG and the OSEWG, described below). The Science
Focus Element participated in all LAT meetings to consider the impact
of design options and payload manifesting on scientific productivity.
Q4b. What further plans does NASA have regarding the integration of
science and exploration?
A4b. As NASA continues the planning and development of the Lunar
Architecture, NASA has established the Outpost Science and Exploration
Working Group (OSEWG) at NASA Headquarters to continue the productive
working relationships between the Science, Exploration, and Space
Operations Mission Directorates and between Headquarters-level and
working-level exploration planning and requirements definition. The
OSEWG will ensure the continued engagement of science, including
scientific input into requirements definition, as NASA strives to
implement the U.S. Space Exploration Policy. In addition to any work or
studies that the OSEWG might perform, it may also commission studies by
groups such as the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), the
Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials
(CAPTEM), and the Field Exploration Analysis Team (FEAT). Since LEAG
and CAPTEM are under the umbrella of the NASA Advisory Council, this
provides a solid mechanism for ensuring that the necessary expertise is
being drawn upon at appropriate junctures in the exploration planning
process to ensure a balanced and inclusive approach to the exploration
architecture.
The Science and Exploration Systems Mission Directorates are
working together at all levels, from research to space flight missions,
and from daily interactions to senior management meetings. Examples of
ESMD and SMD jointly supporting research included the competitively
selected grants through the Lunar Advanced Science and Exploration
Research (LASER) program.
SMD and ESMD are working closely on the space flight missions under
ESMD's Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP). SMD has provided a
Program Scientist and Program Executive for the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter (LRO) mission. After its first year of operations, when LRO has
achieved its primary exploration objectives, SMD will take over LRO
operations to pursue lunar science objectives. ESMD and SMD are
cooperating in the planning for the International Lunar Network (ILN).
ESMD is providing the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Mars
Entry Descent and Landing Instrumentation (MEDLI) on SMD's Mars Science
Lander (MSL) mission.
The OSEWG co-chairs from ESMD and SMD meet weekly to work science
and exploration integration, with the full OSEWG meeting biweekly.
Current subgroups of the OSWEG are focused on the incorporation of
science inputs based on the NAC and NRC recommendations into the ESMD's
requirements documents, the development of science scenarios on the
lunar surface for use by the Constellation Architecture Team, and the
integration of science and exploration activities here on Earth that
are analogs of future lunar surface activities. ESMD and SMD senior
leadership meet regularly through mechanisms such as the Partnership
Integration Council and ESMD-SMD Roundtables. Integrating science and
exploration has been and remains a high priority at all levels within
both SMD and ESMD.
Questions submitted by Representative Tom Feeney
Q1. It is likely that NASA will be forced to operate under a FY 2009
Continuing Resolution which would reduce the Constellation funding to
the FY 2008 level. Please describe how this situation will likely
affect Constellation's development schedules. Assuming the 65 percent
confidence levels, would this jeopardize the March 2015 launch date? If
so, how much would this lengthen the gap?
A1. Full funding of NASA's FY 2009 budget request for Constellation is
needed to continue successful transition between the Shuttle and the
Orion and Ares I. The FY 2009 budget request maintains Orion IOC in
March 2015, at a 65 percent confidence level, and full operational
capability in FY 2016, though NASA is striving to bring this new
vehicle online sooner. A full-year Continuing Resolution (CR) at the FY
2008 level would result in a loss of approximately $350M to NASA's
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. A number of factors would
affect the impact of a full-year CR, and NASA is still assessing those
variables.
Q2. Will the new capabilities of the Constellation system enable new
or unique science opportunities that have heretofore been impossible?
A2. Yes, the Constellation program plans to develop the Ares V Launch
vehicle, required to enable human lunar return. Ares V could provide
more than 130 metric tons (MT) of cargo to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). By
comparison, the current fleet of Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles can
provide only approximately 25 MT to LEO. The greater launch mass
capacity permits larger, heavier and more complex scientific payloads,
and greatly reduced cruise times for planetary missions. The much
greater diameter and volume of the Ares V fairing could decrease the
need for complex deployments of large structures and thereby reduce
payload cost and risk.
NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is taking initial steps to
understand the potential value of this heavy launch system to the space
and Earth science missions of the future. In November 2007, SMD
requested that the National Research Council (NRC) initiate a study on
the science applicability of the Ares I, Ares V, and Orion
Constellation system elements based on a comparison of projected
capabilities of these systems with available long range mission
concepts for space and Earth science. The final report of the NRC study
should be available in November 2008.
