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S. HRG. 108–1012 

THE FUTURE OF NASA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 29, 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 H. SMITH, Oregon 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina, 

Ranking 

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 R. 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 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on October 29, 2003 .......................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Brownback ........................................................................... 30 

Statement of Senator Hollings ............................................................................... 3 

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

Article from The Atlantic Monthly, entitled ‘‘Columbia’s Last Flight’’ by 

William Langewiesche .................................................................................. 5 

Statement of Senator McCain ................................................................................. 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2 

Statement of Senator Nelson .................................................................................. 30 

Statemenf of Senator Sununu ................................................................................ 50 

WITNESSES

Gehman, Admiral Harold, USN (Ret.), Chairman, Columbia Accident Investigation Board ....................................................................................................... 39 

Huntress, Jr., Dr. Wesley T., Director, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington ....................................................................................... 53 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 

O’Keefe, Hon. Sean, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration ................................................................................................................... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Tumlinson, Rick, Founder, Space Frontier Foundation ....................................... 84 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 86 

Woods, David, Professor, Institute for Ergonomics, The Ohio State University 76 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 77 

Zubrin, Dr. Robert, President, Mars Society ......................................................... 67 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69 

(1) 

THE FUTURE OF NASA 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2003 

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

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. John McCain, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. Since the late fifties, NASA has 

worked to make exploration possible through its innovative technology and cutting edge research and scientific discoveries. NASA 

achievements have stretched the imagination, from putting men on 

the moon to developing technology that has allowed unprecedented 

access to the inner solar system. Discoveries have touched the lives 

of the public in many ways people aren’t aware of, such as improving communications capabilities, monitoring weather patterns and 

enhancing national security and defense. 

Although NASA has a history of notable achievements, it has 

also suffered heartbreaking failures, such as the tragic losses of the 

Challenger and Columbia. Since the grounding of the space shuttle 

after the Columbia accident, the construction of the international 

space station has come to a halt and NASA’s capacity to conduct 

scientific research in space has been significantly diminished. 

The Columbia accident in February forced us to revisit our assumptions that the safety culture at NASA, which was found so 

wanting after the Challenger disaster, had been corrected. In addition to revealing the institutional problems still endemic at NASA, 

the Columbia accident has caused us to examine their causes. A 

fundamental cause of the institutional problems identified by the 

Columbia Accident Investigation Board was NASA’s lack of a clear 

and defining mission. 

While we still feel the agony of defeat and of loss, where’s the 

thrill of victory? The excitement that gripped China when it 

launched its first manned space vehicle a few weeks ago is missing 

in America. Do we want a space program that can once again capture and feed our imaginations? If we do want such a program, 

what does it entail and what are we willing and able to pay for it? 

I hope that today we can begin examining some of the questions, 

including the future of human space flight and the next generation 

of space transportation technologies. More pressing, however, are 

the immediate problems confronting NASA. In the past week, 

2 

media reports regarding concerns about the safety of the international space station has raised new doubts about NASA’s commitment to reform and its ability to conduct safe and cost-effective 

space exploration. 

While we examine what we want NASA to be and where we 

want mankind to go in the long-term, we also need to examine 

what NASA is doing in the shorter term. Some have questioned 

NASA’s orbital space plane, OSP program. I share these concerns 

and am also concerned about NASA’s use of limited competition for 

the OSP’s development, which is estimated to cost over $15 billion. 

I welcome Administrator O’Keefe and Admiral Gehman on the 

first panel to discuss their thoughts on NASA’s future missions, 

goals, and strategies, as well as issues NASA should consider as it 

looks toward the future. The committee recognizes that both witnesses have prior commitments and will work to ensure that they 

can depart the hearing no later than 10:30, and that’s why I would 

ask my colleagues to make their opening statements brief, and I 

want to thank both the Administrator and Admiral Gehman for appearing this morning. Senator Hollings? 

[The prepared statement of Senator McCain follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN MCCAIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM ARIZONA

Since the late 1950s, NASA has worked to make America a leader in aeronautics 

and space exploration through its innovative technology, cutting edge research, and 

scientific discoveries. NASA’s achievements have stretched the imagination from 

putting men on the moon to developing technology that has allowed unprecedented 

access to the inner solar system. Its discoveries have touched the lives of the American public in ways many aren’t even aware of, such as by improving communication 

capabilities, monitoring weather patterns, and enhancing national security and defense. 

