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NASA: HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND 

SPACE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 2, 2003

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

(

(II)

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

JEANNE BUMPUS, Republican Staff Director and General Counsel 

ROBERT W. CHAMBERLIN, Republican Chief Counsel 

KEVIN D. KAYES, Democratic Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

GREGG ELIAS, Democratic General Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 2, 2003 ................................................................................ 1

Statement of Senator Breaux ................................................................................. 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 3

Statement of Senator Brownback ........................................................................... 1

Statement of Senator Nelson .................................................................................. 40

WITNESSES

Chase, Brian E., Executive Director, National Space Society ............................. 14

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16

Roland, Alex, Professor of History, Duke University ........................................... 18

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20

Article from Discover, dated November 1985, entitled The Shuttle, Triumph or Turkey? ........................................................................................... 21

Smith, Marcia S., Resources, Science and Industry Division, Congressional 

Research Service .................................................................................................. 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6

(1)

NASA: HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 2003

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:35 p.m. in room 

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Sam Brownback, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK,

U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS 

Senator BROWNBACK. The hearing will come to order. 

Thank you all for joining us today. I think we’ll be joined by 

some other members a little bit later on. There’s a briefing going 

on right now by Secretary Rumsfeld that a number of people have 

gone over to, and I certainly don’t blame them. I was tempted, myself, to postpone the hearing for an hour’s period of time, but finding an hour during the day is just tough to find. I decided to go 

ahead and go forward with the hearing. I would anticipate we’ll 

probably be joined by some other members here a little bit later on. 

America has consistently proven her leadership in space science 

and technology. Predominance of America in space came from the 

charge set forth by President Kennedy to land a man on the moon 

and return him safely to earth. The technological advances made 

during the Apollo era were a result of the U.S. space program 

pushing forward in human space exploration. Today, I hope to take 

a look back briefly at the recent history of human space exploration, specifically the Space Shuttle, as well as a look forward at 

what the vision of NASA should be. 

This is going to be one of a number of hearings that I anticipate 

we’ll do in this Subcommittee looking at the future of NASA. Moving towards a reauthorization bill for NASA hasn’t been done for 

now some 10 years. Through these hearings I hope to mold together an effective effort to move forward a reauthorization bill for 

NASA. 

Recently, the Shuttle has been a topic of many discussions and 

debates in the wake of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. As these debates continue, I hope we’ll be able to add to that discussion today. 

In the wake of the Columbia tragedy and the decision to not replace Columbia, we must take a close look at our efforts in developing the next launch vehicle for NASA. It is imperative that we 

make our way to space and do so as quickly and as safely as possible. As tempting as it is to accelerate the process of developing 

2

our next launch vehicle, we must do so as safely as we possibly 

can. 

I cannot say right now whether more money is the answer to the 

problems NASA has encountered in their quest for a new launch 

vehicle. I fully intend to look at the budget of NASA and determine 

where they are hurting, where they are operating successfully, and 

where they are involved with projects that could be better accomplished by another agency or by the private sector. I certainly hope 

that today we can bring to light some of the issues behind the future of human space flight and help determine where NASA needs 

to go. 

When President Kennedy challenged America to send a man to 

the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade, 

NASA was sent on a mission in which the only option for the outcome was success. It seems it is going to take that same kind of 

dedication and determination to successfully accomplish the next 

step in human space exploration. 

The future of the space program is also contingent upon the role 

that private businesses play in the process. As the government 

looks at ways to save costs, NASA will have to rely more heavily 

on private investment and commitments. Spurring competition 

within the private sector could reduce the pressure on NASA to accomplish everything in space. For example, Trans Orbital, a California company, is working on the first commercial project to the 

moon. They’re calling it the Trailblazer. It is exactly what this 

country needs right now, someone or something to blaze the trails 

between the earth and the stars in human exploration. 

Currently, NASA and Russia are the only countries successfully 

launching humans into space. We are continually hearing comments by the Chinese and reports that, as early as October, they, 

too, will be launching its first astronaut into space. If China does 

become the third space-faring nation, we are faced with a more 

complicated and urgent matter here in America. 

Today, I hope to learn more about how NASA came to the decision of using the Shuttle and if the Shuttle is the best means of 

space transportation for the future. Additionally, I’d like our witnesses to comment on the role of human space exploration and the 

overall goals of NASA. Just a few weeks ago, members of NASA’s 

Advisory Council announced their concerns that NASA’s decision to 

build an orbital space plane lacks vision. I hope that today we can 

help determine what a vision for human space flight in the U.S. 

should look like and bring focus where we are currently lacking. 

In the days immediately following the Columbia tragedy, I stated 

that we needed to step back and take a close look at where NASA 

has been, where they are currently, and where they need to go in 

the future. That’s exactly what we’ll be discussing today. 

Marcia Smith, with the Congressional Research Service, will talk 

with us about the fundamental question of, how did we get here. 

That is, how did the U.S. get to the current point of using the 

Space Shuttle as our means of transportation to and from space. 

I welcome her to the Committee and her years of expertise in 

studying this issue. 

Mr. Brian Chase, with the National Space Society, will discuss 

access to space and human space flight initiatives related to new 

3

space transportation systems. Mr. Chase will lay out access to 

space as the most critical part of any space exploration effort. This 

is something that the founders of this organization, Dr. Von Braun, 

would agree with. 

And, finally, we’ll hear from Dr. Alex Roland, a former NASA 

historian and current professor at Duke University. Dr. Roland will 

discuss the flaws of the current space program and present his recommendations on how NASA should proceed with space exploration. 

We look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses in this first 

hearing. 

Before we go there, I’d like to turn to my colleague from Louisiana, where I guess KU will be going, but Duke won’t. I don’t 

mean to rub it in, Dr. Roland. But to New Orleans on Saturday, 

we’re excited about that. We normally lose to Duke, but we finally 

got over it this time. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BREAUX. Sure. Well, we welcome you to New Orleans, 

and the team, and wish you the very best. It’s going to be a great 

event. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN B. BREAUX,

U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA 

Senator BREAUX. I thank you for having this hearing. I think it’s 

timely, and it’s important. Hopefully, it will be very informative. I 

think this country is, indeed, at the crossroads of where we’re going 

to be in the future with regard to exploration of space. 

There are many who look at the Space Shuttle’s recent disaster 

as a reason to call for the termination of space exploration. I think 

that is not a correct conclusion, I think that we obviously need to 

find out what went wrong. I think NASA and the independent 

board are looking at that, will find out what happened, and take 

the necessary steps to correct it. 

We will explore space because it is there and because we learn 

a lot and develop new technology from those efforts, which benefit 

all of us in ways that we could only dream of a couple of generations ago. 

I do think that it’s important to have this opportunity to assess 

where we are, where we’re going to be, and what needs to be done. 

I have no doubt that all the workers and the thousands of employees and contractors that are all part of what we call space exploration will continue to do a remarkable job. 

I look forward to the witnesses’ testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Breaux follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN B. BREAUX, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA

Mr. Chairman, as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, 

and Space, I look forward to working with you this Congress, particularly as the 

Subcommittee examines issues related to the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, 

NASA, and the future of space flight. 

Today, we are at a critical juncture for manned space flight, and perhaps a turning point in its history. I am a strong supporter of human space flight and of the 

thousands of workers who enable it. Their efforts have taken us to the very edge 

of what was dreamed possible forty years ago, and to the doorstep of a new era of 

exploration and development. I have no doubt that the United States will continue 

to send people to space. However, we must do so with a full acknowledgment of the 

4

risks, a commitment to continue to minimize those risks, and a vision for what humans can and should aim to accomplish in space. 

The discussion about the future of space which we are beginning today will not 

come to focus solely on Columbia and its loss. The future of the Space Shuttle has 

broad implications for the International Space Station—a program in which the 

United States and its International partners have already made a significant investment. Without the Shuttle, it will be difficult to keep the Station fully supplied and 

further construction will be halted. 

We see and applaud NASA’s actions to recover the space agenda. Even as the Columbia Accident Investigation Board continues its work on the causes of the accident, NASA has begun to plan for the Shuttle’s return to flight. And there are discussions underway among the international partners, too, on the use and servicing 

of the Space Station for the foreseeable future. We judge these to be prudent and 

necessary actions. In addition, and now in parallel to the Columbia investigation, 

last fall NASA instituted a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) plan to assure 

the long term future of the Space Shuttle. This newly implemented annual planning 

process culminated in a SLEP summit a few weeks ago at which NASA and its 

human spaceflight stakeholders identified a series of proposed initiatives that they 

deemed necessary to ensure the Shuttle’s ability to effectively support the International Space Station. Finally, this team of senior NASA and industry managers 

also defined the criteria to be used by the NASA leadership to evaluate the proposed 

programs and make investment decisions and recommendations necessary to assure 

the long term viability of the Shuttle. 

When the results of the investigation are known, NASA will make any modifications needed to make the Shuttle safer and will consider how it will proceed to complete the assembly and support the crew and logistics needs of the International 

Space Station. In the mean time, the Agency will need to retain the critical skills 

of the current Shuttle and Space Station workforces, both inside and outside the 

agency. For thirty years, these workers have been a critical part of NASA’s successes, and they will be needed for the continued success of the human space flight 

program. 

In addition, we must begin planning for a time beyond the current era of the 

Space Shuttle and Space Station. Although the answer to the question, ‘‘Why fly humans in space?’’ may have required no better response than, ‘‘Because it is there’’, 

the loss of Columbia chastens each of us to ask the harder questions before us: ‘‘At 

what risk, towards what ends, and in what time frame can we do it safely and securely.’’ Mr. Chairman, I thank you for convening this first of many discussions this 

Committee will have on this subject over the coming year, and I hope that today’s 

discussion can begin to lay out the agenda we need to pursue in examining these 

questions.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Senator Breaux. 

First will be Ms. Marcia Smith, specialist in aerospace technology policy from the Congressional Research Service. The floor is 

yours. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF MARCIA S. SMITH, RESOURCES, SCIENCE AND 

INDUSTRY DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 

Ms. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, Senator Breaux, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the history of the human space flight 

program in the context of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. I 

ask that my written statement be made part of the record. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Without objection. 

Ms. SMITH. You asked that I address the fundamental question 

of how did we get here. The answer has two components. Why does 

the United States have a human space flight program? And why 

did we decide to build the Space Shuttle? 

Senator BROWNBACK. Ms. Smith, pull that microphone up a little 

closer to you, if you would. Thanks. 

Ms. SMITH. The dream of people journeying into space has been 

the lore of science fiction for centuries. By the time Sputnik 1 ushVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
5

ered in the space age in 1957, a cadre of enthusiasts was ready to 

make such dreams a reality. 

Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in 

1958, creating NASA and establishing as one objective the ‘‘preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in... space 

science and technology.’’

In 1959, NASA selected the first group of astronauts, the Mercury 7. Two years later, the first human orbited the earth. 

But it was not one of the Mercury 7; instead it was a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin’s flight added new impetus to the 

U.S. program. America’s leadership in space science and technology, its international prestige, and, many believed, its national 

security, were at stake. 

Three weeks later, Alan Shepard became the first American in 

space, but it was a suborbital flight. The United States did not 

match Gagarin’s feat until 10 months later, when John Glenn became the first American in orbit. 

The risks were high in those early flights, yet the Nation was 

willing to accept those risks, and pay the costs, to ensure American 

preeminence. Indeed, only 3 weeks after Alan Shepard’s flight, 

President Kennedy called on the nation to commit itself to the goal 

of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and the 

Nation said yes. Although the space program has changed in many 

ways since then, human space flight as an indicator of technological preeminence appears to remain a strong factor in its support. 

And there are other reasons. President George H. W. Bush, the 

first President Bush, may have articulated them best in July 1989, 

when, on the 20th anniversary of the first Apollo lunar landing, he 

announced a commitment to returning humans to the moon and 

going on to Mars. He said, ‘‘Why the moon? Why Mars? Because 

it is humanity’s destiny to strive, to seek, to find, and because it 

is America’s destiny to lead.’’

That is not to say that human space flight is without controversy. The debate over the need to send humans into space is 

as old as the space program itself. And over the past 42 years, little 

progress seems to have been made in bridging the divide between 

those who believe human space flight is essential, and those who 

believe it is a waste of money and an unnecessary risk to human 

life. Since your other witnesses here this afternoon are going debate that topic, I will not. 

Suffice it to say that, to date, the United States and other countries have decided that human space flight is worth the costs and 

the risks. Representatives of 31 countries have traveled into space 

over the past 42 years on American and Russian spacecraft. And 

later this year, China is expected to launch its own astronaut into 

space for the first time. 

The next question is, why the Shuttle? 

As 1969 dawned and the first Apollo lunar landing neared, President Nixon took office and faced the question of what goals should 

guide the space program in the post-Apollo years. He established 

a Space Task Group chaired by Vice President Agnew that developed a plan to build a space station, a reusable space transportation system to service it, and to send humans to Mars. 

6

But after America won the moon race, support for expensive 

human space missions waned. NASA found that it had to pick just 

one of those new projects. It chose the reusable space transportation system—the Space Shuttle. One goal of the Shuttle program 

was to significantly reduce the cost of launching people and cargo 

into space. 

The reusable Space Shuttle was intended to replace all other 

U.S. launch vehicles, so-called ‘‘expendable launch vehicles’’ that 

can only be used once. By transferring all space traffic to the Shuttle, NASA projected that the Shuttle’s development and operations 

costs would be amortized over a large number of launches, 48 per 

year, with resulting cost efficiencies. 

Senator BROWNBACK. How many per year? 

Ms. SMITH. Forty eight. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Per year? 

Ms. SMITH. Per year. 

Dr. ROLAND. At one time, they said 60. 

Ms. SMITH. That premise has not held true, however. The costs 

were higher, and the flight rate lower. Today, many point to the 

Shuttle as a technical success but an economic failure. 

NASA has initiated several attempts to develop successors to the 

Shuttle, with the continued goal of reducing costs. Each attempt 

has failed in turn, in large part because anticipated technological 

advances did not materialize. Late last year, NASA announced that 

it would continue operating the Shuttle until at least 2015 and perhaps 2020 or longer. Despite the Columbia tragedy, NASA officials 

have made clear that plan is unchanged. 

Congress is now again assessing the costs and benefits of human 

space flight. Based on past experience, many expect that the decision will be made to continue the human space flight program essentially unchanged once the cause of the Columbia accident is determined and fixed; but there are a number of options to consider, 

from returning the Shuttle to flight as soon as possible to terminating the human space flight program entirely. I summarize those 

options in my written statement and would be happy to discuss 

them with you if you wish. 

Thank you, and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARCIA S. SMITH, RESOURCES, SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY

DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here 

today to discuss the history of the human space flight program in the context of the 

Space Shuttle Columbia accident. You asked that I address the fundamental question of ‘‘How did we get here?’’ The answer has two components: Why does the 

United States have a human space flight program, and why did we decide to build 

the Space Shuttle? These are complex issues and my brief statement cannot do 

them justice. But I will try to provide an overview of some of the factors that shaped 

those decisions in the past, and summarize options as you reassess those decisions 

for the future. 

Why Human Space Flight? 

The dream of people journeying into space was the lore of science fiction for centuries. By the time Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age on October 4, 1957, a cadre 

of enthusiasts was ready to make such dreams a reality. 

7

1The 17 American astronaut spaceflight-related fatalities counted here include the three Apollo 204 astronauts who were killed in a pre-launch test in 1967. Some sources exclude these astronauts because they were not killed in an actual spaceflight. The table at the end of this statement provides more information on the space tragedies that ended in death: the 1967 Apollo 

fire (3 deaths), the 1967 Soyuz 1 mission (one), the 1971 Soyuz 11 mission (three), the 1986 

Space Shuttle Challenger accident (seven), and the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident 

(seven). The Columbia accident is also discussed in CRS Report RS21408 and CRS Issue Brief 

IB93062.

Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in July 1958, creating 

NASA and establishing as one objective ‘‘the preservation of the role of the United 

States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere.’’ NASA opened its doors on October 1, 1958, and 6 months later the first 

group of astronauts—the Mercury 7—was selected. 

Two years later, on April 12, 1961, the first human orbited the Earth. But it was 

not one of the Mercury 7. Instead, it was a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin. 

Gagarin’s flight added new impetus to the U.S. program. America’s leadership in 

space science and technology, its international prestige, and, many believed, its national security, were at stake. Three weeks later, Alan Shepherd became the first 

American in space, but it was a suborbital flight. The United States did not match 

Gagarin’s feat until 10 months later, when John Glenn became the first American 

in orbit. 

The risks were high in those early flights. We had little experience with launching 

rockets into space, and with the spacecraft that protected the astronauts. Yet the 

nation was willing to accept those risks, and pay the cost, to ensure American preeminence. Indeed, only three weeks after Alan Shepard’s flight, President Kennedy 

called on the nation to commit to the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the 

end of the decade, and the nation said yes. Although the space program has changed 

in many ways over the past four decades, human space flight as an indicator of 

technological preeminence appears to remain a strong factor. 

Human space flight is risky. It has claimed the lives of 17 American astronauts 

and four Russian cosmonauts in spaceflight-related accidents so far. 1 While this is 

a relatively small percentage of the more than 400 people who have made space 

journeys, their loss is felt deeply. Human space flight also is quite expensive. NASA 

will spend about $6 billion on the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs in this 

fiscal year. Yet we persevere. President George H.W. Bush articulated what many 

consider a guiding impetus. In July 1989, on the 20th anniversary of the first Apollo 

lunar landing, he stood on the steps of the National Air and Space Museum and 

announced a commitment to returning humans to the Moon, and going on to Mars. 

He said: 

Why the Moon? Why Mars? Because it is humanity’s destiny to strive, to seek, 

to find, and because it is America’s destiny to lead.