Q3. Recently Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) did an assessment of the
Ares V launcher for planetary and other science missions. As a result
of this or other studies, please discuss the proposed utility of the
Constellation architecture for use by planetary and other science
missions?
A3. Ares V is at an early stage of definition and development.
Nonetheless, Science Mission Directorate is taking initial steps to
understand the potential value of this heavy launch system to the space
and Earth science missions of the future. The JPL study, ``Ares V:
Application to Solar System Scientific Exploration,'' submitted in
January 2008, describes a number of enabling advantages of the Ares V
over EELV systems.
According to the JPL study, there appears to be a wide range of
Science missions that could be launched by Ares V that would not be
possible otherwise. Ares V capability is expected to open up lunar,
Mars, near-Earth and solar system missions for heavy payloads, and
might even enable reasonable sample return missions from the far
reaches of the Solar System. Furthermore, Ares V, configured with an
upper stage, could enable NASA's ability to search for life at the far
reaches of our solar system.
Q4. The Space Shuttle budget does not contain any funds for program
close-out activities after 2010. This represents an as-yet-to-be-
determined threat to the Constellation program, recently estimated at
about $1.2 billion. It appears there are insufficient reserves in the
Constellation program to handle this, so how do you expect this
shortfall will affect the Constellation program?
A4. NASA is preparing an integrated Shuttle Transition and Retirement
(T&R) cost estimate as part of the FY 2010 budget formulation process,
which will become the basis for a T&R budget line in the FY 2010
President's budget request for NASA. Last year's $1.2B estimate for T&R
costs from FY 2011-2015 developed, during the FY 2009 budget
formulation process, is considered conservative and much higher than
the expected estimate from this year's FY 2010 budget formulation
process. Reasons for this include Constellation program requirements
maturation, more clearly defined property disposition guidelines,
better understanding of facilities requirements, and improved
communication and effective coordination among all relevant process
stakeholders. This year's FY 2010 budget planning T&R estimate is not
yet known, as both the phasing and estimate are in work. Thus it would
be speculative to conjecture on possible program impacts. The
Constellation program is currently carrying Shuttle T&R costs as a
threat against their budget starting in FY 2011, and NASA is working a
number of options to reduce the estimated cost. Preliminary indications
are favorable, and NASA currently does not envision an impact to the
March 2015 initial operational capability of Orion/Ares from T&R costs.
Q5. In previous years NASA intended to carryover unobligated funding
from one year to the next to help smooth the funding profile during
development and initial production of the Constellation system.
However, Congressional appropriations bills did not endorse this
principal. How has NASA been able to compensate for the lack of
carryover funding to keep Constellation on schedule?
A5. While Congress has discouraged the use of the two-year obligation
authority that is legally available to most Constellation program
funding, the Program has been able to use obligated-but-uncosted
funding to smooth the funding profile and maintain schedule. Obligated-
but-uncosted funding carried forward from FY 2008 and FY 2009 will be
used to maintain the development schedule in FY 2009 and FY 2010.
Q6. NASA decided against using the Space Shuttle Main Engines in the
design of the new Ares launch vehicle and instead chose to modify the
J-2. The J-2X engine development is acknowledged to be one of the
greatest risks to the timely development of the Ares launch system.
What is the status of this engine development?
A6. The J-2X is an evolved version of two historic predecessors: the
powerful J-2 engine that propelled the Apollo-era Saturn I-B and Saturn
V rockets, and the J-2S, a simplified version of the J-2 that was
developed and tested in the early 1970s. By utilizing the J-2X, NASA
eliminates the need to develop, modify, and certify an expendable Space
Shuttle engine for the Ares I. NASA expects the J-2X to be less
expensive and easier to manufacture than the Space Shuttle main engine.
Although the J-2X is based on the J-2 and J-2S engines used on the
Saturn V, it also leverages knowledge from the X-33 and RS-68. NASA
also is planning significant upgrades to the engine, which essentially
makes the J-2X a new engine development program. Therefore, NASA has
taken steps to mitigate J-2X risks by increasing the amount of
component-level testing; procuring additional development hardware; and
working to make a third test stand available to the contractor earlier
than originally planned.