Although NASA has a history of notable accomplishments, it has also suffered a 

number of disappointing, and at times, heart-breaking failures, such as the tragic 

losses of the Challenger and Columbia. Since the grounding of the Space Shuttle 

after the Columbia accident, the construction of the International Space Station has 

come to a halt, and NASA’s capacity to conduct scientific research in space has been 

significantly diminished. 

The Columbia accident in February forced us to revisit our assumptions that the 

safety culture at NASA, which was found so wanting after the Challenger disaster, 

had been corrected. In addition to revealing the institutional problems still endemic 

at NASA, the Columbia accident has caused us to examine their causes. A fundamental cause of the institutional problems identified by the Gehman Board was 

NASA’s lack of a defining mission. 

While we still feel the agony of defeat, and of loss, where is the thrill of victory? 

The excitement that gripped China when it launched its first manned space vehicle 

a couple of weeks ago is missing in America. Do we want a space program that can 

once again catalyze our interest and capture our imaginations? If we do want such 

a program, what does it entail, and are we willing and able to pay for it? 

I hope that today we can begin examining some of these questions, including the 

future of human space flight and the next generation of space transportation technology. 

More pressing, however, are the immediate problems confronting NASA. In the 

past week, media reports regarding concerns about the safety of the International 

Space Station have raised new concerns about NASA’s commitment to reform and 

its ability to conduct safe and cost-effective space exploration. 

While we examine what we want NASA to be and where we want mankind to 

go in the long term, we also need to examine what NASA is doing in the shorter 

term. Some, including the House Science Committee, have expressed concerns about 

NASA’s Orbital Space Plane (OSP) program, which is estimated to require an initial 

investment of $15 billion. However, in a letter to NASA last week, the House 

Science Committee described this budget plan for the OSP program as ‘‘no longer 

credible.’’ Putting aside the question of the merit of the OSP, in September, I sent 

3 

a letter to NASA expressing my concerns about the limited competition that NASA 

has proposed for its development. I plan to discuss this and many other issues as 

well. 

I welcome Administrator O’Keefe and Admiral Gehman on the first panel to discuss their thoughts on NASA’s future missions, goals, and strategies, as well as 

issues NASA should consider as it looks toward the future. The committee recognizes that both witnesses have prior commitments, and we will work to ensure that 

they can depart the hearing no later than 10:30 a.m. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA 

Senator HOLLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board found, and I quote, ‘‘The organizational 

causes of this accident are rooted in the space shuttle program’s 

history and culture, including the lack of an agreed national vision 

for human space flight. The Board does believe that NASA and the 

Nation should give more attention to developing a new concept of 

operations for future activities, defining the range of activities the 

country intends to carry out in space that could provide more specificity than currently exists. Such a concept does not necessarily require full agreement on a future vision, but it should help identify 

the capabilities required and prevent the debate from focusing solely on the design of the next vehicle.’’ 

Admiral Gehman, I agree with that. I think that NASA needs 

the commission to institute a change of culture with respect to 

safety. To address this issue, I have introduced a commission bill, 

which gives the President the authority to appoint a top-level commission. I’m looking forward to having your suggestions as to any 

changes or criticism you have regarding this approach. 

Mr. Chairman, there’s a very interesting Atlantic Monthly article 

on the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. I would ask consent that 

it be included in the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. I read the article. It’s very interesting. Without 

objection. Thank you, sir. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Hollings follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Today we will hear several grand visions of what the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration can, and should, be. One of the highest tributes we can give 

the fallen heroes lost aboard the Columbia is to renew our commitment to space. 

The question is this: how do we get there from here? The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, chaired by Admiral Gehman, gave us a roadmap for putting 

Space Shuttle safety on a more sound footing. However, many in the space community—and some on your own Board have expressed doubts about NASA’s ability to 

reform itself. 