That is not to say that human space flight is without controversy. The debate over 

the need to send humans into space is as old as the space program itself. Over the 

past 42 years, little progress seems to have been made in bridging the divide between those who believe human space flight is essential, and those who believe it 

is a waste of money and an unnecessary risk to human life. The Senate Committee 

on Aeronautical and Space Sciences—the predecessor to this Subcommittee—held 

hearings on that debate forty years ago, and little has changed. I know your other 

witnesses today will resume that dialogue, so I will not devote much of my statement to it. Briefly, critics of human space flight believe that robotic probes can gather the needed scientific data at much less cost, and that humans contribute little 

to space-based scientific research. They point out that no ground-breaking scientific 

discoveries have emerged from 42 years of human space flight that can be uniquely 

attributed to the presence of humans in space. Proponents insist that human ingenuity and adaptability are essential for some types of basic research in space, and 

can rescue an otherwise doomed mission by recognizing and correcting problems before they lead to failures. While proponents point to the value of ‘‘spin-off’’ technologies that were developed for human space flight but found broader application 

in medicine or other fields, critics argue that those technologies probably would 

have been developed in any case. Past economic studies that attempted to quantify 

the value of spin-offs were criticized because of their methodologies, and critics suggest that investing federal monies in non-space areas might have yielded equally 

valuable spin-offs or led directly to new scientific knowledge or technologies. The 

two sides of this debate have been, and remain, quite polarized. To date, the United 

States and other countries have decided in favor of human space flight, despite its 

risks and costs. 

8

2There has been extensive cooperation in other space activities as well since the beginning 

of the Space Age. 3 Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, 

Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and Vietnam. 

While a desire for preeminence has been one motivation in pursuing human 

spaceflight, it has not precluded cooperation. Even at the height of U.S.-Soviet space 

competition in the early days of the Space Race, the United States and Soviet Union 

also worked together—at the United Nations through the Committee on Peaceful 

Uses of Outer Space, and through bilateral cooperative agreements as early as 1962. 

In 1963, President Kennedy proposed that the two countries cooperate in sending 

astronauts to the Moon, but the Soviets did not accept the offer. Human space flight 

cooperation between the two countries, and with other countries, grew as the space 

programs matured. 2 The United States and Soviet Union agreed to a joint docking 

of a Russian Soyuz and an American Apollo in 1975 to demonstrate ‘‘detente in 

space.’’ The United States brought Canada and the European Space Agency (ESA) 

into the Space Shuttle program, with Canada building a remote manipulator system 

(‘‘Canadarm’’) and ESA building the Spacelab module for conducting scientific experiments in the Shuttle’s cargo bay. In 1977, the Soviet Union began launching 

cosmonauts from allied countries to its space stations, and the United States included representatives of many other countries in Space Shuttle crews beginning in 

1983. To date, astronauts and cosmonauts from 29 other countries 3 have journeyed 

into space on American or Russian spacecraft. And today, of course, 15 nations—

the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries—are partners 

in building the International Space Station. 

The international landscape has influenced the course of human space flight over 

these decades. But fundamentally, the desire to pursue such activities seems based 

on a quest for national technological preeminence and a yearning to explore new 

frontiers. 

Why the Shuttle? 

The first decade of the U.S. human space flight program saw the execution of the 

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. As 1969 dawned and the first Apollo lunar 

landing neared, President Nixon took office and faced the question of what goals 

should guide the space program in the post-Apollo years. He established a ‘‘Space 

Task Group,’’ chaired by Vice President Agnew, to develop recommendations. The 

group’s report laid out a plan that called for developing a space station, a reusable 

space transportation system to service it, and sending humans to Mars. But after 

America won the Moon Race with the Apollo 11 landing in July 1969, it became apparent that support for expensive human space missions was waning. Attention 

turned to other national priorities, and NASA found that it had to pick just one of 

those new projects. It decided that the first step should be development of the reusable space transportation system—the Space Shuttle. One goal of the Shuttle program was to significantly reduce the cost of launching people and cargo into space. 

President Nixon announced the Shuttle program in 1972. It was quite controversial 

in Congress, but ultimately was approved. 

The reusable Space Shuttle was intended to replace all other U.S. launch vehicles, 

so-called ‘‘expendable launch vehicles’’ (ELVs) that can only be used once. By transferring all space traffic to the Shuttle, NASA projected that the Shuttle’s development and operations costs would be amortized over a large number of annual 

launches—48 flights per year— with resulting cost efficiencies. 

That premise has not held true, however. The costs were higher than expected, 

and the annual flight rate much lower. Since 1981 when the Shuttle was first 

launched, the greatest number of launches in a single year has been nine. One factor in the lower launch rate was policy changes in the aftermath of the 1986 Space 

Shuttle Challenger accident. The Reagan White House reversed the decision to 

phase out ELVs and announced that, with few exceptions, the Shuttle could be used 

only for missions requiring the Shuttle’s ‘‘unique capabilities’’ such as crew interaction. Commercial communications satellites, expected to comprise a large share of 

Shuttle launches, no longer could be launched on the Shuttle. While that provided 

a market for the resurrected ELVs, the effect on the Shuttle program was many 

fewer launches and a higher cost-per-launch. Today, many point to the Shuttle as 

an outstanding technical success, but an economic failure. 

In the 22 years since the Shuttle’s first flight, NASA (sometimes working with 

DoD) has initiated several attempts to develop a successor to the Shuttle—a ‘‘second 

generation reusable launch vehicle’’—with the continued goal of reducing costs. 

9

4Some would find this ironic at a time when China is about to become only the third country 

capable of launching people into space. It has launched four test spacecraft as part of that goal; 

the first launch carrying a Chinese astronaut, or ‘‘taikonaut,’’ is expected late this year. 5The ISS program is an international partnership among the United States, 11 European 

countries, Japan, Canada, and Russia. The Russians have three decades of experience in operating space stations without a Space Shuttle. Most of the remaining segments of the Space Station are designed to be launched on the Shuttle, so construction would remain stalled until and 

unless some other launch vehicle becomes available to launch the remaining segments, but operation of the existing space station could continue using Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft 

if funds are available. 6 At least one more servicing mission is planned in 2004 to enable the telescope to operate 

until 2010. At that time, NASA plans to use the Shuttle to return the telescope to Earth because 

it does not want it to make an uncontrolled reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Such a reentry 

could pose hazards from falling debris. 7The two companies operate the Space Shuttle (under a joint venture called United Space Alliance). Boeing is also the prime contractor for the Space Station program. 

Each attempt has failed in turn, in large part because anticipated technological advances did not materialize. Thus, the Shuttle continues to be the sole U.S. vehicle 

for launching people into space, and the only launch vehicle capable of meeting the 

International Space Station’s requirements for taking cargo up and back. Late last 

year, NASA again reformulated its plan to develop a successor to the Shuttle, asserting that an economic case could not be made at this time for investing as much 

as $30–35 billion in such a vehicle. Instead, NASA plans to continue operating the 

Shuttle until at least 2015 (instead of 2012), and perhaps 2020 or longer. 

That decision was made prior to the Columbia tragedy, but NASA officials have 

subsequently made clear that no change is expected. NASA plans to build an ‘‘Orbital Space Plane’’ that could supplement (but not replace) the Shuttle early in the 

next decade, and there are discussions about potentially flying the Shuttle with as 

few as two crew members, or perhaps autonomously (without a crew), in the long 

term future. For the present, however, NASA asserts that the Shuttle is needed to 

support the International Space Station program, and to service the Hubble Space 

Telescope. 

Options for the Future 

In the wake of the Columbia tragedy, Congress is again assessing the costs and 

benefits of human space flight. Congress has faced these questions before—in the 

early days of the Space Age, after the 1967 Apollo fire that took the lives of three 

astronauts, after the United States won the ‘‘Moon Race’’, and after the 1986 Space 

Shuttle Challenger tragedy that claimed seven lives. Based on past experience, 

many expect that the decision will be made to continue the human space flight program essentially unchanged once the cause of the Columbia accident is determined 

and fixed. But there are a number of options to consider, each with its own set of 

advantages and disadvantages. The major options and some of the associated pros 

and cons are discussed next. 

1. Terminate the U.S. human space flight program, including the Space 

Shuttle, U.S. participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program, and plans to develop an Orbital Space Plane.

Pros: The annual budget for the Space Shuttle is approximately $4 billion, and 

for the Space Station is approximately $2 billion. That amount of funding, plus 

whatever would be spent on the Orbital Space Plane (which is still in the formulation phase) could be saved, or redirected to other space or non-space priorities such 

as robotic space flight, scientific research, homeland security, or the costs of the 

Iraqi war. Human lives would not be at risk. Human spaceflight might remain a 

long term vision. 

Cons: To the extent that human space flight is still perceived as a measure of 

a nation’s technological preeminence, that advantage would be lost. 4 Although the 

United States is the leader of the International Space Station (ISS) program, ISS 

could continue without U.S. involvement, as long as the other partners had the requisite funds. 5 Thus, the more than $30 billion U.S. investment in the Space Station 

could be lost for American taxpayers, while the other partners could continue to use 

it for their own purposes. Without servicing missions by the Space Shuttle, the 

Hubble Space Telescope might not achieve its scientific potential, and non-Shuttle 

options for disposing of it at the end of its life would have to be developed. 6 There 

also could be consequences for the U.S. aerospace industry, particularly Boeing and 

Lockheed Martin. 7

Terminate the Shuttle and Orbital Space Plane programs, but continue 

participation in the ISS program, relying on Russian vehicles for taking 

U.S. astronauts to and from space when possible.

10

8 Vehicles other than the Shuttle are available, or are expected to become available in the next 

few years, to take cargo to the Space Station, but none can bring cargo back to Earth. Russia’s 

Progress spacecraft is the only other cargo craft available today. Russia has indicated that it 

cannot afford to build more than about three per year, however, which is insufficient to resupply 

even a two-person crew (this problem is being addressed currently). Under the Iran Nonproliferation Act, NASA is prohibited from making payments to Russia in connection with the 

Space Station program unless the President certifies that Russia is not proliferating certain 

technologies to Iran. Without such a certification, NASA could not pay Russia for Progress 

flights. Europe and Japan are both developing spacecraft that will be able to take cargo to the 

Space Station, but they will not be available for several years, and cannot return cargo to Earth. 

U.S. expendable launch vehicles potentially could be used to take cargo to the Space Station, 

although a cargo spacecraft equipped with autonomous rendezvous and docking systems would 

have to be developed. These also probably would not be able to return cargo to Earth. 9The Iran Nonproliferation Act (discussed in the previous footnote) would also prohibit U.S. 

payments to Russia for Soyuz flights unless the President certifies that Russia is complying with 

the Act. 10This would be in addition to inspections that could be accomplished using Department of 

Defense ground- and space-based sensors. 11There are only two non-space station missions on the Shuttle’s schedule today, both to the 

Hubble Space Telescope. At NASA’s current estimate of the marginal cost of a Shuttle launch 

($115 million), that would save only $230 million. The costs for fixing the problems that caused 

the Columbia accident are unknown, but seem likely to exceed that amount. 

Pros: The annual budget for the Space Shuttle is approximately $4 billion, so 

that amount of funding, plus whatever would be spent on OSP, could be saved or 

redirected to other space or non-space priorities (as above). The lives of fewer astronauts would be at risk. Compared to Option 1, this would leave open the possibility 

of U.S. use of the Space Station whenever NASA could obtain flight opportunities 

on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. 

Cons: Similar to Option 1, but if the United States wanted to continue using ISS, 

it would need to work with the other partners to solve the problem of how to deliver 

cargo to and return it from ISS. 8 If only the Soyuz spacecraft is used to take crews 

to and from the Space Station, agreements would have to be reached with Russia 

on how often American astronauts would be included in the Space Station crews and 

how much it would cost. 9 The issues related to the Hubble Space Telescope and the 

U.S. aerospace industry (discussed above) would remain. 

3. Terminate the Shuttle program, but continue participation in the ISS 

program and continue to develop the Orbital Space Plane or another replacement for the Shuttle.

Pros: The annual budget for the Space Shuttle is approximately $4 billion, so 

that amount of funding could be saved, or redirected to other space or non-space 

priorities (as above). Costs for developing and operating an Orbital Space Plane or 

a successor to the Shuttle are not yet known, however, so there might not be any 

net savings over the long term. A new vehicle might be safer and more cost effective. 

Cons: The disadvantages of this option would be similar to those for Option 2, 

except that at some point in the future, a U.S. human space flight vehicle would 

become operational, ameliorating questions about access to the Space Station by 

American crews. 

4. Continue the Shuttle program, but with fewer missions—perhaps limiting it to space station visits—and as few crew as possible.

Pros: Would limit the risk to Shuttle crews. If the Space Station was equipped 

with a system to inspect the Shuttle prior to undocking, 10 problems could be identified and possibly repaired. Continues U.S. leadership in space and any resulting 

benefits therefrom. 

Cons: There would be little, if any, financial savings from this option. 11 Astronaut lives would remain at risk. The question of what to do with the Hubble Space 

Telescope (discussed above) would remain if flights were limited only to space station visits. 

5. Resume Shuttle flights as planned.

Pros: Allows construction and utilization of the Space Station to continue as 

planned. Allows the Hubble Space Telescope to be serviced and returned to Earth. 

Continues U.S. leadership in space and any resulting benefits therefrom. 

Cons: There would be no financial savings, and costs would be incurred to fix the 

Shuttle. The risk to human life would remain. 

Options 4 and 5 could be coupled with directives to NASA to:

• equip the Space Station with a system that could inspect the Shuttle while it 

is docked;

11

• upgrade the Shuttle to make it safer, perhaps including additional crew escape 

systems or making the crew cabin survivable if the vehicle breaks apart;

• develop systems to enable the Shuttles to fly autonomously (without a crew); 

and/or

• accelerate efforts to build a successor to the Shuttle with the emphasis on improved safety, even if that meant not reducing costs as much as desired.

Summary 

Mr. Chairman, as I said, this brief statement provides only a cursory review of 

these complex issues. As the world readies to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of Yuri 

Gagarin’s historic flight 10 days from now, the future of the U.S. human space flight 

program is in question. Apart from the broad questions of whether the U.S. human 

space flight program should continue, a more specific focus may be the cost of returning the Shuttle to flight status and how long it will take. Those answers will 

not be known until the cause of the Columbia accident is determined, and remedies 

identified. If the costs are high, difficult decisions may be needed on whether to use 

the funds for the Shuttle, for other space initiatives, or for other national priorities 

such as paying for the Iraqi war and homeland security. While many expect that 

the United States will once again rally behind NASA, only time will tell if the past 

is prologue.

BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT: 1961–2003

United States 

Mercury (1961–1963) 

Purpose: To demonstrate that humans can travel into space and return safely. 

Flights: Six flights (two suborbital, four orbital). Alan Shepard, first American in 

space (on suborbital flight), May 5, 1961. John Glenn, first American in orbit, Feb. 

20, 1962.

Gemini (1965–1966) 

Purpose: To prepare for lunar missions by extending the duration of spaceflight 

(to 14 days), developing experience in rendezvous and docking, and demonstrating 

ability to work outside the spacecraft (extravehicular activity—EVA) 

Flights: 10 flights. Ed White conducted first U.S. EVA (June 1965).

Apollo Lunar Program (1967–1972) 

Purpose: To land men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. 

Flights: Eleven flights, nine to the Moon. Of the nine, two (Apollo 8 and 10) were 

test flights that did not attempt to land, one (Apollo 13) suffered an in-flight failure 

and the crew narrowly averted tragedy and were able to return to Earth, and six 

(Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) landed two-man teams on the lunar surface. Neil 

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to set foot on the Moon on July 

20, 1969, while Mike Collins orbited overhead.

Space Tragedy The Apollo program saw the first spaceflight-related tragedy 

when the three-man crew (Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee) of the first 

Apollo mission was killed on January 27, 1967, when fire erupted in the Apollo command module during a pre-launch test. The Apollo program resumed flights 21 

months later.

Skylab (1973–1974) 

Purpose: First U.S. Space Station 

Flights: The Skylab Space Station was launched in May 1973. Three three-person 

crews were launched to Skylab using Apollo capsules from 1973 to 1974, extending 

the duration of human space flight to a new record of 84 days. A wide variety of 

scientific experiments were conducted. Skylab was not intended to be permanently 

occupied. It remained in orbit, unoccupied, until 1979 when it made an uncontrolled 

reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, raining debris on western Australia and the 

Indian Ocean.

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (1975) 

Purpose: Cooperation with the Soviet Union. 

Flight: A three-man Apollo crew docked with a two-man Soyuz crew for two days 

of joint experiments to demonstrate ‘‘detente in space.’’ This was the last flight in 

the Apollo series. No Americans journeyed into space for the next six years while 

waiting for the debut of the Space Shuttle.

Space Shuttle (1981–present) 

Purpose: Reusable launch vehicle for taking crews and cargo to and from Earth 

orbit. 

12

Flights: Pre-Challenger. Twenty four successful Shuttle missions were launched 

from 1981–1986. The Shuttles were used to take satellites into space; retrieve malfunctioning satellites (using ‘‘Canadarm,’’ a remote manipulator system built by 

Canada); and conduct scientific experiments (particularly using the Spacelab module 

built by the European Space Agency). Sally Ride became the first American woman 

in space in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American in space in 1983, 

and Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to perform an EVA in 1984. 

Senator Jake Garn and then-Representative (now Senator) Bill Nelson made Shuttle 

flights in 1985 and 1986 respectively.

Space Tragedy: On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 

seconds after launch when an ‘‘O-ring’’ in a Solid Rocket Booster failed. All seven 

astronauts aboard were killed: Francis (Dick) Scobee, Mike Smith, Judy Resnik, 

Ellison Onizuka, Ron McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe (a schoolteacher). The Space Shuttle returned to flight 32 months later.

Post-Challenger. From September 1988–January 2003, the Shuttle made 87 successful flights. Nine of these docked with the Russian Space Station Mir. Since 

1998, most Shuttle flights have been devoted to construction of the International 

Space Station.

Space Tragedy: On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart 

as it returned to Earth from a 16-day scientific mission in Earth orbit. All seven 

astronauts aboard were killed: Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, 

David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon, an Israeli. The 

cause of the accident is under investigation.