The J-2X is progressing through its critical design phase and is,
in fact, the first Constellation program element to reach this phase of
the development effort. Subsystem Critical Design Reviews (CDRs) are
progressing through the summer with the J2-X CDR being scheduled for
later this year. Technically, engine development and testing has begun.
Initial Powerpack 1-A test phase concluded in May 2008. Initial engine
cold flow nozzle side load testing has been completed. NASA has begun
testing the J-2X gas generator at the MSFC. Additional subsystem tests
will be conducted throughout the remainder of this year and into next
year. On August 23, 2007, NASA broke ground on a new rocket engine test
stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The test stand will
provide altitude testing for the J-2X engine and will allow engineers
to simulate flight conditions at different altitudes. Testing on the A-
3 stand is scheduled to begin in late 2010.
Q7. The Exploration System Architecture Study (ESAS, Chapter 6, p.
385) concluded that ``The considerable additional cost, complexity, and
development risk were judged to be unfavorable, eliminating RS-68-
powered Cargo Launch Vehicles.'' Hence, the RS-68 powered launch
vehicles, as represented by LV-29 (Chapter 6 p. 421), were not selected
for further evaluation in the lunar architecture trades. However,
shortly after the ESAS was released, NASA decided to replace the Space
Shuttle Main Engines with the RS-68 engines on the Ares V. Following
this decision to switch to the RS-68 for the Ares V, did NASA go back
and reevaluate the other RS-68 powered variants contained in Appendix
6a of the ESAS study? If not, why not?
A7. Post-ESAS, NASA looked at several RS-68 powered Cargo Launch
Vehicle (CaLV)--now known as the Ares V--variants and nearly all of
them fell well short of the two launch Crew Launch vehicle (CLV)/CaLV
performance requirement. After extensive trade studies, the key feature
that was discovered that allows the current Ares V approach to reach
the performance required for a two launch solution is expanding the
core stage diameter to 33 ft. (Saturn V diameter). This option had not
been reviewed during ESAS.
Q8. On April 10, 2008, NASA provided a background paper comparing the
planned Ares launch vehicles with the DIRECT launcher proposal. The
paper makes a number of assertions that are not corroborated with data.
Please provide the detailed analysis, including the Integrated Master
Schedule, launch system performance, technical assumptions, and cost
estimates, used to compare the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles with
the Jupiter-120 and Jupiter-232 Shuttle derived variants.
A8. Our assessment of the DIRECT-Jupiter 232 was calibrated to Ares and
Constellation ground rules and assumptions, using NASA tools and design
standards. We found that the delivered gross lunar lander mass for
DIRECT falls 50 percent below the reported value for an Earth Orbit
Rendezvous-Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (EOR-LOR) mission (20.8 mt vs
reported 40.9 mt). This assumes no on-orbit cryogenic tanking, which
DIRECT requires. On-orbit cryogenic refueling is a highly complex and
operationally risky proposition for this mission class. Even with on-
orbit tanking, DIRECT falls short by more than 25 percent (based on
adjusted EOR-LOR payload capability and idealized available on-orbit
propellant). For a LOR-LOR mission, proposed in May by DIRECT, our
assessment found that the delivered lander mass fell 80 percent below
the reported value (8.4 mt vs reported 50 mt). This approach cannot
meet NASA performance requirements.
Additionally, the DIRECT proposal contains many claims and has no
substantiated or detailed cost, schedule or reliability data on which
to make any assessments--hence no comparison can be made. However,
based on previous experience and study, several conclusions can be
drawn:
DIRECT claims that improvements in cost and schedule would be
achieved by leveraging existing Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motors
(RSRMs) and RS-68 engines and implies that only modest modifications to
the STS external tank (ET) would be necessary. No data is presented to
back up the proposed development cost savings for the DIRECT approach.
The Jupiter's STS ET-based core stage would require a major
development effort, which, in turn, would drive cost up and a longer
schedule when compared with the current Ares approach. DIRECT claims
requirements to strengthen ET sidewall and inter-stage structures on
the Jupiter common core are achieved by milling less material during
manufacture. NASA has extensively examined such approaches over the
past 20 years and concluded that this effort incurs significant expense
and development with marginally applicable STS ET heritage: the Jupiter
common core requires a new main propulsion system, new thrust
structure, new avionics, new forward LOX tank structure and a new
payload shroud, substantial intertank/Lox Hydrogen tank redesign and
aft Y-ring interfacing and a completely new stack integration effort.