Just last week, we learned from the Washington Post that two doctors had questioned the safety of sending the next mission to the Space Station. Instead of waiting until the agency could prove that the Station environment is safe, NASA 

launched saying ‘‘the Astronauts can come home if the Station is not safe.’’ While 

the doctor’s concerns were aired and steps were taken to satisfy them, it doesn’t 

seem to me NASA has learned the lessons that Admiral Gehman was trying to 

teach. 

All of this controversy contributes to a public cynicism about NASA and about 

space. There is no confidence in NASA’s ability to execute its current program and 

no compelling plan for the agency’s future that the American people can embrace. 

While NASA continues to stagger, China has sent its first astronaut into space. 

4 

To solve these problems, I have proposed the creation of a National Space Commission. I have talked to the Administrator and the Vice President about my idea 

and have circulated the bill to members of this Committee. 

In short, my bill would provide oversight in the short term to ensure that NASA 

returns safely to flight and reforms its safety culture. The Commission would then 

develop a new vision for the future of space that includes NASA’s exploration agenda but also brings a broader National space agenda into focus. 

Mr. Chairman, I hope that you and the other Members of the Committee can join 

me as a co-sponsor of the National Space Commission Act and that the Congress 

can act quickly on this legislation. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can 

move toward the next ‘‘giant leap for mankind.’’ 

[The news article referred to follows:] 

5 

The Atlantic Monthly, NOVEMBER, 2003—‘‘COLUMBIA’S LAST FLIGHT’’. 


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The CHAIRMAN. Senator Brownback and Senator Nelson, I ask 

you to be brief because of the time constraints. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS 

Senator BROWNBACK. I will. Thank you for the hearing. I just 

want to make one note on it. I’ve had a number of meetings with 

Mr. O’Keefe and I appreciate it. I think you’ve done a good job. I 

think the issue of manned spaceflight now cries out for a national 

vision. Let us step back and fully address the questions surrounding the orbital space plane, and hold it up until we establish 

a national vision of where we want to go in manned space flight 

and how we’re going to do it. That’s what I’m going to be pressing 

for in a commission or by other means. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Nelson? 

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, this is an important hearing because it’s on the future of NASA, which means it’s on the future 

of the hopes and dreams of a lot of Americans that this be a successful program. As I have shared privately with the Administrator, the future of NASA is that the Administrator cannot be the 

only one that leads the program. The leadership’s got to emanate 

from the White House. I’ve shared this privately with the Vice 

President. The Vice President or the President have to encapsulate 

the dreams of Americans by putting it in to the space program and 

giving that leadership. 

I would add that space flight can’t be done on the cheap. We 

can’t continue to go through what we’ve done over the past decade 

and a half. If we’re going to have a space program, we’re going to 

have to give the resources, and it’s my hope that in my lifetime 

that we will see an international crew from planet Earth go to the 

planet Mars. That can be phased in over a 25-year period, but 

we’ve got to start the work now, we’ve got to start the planning, 

and that, of course, will captivate the imagination of the American 

people once we begin that venture. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Senator Nelson refers to 

a meeting that we had with the Vice President and we were very 

gratified to see that he has taken a personal role in trying to help 

us sort out these priorities and funding for the future along with 

Administrator O’Keefe. I welcome both witnesses. Mr. O’Keefe, welcome, please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SEAN O’KEEFE, ADMINISTRATOR, 

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the time 

and thank you very much for the invitation to speak on this very, 

very important question. If I would, sir, I’d like to submit for the 

record the prepared statement and quickly summarize a couple of 

points with a few charts I think all members have before you. 

First, the strategic plan that we developed, consistent with the 

President’s budget proposal that was advanced on February 3, is a 

historic document in the sense that it is concise as it focuses on a 

31 

very limited number of mission objectives that we’re after, which 

I’ll quickly touch on. Second, it is concise in the sense that it is 

readable, in sharp contrast to strategic plans which appear to more 

resemble Brookland telephone book-sized documents. This one is 

short, it’s written in a language that most of us can comprehend, 

and it is put together in a way that concisely lays out what the vision and mission objectives are. 