International Space Station (1998–present) 

Purpose: Space Station 

Flights: The United States initiated the Space Station program in 1984. In 1988, 

nine European countries (now eleven), Canada, and Japan formally became partners 

with the United States in building it. In 1993, the program was restructured due 

to cost growth, and Russia joined the program as a partner. Construction began in 

1998 and is currently suspended pending the Space Shuttle’s return to flight. Successive three-person crews have permanently occupied ISS since November 2000. 

The three-person crews are alternately composed of two Russians and one American, or two Americans and one Russian. ISS is routinely visited by other astronauts 

on Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the Space Shuttle (prior to the Columbia accident) 

some of whom are from other countries.

Soviet Union/Russia 

Vostok (1961–1963) 

Purpose: To demonstrate that humans can travel into space and return safely. 

Flights: Six flights (all orbital). Yuri Gagarin, first man in space (made one orbit 

of the Earth), Apr. 12, 1961. Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space, June 16, 

1963.

Voskhod (1964–1965) 

Purpose: Modified Vostok spacecraft used to achieve two more space ‘‘firsts’’: first 

multi-person crew, and first EVA. 

Flights: Two flights. Vokhod 1 carried three-person crew. On Voskhod 2, Alexei 

Leonov performed the first EVA (March 1965).

Soyuz (1967–present) 

Purpose: To develop a spacecraft for taking crews back and forth to Earth orbit. 

Early flights extended the duration of human space flight (to 18 days) and practiced 

rendezvous and docking. Flights since Soyuz 10 (1971) have been largely devoted 

to taking crews back and forth to Soviet Space Stations (Salyut and Mir, see below), 

and to the International Space Station. 

Flights: The Soyuz is still in use today, although it has been modified several 

times. The original Soyuz was replaced by Soyuz T in 1980, by Soyuz TM in 1987, 

and by Soyuz TMA in 2002. There were 40 flights of Soyuz, 15 of Soyuz T, 34 of 

Soyuz TM, and one flight of Soyuz TMA to date. (A few of these missions did not 

carry crews.)

Space Tragedy: The Soyuz program saw the first Soviet space tragedy when Vladimir Komarov was killed during the first Soyuz mission on April 24, 1967. The craft’s 

parachute lines tangled during descent and he was killed upon impact with the 

Earth. The Soyuz program resumed flights 18 months later.

Salyut 1 (1971) 

Purpose: First Space Station 

Flights: Salyut 1 was launched in April 1971. This was a ‘‘first generation’’ Soviet 

Space Station with only one docking port. Two crews were launched to the Space 

13

Station. The first docked, but was unable to open the hatch to the Space Station, 

and returned home.

Space Tragedy: The second crew, Soyuz 11, docked and entered the Space Station, and remained for three weeks. When they returned to Earth on June 29, 1971, 

an improperly closed valve allowed the Soyuz’s atmosphere to vent into space. The 

three cosmonauts (Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladimir Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev) 

were not wearing spacesuits and asphyxiated. The Soviets had eliminated the requirement for spacesuits because they had confidence in their technology, and three 

space-suited cosmonauts could not fit in the Soyuz as it was designed at that time. 

The Soyuz returned to flight 27 months later. The Soviets have required spacesuits 

since that time, and launched only two-person crews for the next 10 years until the 

Soyuz T version was introduced which could accommodate three cosmonauts in 

spacesuits.

Other ‘‘First Generation’’ Salyut Space Stations (1974–1977) 

Unnamed launch (1972) did not reach orbit. 

Salyut 2 (1973) broke apart in orbit. 

Kosmos 557 (1973) broke apart in orbit. 

Salyut 3 (1974) hosted one crew (another was unable to dock) and was designated 

in the West as a military space station dedicated to military tasks. 

Salyut 4 (1974–1975) hosted two crews, and was designated in the West as a civilian space station. A third crew was launched to the Space Station, but the launch 

vehicle malfunctioned and the crew landed in Siberia (the so-called ‘‘April 5th anomaly’’ or Soyuz 18A). 

Salyut 5 (1976–1977) hosted two crews and was designated in the West as a military space station. A third crew was unable to dock.

Soyuz-Apollo Test Project (1975) 

Purpose: Cooperation with the United States 

Flight: A three-man Apollo crew docked with a two-man Soyuz crew for two days 

of joint experiments to demonstrate ‘‘detente in space.’’ This was the last flight in 

the Apollo series. No Americans journeyed into space for the next six years while 

waiting for the debut of the Space Shuttle. 

‘‘Second Generation’’ Salyut Space Stations (1977–1986) 

Purpose: Expand space station operations. The second generation space stations 

had two docking ports, enabling resupply missions and ‘‘visiting’’ crews that would 

remain aboard the Space Station for about one week visiting the long duration space 

station crews, who remained for months. These space stations were occupied intermittently over their lifetimes.

Salyut 6 (1977–1982) hosted 16 crews (two others were unable to dock). The Soviets increased the duration of human space flight to 185 days. The visiting crews 

often brought cosmonauts from other countries. The first non-U.S., non-Soviet in 

space was Vladimir Remek of Czechoslovakia in 1978.

Salyut 7 (1982–1986) hosted 10 crews. A new duration record of 237 days was set. 

Among the visiting crews was the second woman to fly in space, Svetlana 

Savitskaya. She visited Salyut twice (in 1982 and 1984), and on the second mission, 

become the first woman to perform an EVA. One crew that was intended to be 

launched to Salyut 7 in 1983 suffered a near-tragedy when the launch vehicle 

caught fire on the launch pad. The emergency abort tower on top of the launch vehicle propelled the Soyuz capsule away from the launch pad to safety. Unlike all the 

previous Soviet Space Stations, which were intentionally deorbited into the Pacific 

Ocean, Salyut 7 made an uncontrolled reentry in 1991, raining debris on Argentina. 

There was insufficient fuel for a controlled reentry. 

‘‘Third Generation’’ Mir Space Station (1986–2001) 

The Mir Space Station was a modular space station with six docking ports. The 

core of the Space Station was launched in 1986. Additional modules were added 

through 1996. Mir hosted a large number of crews, and inaugurated the era of ‘‘permanently occupied’’ space stations where rotating crews were aboard continuously. 

Mir was permanently occupied from 1989 to 1999. A new duration record of 438 

days was set. In 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States 

and Soviet Union increased cooperative activity in human spaceflight, including 

Russian cosmonauts flying on the U.S. Shuttle, and American astronauts making 

multi-month stays on Mir. Nine U.S. Space Shuttles docked with Mir from 1995–

1998. In 1997, a fire erupted inside Mir when a ‘‘candle’’ used to generate oxygen 

malfunctioned. That same year, a Russian cargo spacecraft (Progress) collided with 

Mir during a failed docking attempt. These events called into question the wisdom 

of keeping crews on Mir, but both the Russians and the Americans continued to 

send crews to the Space Station. Mir was intentionally deorbited into the Pacific 

Ocean in 2001.

14

International Space Station (1998–present) 

Purpose: Space Station 

Flights: The United States initiated the Space Station program in 1984. In 1988, 

nine European countries (now eleven), Canada, and Japan formally became partners 

with the United States in building it. In 1993, the program was restructured due 

to cost growth, and Russia joined the program as a partner. Construction began in 

1998 and is currently suspended pending the Space Shuttle’s return to flight. Successive three-person crews have permanently occupied ISS since November 2000. 

The three-person crews are alternately composed of two Russians and one American, or two Americans and one Russian. ISS is routinely visited by other astronauts 

on Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the Space Shuttle (prior to the Columbia accident) 

some of whom are from other countries.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thanks, Ms. Smith. And I appreciate your 

expertise that’s been available for many years to Congress to help 

us look at this overall issue. We will get into a lot of this in the 

questions and answers. 

Mr. Chase, executive director of The National Space Society, welcome, and the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN E. CHASE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY 

Mr. CHASE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Breaux. 

Robust low-cost access to space is the key to expanding our opportunities in space, whether in low-earth orbit or beyond, and this 

issue is even more critical in the wake of the loss of the Space 

Shuttle Columbia. 

NASA’s 2004 budget submission contains important elements of 

an integrated space transportation plan to begin addressing this 

important issue. The first element of the plan is the Service Life 

Extension Program which addresses the need to upgrade the Space 

Shuttle fleet and its supporting infrastructure. The Space Shuttle 

is the only vehicle that can complete the International Space Station, so we need to return the fleet to service as quickly as is feasible to let it complete that mission. 

Although the original estimates for the Shuttle’s costs were very 

optimistic, as has already been said, the Space Shuttle’s capabilities remain unmatched today. But we cannot escape the need for 

a backup to the Shuttle, so the second element of the plan is to provide a complementary capability to transfer crews to and from the 

Space Station. 

The current proposal, called the orbital space plane, would be 

launched aboard evolved expendable launch vehicles, EELVs, developed jointly by the Department of Defense and industry and 

now operated commercially by Boeing and Lockheed Martin as the 

Delta 4 and Atlas 5. While the orbital space plane could serve as 

a component for a next-generation launch vehicle, it serves only as 

a complement to, not a replacement for, the Shuttle during this 

phase. The additional benefit of the orbital space plane would be 

its utility in future human missions, all of which will require crew 

transfer capabilities. 

The third element of NASA’s plan is the development of a nextgeneration launch system that would ultimately replace the Space 

Shuttle. The next-generation launch technology program, which is 

being conducted jointly with the Department of Defense, focuses on 

new technologies that can lead to launch systems with much greatVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
15

er reliability and much lower costs. This NASA/DoD partnership is 

one that should be encouraged and fostered. 

These three elements are all important efforts to improve our access to space, and I believe NASA’s initial plan is a prudent step 

in that direction. However, there are also several critical factors 

that could be major stumbling blocks to its success. 

First, the loss of Columbia dramatically underscores the urgency 

to develop a secondary capability to launch crews to and from the 

Space Station. The orbital space plane can be built using today’s 

technology, and most of the designs under consideration have been 

studied in several variations for the last 20 to 30 years, so there 

needs to be a very serious effort to accelerate this program while 

keeping it focused on its core mission of launching and retrieving 

crews. 

Second, NASA has to reexamine a backup capability to launch 

unmanned cargo to the International Space Station. NASA’s Alternate Access to Station initiative was doing just that, but that program is slated to be terminated this summer without moving into 

the test or development phase. The Alternate Access to Station program should get a fresh look from NASA. 

Third, once the orbital space plane and some form of a backup 

cargo capability are activated, we should not rush to an artificial 

deadline to develop a new launch system. While it’s important for 

us to continue making investments in new launch technology, it’s 

equally important that we develop a strategic plan for our space exploration efforts and not waste time and money jumping from program to program. 

Finally, I believe a key, yet overlooked, element in this debate is 

the evolved expendable launch vehicle I mentioned earlier. Although designed initially for unmanned missions, the fleet of 

EELVs represent significant improvements in safety, reliability, 

and efficiency over their predecessors. Once modified for human 

launch requirements to handle orbital space plane missions, the 

EELVs will represent a formidable and versatile fleet of vehicles 

that can fulfill an even wider range of missions than they perform 

today. Importantly, by expanding the EELVs’ market to include 

crew and cargo to ISS, that improves our Nation’s competitiveness 

in the commercial space arena, as well. 

In summary, I believe NASA’s plan to be a reasonable approach. 

We should begin making the investments now to ensure we can 

complete the International Space Station and then build a robust, 

yet simple, secondary capability to transfer crew and cargo to and 

from orbit. Beyond that, though, we should carefully consider our 

next steps as part of a long-term space architecture that provides 

a bold vision for the future. We can certainly begin building some 

of that infrastructure today, but we need a roadmap to put that infrastructure to work. 

I thank you for the opportunity to appear today and look forward 

to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chase follows:]

16

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRIAN E. CHASE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SPACE

SOCIETY

Chairman Brownback, Senator Breaux and Members of the Subcommittee, thank 

you for inviting me here today. 

I am pleased to present testimony to the Subcommittee on behalf of the National 

Space Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting space exploration. 

NSS has approximately 22,000 members around the world, including space professionals, astronauts, business leaders, elected officials, and, most important, everyday citizens without ties to the space industry who support the exploration, development, and eventual settlement of space. 

The Subcommittee has asked NSS to provide its perspective on NASA’s human 

space flight programs and how those initiatives relate to efforts to develop new 

space transportation systems. In our view, access to space is the most critical part 

of any future space exploration efforts, so I appreciate the opportunity to share our 

thoughts today. 

NASA’s Integrated Space Transportation Plan 

Robust, low cost access to space is the key to expanding opportunities in space, 

whether in Low Earth Orbit or beyond. In light of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, it is more important than ever for our nation to address the issue of how 

we transport people and cargo to and from space. Indeed, although the Columbia 

investigation and now the war in Iraq occupies the nation’s attention, NASA’s generally overlooked FY 2004 budget submission contains important elements of an Integrated Space Transportation Plan to begin addressing this critical issue. 

The first element of the Integrated Space Transportation Plan is the Service Life 

Extension Program, which addresses the need to upgrade the Space Shuttle fleet 

and the infrastructure that supports it. The Space Shuttle is the only vehicle that 

can complete the International Space Station, so we need to return the fleet to service as quickly as is feasible to let it complete that mission. 

Although the original estimates for the Shuttle’s cost and performance were very 

optimistic—which means today we have a system that is significantly more expensive and more challenging to operate than was ever envisioned—the Space Shuttle 

remains a very unique and important asset in our nation’s launch inventory. It combines the capabilities of a heavy lift launch vehicle, a small Space Station, an onorbit repair depot, and a system that can return cargo to Earth, among other functions. Its capabilities, despite being conceived 30 years ago, remain unmatched 

today by any vehicle flying or by anything even on the drawing board. So any mention of a ‘‘replacement’’ of the Shuttle has to be viewed as only a partial replacement, since future vehicles will likely not be as versatile as the Space Shuttle is 

today. 

But we cannot escape the realities of the need for a backup to the Shuttle, regardless of its impressive capabilities. The second element of the plan is to provide a 

complementary capability to transfer crews to and from the Space Station. The current proposal, called the Orbital Space Plane (OSP), would be launched aboard 

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles developed jointly by the Department of Defense and industry, and which are now operated commercially by Boeing and Lockheed Martin as the Delta IV and the Atlas V, respectively. The requirements laid 

out by NASA call for the OSP to be able to launch at least four crew members to 

ISS, stay on orbit for long periods of time, and to serve as a ‘‘lifeboat’’ to evacuate 

the ISS crew in the case of emergencies, replacing the Russian Soyuz capsules that 

perform that function today. 

While the OSP could serve as a component of a next generation system, it serves 

only as a complement to—not a replacement for—the Shuttle during this phase of 

the Integrated Space Transportation Plan. The OSP would relieve much of the Shuttle’s burden of launching crew to and from ISS and allow the Shuttle fleet to focus 

on the launch of heavy cargo and components, but both vehicles would be flown during this time period. The additional benefit of the development of the OSP or similar 

vehicle would be its utility in future human missions, all of which will require crew 

transfer capabilities. 

The third element of NASA’s plan is the development of a next generation launch 

system that would ultimately replace the Space Shuttle, meaning it would launch 

both crew and cargo. The Next Generation Launch Technology program, which is 

being conducted jointly with the Department of Defense, is a restructured element 

of the Space Launch Initiative (SLI), and focuses on new technologies and new systems that can lead to launch systems with much greater reliability and much lower 

costs than systems today. 

17

The Challenges 

These three elements—upgrading the Space Shuttle, developing a backup system 

to launch crews to and from the Space Station, and investing in next generation 

launch technologies—are all critical components in a national plan to significantly 

improve our access to space, and I believe NASA’s initial outline is a prudent step 

in that direction. However, there are also several critical factors that can be major 

stumbling blocks to the success of this plan. 

First, the loss of Columbia dramatically underscores the urgency to develop a secondary capability to launch crews to and from ISS, and it is not clear that this sense 

of urgency is shared by all of NASA’s managers at the program level. Additionally, 

the natural inclination for NASA’s talented engineers will be to develop the latest 

technology for use in the Orbital Space Plane—but that urge must be strongly resisted. The OSP can be built using today’s technology, and most of the designs 

under consideration have been studied in several variations for the last 20–30 years. 

NASA’s stated goal of a fully operational system by 2012 must be accelerated, and 

it must also be done as simply as possible by focusing on its core mission of launching and retrieving crews. 

Second, NASA has to reexamine a backup capability to launch cargo to the International Space Station. A program to do just that—NASA’s Alternate Access to Station initiative—was examining several potential options to launch unmanned cargo 

to ISS using expendable launch vehicles, but that program is slated to be terminated this summer without moving into the test or development phase. The AAS 

program should get a fresh look from NASA so that, when combined with the Orbital Space Plane program, we will have both assured crew and cargo access to the 

International Space Station. The European Space Agency is working on the Automated Transfer Vehicle, which is designed to be a robotic cargo vessel for ISS. That 

system may offer the capabilities to fulfill this need, but it is an option which may 

or may not be viable depending on the state of international affairs. But both the 

crew and cargo launch capabilities are needed regardless of what long-term choices 

we make about human space exploration, so it is advisable to fund and begin these 

programs as soon as possible. 

Third, once the Orbital Space Plane and some form of backup cargo capability are 

activated, the United States will possess a significant launch capability that can 

meet multiple needs. With these complementary capabilities available, we should 

not rush to an artificial deadline to develop and field a new launch system. The 

Shuttle and existing fleet of expendable launch vehicles, coupled with the OSP and 

a cargo delivery system, can meet many of our nation’s needs for the near term, 

and the Shuttle still possesses capabilities that should be carefully reviewed before 

we decide to retire the entire fleet. While it is important for us to continue making 

investments in new launch technology, it is equally important that we develop a 

strategic plan for our space exploration efforts and not waste time just jumping from 

program to program. 

Fourth, the nascent partnership between NASA and the Department of Defense 

in developing next generation launch technology should be encouraged and fostered. 