In addition, recurring ET manufacturing is costly and labor intensive
compared with the lower cost, all friction-stir-welded approach being
used on the Ares vehicles. The Jupiter core stage engine, the RS-68,
would be required to be human rated. Though feasible, it would require
a significant development effort and an extensive engine test program.
In addition, DIRECT is taking on development of a new, Saturn V S-II
class Earth Departure Stage (EDS) for lunar capable missions. DIRECT
proposes to develop low boil-off rate technology and integrate it into
the EDS tanks. NASA has studied this type of approach extensively in
the past. This type of development effort will incur significant near-
term technology expenditures before full-scale development can proceed.
Per flight costs for Orion missions also favor the Ares approach.
The Ares I vehicle will have less cost per flight compared with the
Jupiter 120 heavy lift counterpart: one five-segment RSRM versus two
four-segment boosters and an upper stage with one J-2X versus a core
stage with two or three RS-68s.
Such development efforts would require new, dedicated acquisitions
at the same scale as the current Ares I procurements, which have taken
2 years to put in place.
The DIRECT report claims Jupiter launch vehicles provide increased
safety and performance margin as a primary advantage over Ares launch
vehicles. DIRECT includes very little data, calculations, or analysis
to support these safety assertions. Such a probabilistic risk
assessment requires substantial effort by system and subsystems experts
to conduct. In reality, safety/reliability for crewed missions favors
the current approach. The Ares I vehicle has a reduced number of
propulsion systems required for ascent, which will increase its safety/
reliability over a Jupiter approach: one five-segment RSRM versus two
four-segment boosters and an upper stage with one J-2X versus a core
stage with two or three RS-68s plus an EDS powered by a J-2X for lunar
missions.
Finally, on July 3, 2008, the Agency provided to Subcommittee
staff, via web link, the NASA Performance Assessment of DIRECT 2.0
reflecting additional background information and analysis related to
the DIRECT proposal.
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Cristina T. Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing
Management, Government Accountability Office
On April 3, I testified on GAO's work related to the Ares I and
Orion programs, which comprise NASA's future cargo and crew
transportation system. Our work has generally found that there are
considerable unknowns as to whether NASA's plans for thee vehicles can
be executed within schedule goals as well as what these efforts will
ultimately cost. This is primarily because NASA is still in the process
of defining many of the project's performance requirements and some of
these uncertainties could affect the mass, loads, and weight
requirements of the vehicles. The following responds to your follow-up
questions for the record.
Questions submitted by Chairman Mark Udall
Q1. You indicate that the Orion and Ares I will soon undergo
preliminary design reviews (PDR).
a. Why are these reviews so important? What answers should
NASA receive at that time?
b. If answers are not received, what are the consequences of
NASA proceeding without them?
A1. The Ares and Orion preliminary design reviews occur shortly before
NASA will be formally making a long-term investment commitment to the
programs. Therefore, these reviews are critical to demonstrating that
NASA has the knowledge it needs to proceed, i.e., that it fully
understands its requirements and the resources (dollars, technology,
time, expertise, facilities, etc.) needed to meet these requirements.
For example, NASA should understand technologies and hardware involved
with the Ares and Orion systems as well as their design enough to know
how long it will take to complete work and what that work will cost.
Our work on major system development efforts across the government
consistently shows that when programs make long-term commitments
without this knowledge, they invariable experience technical and other
problems that require more time and money than anticipated to resolve
and often result in reduced capability.
Q2. NASA indicates that its current level of reserves in Constellation
is less than eight percent.
a. In your review of space systems acquisitions, what is the
percentage level of reserves usually prescribed and built into
program budgets at the stage the Constellation program is at?
b. Are they usually used up?
A2. In my experience, when reserves are set aside for space programs,
they are used up quickly. This is because estimates regarding cost,
time, complexity, etc. were highly optimistic to begin with. Before we
can recommend a standard reserve level that should be used, agencies
need to commit to starting programs only when they have demonstrated
appropriate levels of knowledge about what they are trying to achieve
and what resources are needed to do so. Once this discipline is in
place, agencies can use reserves as a technique for mitigating risks,
and can realistically expect their initial level of reserves to be
sufficient.