And the principal mission objectives to fulfill that vision are to 

understand and protect the home planet. All the Earth sensing and 

climate change-related kind of research activities we have underway are examples of that, as well as our continued aeronautics 

focus in that direction. To explore the universe in search for life is 

a continued effort as manifested in so many different programs 

that we’re exploring to expand our capacity, developing the capability to go beyond low Earth orbit and examine any destination 

that may in turn be informed by the scientific inquiry. We aim to 

inspire the next generation of explorers. This is an element of our 

history that at its founding was a focus on education and how it 

in turn can motivate individuals to consider at a very early age, in 

grammar school as well as in early high school, the objectives of 

math, science, engineering, and technical-related fields. That’s our 

contribution to that and one that’s been heightened and re-emphasized as a consequence of the focus of the strategic plan. 

The stepping-stone approach that can be taken to this is to look 

specifically at our immediate capacity within low Earth orbit as 

part of exploring the universe and searching for life to develop our 

own understanding of this planet, as well as our capacity to develop the capabilities to go beyond low Earth orbit. Then, looking 

beyond to accessible planetary services, the outer planets and beyond, is the technology we seek to develop to achieve those kinds 

of objectives. And then to be informed, again, by the science that 

may come forward in the years ahead as well as the exploration objectives we may be after for the purposes of accomplishing any of 

those destinations and opportunities for discovery. 

We’ve narrowed the strategic building block of investments that 

we’re making down very specifically in this budget. This strategic 

plan to very clearly focus on three primary areas of need and have 

been intractable limitations that we’ve had for the entire time 

we’ve engaged in any space exploration endeavor. The primary 

areas power generation or propulsion capabilities, the capability of 

human beings to endure and survive the experience of space travel, 

and the capacity to assure communications, all three of which are 

focused very specifically in the way that we have evolved the program to the current Fiscal Year 2004 request pending before Congress. 

Summarized in the power generation and propulsion capabilities 

as Project Prometheus, we plan to develop the capability to at least 

accomplish the task of any outer planetary destination to do multiple on-orbit passes as opposed to the singular fly by approach 

that we’ve been restricted to for the past 40 years. In addition to 

that, develop the capability to improve the speed of space travel 

and communication capability by a factor of at least two to three, 

which would therefore cut down the amount of time necessary to 

arrive at any destination. 

32 

The Human Research Initiative is a specific response to the 

human capabilities and endurance focus that is a specific set of 

budget initiatives that have been presented as part of the strategic 

plan to establish the capacity for human endurance beyond the experience that we have attained on the international space station 

or on space shuttle flights in recent years. And to understand what 

those consequences are to human physiology to permit any exploration beyond low Earth orbit. 

Finally, on optical communications, the basic objective is to assure that we have assured communications in a condition like this 

to be informed based on immediate events. As it stands now, our 

capacity for communications transmission, while good, is slower 

than what it needs to be to support any exploration objective beyond low Earth orbit. 

So those are the three areas, from a technology standpoint as 

well as human endurance capacity, that we have sought to emphasize specifically toward any future exploration opportunity in the 

years ahead. 

Also, the science questions that drive these particular set of destinations may evolve from the fundamental questions of how the 

solar system evolved, how do humans adapt in space, what is 

Earth’s sustainability and habitability conditions that we need to 

really be mindful of in terms of our own human behavior that affects our climate condition, and is there life beyond the planet of 

origin. Indeed, it is a quest that our Space Science Associate Administrator, Ed Weiler, refers to as the attempt to sweep the last 

crumb of the plate of human arrogance. The notion that somehow 

we are all there is in this universe is a rather far reach, and so 

therefore understanding how we go about developing this debate as 

well as informing it by information and analysis is part of our 

science question pursuit. 

The pursuits are to look at the history of major solar system 

events, the effects of deep space on physiology, as a consequence of 

it, and the impact of human and natural events on the earth that 

seeks to answer: what are we doing to change physically our material condition here on this planet? NASA will also look at the origins of life in this solar system as an immediate confined effort, but 

also to expand it well beyond to the universe as a consequence of 

our gaining information that we’ve achieved from not only the 

Hubble telescope but also from the soon-to-be operational infrared 

space telescope. 

The activities are planetary sample analysis to look at what the 

absolute age is of our own solar system, as well as an understanding of how we evolved during the course of this time, measurement of responses to radiation, and indeed, I’m sure we’ll discuss that a bit today given the present conditions of a solar event 

that has and will continue to have an effect on our own habitation 

here on Earth, the detection of any number of different conditions 

that need to be informed to assess the capability to survive in any 

space environment. 