For years, an adversarial relationship existed between the two agencies, yet the 

skills and experience each brings to the space arena have been recognized as critical 

to both civil and national security needs. 

Finally, I believe a key yet overlooked element in our nation’s space launch capabilities is the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle mentioned earlier. Although designed for unmanned missions, the two vehicles represent significant improvements 

in safety, reliability, and efficiency over their predecessors. Indeed, both the Delta 

IV and Atlas V represent, in many ways, revolutionary improvements in access to 

space. These systems are already in production and operation, and they are capable 

today of meeting the launch requirements for unmanned scientific, national security, and commercial missions. Once modified for human launch requirements, the 

EELVs will represent a formidable and versatile fleet of vehicles that can fulfill an 

even wider range of missions. Importantly, by developing a crew and perhaps cargo 

capability that can be launched aboard EELVs, that improves our nation’s competitiveness in the commercial space arena by strengthening the market for those vehicles. 

The reason it is important to highlight the potential role of EELVs is because expendable launch systems are usually ignored in the discussion of next generation 

launch systems—most people assume that only reusable launch vehicles can fulfill 

that role. But the economics of reusable versus expendable systems is not as simple 

as it first appears. The key to low cost reusable vehicles is routine use that allows 

expenses to be amortized over a large number of flights. For an expendable vehicle, 

the key is low cost production, which can be achieved in part through launch rates 

that are high enough to maximize the efficiency of the production and assembly opVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
18

eration. Generally speaking, the launch rate for a reusable system has to be very 

high before it effectively competes with the cost of an expendable launcher. The best 

option for a next generation system may indeed turn out to be a reusable launch 

system, but it could also be a further evolution of the EELV or a derivative of the 

Space Shuttle. 

The Future of Human Space Exploration 

The choices made today in space transportation investments will obviously impact 

our capabilities for future space exploration missions, but there are decisions that 

can and should be made even as we work to develop a long term vision for our future in space. We know that completing the International Space Station requires the 

Space Shuttle, and that in order to successfully operate the Space Station we need 

a robust yet simple backup capability for crew and cargo. So those are two elements 

of space transportation planning that should proceed as quickly as possible and accelerated where feasible. 

Beyond those elements, we should carefully consider our next steps. Focusing exclusively on reusable launch vehicles may be the right choice if we seek routine access for crew and low-to-medium weight cargo. But if we opt to launch heavy cargo 

(such as components for a mission to Mars), then expendable launch vehicles may 

better fill that role. So the nation needs to develop a long-term space exploration 

architecture to provide a clear direction for the future to help direct these efforts. 

NASA has begun an initiative to accomplish this important task, but it needs public 

and political support to remain a key part of the NASA agenda. Without that underlying vision for tomorrow, it makes it more difficult to make the right decisions 

today. 

So the choice before our nation is complex, but, importantly, it is not an ‘‘eitheror’’ proposition. In order to fund future launch systems, we do not have to cannibalize the Shuttle program, and in order to fund the Shuttle we do not have to 

forgo future investments in next generation launch technology. I also know you have 

to wrestle with difficult budget choices in a wide range of areas and, as stewards 

of the public’s money, I know you consider it important to make investments that 

are worthwhile and have a benefit to the taxpayers. 

Space exploration is worthwhile endeavor and a sound investment in the future, 

and it is an investment that can be made even while meeting other needs in our 

nation. It is important to invest in the future, and it is important, as a society, to 

continue opening frontiers. History teaches us that societies that have pushed their 

frontiers outward have prospered; those that have not have withered and faded into 

the history books. No society has ever gone wrong opening up the frontier, and we 

shouldn’t stop now. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. Chase, and I look forward 

to discussion as well. 

Dr. Alex Roland is professor of history at Department of History, 

Duke University, and a former historian for NASA. Thank you for 

joining us today. The floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF ALEX ROLAND, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, 

DUKE UNIVERSITY 

Dr. ROLAND. Thank you. 

Senator Brownback, Senator Breaux, thank you for the opportunity to share with you my views on human space flight, which 

will be considerably different than what you’ve heard so far, though 

there are many points of convergence. 

The Columbia accident confirmed what the Challenger accident 

made clear; systemic flaws in the Space Shuttle render it 

unsustainable as a safe, reliable, and economical launch vehicle. 

The Rogers Commission issued two critical injunctions to NASA—

do not rely on the Space Shuttle as the mainstay of your launch 

capability; begin at once to develop a next-generation launch vehicle. Sixteen years later, NASA is massively dependent upon the 

Shuttle; no replacement is in sight. 

19

I have appended to my written remarks an article explaining 

how and why the Shuttle program became systemically flawed. 

Briefly stated, NASA made two mistakes in Shuttle development in 

the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, it traded development costs 

for operational costs. Second, it convinced itself that a recoverable 

launch vehicle would be inherently more economical than an expendable. NASA promised savings of 90, even 95 percent in launch 

costs. In practice, it costs more to put a pound of payload in orbit 

aboard the Shuttle than it did aboard the Saturn launch vehicle 

that preceded it. 

These mistakes produced a program that cannot work. NASA 

could conceivably operate the Shuttle safely and reliably, but it 

dares not admit what it would cost. 

The evidence for this was abundant before the Challenger accident. Instead of listening to that data, NASA consistently allowed 

its judgment to be clouded by its hopes and predictions for human 

activities in space. The agency cares about astronaut safety, but it’s 

trapped by its own claims about Shuttle costs. And, unlike expendable launch vehicles, the Shuttle grows more dangerous and more 

expensive to fly with each passing year. 

In what it euphemistically called success-oriented management—

that is, hoping for the best—NASA assumed, in 1970, that each orbiter would fly 50 times. In those heady days, NASA was expecting 

60 Shuttle flights a year by 1985, meaning that a fleet of five Shuttles would be completely replaced every 5 years. No one imagined 

that a Shuttle would be in service after 20 years, let alone 30 or 

40 years. 

Unfortunately, nothing practical can be done now to save the 

Shuttle program. A crew escape system would help reduce the risk 

to human life, but it cannot eliminate it. It is not clear that crew 

escape could have saved the astronauts aboard either Columbia or 

Challenger. Nor will an infusion of new money suffice. The United 

States spends more on space then the rest of the world combined. 

NASA has ample funding to support a robust space program. It has 

simply wasted too much of that money flying astronauts on unnecessary missions aboard a ruinously expensive spacecraft. 

We should drastically curtail human space flight until we have 

a safe, reliable, and economical launch vehicle. In the meantime, 

anything we want to do in space, except having humans there as 

an end in itself, we can do more effectively and efficiently with 

automated spacecraft controlled from earth. Whenever we put people in a spacecraft, we change the primary goal, be it reconnaissance or communication, science or exploration, to bringing the astronauts back alive. Most of the weight, and, hence, the cost, of 

manned missions comes from safety and life-support systems. The 

astronauts contribute little. Even had the astronauts aboard Columbia known of the damage to their spacecraft, they could not 

have saved themselves. 

NASA should begin at once to carry out the recommendations of 

the Rogers Commission. It should limit Shuttle flights to a bare 

minimum. It should convert the Space Station into a space platform to be visited, but not inhabited. And it should use the savings 

from these actions to fund development of a new launch vehicle. 

20

I have enormous confidence in NASA’s ability to achieve a vital 

and productive space program, including both human and automated missions. But to achieve that goal, it must do the right 

thing. That means phasing out the Shuttle. It is a death trap and 

a budgetary sinkhole. NASA must develop a stable of launch vehicles that will open up the promise of space. 

I believe that we should send people into space only when they 

have something to do there commensurate with the risk and cost 

of sending them. Given the liabilities of the Shuttle, I do not know 

of any mission now that meets that criterion. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Roland follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALEX ROLAND, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

Senators, thank you for the opportunity to share with you my views on human 

spaceflight. 

The Columbia accident confirmed what the Challenger accident made clear. Systemic flaws in the Space Shuttle render it unsustainable as a safe, reliable, and economical launch vehicle. The Rogers Commission issued two critical injunctions to 

NASA. Do not rely on the Space Shuttle as the mainstay of your launch capability. 

Begin at once to develop a next-generation launch vehicle. Sixteen years later NASA 

is massively dependent on the Shuttle; no replacement is in sight. 

I have appended to my written remarks an article explaining how and why the 

Shuttle program became systemically flawed. Briefly stated, NASA made two mistakes in Shuttle development in the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, it traded development costs for operational costs. Second, it convinced itself that a recoverable 

launch vehicle would be inherently more economical than an expendable. NASA 

promised savings of 90 percent, even 95 percent, in launch costs. In practice, it costs 

more to put a pound of payload in orbit aboard the Shuttle than it did aboard the 

Saturn launch vehicle that preceded it. 

These mistakes produced a program that cannot work. NASA could conceivably 

operate the Shuttle safely and reliably, but it dares not admit what it would cost. 

The evidence for this was abundant before the Challenger accident. Instead of listening to the data, NASA consistently allowed its judgment to be clouded by its 

hopes and predictions for human activities in space. The agency cares about astronaut safety, but it is trapped by its own claims about Shuttle costs. And, unlike expendable launch vehicles, the Shuttle grows more dangerous and more expensive to 

fly with each passing year. In what it euphemistically called ‘‘success-oriented management,’’ i.e., hoping for the best, NASA assumed in 1970 that each orbiter would 

fly fifty times. But in those heady days, NASA was expecting sixty Shuttle flights 

a year by 1985, meaning that a fleet of five Shuttles would be completely replaced 

every five years. No one imagined that a Shuttle would be in service after twenty 

years. 

Unfortunately, nothing practical can be done now to save the Shuttle. A crew escape system would help reduce the risk to human life, but it cannot eliminate it. 

It is not clear that crew escape could have saved the astronauts aboard either Columbia or Challenger. Nor will an infusion of new money suffice. The United States 

spends more on space than the rest of the world combined. NASA has ample funding to support a robust space program. It has simply wasted too much of that money 

flying astronauts on unnecessary missions aboard a ruinously expensive spacecraft. 

We should drastically curtail human spaceflight until we have a safe, reliable, and 

economical launch vehicle. In the meantime, anything we want to do in space, except having humans there as an end in itself, we can do more effectively and efficiently with automated spacecraft controlled from earth. Whenever we put people 

in a spacecraft we change the primary goal—be it reconnaissance or communication, 

science or exploration—to bringing the astronauts back alive. Most of the weight 

and hence the cost of manned missions comes from safety and life support systems. 

The astronauts contribute little. Even had the astronauts aboard Columbia known 

of the damage to their spacecraft, they could not have saved themselves. 

NASA should begin at once to carry out the recommendations of the Rogers Commission. It should limit Shuttle flights to a bare minimum. It should convert the 

Space Station into a space platform, to be visited but not inhabited. And it should 

use the savings from these actions to fund development of a new launch vehicle. I 

have enormous confidence in NASA’s ability to achieve a vital and productive space 

21

program, including both human and automated missions. But to achieve that goal, 

it must do the right thing. That means phasing out the Shuttle. It is a death trap 

and a budgetary sink hole. NASA must develop a stable of launch vehicles that will 

open up the promise of space. 

I believe that we should send people into space only when they have something 

to do there commensurate with the risk and cost of sending them. Given the liabilities of the Shuttle, I do not know of any mission that now meets that criterion. 

Discover, November 1985

THE SHUTTLE, TRIUMPH OR TURKEY? 

BY ALEX ROLAND 

The American taxpayer bet about $14 billion on the Shuttle. NASA bet its reputation. The Air Force bet its reconnaissance capability. The astronauts bet their lives. 

We all took a chance. 

When John Young and Robert Crippen climbed aboard the orbiter Columbia on April 12, 1981 for the first Shuttle launch, they took a bigger chance than any U.S. 

astronauts before them. Never had Americans been asked to go on a launch vehicle’s 

maiden voyage. Never had astronauts ridden solid-propellant rockets. Never had 

Americans depended on an engine untested in flight. 

Next to the orbiter was an external tank holding 1.3 million pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, flanked by booster rockets containing two million pounds 

of solid propellant. Beneath Young and Crippen were the three main engines, which 

had failed with alarming regularity on the test stand. The escape system that would 

separate them from this pyrotechnic nightmare should the engines fizzle again had 

been scrapped—to save money. 

The tiles that would protect the spacecraft from the consuming heat of re-entry 

had fallen off by the dozens on Columbia’s comparatively gentle flight to Cape Canaveral atop a 747. None of them had been subjected to the rigors of a launch, when 

six million pounds of thrust would accelerate the Shuttle from zero to 4,000 feet per 

second in about a minute and a half. 

If the tiles stayed on, they would begin to do their work as the Shuttle, traveling 

at 17,500 m.p.h., re-entered the atmosphere. At 50 miles up heat would begin to ionize the air molecules flowing around the vehicle, blocking communications and engulfing the spacecraft in a fireball that one astronaut has likened to the inside of 

a blast furnace. The orbiter, again provided the tiles stayed on, would pass out of 

this inferno at about 34 miles up, slowed now to 8,200 m.p.h., but still flying nose 

up, ‘‘with the glide ratio of a pair of pliers,’’ as a NASA engineer put it. Finally, 

it would nose over and pass through 20,000 feet on a 22-degree glide slope, about 

seven times steeper than the normal angle for a commercial aircraft. If all went 

well, the Shuttle would flare out at about 2,000 feet and touch down on the runway 

moving at something like 200 m.p.h., five to ten percent faster than the supersonic 

transport, the fastest-landing commercial airplane. And the Shuttle would have to 

land on the first pass: the two jet engines that were to give it a fly-around capability 

had been jettisoned during development. 

Tom Wolfe assures us that astronauts thrive on this sort of risk. And, indeed, 

Young and Crippen came up winners in their gamble. But what of the American 

people? Has their bet on the Shuttle paid off ? And what of NASA and the Air 

Force? It’s on these questions that any assessment of the success of the American 

Shuttle program turns. 

And any such assessment must begin with the four critical years from 1969 

through 1972. Both NASA and the country got new chief executives in 1969. Richard Nixon, an old friend of the space program, moved into the Oval Office determined to end the war in Vietnam, to restore domestic tranquillity, and to bring the 

federal budget under control. Thomas Paine became NASA administrator, determined to parlay the first moon landing in July 1969 into a mandate for NASA to 

take ‘‘the next logical step’’ in space. Paine envisioned himself as a latter-day Horatio Nelson, head of a ‘‘band of brothers’’ whom he encouraged to ‘‘swashbuckle’’ and 

‘‘buccaneer’’ with him on the high seas of space. These true believers saw the Apollo 

landing as the sparkling achievement of a decade gone sour. It required an encore 

of even greater scope and daring. Nothing less than a manned mission to Mars 

would do. 

Nixon might publicly call the voyage of Apollo 11 ‘‘the greatest week in the history 

of the world since the Creation,’’ but he wasn’t about to mortgage his administration 

and a distressed U.S. economy to a commitment that would look like an imitation 

of John Kennedy’s famous man-on-the-moon proposal of 1961. Nixon appointed a 

22

Space Task Group, chaired by Vice President Spiro Agnew, to lay out the options. 

Agnew quickly signed on with the band of brothers: he came out for the Mars mission, a manned space station in earth orbit, a Space Shuttle to ferry men and materials to the station, and a ‘‘tug’’ to move things around in space. His report presented choices of pace and sequence, but they all ended up on Mars. 

Congress went into orbit, and Nixon went underground. Some liberals in both houses, claiming that the $25 billion spent on Apollo could have been put to better 

use in social programs on earth, assailed the Mars mission as the pipe dream of 

a bureaucracy gone mad. Many officials in the administration agreed. Nixon himself 

withdrew from the debate and let his subordinates fight it out. 

Bereft of presidential support, NASA came down to earth—fast. First it abandoned the Mars mission, except as a long-term goal. Then it abandoned the Space 

Station. Finally, it settled on the Space Shuttle, a re-usable spacecraft designed to 

reduce by two orders of magnitude the cost of placing cargo in orbit. 

The notion of re-usable spacecraft dates back to the 1920s in Germany. The U.S. 

was, in fact, moving in that direction with the X-series aircraft of the 1950s—until 

Sputnik set off the space race. The Soviets had used a modified intercontinental ballistic missile to launch Sputnik; the U.S. responded in kind, launching its first space 

shots and even the early manned missions of Mercury and Gemini on military rockets. Soon a stable of civilian launch vehicles was developed, dominated by the 

mighty Saturn, which could put more than 50 tons of payload into low earth orbit. 

But all these launch vehicles were throwaways. They boosted one spacecraft into 

orbit and then fell back to earth to incinerate in the atmosphere. They were also 

expensive; a Saturn cost $185 million dollars. If Paine and his band of brothers were 

to swashbuckle in the ‘‘new ocean’’ of space, as Kennedy had called it, they had to 

find a cheaper way of getting out to sea. 

The most logical solution was a re-usable launch vehicle to Shuttle men and cargo 

to and from orbit. There were several varieties of these. Those that received serious 

consideration in the U.S. would lift off vertically like rockets and fly back horizontally like airplanes. The simplest was the single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, which 

would carry all the fuel, engines, and aerodynamic features needed to power itself 

into orbit and fly back to earth. The two-stage fully re-usable Shuttle would consist 

of a spacecraft mounted atop a recoverable booster, both of which would be piloted, 

winged vehicles; the booster would power its cargo to near escape velocity and then 

glide back home. Finally, the partly re-usable Shuttle would have a returnable orbiter on an expendable rocket; you’d lose the rocket on each mission but you’d save 

the spacecraft. 

The relative appeal of these configurations depended on three variables: payload, 

launch rate, and development costs. The bottom line was cost per pound of payload 

in orbit. With expendable launch vehicles NASA had achieved rates of $500 to 

$1,000 per pound. In 1969 George Mueller, NASA associate administrator for 

manned space flight, set the tone for the post-Apollo era when he called for a Shuttle that could take off and land at major airports and place as many as 50,000 

pounds of payload in orbit at costs approaching $5 a pound. 