Q3. You indicated concern about uncertainty and NASA being able to
execute both the Orion and Ares I programs within schedule and cost
targets.
a. What is the reason behind this uncertainty?
b. Are there any other approaches to developing Orion and Ares
I that would minimize uncertainty?
c. How would this approach impact the projected gap in
American access to space?
A3. As our testimony notes, uncertainty about costs and schedule stems
from significant gaps in knowledge which exist about both the Ares and
Orion programs. For example, NASA does not know if the Orion vehicle
will be landing on land or water at this point. Without this knowledge,
it cannot estimate the cost of the vehicle, since each option presents
different cost and technical challenges. In addition, NASA is still
working through uncertainties about the engine it is producing for the
launch vehicle, vibration issues, engineering challenges related to the
upper stage of the launch vehicle, and a host of other technical and
production challenges. Again, until has a better understanding of
what's involved with addressing these risks, it will not fully know
what dollars and time are needed to complete the projects. NASA
recognizes that it needs to close these knowledge gaps before
completing its preliminary design reviews.
Q4. Ms. Chaplain, in the past, NASA's projects have experienced
significant cost growth and schedule delays. Such a pattern, however,
cannot be repeated as competition for resources will likely continue to
increase as the amount of discretionary spending decreases. Congress
has asked GAO to conduct periodic assessments of selected NASA programs
in order to identify cost, schedule, and risk factors on each program.
I understand from my staff that you will be modeling your work on major
NASA systems after an annual assessment the GAO does on DOD weapon
systems. Please explain what this assessment is and how it will help to
achieve our goals for bringing more accountability and transparency to
NASA's spending.
Q4a. What are some of the challenges GAO faces (e.g., access to
information, securing accurate life cycle cost data, etc.) in carrying
out this work?
A4a. Overall, GAO has had good support from NASA's office of Program
Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) for completing the review. Undertaking a
job of this magnitude and introducing a new methodology to NASA has
been and was anticipated to be quite a challenge. Several issues have
added to this challenge, including the following:
GAO has had to spend a large amount of time educating
PA&E and NASA's projects on the methodology. We have held
numerous meetings with HQ PA&E officials since November trying
to explain to them our methodology and why we are asking for
some of the data. In addition, large amount of follow up have
been required due to the need to educate the projects on the
methodology. This process has been very time consuming.
PA&E has requested that all data be filtered through
their office. While this process is good for trying to ensure
consistency and a shared understanding of what is required, it
has led to additional time delays and GAO not receiving all
information requested. In addition, this has led to the
unfortunate consequence of projects directing their questions
to PA&E instead of GAO. This added layer of communication has
led to miscommunication and delays.
GAO continues to await the receipt of cost and
schedule information for projects in formulation. GAO is still
in the process of negotiating with PA&E on what will be
provided in terms of cost data for projects in formulation. The
likely outcome is that GAO will be provided the independent
estimate of life cycle cost for each of the projects in
formulation. This process has been time consuming.
Consistent information is not available on all NASA
projects given the various requirements that have been modified
over the years for NASA's projects (i.e., NPR 7120.5
iterations) and cost accounting has changed practically every
year.
Q4b. What types of information should NASA be collecting from its
projects to monitor their performance? To what extent is this
information being collected?
A4b. NASA should be collection information on and monitoring their
projects with the types of indicators that we have found in our best
practices work, including technology maturity and design stability. In
addition, NASA should ensure that it questions its projects on their
estimates for reuse of heritage technology; margins for weights growth;
strategies for contractor management; strategies for dealing with
project partners (i.e., other government agencies or other countries);
and software development plans, in particular the estimated numbers of
lines of code.
Q4c. Based on early observations, does NASA seem to be experiencing
similar problems on each of its development efforts?
A4c. Preliminary indications show that many NASA project are
experiencing cost and schedule growth due to several common issues.
Some of these include:
Proceeding beyond preliminary design without maturing
technologies.
Proceeding beyond critical design with an unstable
design.
Underestimating development activities (i.e., cost
and schedule) associated with the use of heritage technology.
Dealing with contractor performance issues.
Dealing with partner performance issues.
Questions submitted by Representative Tom Feeney
Q1. Given that COTS is being privately developed under a Space Act
Agreement without the contractual controls of a typical NASA
procurement, what specific criteria should Congress focus on to gain
insight while COTS is being developed?