The potential destinations to accomplish these science objectives 

may be in low Earth orbit certainly at this present condition, asteroids, the moon, Mars, beyond the Van Allen belts, libration points, 

as well as the range of other capabilities or destinations that we 

33 

can conceive. But they all hinge on our capacity to develop, generate power and power propulsion capabilities to get there and to 

do it in a way that can sustain that kind of environment for any 

period of time and safely return, to develop the capability for humans to endure and survive the experience, and to assure those 

communication capabilities. 

Those are the focused primary objectives that we see in this program before you: the development of the strategic plan and this 

interagency cooperation process that each of you have referred to 

in your opening statements. These are the kind of linchpins we’re 

continuing to look to in developing a longer-term vision. We do 

agree that this will in turn require a national kind of focus for that 

objective that will be turning on the prospect and the capability to 

conquer these three primary issues that need to be better informed 

in order to explore any vision or mission objectives that would extend us beyond our present condition. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to appear. 

I appreciate it. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Keefe follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SEAN O’KEEFE, ADMINISTRATOR, 

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Committee today to discuss NASA’s vision for the future of space 

exploration. As the NASA team works hard to return the Space Shuttle to flight and 

to resume assembly of the International Space Station, it is important that we not 

lose sight of where the Nation’s space exploration efforts are headed over the longterm. History shows that space exploration endeavors span multiple decades. The 

decisions that led to the development of the Space Shuttle were made 30 years ago 

in the early 1970s. Similarly, the decision to initiate the Space Station program was 

made almost 20 years ago in the mid-1980s. We can expect that decisions made 

today will guide where and how we venture into the cosmos for decades to come. 

That is why I so strongly welcome the opportunity to elaborate on NASA’s Strategic Plan for future space research and exploration. While meeting the challenges 

of today, it is critically important that we not lose sight of the opportunities of tomorrow. 

As members of the Committee know, we recently solicited input from Members 

of the Committee and continue to welcome your ideas. As the exploration vision is 

developed, the priority, timing, and specifics of some existing programs may change. 

We will continue to work with Members of this Committee to ensure that the programs pursued are directly aligned with the vision. 

In February 2003, NASA released the Agency’s new Strategic Plan. This important document is the product of extensive senior leadership debate within NASA. 

It codifies NASA’s Vision of improving life here, extending life to there, and finding 

life beyond which we hope to achieve by advancing our Mission goals of understanding and protecting our home planet, exploring the Universe and searching for 

life, and inspiring the next generation of explorers. The Strategic Plan sets the 

framework by which decisions on future NASA activities will be made, lays out a 

long-term blueprint for future space exploration, and describes the goals that the 

NASA team is committed to achieving for the American people. 

NASA released our Strategic Plan months before the law required, because the 

Agency is serious about our Vision and Mission and linking our budget priorities 

to the goals identified in the Strategic Plan. Early release of the Strategic Plan also 

ensured it was available during Congressional consideration of NASA’s FY 2004 

budget. 

NASA’s Vision 

The NASA Strategic Plan begins with the NASA Vision. Instead of compiling a 

list of everything NASA does, the Agency made a conscious decision to develop a 

short, concise, and compelling vision statement. Thirteen simple, but powerful, 

words comprise the NASA Vision. It includes only the most compelling reasons why 

34 

the Nation invests in aeronautics and space research and articulates how NASA will 

contribute to America’s legacy for future generations. 

To improve life here 

The first part of NASA’s Vision, ‘‘To improve life here,’’ encompasses the terrestrial and tangible benefits of NASA research. NASA aeronautics research develops 

technologies that make air travel safer and more efficient with fewer environmental 

impacts. NASA’s Earth Science research informs decisions on global change by taking advantage of the unique vantage point of space to help scientists develop a comprehensive understanding of the complex interactions between Earth’s atmosphere, 

lands and oceans. The demands of NASA space missions drive technological innovation across a range of industrial and national security sectors. Through space research, scientists are developing new medical devices and approaches to the fight 

against deadly diseases. These and many other benefits represent the tangible return from investments in NASA research. With NASA’s vision achieved, future engineers will look back at the Agency’s work and credit America with solving some of 

the most pressing transportation, environmental, and technological problems of our 

time. 