Beyond those startling parameters, what kind of Shuttle would this be? Opinion 

within NASA ranged from a Chevy to a Cadillac. Swashbucklers at headquarters 

and elsewhere preferred a large Shuttle that would enjoy economies of scale and be 

capable of carrying the Space Station components of the future. They were seconded 

by officials of the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala., builder of the Saturn rocket. Marshall wanted a mandate to produce a large new engine. Flight specialists at the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston knew that a smaller craft had 

more manageable aerodynamic characteristics on re-entry and landing. Each of 

these groups contributed to the designs that NASA ordered from contractors. 

The din of competing proposals drowned out voices of caution within the agency. 

In a journal article now famous in NASA circles, A.O. Tischler, head of the chemical 

propulsion division of NASA’s office of advanced research and technology, argued for 

an evolutionary approach to the next generation of launch vehicles, as opposed to 

the quantum leap favored by the band of brothers. The principal cost in space transportation, he said, isn’t hardware but people. The salaries of the 30,000 people 

NASA employed at the Kennedy Space Center were almost half a billion dollars a 

year, imposing an overhead cost of about $500 per pound on all launches. Add to 

that the personnel costs at mission control in the Johnson Space Center, at the 

tracking and telemetry stations around the world, and at all the other NASA facilities, and the cost of a manned mission in space was higher than the projected costs 

of the Shuttle, regardless of which sort of hardware was developed. What was needed, Tischler insisted, was a better understanding of the cargo of the future, for the 

type of launch vehicle would be determined primarily by the volume of traffic. Before making ‘‘a precipitous, total-immersion dive into the future . . . it would be 

23

shrewd to make sure first that we know how to swim,’’ he argued. ‘‘Once begun, 

there is no way back.’’

The true believers would have none of this. They looked at the same evidence and 

reached different conclusions. Tischler likened the propulsion problems of the Shuttle to those of the SST, which was then being hotly debated in the U.S.: ‘‘If you fall 

short of design requirements, you have the option of flying part of your passengers 

all of the way or all of your passengers part of the way across the ocean.’’

Mueller looked at studies of the supersonic transport that predicted a market for 

900 American SSTs in 1985, and extrapolated a market for 50 Space Shuttles. Obviously, something besides the data was driving perceptions of what to do next in 

space. 

The skeptics’ views were driven by experience. As they had learned in the Apollo 

program, development on the cutting edge of technology always runs afoul of the 

unexpected. It would be better, they believed, to move along incrementally and not 

let predictions outrun data. 

Wernher von Braun likened this go-slow approach to life on a cruise ship, prompting Paine’s injunction to swashbuckle. ‘‘Buccaneers,’’ said a NASA memorandum, 

‘‘stake out and create powerful outposts of stability, sanity, and real future value 

for mankind in the new uncharted seas of space and global technology.’’

The swashbucklers won out. Before Paine left NASA in 1970, the agency was 

leaning toward not just a Space Shuttle, but a Cadillac of Space Shuttles. A fully 

re-usable orbiter, about the size of a DC–9 airliner, would be launched atop a first 

stage that could also be flown back for re-use. A new engine producing 400,000 to 

550,000 pounds of thrust would be developed for use on both vehicles. The orbiter 

would have a life of 100 missions with only minor refurbishment between flights, 

comparable to normal operations for commercial jets. It would carry a cargo weighing 65,000 pounds and measuring 15 feet in diameter and 60 feet in length. It would 

be able to land on a conventional runway and fly again in two weeks. The price tag 

was $10 billion to $14 billion for a vehicle to be ready in the mid-l970s. 

The public attack on this plan sprang first from Capitol Hill. Senators Walter 

Mondale, William Proxmire, Clifford Case, and Jacob Javits warned their colleagues 

that the Shuttle was a cat’s-paw for a ‘‘manned space extravaganza’’ that would cost 

between $20 billion and $25 billion. They cited distinguished space scientists like 

James Van Allen and Thomas Gold, who said the U.S. had no compelling need or 

use for such a vehicle, which they believed would drain money from other, worthier 

space activities. 

Joseph Karth, chairman of the House subcommittee on space sciences and applications and a NASA supporter, wondered if the proposed Shuttle was technically 

feasible. ‘‘This is going to be more difficult than most people on the Hill suspect or 

NASA has led us to believe,’’ he said. ‘‘And anyone who tells you this can be done 

for six or eight billion dollars is out of his mind.’’

These critics were drowned out by colleagues scrambling to get Shuttle business 

for their districts or states. While few congressmen grasped the technological complexity of the program, all of them readily understood its pork barrel potential. 

The critics never had a chance, but they did wring some important commitments 

from NASA. Most had to do with cost, which soon became the program’s overriding 

concern. During 1970, the agency brought the maximum price down from $14 billion 

to less than $10 billion, and promised that even this sum would be amortized within 

a decade by cheaper launches. In short, the Shuttle would pay for itself. 

Still, it was left to the Office of Management and Budget to do most of the moderating of NASA’s lavish planning. Few OMB officials believed the U.S. needed a 

Shuttle, and surely not the one NASA had in mind. But the key man at OMB, deputy director Caspar Weinberger, disagreed. He wanted to proceed with a Shuttle, 

but he let his staff negotiate NASA down to a cheaper model. In mid–1971 OMB 

informed NASA that its annual budgets during Shuttle development couldn’t exceed 

the 1971 level of $3.2 billion. That allowed for a Chevy, and a stripped-down one 

at that. 

But the Air Force refused to ride in a Chevy, and Air Force endorsement of the 

Shuttle carried great weight in Congress, in the White House, and at OMB. To keep 

that endorsement, NASA had to retain an expensive set of options, including the 

65,000-pound payload capacity, an inertial upper stage for placing satellites in high 

earth orbit, and a cross-range capability of 1,100 miles. (This meant that the craft 

had to be able to fly 1,100 miles right or left of its space trajectory on re-entry, 

which would give it the ability to land from almost any orbit. Only a delta-winged 

vehicle could practically provide that flight characteristic. The simpler, straightwinged vehicle NASA preferred could not.) But while the Air Force insisted on these 

features, it refused to pay for them. NASA was caught in a cost squeeze from which 

there seemed no escape. 

24

At the insistence of OMB, NASA turned to a think tank for help with its financial 

woes. It chose Mathematica, Inc., headed by Princeton economist Oskar 

Morgenstern. Using data provided by prospective Shuttle contractors, Mathematica 

concluded, just as NASA wanted, that the new vehicle would pay for itself—if it had 

a launch rate of more than 30 flights a year, a very conservative estimate in those 

heady times. 

The Mathematica report strengthened NASA’s hand, but it didn’t carry the day. 

Critics at OMB and the White House still doubted that the Shuttle was worthwhile. 

In the closing months of 1971, Shuttle designs popped up and fell like ducks in a 

shooting gallery. This one was too expensive. That one would take too long to develop. The next one failed to meet the cross-range requirements of the Air Force. 

A climactic meeting was arranged with Weinberger and OMB director George 

Shultz. NASA Administrator James Fletcher came prepared to trade away the payload capacity that NASA and the Air Force wanted. He was amazed to learn that 

Nixon and his domestic policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, cognizant of both the upcoming 1972 election and the boost the Shuttle would give the slumping aerospace 

industry, had decided to approve the Shuttle with whatever payload bay NASA felt 

necessary. 

From this war of wills emerged a Shuttle that no one had willed—except perhaps 

the Air Force. Congress, OMB, the Air Force, and NASA had all pulled in different 

directions: Congress toward cost recovery, OMB toward low development costs, the 

Air Force toward operational capabilities, and NASA toward a future of manned 

space flight. Instead of a horse, NASA got a camel—better than no transportation 

at all and indeed well suited for certain jobs, but hardly the steed it would have 

chosen. 

Fletcher rushed off to San Clemente to join Nixon at a press conference announcing the decision to go ahead with the Shuttle and revealing its configuration. Nixon 

promised the American people that the Shuttle would ‘‘revolutionize space transportation’’ and ‘‘take the astronomical cost out of astronautics.’’ Fletcher promised that 

‘‘by the end of this decade the nation will have the means of getting men and equipment to and from space routinely, on a moment’s notice, if necessary, and at a small 

fraction of today’s cost.’’ The two men posed for reporters with a model of the Shuttle. But it was the wrong Shuttle. Fletcher had taken with hun an earlier version, 

not the one that was eventually built. Plans called for a single-stage, only partly 

re-usable Shuttle, fed by an expendable external tank. 

In a curious piece of technical inconsistency, NASA promised two different costs 

for orbiting payloads. Fletcher announced that the new Shuttle would put payloads 

in orbit for $100 a pound, but he also claimed a cost of less than $10 million dollars 

a flight, which yields a cost of something more than $150 a pound. Both figures 

were dependent on a launch rate of 60 flights a year by 1985 and a two-week turnaround time for refurbishing the orbiter. The first orbital test flight was projected 

for March 1, 1978. The total development cost was put at $5.5 billion, subsequently 

scaled down to $5.15 billion, with a 20 percent ceiling on overruns. This was about 

half the development cost NASA had estimated for its fully reusable Shuttle. 

NASA had gotten out of its bind by trading operational costs for development 

costs. Except for a new engine, the launch vehicle would rely heavily on proved technologies. An expendable external tank and recoverable solid boosters would help 

keep development costs below the ceiling set by OMB, although they would raise 

the cost of each launch. But Mathematica had told NASA it would break even at 

30 or more launches a year, and it was expecting 60 a year by 1985. There seemed 

to be plenty of cushion. So NASA promised all things to all men. 

Then it developed a management technique to match. ‘‘Success-oriented management’’ is a euphemism for betting on the come. You assume everything will work 

as designed, so you test only at the end, when the entire machine is put together. 

This not only saves the time that would otherwise be spent on intermediary tests; 

it also creates an aura of confidence. No tests, no failures—and absence of failure 

is success. 

A version of this technique had been used in the Apollo program. All-up testing, 

as it was called then, delayed the final check-out of the three stages of the Apollo 

launch vehicle until they were mated on the pad at Cape Canaveral. It succeeded 

largely because expensive redundancies were built into Apollo and problems were 

drowned in money. The Shuttle had no room for such luxuries. 

For a while success-oriented management seemed to work. The first Shuttle orbiter, named Enterprise in deference to Star Trek enthusiasts, rolled out within a 

year of its scheduled completion date. No major shortcomings had come into public 

view, and between 1974 and 1977 NASA had even absorbed more than $300 million 

in OMB cut-backs in Shuttle funding. 

25

Behind the scenes, however, normal development snags were taking their toll, and 

NASA’s reduced budget meant there was no money to prevent these snags from becoming big problems. Inevitably, the weight of the launch vehicle rose. Something 

had to go. Two escape rockets on the orbiter were jettisoned, leaving the astronauts 

locked onto the launch vehicle during lift-off. The auxiliary jet engines and their fuel 

tank were scrapped, meaning that the Shuttle would have no fly-around capability. 

A number of other features went by the boards, and with each deletion NASA 

moved farther away from the spacecraft it had envisioned. 

The public and Congress knew little of this. About the only public controversy was 

stirred by an April 1977 report by the House Committee on Appropriations. Among 

other things, it criticized NASA and the Rocketdyne Company for deciding to proceed with production of the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME), a decision the committee felt might have been influenced ‘‘more on contract scheduling and costs than 

the maturity of the design.’’ Indeed, during 1977, the SSME began to experience an 

ominous series of turbopump failures. 

But in August of that year, the public watched Enterprises’s first test flight largely unaware of the problems mounting behind the scenes. The orbiter lifted off its 

747 carrier with grace and conviction at 20,000 feet and glided down to a flawless 

landing at Edwards Air Force Base. It looked like another virtuoso performance by 

NASA, just what the public had come to expect from the folks that had given it 

Apollo. 

Then came 1978 and more engine failures. New rocket engines routinely have 

taken more time and money to develop than expected and have been full of bugs. 

But they usually end up delivering more power than specified. The development of 

a new engine was a curious risk for NASA, and it was probably taken mainly to 

give the Marshall Space Flight Center something to do. NASA compounded the risk 

by betting that its new engine would deliver 109 percent of its rated capacity. In 

a bargain-basement development program this gamble never had a chance. When 

the Shuttle engines first went on the test stand, they couldn’t deliver even 100 percent of their rated capacity, but weight growth in the Shuttle demanded the full 109 

percent if the craft was to perform its mission. 

The engine was simply too advanced to work to full capacity the first time around. 

In 1978, NASA couldn’t get one to survive so much as a run-up on the test stand. 

In five tests, four different engines and one turbopump were damaged, resulting in 

four months of down time and $21 million in repairs and modifications. By the end 

of the year, the illusion of NASA’s infallibility was in tatters. 

But its troubles were just beginning. Earlier manned spacecraft had solved the 

problem of re-entry heating with ablative thermal surfaces, materials that eroded 

during re-entry and carried the heat with them. Obviously this wouldn’t do for a 

craft that was to fly 100 missions. NASA turned to re-usable ceramic tiles, for which 

it set breathtaking performance standards. The insulation not only had to weigh 

just 1.7 pounds per square foot—the highly advanced Apollo shielding had been 3.9 

pounds per square foot—but also had to fit the irregular contour of the Shuttle 

body, withstand temperatures ranging up to 2,750 degrees, and be cheap. 

Tiles made of rigidized silica fibers with borosilicate glass coating met all these 

specifications. Some 31,000 of them, in black high-temperature and white low-temperature versions, were ordered to cover the Shuttle fuselage save the areas of highest and lowest re-entry heat. The difficulties arose not with the insulating material 

but with placing the tiles on the spacecraft. Each one had to be individually designed, molded, machined, and applied to ensure that it met the exacting tolerances 

set by NASA: for example, the gaps between tiles had to range from 0.025 to 0.075 

of an inch. 

NASA and Rockwell International, the contractor tiling the Shuttle, badly misjudged the task. Putting the tiles on Columbia, the first orbiter scheduled to fly in 

space, ended up taking roughly 670,000 hours, or about 335 man-years. The craft 

still lacked 10,000 tiles when Rockwell shipped it to Cape Canaveral in March 1979. 

The missing tiles were air-shipped to Florida, where a motley team of Rockwell employees installed them at the rate of less than two tiles per man per week. At various times, college students, a few tomato pickers, hippies, and assorted smokers of 

God-knows-what answered the Rockwell call for labor. Despite NASA’s disclaimers, 

it seems few had any incentive to work well or quickly. Some wanted the job to go 

on indefinitely—and it almost did. 

Then NASA concluded that the glue holding the tiles in place provided ‘‘negative 

margins of safety.’’ So 25,000 of them were ‘‘densified’’—that is, removed and 

reglued with a ‘‘densified bonding surface.’’ What wasn’t known was that the waterproofing material applied overall was quietly dissolving the glue beneath the tiles 

that weren’t densified. 

26

While public and congressional attention shifted between the comic opera of tile 

installation and the Chinese fire drill of failing engines, still another critical—although less noticed—shortcoming precluded launch of the first Shuttle in 1979, or 

even 1980. Kenneth Cox, who was in charge of navigation, guidance, and control for 

the Shuttle, says he couldn’t have approved the Shuttle for flight in those years 

‘‘without significant risk.’’ He simply didn’t trust the data he was getting from computerized flight simulations. This would be the first spacecraft to carry a crew on 

its maiden voyage. The astronauts’ safety would depend heavily on the reliability 

of computer models and wind tunnel experiments. But computers are only as good 

as the data and assumptions that go into them, and no wind tunnel in the world 

was capable of duplicating the flight regime of the Shuttle. This craft had to go from 

re-entry at 25 times the speed of sound to landing, one hour later, at about 200 

m.p.h. Separate wind tunnels could re-create segments of that descent, but the tunnels had different characteristics and functioned at different Reynolds numbers. In 

other words, you could find a slow wind tunnel to test a full-scale orbiter, and you 

could find a fast tunnel to test a very small model of the Shuttle, but until the Shuttle itself flew you could never be sure that the test results were exactly comparable. 

The Shuttle was known around NASA as the Flying Brickyard; it was Cox’s job 

to ensure that he had anticipated and built into the flight control system all the 

characteristics of a brickyard traveling at Mach 25. And he had to program the five 

on-board computers to check each other, identify mistakes, and overrule errant commands. ‘‘If the computer fails,’’ said Cox, ‘‘you’ve bought the farm.’’ All this took 

time. A lot of time. 

Development dragged on past the original launch date of March 1, 1978 and into 

1979. Congress began to ask embarrassing questions. Talk was heard in Washington of abandoning the Shuttle altogether, although most observers agreed that 

it had really proceeded too far for that. Besides, whatever doubts there were about 

the floundering project were obscured by a coating of SALT. The Air Force would 

soon be dependent on the Shuttle to launch its space missions. The most important—and the most secrecy-shrouded—of these involved the orbiting of reconnaissance satellites. If Shuttle operations were delayed further, the Air Force faced a 

hiatus between the use of its last expendable launch vehicles and the availability 

of the Shuttle. The Air Force, and indeed the entire intelligence community, dreaded 

this prospect. Perhaps more important, so did Jimmy Carter, who in the spring of 

1979 was concluding the SALT II treaty. He would have to convince a skeptical Congress that the U.S. had the reconnaissance capability to verify Soviet compliance. 

There could be no gap in launch vehicle availability. 

The administration asked for more money for NASA in 1979, and Carter made 

it clear that he wanted the Shuttle to get whatever funding was necessary in the 

coming years to put it back on schedule. Congress went along because it had already 

poured more than $10 billion into the project and because the military implications 

were so serious. In 1979, General Lew Allen, the Air Force Chief of Staff, said, 

‘‘Whatever else the Shuttle does and whatever other purposes it will have, the priority, the emphasis, and the driving momentum now has to be those satellite systems which are important to national security.’’ For the first time since 1971, cost 

was no longer the main determinant in Shuttle development. 

NASA paid a price for this reversal of fortunes: the myth that the U.S. had an 

independent civilian space program was irretrievably shattered. In Fiscal Year 1980 

the military budget for space activities exceeded NASA’s for the first time since the 

beginning of the Apollo program. With the Pentagon now piping the tune on Shuttle 

development, some observers wondered aloud if an independent civilian space agency could survive. 