A1. Key milestones that should be tracked under the COTS efforts
include preliminary design reviews, critical design reviews, and
production reviews. At each of these reviews, the COTS provider should
be able to demonstrate it has knowledge necessary to proceed forward.
For example, at critical design review, best practice organizations
have typically released 90 percent of their design drawings, which
ensures that the design is stable enough to proceed into complex
integration activities. It is our understanding that NASA participates
in these reviews to assess readiness to move forward, and payments to
the COTS providers are based on successfully completing these reviews.
Test flights--the results of which are often visible to the public--are
also important to monitor as they demonstrate whether engines work
properly and ultimately, whether prototype launch vehicles can
successfully reach orbit. There are also key indicators that should be
tracked throughout the development programs, including weight growth
and software growth--as these are typically underestimated in complex
space programs. However, we do not know the extent to which this data
is available to the Congress and oversight entities.
Q2. What specific criteria and critical decision milestones should
Congress focus on to gain insight while Ares I is being developed?
A2. The same milestones and data points should be tracked in assessing
the Ares program, in addition to the results of specific types of
testing, such as software testing and integration testing. Further,
Congress should continually monitor NASA's own risk assessment process
as it helps to identify what the agency deems as the most critical
risks and challenges facing the project as well as its mitigation
plans. In addition, earned value management (EVM) analyses should be
tracked as they can pinpoint where contractors are having trouble and
what trends are being experienced in terms of cost and schedule growth.
Lastly, the levels of management reserves should be tracked as the pace
of deploying those reserves can indicate areas of high risk.
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Noel W. Hinners, Independent Consultant
Questions submitted by Chairman Mark Udall
Q1. You testified that ``one should have a lunar program exit
strategy. . ..'' What, in your view, would such a strategy look like
and are there any lessons learned from the Apollo program?
A1. An exit strategy should define the desired goals of the program
with sufficient clarity and precision that one knows when the program
may be considered successful and thus ended. This requires that the
program requirements that flow from the goals be defined and ``flowed
down'' to the program element designs and mission implementation plans.
For the lunar program, the goals and related requirements should be
defined in terms of what information is needed, for example, to provide
the experience and capability development essential (not simply
possible) for preparing for exploration beyond the Moon. Those goals
and related requirements should be guided by an integrated exploration
architecture that flows requirements backward from what is required for
eventual Martian exploration and develops capability in the most
efficient and effective venue (Earth, ISS, Moon and other deep space
missions, e.g., Lagrange or Near Earth Objects).
If there is a relevant lesson learned from Apollo it is that there
was essentially no exit strategy. The end of Apollo was dictated by
external political and budgetary forces that, for example, resulted in
the cancellation of Apollo 18, 19 and 20. NASA plans for extended lunar
exploration totally failed to materialize. I believe that the greatest
problem was not recognizing, or accepting, that the budget situation
simply would not support the plans for extensive lunar exploration. At
the time NASA had other planning underway for an Apollo Applications
Program, for a Shuttle and a Space Station but did not have
administration or Congressional approval for any, a vacuum that led to
inefficient structuring of the subsequent human flight program.
Explicit approval and acceptance of a post-lunar program (i.e., an
integrated architecture more specific than the top-level Vision for
Space Exploration) would help avoid a similar situation today.
Q2. You testified that various auxiliary equipment and facilities
required for a lunar outpost are enabling for future exploration of
Mars and could be provided by international partners, given the funding
challenges for Ares I and Orion. Are you indicating that our potential
to go beyond the Moon will depend on the auxiliary equipment that
international partners choose to contribute to the lunar exploration
initiative?
A2. No. The equipment referred to is lunar specific. Our potential to
go beyond the Moon to, say, Lagrange points or Near Earth Objects will
not require most of the auxiliary equipments developed for the Moon.
The lunar equipment also will not be directly applicable to eventual
human exploration of Mars because of the great environmental
differences although some of the techniques and experience could be
applicable. I do believe, however, that the experience that can be
gained by developing a truly collaborative lunar exploration can help
develop the trust that will be needed for collaboration in a program as
difficult as Martian exploration. Given the high cost of human
exploration of Mars it is likely that significant international
collaboration will be an essential requirement.
Q3. A committee convened by the NRC found that the lack of knowledge
about the biological effects of and responses to space radiation is the
single most important factor limiting prediction of radiation risk
associated with human space exploration. If this is the case, are we
proceeding in the design of space hardware without a good understanding
of the radiation protection requirements needed?