To extend life to there 

The second part of NASA’s Vision, ‘‘To extend life to there,’’ inherits and expands 

on the great American tradition of pioneering exploration. As President Bush has 

so eloquently stated, ‘‘This cause of exploration and discovery is not an option we 

choose; it is a desire written in the human heart.’’ Since the epic voyage of Lewis 

and Clark, America has shaped the future by pioneering the frontier. From John 

Glenn’s historic flight in 1961 to the twin rovers currently on their way to Mars, 

NASA has become the modern-day expression of this tradition. NASA pushes the 

bounds of human experience and delivers new vistas for human activity. In doing 

so, NASA ensures American leadership on the frontier and into the future, inspires 

the American public and the world, and motivates the next generation of scientists 

and engineers. With our vision achieved, future explorers will look back at NASA’s 

work and credit America with pioneering our solar system’s frontier. 

To find life beyond 

The third part of NASA’s Vision, ‘‘To find life beyond,’’ seeks answers to questions 

asked by philosophers, theologians, and scientists since the time of the ancient 

Greeks. What is our place in the universe? It is the part of our vision has undergone 

the most change in recent years. A little over a decade ago, there was practically 

no evidence from our science missions and telescopes that habitable worlds existed 

beyond Earth. Our cosmos appeared to be a beautiful, but desolate, universe. Much 

has changed over the past decade. Science missions have found evidence for water, 

a key ingredient of life, on the planet Mars and some moons of Jupiter. Telescopes 

have found evidence of over 100 planets circling stars beyond our solar system. Scientists have found life thriving in environments on Earth that were previously 

thought to be barren. Taken together, these lines of investigation indicate that we 

may be on the verge of finding life beyond Earth within our lifetime or the lifetime 

of our children. It would be a profound discovery, a watershed event in human history. As President Bush has stated, ‘‘We are that part of creation that seeks to understand all creation.’’ With our vision achieved, future researchers will look back 

at NASA’s work and credit America with the greatest scientific discoveries in 

human history. 

NASA’s Space Exploration Strategy 

The NASA Strategic Plan fundamentally changes our approach to space exploration. We achieved the marvel of the Moon landing, an incredible accomplishment 

that has shaped much of NASA today, driven by a great external imperative, the 

Cold War. That imperative drove our Nation to focus on sending humans to a single 

destination, the Moon, within a fixed timeframe, a decade. Although a great 

achievement in human history, the Apollo effort was not sustained. If we are to 

achieve our vision and send human explorers into the solar system, we must have 

a more flexible and sustainable strategy. 

Scientific inquiry and discovery will guide where and how often we go. We hope 

to go when new capabilities allow us to do so in a sustainable fashion, so that we 

can return to that destination when needed and move deeper into our solar system 

in the future. We will use human and robotic teams to explore as we move out into 

the solar system. 

This strategy provides the framework from which decisions about where, when, 

and how the next steps in human space exploration will be made. 

35 

Human and Robotic Teams 

A fundamental element of NASA’s space exploration strategy is the use of human 

and robotic teams to advance our exploration objectives. History shows that space 

exploration can only be comprehensively performed when robots and humans are 

used together. Each brings unique capabilities. Robots go where it is still too dangerous for astronauts to go, or perform repeatable or predictable tasks for which astronauts are not necessary. This was the role of the robotic Ranger and Surveyor 

missions to the Moon that preceded the Apollo astronauts. Astronauts, however, 

bring the incredibly adaptive tool of the human mind to the frontier. Astronauts 

provide an ability to reason, learn, plan, react, and manipulate in ways that robots 

cannot. This has been the role of the astronaut missions supporting the Hubble 

Space Telescope. Similar relationships between humans and robots can be found in 

deep-sea exploration today and in the history of the Russian space program. 

As the Mars Pathfinder mission showed, the growth of the Internet and highbandwidth communications offer new means for involving the public directly in the 

experience of exploration. But only astronauts can translate the adventure of exploration for those back on Earth and provide the human element that puts images 

from other worlds into full context. 