The infusion of money nevertheless had the desired effect. The first Shuttle flew 

on April 12, 1981, somewhat reviving NASA’s reputation and quieting public criticism. Since that first launch, some three years late, the operational record of the 

Shuttle has been improving steadily, if slowly. After four successful test missions, 

the first operational flight went up on Nov. 11, 1982, and was followed by four missions in 1983 and four in 1984. Eight flights are scheduled for this year—of which 

six had taken place when DISCOVER went to press—and 14 next. On the basis of 

this record, NASA has sought and won Ronald Reagan’s approval to begin development of the Space Station, the orbiting outpost the Shuttle was designed to serve. 

The record of the Shuttle so far is decidedly mixed. The bad news is that it’s not 

up to specifications. The solid rocket boosters came in over their design power, but 

the troublesome main engines have yet to achieve the 109 percent of thrust NASA 

anticipated. This shortfall, combined with weight growth on the launch vehicles, has 

restricted payload capacity to 47,000 pounds instead of the specified 65,000. NASA 

is developing a liquid boost module to add thrust on lift-off. 

27

The turn-around time between the first and second Shuttle launches was four 

months. The gap is now down to about two months, but the two weeks originally 

projected seems impossible. Most Shuttle flights have landed at Edwards Air Force 

Base, where the dry lake bed provides a cushion against the erratic behavior of the 

landing gear. There are no plans to land on commercial runways; they are simply 

too short. The shock and vibration of launch are taking a far higher toll on the main 

engines than anticipated; it seems unlikely that any of them will survive NASA’s 

goal of 50 launches. 

The first flights of Columbia, Challenger, and Discovery were late; Atlantis was to be launched in early October. Many follow-on missions have been late as well; 

five have been scrubbed altogether. Some satellites launched from the Shuttle have 

been either lost entirely or placed in erroneous orbits, requiring depletion of their 

limited fuel supplies to set them right. These mishaps weren’t the fault of the Shuttle, but the complete space transportation system has yet to achieve the reliability 

of the expendable launch vehicles it replaced. 

The good news is similarly compelling. Most of the shortcomings are under control 

and getting better. The orbiter and the external tank are getting lighter. Launches 

are more regular. Turn-around time is decreasing. The bugs that always infest new 

technology are disappearing. 

Even with the bugs, the Shuttle is the most sophisticated spacecraft ever flown, 

a generation ahead of the rest of the world and the envy of all spacefaring nations. 

Its main engines have the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any ever developed; its 

thermal protection is the lightest and most efficient ever flown. The Shuttle has retrieved satellites. It has served as a platform for astronauts repairing satellites in 

place. It has provided capacity for scientific experiments on a scale that dwarfs the 

capabilities of Apollo and the Soviet Soyuz. The Shuttle has more versatility and 

potential than any other spacecraft ever flown, and it has also delivered on the 

promise to routinize space flight. 

Have the taxpayers, then, gotten their money’s worth? Ah, that’s another question. One answer is undoubtedly no. Another is surely yes. The choice between them 

is philosophical and political more than it is technical. 

Cost has driven the Shuttle from the outset. Cost dictated the shape and pace of 

its development. Cost remains its only compelling raison d’eˆtre. And cost is the principal criterion by which it should be judged. 

Judged on cost, the Shuttle is a turkey. The problem isn’t that it cost too much 

to develop, as OMB had feared, but that it costs too much to fly, which no one seems 

to have anticipated. The Shuttle cost something like $14 billion (in 1985 dollars) to 

develop, well within the budget and the 20 percent fudge factor predicted by NASA 

in 1972. 

But NASA also promised then to amortize the Shuttle’s development costs, whatever the total. That notion was abandoned years ago, and with it went the Shuttle’s 

main initial selling point. By the time NASA went back to Congress for more money 

in 1978, it had ceased to claim that the investment in the Shuttle’s development 

would ever pay off. The Shuttle simply can’t fly cheaply enough to turn a profit. No 

one knows exactly how much a flight costs, but it’s nothing like the $10 million that 

Fletcher predicted in 1972. Nor does payload fly at $100 per pound. In 1985 dollars, 

these predictions convert into $25.8 million per launch and $258 per pound. Earlier 

this year the Congressional Budget Office suggested five ways to compute the costs 

of a Shuttle flight, and they ranged from one and a half to six times these predictions.

Accounting Meth. Cost per Launch Cost per Pound*

Short-run marginal cost $42 million $646/$893

Long-run marginal cost $76 million $1,169/$1,617

Average full operational cost $84 million $1,292/$1,787

Average full cost less development $108 million $1,662/$2,298

Average full cost $150 million $2,308/$3,191

*65,000 pound payload/47,000 pound payload 

In 1972 Fletcher pegged the cost per pound of payload on a Saturn rocket at $1,677 (in 1985 dollars). So if and when the Shuttle gets up to its rated payload 

capacity of 65,000 pounds it will cost, under the most reasonable accounting method 

(average full cost less development), about the same per pound as an Apollo launch 

13 years ago. 

Bad as it is that the American taxpayer won’t be reimbursed for Shuttle development, it’s worse still that more development money is being poured into the Shuttle 

to bring it tip to specs. Worst of all, even when these investments are written off, 

28

every Shuttle flight in 1986 will cost the American taxpayer a minimum of $50 million. NASA Administrator James Beggs reported earlier this year that NASA was 

budgeted on average $121 million for each of the 14 flights scheduled in 1986, four 

and a half times the amount predicted by Fletcher in 1972. Since the commercial 

rate to hire a completely dedicated Shuttle payload is $71 million, the American taxpayer would subsidize Shuttle operations next year to the tune of $700 million if 

all 14 flights were made and each earned its full commercial rate. In fact, fewer 

than half the flights will earn the full commercial rate. Americans can look forward 

to subsidizing all Shuttle missions—including foreign, commercial, and Air Force 

flights—for the foreseeable future. Like old John Henry, each Shuttle flight hauls 

as many as 24 tons and what does it get? Another day older and deeper in debt. 

Why not raise Shuttle fees? Simple. Ariane. While the U.S. was abandoning expendable vehicles and developing the Shuttle, the European Space Agency went 

about developing its own launch vehicle. Now Ariane is operational and luring customers away from the U.S. The Shuttle and Ariane are both heavily subsidized, 

launching spacecraft for all corners at losses amounting, in the U.S. at least, to hundreds of millions of dollars annually. (Ariane has no fixed pricing policy, so outsiders 

can’t be sure just what it charges for any given flight or how much it loses.) 

Ariane handcuffs the U.S. If America continues to subsidize flights, it increases 

the loss to the taxpayer. If it raises prices, it will lose business—even U.S. business—to Ariane, which already includes among its customers GTE and Satellite 

Business Systems, which is jointly owned by IBM and Aetna Life & Casualty. This 

would reduce the number of Shuttle flights, which would increase the cost of each 

flight, which would also increase the net loss to the taxpayer. In 1973 NASA envisioned 60 Shuttle flights a year by the sixth year of operation. Mathematica pegged 

the break-even point at more than 30 flights a year. Now NASA hopes to have 24 

flights a year by the end of this decade—but don’t bet on it. 

In short, the Shuttle is an economic bust, with no prospect of making money. It’s 

the SST of space, a remarkable piece of technology that costs more than it’s worth 

in the marketplace. 

But cost, say Shuttle supporters, isn’t the best criterion for judging the spacecraft. 

In fact, they contend, the cost constraints that have crippled the program from the 

outset account in large measure for the Shuttle’s development problems and disappointing operations. Retired NASA engineer James Nolan goes so far as to say 

that ‘‘the American people got the Shuttle they deserved.’’ Others are more circumspect. New technology, they argue, always entails the fits and starts that the 

Shuttle has experienced, but the development must be done. The Europeans, the 

Japanese, even the Chinese—not to mention the Soviets—are moving aggressively 

into space, and if the U.S. wants to remain competitive it must invest in the future. 

Furthermore, supporters contend, new uses for the Shuttle are just around the 

corner. It has unique capabilities that may be very important in the commercialization of space. Orbital manufacturing of crystals, pharmaceuticals, and space structures can take advantage of near-zero gravity to achieve results impossible on earth. 

Even tourism in space is now within reach; the Hyatt chain already has a commercial featuring a future hotel in orbit. The prospects, say the Shuttle faithful, are limited only by our imagination. Mueller claimed in 1969 that ‘‘the Space Shuttle, by 

its very existence and economics, may generate the traffic it requires to make it economical.’’

That kind of logic tends to get circular and metaphysical. You would only build 

a Shuttle if you had some reason for sending men into space, but you can’t know 

all the masons until they get there. Christopher Columbus is the classic example 

of this phenomenon. According to this line of thinking, you simply must bet on the 

unknown occasionally, for even when predictions are wrong, the unexpected may 

prove a greater blessing. 

To date the Shuttle has found no gold in orbit. Nor is it likely to. A second-generation Shuttle may be necessary for the space transportation system to become truly 

economical, but that’s not to be the next step in space. When the Shuttle went operational in 1982, NASA began to argue that the orbiter opened the way to development of the Space Station. The purpose of the Shuttle in the first place had been 

to reduce the prohibitive costs of resupplying the Space Station. Of course, it hasn’t 

done that, nor does it have any prospects of doing that. The real cost of putting a 

pound of payload in orbit is at the same prohibitive level as 16 years ago. But rather 

than make good on its promise, rather than develop a second-generation Shuttle 

that might prove profitable, NASA is pressing on with the Space Station. 

Does Shuttle development, then, have anything to teach the U.S. as it embarks 

on the development of a space station? It surely can’t tell Americans what will happen, but it can offer a handful of cautionary thoughts. First, as Tischler warned in 

1969, ‘‘the desire of the aerospace industry, which includes members of government 

29

agencies, to build exquisite and innovative equipment does not of itself justify 

spending the taxpayers’ money.’’ Second, beware of civil servants, however well intentioned, who propose to swashbuckle with the public purse. Third, high technology 

designed to cost will end up costing. And finally, progress is in the eye of the beholder.

Senator BROWNBACK. Good statements by all. 

Let’s run the clock at 7 minutes and then we can bounce back 

and forth and probably go a couple of rounds here. 

Ms. Smith, do we know what the cost per Shuttle flight is now? 

Ms. SMITH. That’s not an easy question to answer. It depends on 

how you look at it. There are two ways that those costs are usually 

described. One is called ‘‘average costs,’’ and the other is called 

‘‘marginal costs.’’ The average costs essentially take the annual 

Shuttle budget and divide it by however many flights there were 

that year. So five flights or six flights, whatever, you just do the 

math; it comes out to $400 million, $500 million a year. 

Senator BROWNBACK. $400 to $500 million——

Ms. SMITH. $400 to $500 million per flight, I’m sorry. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—per flight. 

Ms. SMITH. Yes. 

The marginal costs are the additive costs of flying an additional 

Shuttle mission in a given year, or the costs that you would save 

if you did not fly a particular Shuttle mission. So it doesn’t account 

for the infrastructure cost, basically, of the Shuttle program. 

NASA currently calculates the marginal costs of a Shuttle flight at $115 million a year. That’s in full cost accounting. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Okay. 

Mr. Chase, what should the vision be as to why we are going to 

space? If you were to articulate that in a way that the American 

people would identify with, what would that vision be as to why 

we should be going to space? 

Mr. CHASE. I think the traditional reasons that have been put 

forward—spin-offs and the valued education and the value for 

international cooperation—those are all benefits, but those aren’t 

the overall rationale for going to space. I don’t think any one of 

those can justify the expenditures and the programs. 

I think there’s something much bigger at stake here, and that is, 

if you look historically, societies that have expanded their frontiers 

are the ones that have prospered, the ones that have the energy 

and the drive within that society to do other things, whether it’s 

economically or other areas of success within that society. And I 

think that as soon as the society begins to or stops exploring and 

stops opening that frontier, they begin to risk some long-term detrimental effects. That’s not something you’ll see in 5 or maybe even 

10 years, but you have a long-term detrimental effect that will impact society. So I think that that’s one of the motivating factors, 

that that is a hallmark of societies that are successful and are leaders in their world. So I think that’s an important reason. 

Clearly, there are a lot of outstanding benefits to the motivation 

aspect in terms of motivating the next generation of explorers, the 

next generation of scientists and engineers, and, frankly, for that 

matter, the next generation of business leaders and lawyers and 

anyone else who may be engaged in that business or aspire to a 

higher calling. 

30

So there’s a lot of reasons to go. I don’t think there’s any single 

reason that is a——

Senator BROWNBACK. But how would you articulate it to the 

American people? If we continue forward, this is billions of dollars 

annually, how would you articulate it? 

Mr. CHASE. I think you would articulate it by saying that this 

is important to the future of our—not just our society, but even in 

some ways our civilization, to continue being a leader in the world. 

And it’s important for their kids to have opportunities that they see 

a hope for the future. 

You know, there’s not a lot that we look at that says, ‘‘Here’s the 

vision for 10 years down the road. There’s something hopeful that 

you may be able to step foot on another planet or another planetary body and have the chance to experience something that no 

human has experienced before, to have experiences that nobody’s 

ever had before.’’ I think that can be a very motivating factor for 

a child or even for someone today who is interested in that field. 

Senator BROWNBACK. So it’s to open space for the vision of humanity as always pressing forward? 

Mr. CHASE. It really is. There are economic reasons, there are social reasons, but it’s a continuous expansion of our frontiers and of 

our understanding of society and then obviously the benefits 

through technology that accrue to the society that’s used to do that. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Dr. Roland, how would you answer that 

question? What’s the vision for why we should be pursuing space? 

Dr. ROLAND. There are two things. I think it is important to do 

exploration in space. But it’s my very strong belief that any exploration that you want to do in space with our current technology, 

you will achieve far more with automated spacecraft than you will 

with people. Any mission you do in space costs ten times as much 

if you send people along. So if you want to go to Mars and explore, 

you can send 10 unmanned missions for the price of one manned 

mission. And the main purpose of the manned mission becomes 

simply returning the humans. 

I’m not saying that’s an unimportant national goal. It is inspirational and exciting, but it’s kind of a feel-good space program. And 

right now I don’t feel very good about our space program. 

I think we get much more sustained payoff, and we have consistently over the last 40 years, from our automated spacecraft. We’ve 

spent two-thirds of our budget on manned space flight, and we’re 

doing basically what we were doing 40 years ago. We send astronauts up into low-earth orbit and they float around and come back. 

And it’s our unmanned spacecraft—the communications satellites, 

the applications satellites, the reconnaissance satellites, the deepspace probes—they’re the ones that have given us all the payoff. 

So I think if we want to tell the American people that the space 

program is good for them, that’s where we should be making our 

investment. 

Senator BROWNBACK. If you based it on scientific discovery of 

what’s taking place, you would stand by your previous comment——

Dr. ROLAND. Absolutely. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—and can you quantify that? 

31

Dr. ROLAND. Yes. I recommend to you an exercise. I tried a short 

time ago to find any scientific results from Shuttle or Space Station 

research that was written up in refereed scientific journals. It 

doesn’t appear there, because it isn’t important science. All the 

science that NASA gets published in the best journals is coming 

from the automated spacecraft. 

Now, the one exception to that is there are some human physiology experiments that are written up, but that’s—again, it’s sort 

of a circular argument. We’re going to send people in space so they 

can learn to survive in space in case we ever find anything for 

them to do in space. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Ms. Smith, what would your comment be 

about the scientific information that we’re getting? Does it come 

more from the manned or from the unmanned launches? 

Ms. SMITH. There is scientific information that comes from both 

human and robotic spaceflight. I do have to agree with Dr. Roland 

that it is difficult to point to some breakthrough scientific discovery 

that can be directly traced to the presence of humans in space. 

There have been many space stations, both on the American side 

and on the Russian side, and Shuttle flights and all sorts of other 

flights. They do gather a great deal of data about biology, which 

is useful if you are going to continue launching humans into space. 

They also learn things that can be applied here on Earth. So there 

are medical advances that other scientists say have developed because of the space program. 

But critics of the space program argue that those advances would 

have been made anyway, even if you had not been launching humans into space, and they might have been made sooner if you had 

not devoted the sums of money to the space program and you had 

devoted them to earth-based research instead. 

But there is scientific data that comes back from the human 

space flights, and there’s a lot of data that comes back from the 

robotic flights. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Mr. Chase, your response? And then I want 

to go to Senator Breaux. 

Mr. CHASE. Well, I think the debate between humans versus robots is actually a little bit of a false argument. I think that any 

space program is a balanced approach. You have both human exploration and you have robotic exploration. There’s no doubt that 

there are destinations in our solar system that a human will probably never, ever be able to set foot, and robots are going to be a 

critical role in that exploration. 

But there’s also things that robots will never be able to do with 

current technology or even technology in the mid- to long-term future that humans will have to fulfill. There’s a certain amount of 

interaction with the environment, the mobility, the dexterity, the 

response time that a human possesses. A robot can be sitting on 

the surface of a planet and not know what’s sitting behind it unless 

it’s turned that direction by an operator; and, even then, they may 

not know exactly what it is. It takes a human to get down there 

and interact with that object or that environment to understand 

what’s going on. 

Now, the other thing that I think puts this in perspective is, I 

would proffer an exercise as well. I would challenge any earthVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
32

based scientist that does work in a laboratory and ask them, 

‘‘Would you be willing to substitute a robot for the work you’re 

doing in your laboratory?’’ And I dare say the answer is no, they 

would not be willing to do that, because they know they can 

achieve more with humans in that loop and in that capacity. 

Today we have the technology to replace humans to go to Antarctica with probes and robotic measuring systems. We don’t do that. 

We could send probes to the bottom of the ocean, but we don’t do 

that. We send humans. So there’s a reason that scientists in the 

scientific arena have humans in the loop, per se, in those discoveries. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Senator Breaux? 

Senator BREAUX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel 

for their testimony. 