A3. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable in this subject to be able to
provide an answer.
Questions submitted by Representative Tom Feeney
Q1. How should Congress ensure that the establishment of a lunar
outpost does not divert attention and resources away from exploration
beyond the Moon?
A1. There are several ways to help avoid unwarranted investment in the
Moon. First, NASA must have a well-defined integrated exploration
architecture that defines a next step(s) beyond the Moon and which
clearly spells out what capabilities unambiguously require lunar
development (as contrasted with on Earth, ISS, Lagrange and/or NEO
missions). Having a post-lunar or possibly concurrent goal such as,
e.g., a Lagrange mission, helps prevent a tendency to continue with or
expand whatever one is doing simply to keep going with something.
Secondly, have a well-defined lunar exit strategy (see answer to
Chairman Udall's question #1 which is keyed directly to accomplishing
specific, well-defined and not open-ended goals. Lastly, the lunar
program should be limited to only the high priority goals; one must
resist the temptation to make it a program for all comers as happened
in the formulation days of both the Shuttle and the ISS.
Q2. What are the most important objectives to be accomplished in
returning humans to the Moon? And to what extent are those objectives
prerequisites for exploration beyond the Moon?
A2. It is my belief that the most important lunar objectives are those
related to preparing for exploration beyond the Moon. I do not at this
time see the lunar program as having merit as a long-duration (decades)
permanent ``occupancy'' or mostly for conducting science.
Q3. How is NASA ensuring that lunar explorations will be focused on
achieving high potential scientific returns?
A3. The NASA Science Mission Directorate is using the NRC report The
Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon to provide it with
guidance on what lunar science to pursue. They are working directly and
jointly with the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate to plan the
science activities for the Moon. As noted in my testimony, I believe
that the quality of the potential science can be improved by following
the management model used by Apollo to integrate the science into the
lunar human exploration.
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Kathryn C. Thornton, Professor and Associate Dean, School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University of Virginia
Questions submitted by Chairman Mark Udall
Q1. Earlier this year you helped organize a workshop entitled
``Examining the Vision: Balancing Science and Exploration'' held at
Stanford University. I understand that participants were scientists and
engineers representing various industry, academic, government, and
nongovernmental organizations. What, if anything, did participants
propose be done to counter concerns that the effort to develop a lunar
infrastructure would bog down space exploration beyond the Moon?
A1. The only output from the workshop was a joint communique\1\ listing
four consensus statements. Opinions express in this document are my
own.
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\1\ http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/
advocacy-and-education/space-advocacy/
20080214.html
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Workshop participants concluded that ``the purpose of sustained
human exploration is to go to Mars and beyond,'' but specific
strategies to keep that goal in the forefront of NASA, Congress and the
public were not discussed at the workshop.
Since the Vision was announced in 2004, NASA has necessarily
directed abrupt changes to ongoing programs in order to accommodate new
mandates with the expectation of only incremental funding increases.
Termination of the Space Shuttle program is in work. Science programs
on ISS that do not support the Vision have been effectively terminated.
Reduction and possibly elimination of support for ISS operations in the
next decade is, in my opinion, inevitable as NASA presses forward with
construction of a lunar-based analog to the ISS.
If the Moon is a stepping stone to Mars and beyond, as I believe it
is, exit strategies should be built into the plans from the beginning.
Start dates, stop dates and objectives to be accomplished in between
should be part of the lunar strategy. Rather than prohibiting NASA from
planning for a human exploration program on Mars, Congress should
require it so that our investment in a lunar program is an investment
in a comprehensive exploration program.
Q2. You testified on the consensus statements of the workshop on
Examining the Vision, one of which states that ``The significance of
the Moon and other intermediate destinations is to serve as stepping
stones on the path to that goal.'' What, in your view, is needed from
the lunar stepping stone to move on to other destinations, and are
NASA's plans on the right path for meeting those needs?
A2. Until goals for human exploration of Mars and beyond are developed,
it is not possible to determine precisely how intermediate steps can
contribute to those goals. However, in very broad terms, human missions
to the Moon would provide the first opportunity in a generation to
manage and execute a program of this magnitude. Heavy lift launch
capabilities and new human transport to LEO would presumably be
building blocks for missions to other destinations. The Ares I and Ares
V launchers should, like the Atlas and Delta families, evolve over the
years to accommodate progressively more demanding requirements for
missions beyond the Moon.
Q3. At the Stanford workshop, the inadequacy of NASA's budget to do
all the things it is expected to do was also raised.
Q3a. Did participants address whether Vision is still achievable if
NASA's future budgets remain at current historical levels?
A3a. While there was no consensus on the subject, the feeling among
several of the workshop participants is that additional funding, on the
order of a few billions per year, would be required to achieve near-
term goals of the Vision, i.e., Orion, Ares I and Ares V, while
continuing to fund space science, Earth science and aeronautics.
Q3b. Were lesser priority activities identified for elimination/
reduction so that Vision activities could continue?
A3b. Elimination and prioritization of NASA activities were not
addressed at the workshop. A two-day workshop could not take on
specific budget issues, with the exception of noting budget cuts being
applied to science and aeronautics programs to compensate for under-
funded exploration mandates, including the Space Shuttle retirement.
Q4. Your testimony comments on whether we should look at a broad range
of opportunities for scientific research on the Moon or focus on the
science that will best enable capabilities for exploration beyond the
Moon.
Q4a. What is your perspective on which path NASA should take?
A4a. In an ideal world, we would do both. In the less-than-ideal world
in which we live, it seems unlikely NASA can afford both options. In
that case, focusing on the science and technology developments that
will best enable exploration beyond the Moon opens up a much broader
array of science opportunities in the solar system that can be enabled
or enhanced by human activities than just those on the lunar surface.
Q4b. What, if any, concerns do you have regarding scientific
exploration of the Moon?
A4b. The Moon is a profoundly interesting destination for human and
robotic scientific exploration with a wealth of compelling objectives,
enough to keep us busy for a generation or two. My concern is that
expectations for a lunar outpost must be realistic, have a finite
lifetimes and be part of an overall plan for exploration.
NASA long range budget forecasts have been presented as ``sand
charts'' to show that the exploration strategy through 2020 is
affordable assuming inflationary budget growth or slightly higher.\2\
Had ``sand charts'' been available in the early 1980's showing ISS
funding being phased out only seven years after completion, the space
station we have now might be considerably different. My point is not to
rehash the 25+ year saga that led to the ISS, but to suggest that we
not repeat that experience. Similar ``sand charts'' extending to 2040
or 2050 could serve as visual reminders that resources are finite, and
lunar program budgets must at some time ramp down to make way for the
next step in the exploration strategy.
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\2\ http://history.nasa.gov/sepbudgetchart.pdf (attached)
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Questions submitted by Representative Tom Feeney
Q1. If we stay-the-course with our current plans, do you think the
exploration architecture as currently envisioned is sufficient to allow
us to accomplish our goals of establishing a permanent human outpost on
the Moon and attempt voyages beyond? Please elaborate.
A1. I cannot comment with any authority on the merits of the current
architecture as compared to other alternatives, except to note that
second guessing, re-architecting and redirecting are probably not
productive exercises at this point. A more productive effort, in my
opinion, would be to direct and fund NASA to begin considering
requirements for voyages beyond the Moon and how the Constellation
system can evolve for those purposes.
Q2. There is general agreement that the Moon is a logical stepping
stone to further destinations including Mars. Would you comment briefly
on other potential destinations that are not as far away as Mars that
could serve as useful interim destinations?
A2. Developing a comprehensive exploration strategy and associated
technology development roadmaps should be done by experts. I can only
comment in very general terms.
Missions to Near Earth Objects of perhaps a year's duration would
further extend human exploration beyond Earth's gravity well.
Technology required for the health and safety of human crews in the
interplanetary environment would be directly applicable to missions to
Mars.
Human missions to the Martian moons would be of a similar distance
and duration as expeditions to the Martian surface, but would not
require expensive and risky landing and launch systems.
These intermediate goals and others offer rich science
opportunities as well as steps along a technology roadmap to Mars.
Q3. How should Congress ensure that the establishment of a lunar
outpost does not divert attention and resources away from exploration
beyond the Moon?
A3. In my opinion, Congress should direct NASA to develop a
comprehensive exploration strategy and technology roadmap to accomplish
the goal of the Vision to ``extend human presence across the solar
system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in
preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations.''
``Go as you pay'' may necessitate smaller steps that I would like to
see, but makes it even more important to ensure that each step
contributes to the overall goal.
Attachment