Dr. Roland, are you saying that this particular Space Shuttle is 

defective, or do you think that any reusable Space Shuttle that is 

manned is not the proper approach? I mean, is this one uniquely 

defective in what you think, or do you think that if we did a 

VentureStar or a type of program which was a different type of reusable vehicle, that that could be okay, it could be a better way of 

doing it? Or do you just fundamentally think that the reusable 

manned space vehicle is not the right way to go? 

Dr. ROLAND. I think this one is uniquely defective, and I think 

it’s conceivable that the reusable idea could still work. And I think 

NASA was fully justified in pursuing it. It seemed like a good idea 

at the time. What we underestimated was the wear and tear on the 

spacecraft that requires such an extensive amount of maintenance 

and wears out the spacecraft faster than we thought. That economic model doesn’t work. 

Also, at the time, NASA was basing all its projections on an unrealistic economic model of how many flights there would be. And 

those two things together make this particular reusable not workable. 

And I think we just don’t know if we can design and operate a 

robust reusable that will have a lifetime that will really make it 

worthwhile. It might be that there’s some combination of the two 

where our orbiter is reusable but it launches on an expendable, and 

that the cost balance might show up there. 

I’m just encouraging them to take the experience we’ve gained 

from the Shuttle, which is not trivial, and design a better launch 

vehicle. 

Senator BREAUX. How much of your concerns with this particular 

Shuttle are because of the way it is launched through the rocket 

type of launch as opposed to like a regular airplane, which would 

be a suborbital type of operation? 

Dr. ROLAND. Right, I think if we could build a small orbiter that 

could be launched from an airplane, at least theoretically that 

sounds much more appealing. Of course the whole problem is that 

when any launch vehicle lifts off the ground, it has to carry all the 

fuel it needs to get into orbit, so the enormous cost is in the first 

100 feet and then it starts going down rapidly after that. So if we 

can develop another launch vehicle that’ll get the orbiter up to a 

level where it’s only a hop into space, then we have an entirely different technological model. 

33

Senator BREAUX. Is it your understanding that NASA, at this 

point, really doesn’t have any plans to look at an alternative type 

of vehicle and they’re now planning to use this one through the 

year 2020? 

Dr. ROLAND. That’s what they told us in the fall. We were waiting to see what they were going to do about the Shuttle fleet. And 

their solution was to try and prolong its life and defer, essentially, 

development of a replacement launch vehicle. And I think that’s 

the great problem. I’m not opposed to the program they’ve designed 

in general or manned space flight in general. It’s just that this is 

not the vehicle that’s going to achieve our objectives for us. 

Senator BREAUX. From your knowledge, what type of vehicle—

would be an option, and what would that option look like? 

Dr. ROLAND. I tend to think that we ought to separate cargo and 

people, and that we need a small orbiter to take people into and 

out of space. That’s the vehicle in which we should invest all the 

safety and life-support systems, and we just make it as safe as we 

possibly can, but make it smaller, just to carry the people. Then 

we have separate automated launch vehicles; they can be either expendable or reusable launch vehicles, the heavy-lift vehicles, the 

trucks that carry the material up there. The astronauts meet them 

in orbit and do their business and then the astronauts come back 

safely. And then you have a vehicle that’s not only a launch vehicle 

for the astronauts and much safer, but it’s an emergency crew return vehicle, as well, and you solve two problems at once. 

Senator BREAUX. So you’re not really saying that we just 

shouldn’t do manned space flights at all. You’re just separating the 

vehicle that takes humans up from a separate vehicle that perhaps 

would be used for heavier payloads and would not necessarily have 

to have the extreme human safety precautions maintained. 

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, this is what we do with our expendable launch 

vehicles. This is what the Air Force does. You accept a certain 

amount, a certain probability of failure. In other words, if you get 

up to 95, 96, 97 percent success rate, it’s economically infeasible to 

try and get that any higher, and so you accept an occasional loss 

of one of those launch vehicles. But we can’t do that with people. 

And so we ought to separate those two functions have a much higher safety standard for the smaller and lighter vehicle just to get the 

people and down. 

Senator BREAUX. Mr. Chase and Ms. Smith, can you comment on 

that? Mr. Chase, you were talking about how you need humans in 

space, but it seems like what Dr. Roland is really suggesting is 

that you would still have humans in space; you would just have a 

different vehicle for getting there and then you’d have a different 

vehicle for the heavier payloads that would be necessarily utilized 

in space. Do you have any comments on that? 

Mr. CHASE. Yes, sir. Although I don’t agree with Mr. Roland’s 

contention on some of the lack of the value of the Shuttle at this 

present time, I think that we actually have a lot of areas of agreement in terms of where this ought to go. And some of the items 

that I outlined in my testimony are a three-stage approach that 

NASA is planning for their future space transportation needs. 

What NASA has finally realized, and the space community has realized, is that we can’t take this jump in one bite, so to speak, in 

34

one step. We can’t go just straight from the old system to a brand 

new system that is a single-stage to orbit that incorporates all the 

latest technology. 

What we’ve realized is that we have to do an evolutionary approach. And the evolutionary approach is we continue to use the 

Shuttle for the duration needed to finish the Space Station. The 

next step is, you do exactly what Mr. Roland mentioned, which is 

put a crew transfer system in place that can take the burden off 

of the Shuttle to transfer a crew to and from the Space Station and 

be used for future missions. And then the next stage is that crew 

transfer system could become part of a next-generation launch 

technology. So you have a three-pronged approach to this problem. 

And I do——

Senator BREAUX. Of course, the problem, at least in my information from NASA, is they’re not thinking in that terms right now. 

We’re talking about until year 2020 using the Space Shuttle as 

both a human delivery system as well as a cargo delivery system. 

And there’s not a lot on the books right now, from the standpoint 

of looking at the next generation. It’s just not even being started 

yet. 

Mr. CHASE. They did have a restructuring of their Space Launch 

Initiative program, which was to address the next-generation system. And out of that program is the orbital space plane and what 

they’re calling next-generation launch technology, which is being 

done in conjunction with the Department of Defense. 

I think I mentioned in my oral testimony that that’s an important relationship to develop, and I think it’s important for this reason. The DoD has a very strong track record in developing X vehicles and test vehicles for their eventual systems. And I think that’s 

important element that has been missing in some of NASA’s efforts. We try to go too quickly to an operational system, or just do 

one X vehicle and all the technology is thrown into that one system. And I think a multiple approach, where we test technology on 

a variety of X vehicles and have the experience from DoD in doing 

that, will go a long way to solving that problem. 

Senator BREAUX. Okay, those are good suggestions. 

Thank you very much, both of you. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Let me ask you—you’ve got some good 

thoughts, but I want to hear—We hear a number of different 

schools of thought. There’s been, I think, a beautiful public debate 

that’s taken place since this last Shuttle disaster about doing more 

space probes. Everybody agrees we should be in space. Should we 

be doing more unmanned? More manned? Should we be going back 

to the moon and colonizing the moon? Should we be going to Mars 

and beyond? Great debate, and the sort of thing we really ought 

to be talking about in broad scale, and I’m delighted we’re having 

that sort of discussion. 

Ms. Smith what is the rationale? If we were to say to the people 

that are most supportive of this, we need to go to the moon and 

establish a long-term presence, an exploration presence, on the 

moon, what’s the major reason for us to do that? 

Ms. SMITH. Well, there are advocates of returning humans to the 

moon that would say that you could use the lunar surface as a 

place for scientific observatories, you could put telescopes on the far 

35

side of the moon, you could mine the moon for helium-3 and bring 

it back to earth and use it for fusion reactors. 

Senator BROWNBACK. I’m sorry, for what? 

Ms. SMITH. Helium-3 and use it for fusion reactors. There are 

others who would like to put solar power systems on the moon and 

beam the energy back to earth. So there are a number of concepts 

out there for practical utilization of the lunar surface. And if you 

also wanted to commit to sending humans to Mars someday, then 

you might set up fuel production sites on the moon using the lunar 

materials to produce the fuel that you would need to go to Mars. 

So the visionaries in the space field lay out a number of scenarios 

as to why it is that you might want to go back to the moon. 

There are others, however, who feel that we’ve been to the 

moon—‘‘Been there, done that,’’ don’t need to go back again. That 

we really need is a commitment to going to Mars. In fact, some of 

the Apollo astronauts who have been to the moon have that point 

of view. They see going out to other places in the solar system as 

part of this destiny to explore, and they feel that we need to move 

on from what we did in the 1960s and start a new quest to send 

humans to Mars. 

Senator BROWNBACK. What’s the purpose of going to Mars? 

Ms. SMITH. Exploration. To set up settlements there. Again, to do 

scientific research, to do a lot of geological research. They make the 

argument that Mr. Chase was making earlier, that if you have humans on site, that they’re much better at doing science than robots 

because they’re adaptable. When you send a robotic probe to some 

distant destination, if you haven’t programmed it with the information it needs, then it’s not going to be able to adapt to changing 

circumstances, whereas people can. 

So those who argue in favor of sending people to Mars want the 

people there on site, because the feeling is that they can do better 

scientific exploration there. They can look at the geological sites 

and decide which rocks are the most important, as former Senator 

Schmitt did when he was on the moon in Apollo 17, because he was 

a geologist and he was trained to do that. So people see that as, 

sort of, the added value of having people there, that you can get 

more bang for your buck even though the bucks are so much greater when you’re including humans. 

Senator BROWNBACK. The cost of doing an unmanned mission to 

Mars versus a manned mission to Mars, do we have any idea of 

what factor we’re looking at? 

Ms. SMITH. There are a number of ranges of cost estimates for 

sending people to Mars. There’s a gentleman who’s very enthusiastic about this, Bob Zubrin, who has very low cost estimates. I believe it’s in the $10 billion range. And when NASA was last asked 

the question back when President Bush gave his speech in 1989, 

they came up with a program that was about $400 billion. 

The robotic probes—how expensive they are depends on how focused they are in their missions. But they’re probably, you know, 

$100 million, something like that. It’s a vast difference. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Dr. Roland, give me your perspective on 

why we should or shouldn’t go back to the moon or to Mars. 

Dr. ROLAND. If the moon were paved in diamonds, it would cost 

more to go get them than they’re worth here on Earth. One of the 

36

reasons we haven’t gone back to the moon is that we discovered 

nothing there worth going back for. It is true that you could do 

some science there and you could do some experiments, but nothing 

where the payoff is anywhere near the cost. And I think the same 

thing is true in Mars. 

This notion that humans, in situ, do better research than machines, I think is simply not true. I don’t know of any particular 

activity that a human is going to do on Mars that a machine can’t 

do. Remember, our machines are controlled from earth. We send 

them out, and we tell them what to do. We don’t have to pre-program. We direct them around. We have them get samples. 

Twenty-five years ago, NASA could have sent an automated 

probe to Mars to take soil samples and bring them back. We could 

have it down in the Air and Space Museum now. And we haven’t 

done those automated missions that we ought to be doing. 

I have no doubt that someday humans will go to Mars, and we’ll 

probably go back to the moon, and we’ll probably colonize the moon 

or Mars or some other place in space, but not with the technology 

that we have now. What we have now is a technology that allows 

us to do an enormous amount of scientific exploration, and that’s 

being cut off while we float astronauts around in near-earth orbit. 

It’s just an imbalance of our priorities. 

I agree that the space program has to have some balance of priorities, but throughout NASA’s history it’s been spending twothirds of its money on manned space flight and we get very little 

payoff from that. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Mr. Chase, I want to give you a chance to 

respond to any of those comments, please. 

Mr. CHASE. I think that there’s another avenue of this discussion 

that’s worth having, as well, because I think that you can make the 

case that there are reasons to go back to the moon and go to Mars, 

and I also believe that we will be doing that at some point down 

the road. However, I think there’s another consideration, which is 

it may be better for NASA to build capabilities that allow us to 

make decisions when we’re ready to make those choices. 

For example, low-cost access to space is a critical part of whatever sort of mission you’re planning, whether it’s to launch a probe 

to do an environmental study of the earth, whether it’s a military 

satellite, whether it’s a mission to the Space Station, whether it’s 

a mission to the moon or to Mars. And so low-cost access to space 

is a major part of any sort of an element of future space exploration. 

Another good example is, NASA has begun a look at nuclear propulsion and power, Project Prometheus, that is in the Fiscal Year 

2004 budget proposal. That is a capability that is critical to both 

human and robotic probes. That is a capability that will allow us 

to go places in the solar system we just can’t go with chemical rockets. And that’s a capability that can be built for a number of applications, and then when we decide and make a decision about where 

to go, we can apply those capabilities to those missions. 

Now, there is somewhat of a danger in establishing a single destination for the program. Obviously, that gives you the ability to 

rally behind that destination, and there’s a lot of very attractive 

reasons to do that, and that’s probably the direction most people 

37

think of today is saying let’s go back to a single place. But if you 

apply all of your resources and all of your technology behind a single destination and you either never get that mission going or it 

has a failure en route, you’re left with nothing in the inventory for 

you to do next. So that’s why there’s a rationale and a growing 

sense, even at NASA by Administrator O’Keefe, that we need to 

build capabilities to do a number of missions, and then as those 

missions come about, assemble those capabilities into the spacecraft that can achieve that mission. 

Senator BROWNBACK. In my discussions with the Administrator 

and with other people that have thought about the space program, 

a number of them will identify that we will need to build the capacity to travel in space and that’s what our objective should be. We 

need to build the capacity that we could get to and from Mars in 

a relative period of time so that humans could take it, and have 

the capacity to do it. We don’t necessarily need to say right now 

that our objective is to go back to the moon or to Mars, but we need 

to be able to build the capacity. We’d probably test that technology 

and use it through the unmanned to build up the capacity where 

we could do it in a manned capacity. But our objective isn’t to go 

to the moon or to Mars. It’s to open up space for human exploration 

for humanity, how do you react to that? 

Dr. ROLAND. It seems to me that there is a tendency to associate 

our current space age with the age of Columbus, and I think it’s 

the wrong analogy. We’re in the age of Leif Ericsson. We have 

managed to get to the moon, but we don’t have a robust technology 

and a robust infrastructure which will allow us to stay there and 

exploit and create a permanent presence there. Our effort ought to 

be invested in developing that capability and infrastructure, not in 

trying to demonstrate that we can do a technological feat. 

I think it was very important, in the context of the Cold War, 

to send humans to the moon as a demonstration of our technological prowess. But I don’t think we have to prove anything anymore. I think we have to have a rational space program that builds 

up the infrastructure that will allow us to do all of these things in 

space, and we’re not doing it now. We’re spending our money flying 

astronauts around and not developing the launch vehicles we need 

for the future. 

Ms. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I can’t resist bringing to your attention a study that was done in 1985 to 1986, with which I was associated, from the National Commission on Space, called ‘‘Pioneering 

the Space Frontier.’’ And the overarching theme of that report was 

that we should open up the solar system for science, exploration, 

and development. And the space transportation system laid out in 

there, which was called the Bridge Between Worlds, was, in fact, 

a series of spacecraft that went on interlocking orbits so that you 

could access Mars and the areas around Mars basically anytime 

you wanted to. 

So there are folks who have thought about these things for a lot 

of years. The problem has always been money. They’re very expensive to do, and the Nation has other priorities. 

And what many people who are proponents of human space flight 

have been searching for has been that catalyzing effect that would 

make it imperative for America, or for planet Earth, to go out there 

38

and do it again. We had that compelling reason to go to the moon. 

And, as Dr. Roland said, it’s hard to find that compelling reason 

to send humans to Mars because of the expense involved in it. 

So I think on various bookshelves around town and around the 

country you’d find a lot of studies that came out with ideas of how 

you could accomplish this. 

One of the concerns of the Commission on Space was that they 

didn’t want to do another Apollo program, which was a dead-ended 

program. You went there, you picked up a rock, you came home, 

and it was done with. They wanted to establish that infrastructure 

so that you could go, not once, but repeatedly, over and over again, 

that you had that infrastructure in place. The problem has always 

been the funding for it. 

Senator BROWNBACK. You’re talking about a catalyzing event. 

Are we coming upon one if the Chinese launch into space? We’ve 

had testimony in this Committee that they will shortly thereafter 

announce that they are going to the moon and to stay. 

Dr. ROLAND. I can remember debating with former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, who was making the same argument ten years 

ago, threatening that if we gave up our lead in human exploitation 

of space, the Japanese were going to move ahead of us and that 

they had a manned space program. 

It is a bad way to make our national policy to think that these 

symbolic programs are the best way to proceed into the future. We 

have 40 years of experience in space now. We really know what 

works and doesn’t work, and we don’t have to put on demonstration 

programs to prove we’re better than other people. We just have to 

develop a rational program that will achieve our goals. 

My historical explanation for why we’re in this dilemma now is 

what I call ‘‘the barnstorming era’’ of space flight. We are now in 

the era of space flight which is analogous to barnstorming in the 

1920s. We’ve learned how to fly, but we didn’t have any idea what 

to do with the capability. So we would go out to the annual picnic 

and take Aunt Emma up for a trip. Right now we are just showing 

off in space that we know how to fly. It was in the 1930s, when 

the airplane turned into a commercially useful tool and a militarily 

useful tool. Then it started to develop its own technological trajectory. We don’t have such a trajectory now for manned spaceflight. 

Senator BROWNBACK. But would we, Dr. Roland—if we, though, 

continued to go out for the Aunt Emma picnic——

Dr. ROLAND. Right, uh-huh. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—and watch the launch and come back——

Dr. ROLAND. Right. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—won’t we learn as we go along? Then we’ll 

be able to get to a point that we find, a very good logistical, military, commercial reasons for us to be up on the moon on a permanent basis. If we’re up there knocking around and exploring, will 

we find things that we hadn’t thought of previously? Isn’t that actually even the truth of most of human discovery? Is you go not because you particularly know why you’re going, or what you’re going 

to get, but once you get there, you find out that what you come 

back with, the reasoning is far different, but very important? 

Dr. ROLAND. Senator, I agree completely, and we’ve been doing 

this for 40 years, and we’ve found out what works: unmanned comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
39

munications satellites, unmanned reconnaissance satellites, earth 

resources satellites, scientific probes. We have a whole repertoire of 

space activity that works and is of proven productivity and usefulness. It hasn’t happened with people yet. 

Now, I’m not saying that we should stop sending people, but we 

haven’t had that catalytic event where people have demonstrated 

that they’re indispensable to some very useful activity in space. I 

think one of the reasons is that we don’t have the right infrastructure. 

If we could put people in space for free, there would be lots of 

things for them to do up there which would be worth the cost. If 

it costs a billion dollars to put them in space, there aren’t very 

many things up there that are worth the cost. And, with all due respect to Marcia, I would maintain that $1 

billion is a much better estimate of what a Shuttle flight really 

costs, including the total overhead. I can give you a citation on 

that. And that’s $1 billion a flight if you don’t include amortization 

of the development costs. 

When NASA proposed the Shuttle, it said it was going to be so 

cheap that it was going to amortize its development costs in the 

first 12 years. Of course, it never did. So you should, actually, be 

putting amortization of development costs into the cost of a Shuttle 

flight. And if you do that, the number is $1.7 billion a flight. But 

I think $1 billion is a good rough figure for what it’s really costing. 

So it’s a very expensive proposition to be putting people up there. 

As a matter of fact, the space telescope is my favorite example. It’s 

used as an exemplar of how useful manned space flight is. Well, 

we could have had two or three space telescopes for the price of the 

program we have, because we’re spending all that money every 

time we go up to repair it. We’d be much better off having several 

automated space telescopes. They’d be in a more useful orbit, 

they’d be of a more practical design, and we wouldn’t be tied down 

to the Shuttle as we are now. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Some observers have suggested that NASA 

should explore developing a replacement for the Space Shuttle instead of trying to extend the existing program and complementing 

it with an orbital space plane. What are the challenges to this approach? And do you support going that way? 

Mr. Chase? 

Mr. CHASE. I believe that the Shuttle has inherent capabilities 

that need to be maintained to complete the Space Station, first and 

foremost. The remaining components of the Space Station are in—

most of them are at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida waiting 

for launch, and those can only be launched on the Space Shuttle. 

You can argue that that was a design flaw, that we should have 

allowed those components to be flown in other systems, but the bottom line is if we intend to complete the Space Station, we have to 

have the Shuttle to do that. And there are a lot of things that have 

been neglected in the investments that need to be made in the 

Shuttle infrastructure, both the vehicles themselves and the infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center and other NASA centers 

that support the Shuttle. 

And that’s been done to some degree, because there’s been a 

sense of an either/or proposition, that if you’re going to fund the 

40

Shuttle, you can’t do next-generation launch investment; or if 

you’re going to do next-generation launch investment, you have to 

starve the Shuttle. And that is not the case. You can do both. 

And, in fact, there are a lot of ways to integrate the Shuttle program into next-generation systems and research. For example, the 

Shuttle can be used as a test bed for some of the new technologies 

that are being looked at for next-generation systems. 

So I think you have to have a period where you’re flying the 

Shuttle, you’re also flying an orbital space plane, which is kept as 

simple as possible, to do the crew transfer, and then you’re also 

doing investment in the next-generation systems. 

The key is I believe that NASA has matured its thinking of the 

point to know that we do have to have that balanced parallel approach, rather than simply embarking on a single replacement system and then when that fails we not only have not upgraded the 

Shuttle, but we don’t have a replacement system to replace it. 

Going back, as well, to the exploration discussion, I think that 

there has been a maturing of the thinking that we can’t have a 

mission simply to go there, that we have to have to build the infrastructure and build the capability that lets us do missions longterm, not just a flags and footprint type program, which is what 

a lot of people describe Apollo as being. 

So I think we have a phased approach that involves multiple systems being brought online. 

Senator BROWNBACK. We’ve been joined by a person with personal experience, Mr. Nelson, Senator Nelson of Florida. The floor 

is yours to ask questions. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON,

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Roland, I did not see you, because I was looking straight at 

a TV camera. Were you the Dr. Roland that was on a CBS program 

with me? 

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator NELSON. I guess I don’t remember—2 months ago, or so. 

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, something like that. That’s right. 

Senator NELSON. You made a statement, and I heard it through 

my earpiece, that the Rogers Commission had recommended that 

the Space Shuttle be terminated. 

Dr. ROLAND. I believe what I said—what I meant to say and 

what I said in my prepared testimony here—was that the Rogers 

Commission said, ‘‘Do not make the Shuttle the mainstay of your 

launch capability.’’ In other words, they were encouraging NASA, 

not to stop flying, but to get on with developing a stable of launch 

vehicles where you could choose the vehicle best adapted for any 

particular mission. 

Senator NELSON. And that was clearly the conclusion as a result 

of the Challenger tragedy——

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator NELSON.—17 years ago, was that instead of the Space 

Shuttle being the space transportation system which it was 

thought to be, that you would use the Space Shuttle primarily 

where you needed the human in the loop, and you would use exVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
41

pendable rockets to put up other payloads that you did not need 

the human in the loop. That was the final result. 

Dr. ROLAND. I went back and looked at the Rogers Commission 

report, last night, in fact, and that isn’t exactly what they said. 

They took their charge very seriously, and it was only to advise 

NASA on what to do about the Shuttle program. So they were very 

cautious about what this other stable of launch vehicles should be. 

I am quite sure that in their press discussions surrounding the release of the report, they did say that they thought there should be 

another stable of launch vehicles. And I don’t think they limited 

manned space flight to the Shuttle. I think they were anticipating 

a follow-on manned launch vehicle. 

Senator NELSON. And 17 years later, here we are. 

Dr. ROLAND. Here we are, that’s right. Yes, sir. 

Senator NELSON. And we don’t have one. 

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator NELSON. I would hope that we would accelerate those 

technologies, and I’ve been kind of nipping at the heels of the Administration to try to get them to do that and not to look to NASA 

as the sole source of the funding for developing new technologies 

since, in fact, other agencies clearly have an interest in this, as 

well. 

Dr. ROLAND. I agree completely. 

Senator NELSON. Other agencies, I might say, that are a lot more 

flush with cash than is NASA. 

Dr. ROLAND. Yes, sir. 

Senator NELSON. Well, as you look from the experience of what 

we learned 17 years ago and some of the mistakes—now, Mr. 

Chairman, you might want to rein me in, because I might be getting far afield. You’re talking basically about the future of manned 

space flight, so I will ask questions that are directly related to 

that—NASA learned a number of lessons—and I would address 

this to each of the three—17 years ago, NASA learned a number 

of lessons, and it wasn’t only about cold weather stiffening rubberized gaskets, but it was also about mistakes in human communication, where communication is like water; it’s really easy to flow 

from the top down, but it’s not necessarily as easy to flow from the 

bottom up. Do you think that NASA learned those lessons and 

practiced those learned lessons on into this experience? 

Dr. ROLAND. I think they learned them and then forgot them 

again. I think the Columbia accident was very similar to the Challenger accident in the sense that it was a systemic flaw within the 

system. It was a stressed system in which the operators were proceeding with inadequate resources for what they were trying to do. 

They performed heroically, but they had more problems in the system than they had resources to fix, and that meant looking the 

other way when a lot of problems arose. And when problems arose, 

stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. That’s what happened on Challenger, and that’s what happened on Columbia. 

Senator NELSON. What do you think, Ms. Smith? 

Ms. SMITH. Well, I don’t mean to put you off, Senator, but I think 

that until the Columbia Accident Investigation Board determines 

exactly what went wrong, we aren’t going to know the answer to 

that question. 

42

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chase? 

Mr. CHASE. I have to agree with Marcia that we won’t know the 

answers until the investigation is finished. I can certainly offer 

some preliminary assessments that I believe to be the case. 

I’ve had the privilege of working at the Johnson Space Center, 

I’ve worked for a NASA contractor, I’ve lived in the community 

around Kennedy Space Center, and so I’ve observed NASA from a 

variety of angles, both from within the agency and outside. 

I think with Challenger, and certainly as your experience with 

the agency would probably concur, there were a series of severe endemic problems within the agency that resulted in the Challenger 

disaster. There was a problem of suppression of information from 

the top, an active suppression of information. 

I think in Columbia, to date, we have not seen that there has 

been an active suppression of the information. You can debate 

whether or not certain pieces of information were elevated properly 

from within management and engineering, it seems, but I have not 

seen evidence, to date, that indicates that there was an active effort to squelch that discussion. 

The what-if-ing scenarios of what happens to a vehicle and what 

happens to systems goes on on every single mission. I had the opportunity to work console for three different Shuttle missions while 

I worked for the Space Station Program, and that’s part of what 

you do, is you understand the details of what happens to that vehicle and what happens to those systems, and you go the absolute 

worst-case scenarios, and you talk about those. It just happens that 

e-mail now puts that down on paper, and some of that is now 

transmitted and can be taken out context. 

So I think that’s a difference in those two areas. I’m sure that 

we’ll find areas that need to be improved, and those improvements 

certainly need to be made. But I think that is a very dramatic difference between the two incidents. 

Senator NELSON. The question of photographs, Ms. Smith, what 

do you think? Looks like NASA is going to be taking photographs, 

if such an occurrence should occur in the future. What do you think 

about whether or not they should have taken photographs this 

time? 

Ms. SMITH. Well, again, Senator, not to put you off, but I don’t 

think CRS would take a position one way or the other. I think 

NASA has explained itself. It said that it had gotten photographs 

in the past and had not found them particularly helpful in trying 

to determine whether or not there had been missing tiles on previous flights, and so they felt that they would not be particularly 

helpful in this case. So they’ve explained why they chose not do 

that, and it would be up to Admiral Gehman and his team to decide whether or not that was a good management choice. 

Senator NELSON. So you don’t have a personal opinion about 

that? 

Ms. SMITH. No, sir. 

Senator NELSON. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. I’ve got several other 

questions, but——

Senator BROWNBACK. I’ve had my chance. I was just getting 

ready to close the panel down when you came in. 

Senator NELSON. Do you have another panel coming? 

43

Senator BROWNBACK. No, this is it. So if you have another couple 

of questions, go ahead and ask them and then we’ll finish up. 

Senator NELSON. May I have more than a couple? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. All right. We may bounce back and forth 

a little bit here. I may give you the gavel and go on. Go ahead. 

Senator NELSON. I’d love that, Mr. Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator NELSON. The last time I had the gavel in this Subcommittee, we went for 5 hours. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. Oh, well, I couldn’t handle that. 

Senator NELSON. As we look at some of the things that are happening, do you have any technical suggestions for this Committee 

about buying some more time if you’ve got a damaged area of an 

orbiter and you want to buy some more time—I’m not suggesting 

there was anything that could be done to save this particular mission and crew—such as cold soaking or a higher angle of attack or 

keeping the crew in space longer to rescue them—if you’re damaged area is your left wing, keeping your left wing up instead of 

the roll reversal taking it back into a left wing down? Any suggestions? 

Dr. ROLAND. Senator, I don’t have the technical competence to 

answer that specifically, but I do have a suggestion that I think’s 

in the same realm. I think in the future, until we either have a 

clearer idea and clearer prospects of a new and safer Shuttle, that 

all Shuttle missions in the future should go to the Space Station 

and should involve an inspection of the Shuttle before it returns. 

And, additionally, we might want to consider—we’ve been speaking earlier about developing a small astronaut orbiter which would 

be only to transport people to and from orbit—we might want to 

consider using the Shuttle unmanned as a heavy-lift vehicle. It can 

fly up and it can fly back without the astronauts onboard. This 

would not hold down the costs, but it surely holds down the risk 

to human life of a technology that I think is becoming more fragile 

as time goes on. 

Senator NELSON. Any other comments? 

Mr. CHASE. No, I don’t have the technical background or the currency with the programs to make the recommendations. 

Senator NELSON. The future of human space flight. Where, in 

your opinions, would you like to see us go as we get back into flying with the Space Shuttle? What would you like to see the program evolve into? 

Mr. CHASE. Senator, one of the discussions that we’ve been having is this notion of a destination-driven program versus building 

capabilities that let us go multiple destinations, and I think that’s 

a very good debate to have. I’m not sure that that debate has been 

decided, but clearly NASA is moving towards this notion of building capabilities to do a number of things. Rather than simply building a vehicle that goes to Mars or just goes to the moon, why not 

build capabilities that let us do a number of things in space that 

can be applied to robotic missions, to human missions, and anything else that we may want to do. 

44

One of the recommendations put forward in the Commission on 

the Future of the Aerospace Industry, chaired by Congressman 

Robert Walker, was just that notion, that you need to develop the 

capabilities to do a number of missions. And, in a lot of ways, that’s 

more exciting, to understand that you have the capability through 

developing nuclear propulsion and power options for in-space transportation, but you can then take that and apply it to a number of 

missions, to send a robotic probe to Europa, to send a human mission to Mars. That, I think, opens up your possibilities. You have 

some challenges in perhaps how you motivate that team that develops the systems, because they may not know exactly what they’re 

driving towards. But it does open up your possibilities, and that’s 

where I think we should go. 

The most important element in all of that is the access to space. 

Getting low-cost access to space is critical. The capabilities of the 

Shuttle are critical for the short- and near-term. Then as you develop and phase in the next-generation systems, that’s what enables you to drop the costs. And I was encouraged by your comments earlier and your comments in the past related to the role 

that the Department of Defense can play in future space access, 

both in developing next-generation RLVs and perhaps how the fleet 

of the evolved expendable launch vehicles, EELVs, can play in our 

space transportation needs. Those are very robust and very new 

systems that are much simpler, much more efficient than their 

predecessors. I think there’s a major role for them to play in future 

access. 

Ms. SMITH. Well, Senator, I’m not allowed to take positions or 

have opinions, so about all I can offer in this context is that it——

Senator NELSON. But you’re one of the great experts on space. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. SMITH. But it may be useful to have the context set for 

where it is that NASA and America expect to go in the long-term 

in human exploration. Most of NASA’s programs have this longterm view. The planetary program does, the astronomy program 

does. But when you get to human space flight, the Space Station 

is basically it. Because it’s taken so many more years than people 

expected for it to become operational, and it’s still not there yet, 

people have sort of given up looking at what is beyond space station. In fact, NASA, I don’t think even has a cutoff for when the 

Space Station is going to stop operations or transition to something 

else. 

And so in terms of trying to develop an architecture for the future and decide what your options are and what kind of launch vehicles you need and whether you want to have one vehicle for 

human space flight and another vehicle for cargo, you really need 

to know where it is down the road all of this is going to be taking 

you. 

And I know that there are a few people at NASA who have been 

looking at this over these past few years, but because of the funding situation at NASA, I think there aren’t a lot of people there 

who feel that they can stand up and say, ‘‘Oh, yeah, this is the way 

it’s going to be.’’ And so I think that, you know, even after all these 

years and after all the studies that have been done on future space 

goals, that here we are in 2003 and it’s still not clear what direcVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:28 Feb 21, 2006 Jkt 097061 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\WPSHR\GPO\DOCS\97061.TXT JACK PsN: JACKF
45

tion this is all leading in. And I think that’s an important component of then backtracking and saying, ‘‘So what kind of launch vehicles do I need?’’

Dr. ROLAND. I don’t think, with our current technology, there are 

any missions for people in space that are worth the cost and the 

risk, but that does not mean that there’s not a value for human 

missions in space—conceivably on a space station, conceivably 

going to the moon, going to Mars. And the question is, when will 

the cost come down enough that the value of having people there, 

which is now so much more expensive, intersects with that cost? 

I think the space program should be focused on making that happen sooner rather than later, and that means launch vehicle development. I think Mr. Chase and I agree that access to space is the 

big issue, and that’s where we should be concentrating our research 

and development. 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I’ll conclude my comments just 

by responding to Dr. Roland. 

In one sense, I agree with you, and that is that the risks for 

human space flight are not accurately projected. Indeed, in a flight 

that I participated in 17 years ago, at the time it was generally 

thought to be catastrophic one in 100. It ended up being one in 25. 

And now we know, it’s two in 113. And that’s why I have been unrelenting in my advocacy for the safety upgrades on the Space 

Shuttle and have been unforgiving, Mr. Chairman, to a NASA that 

has not pressed with those safety upgrades as a first priority of 

business; instead, stealing money from the Space Shuttle, which 

would have gone into safety upgrades and other things, and putting it in other things in NASA. So in that regard, I think you’re 

right. 

Where I would disagree with you—and this is my concluding 

comment, Mr. Chairman, because I know you want to shut down—

and that is that Americans are, by nature, explorers. We’re about 

to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark. And that 

was a big deal in the day. That was like an Apollo project in their 

day. And that reaped enormous benefits for us. And I think that 

we need, as a country, not only the development of the technologies 

and all of those spinoffs to the value of our society here on the 

planet, but fulfilling that part of our nature as explorers. 

For example, one of my crew mates, Dr. Franklin Chang Diaz, 

has been developing over the last 30 years a plasma rocket that 

he’s just about ready to test if NASA will keep giving him the 

money. He’s got a 30-university consortium, he’s got a test model, 

and this thing would ultimately take us to Mars in 39 days instead 

of 10 months, which is conventional technology, would solve the 

problem of gravity, because it would accelerate half the way and 

decelerate the remaining half way, and would create a magnetic 

field around the rocket, which would help us repel the solar flares. 

And so these are the kind of things that I think we’ve got to be 

visionary in. And I’m so grateful to you, Mr. Chairman, because 

you are a visionary, and I’m glad that you’re the Chairman of this 

Committee. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you very much, Senator Nelson, Astronaut Nelson. 

46

I want to thank the panelists, as well. This is the start of a 

lengthy process. It’s been going on for some period of time. But we 

do want to fulfill the dreams of us as explorers, and I don’t think 

anybody on the panel disagrees with that. It’s just how we do that 

and how we proceed forward. 

I want to thank all of you, individually, for your expertise and 

your continued support and enthusiasm for how America proceeds 

forward into space. 

Thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:55 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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