Stepping Stones 

The second element of NASA’s space exploration strategy is our plan to use stepping stones to reach ever outward in our solar system. This acknowledges that there 

are many desirable destinations for future human and robotic space exploration and 

many different pathways between these destinations. Stepping stones include both 

destinations that are likely to be the focus of intense research and investigation, as 

well as destinations that provide a convenient testing ground for new exploration 

approaches and capabilities. 

Research over the past decade has identified three destinations that appear to be 

key to the NASA Vision of finding life beyond. These three destinations will likely 

be the major research focus of future space exploration. They include: 

• The planet Mars, once thought to be a dry and barren planet, is now believed 

to harbor significant quantities of water ice beneath its surface. Evidence from 

recent science missions indicates that liquid water may have flowed on the surface of Mars in the distant past and may occasionally erupt onto its surface 

today. Where there is liquid water, there is the possibility that life may have 

developed—or even still exists. Through the rest of this decade, NASA will be 

sending seven spacecraft to Mars, including four landings and three rovers. The 

first two rovers, the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, will arrive at Mars 

next January. 

• The moons of Jupiter, including Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, were once 

thought to be worlds locked in ice. Evidence from our highly successful and recently completed Galileo mission indicates that these worlds likely harbor planet-wide oceans underneath their icy surfaces. Again, where there is liquid 

water, there is the possibility that life may have developed. We are planning 

a breakthrough mission, called the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), which 

will undertake an in-depth, three-year investigation of these worlds early next 

decade, map out their oceans, and understand their potential for life. 

• Planets beyond our solar system, include over 100 that have been discovered 

to date. We plan to launch two space-based telescopes this decade that will likely identify hundreds, and possibly thousands, of additional planets circling other 

stars. Most will be very large planets not suitable for life, but there is the possibility that we may begin to identify planets that are closer in size to our own 

Earth. Eventually, we may want to erect highly capable space telescopes at locations above low-Earth orbit, called ‘‘libration points,’’ to characterize and 

image these Earth-sized planets. 

Depending on what our robotic and telescopic trailblazers find at these destinations over the next decade-and-a-half, we will be in a position to know where to send 

much more capable human and robotic teams to undertake extensive research in the 

years that follow. 

Building Blocks 

The third element of NASA’s space exploration strategy is the use of ‘‘building 

blocks.’’ This acknowledges two key facts. First, a handful of enabling capabilities 

are necessary to conduct in-depth exploration of our solar system and beyond. Second, it is desirable to develop these capabilities in a flexible way so they can be used 

to support missions to more than one destination. There are many necessary building blocks for sustainable exploration, including reliable and affordable launch, inVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
36 

telligent robotics, high-bandwidth communications, lightweight materials, and modular and reusable components. But three building blocks that we will likely need 

for future human exploration are: 

• Crew Transport—Reliable, safe, and affordable transport of astronauts from 

Earth’s surface to destinations in space is a critical component of any future 

human exploration effort. We are working to determine the best way to replace 

the Space Shuttle for crew transport to and from the International Space Station, as well as provide key building blocks for transporting crews farther into 

our solar system. 

• Crew Health—To safely sustain human operations for long periods of time beyond low-Earth orbit, we will need to know how to protect astronauts from the 

dangers of space flight and ensure they remain productive in various space environments. This research is already being carried out on the International 

Space Station, which provides the database from which medical countermeasures to the effects of low-gravity can be developed. Other research being 

carried out on the ground, including radiation research and life support systems 

research, is also critical to overcoming the limitations of the human body for 

exploration deep into our solar system. 

• High Energy Power and Propulsion—New capabilities are necessary to overcome the constraints of mass, energy and time that limit our current exploration missions. Today’s robotic probes often operate their instruments on the 

same power as a light bulb and are highly constrained in when, how often, and 

how quickly they can visit planets and moons. The lifetimes of robotic rovers 

are limited to months by their power systems. If we are ever to send humans 

deep into our solar system, we will need more power and improved propulsion 

systems. Project Prometheus, a new NASA program started last year, is developing power and propulsion capabilities that will greatly enhance current 

robotic missions, enable new classes of robotic missions, and provide a key 

building block to enhance future human missions. 

Eyes On the Future 

In closing, I would like to paint a picture in words of where the space exploration 

strategy laid out in the NASA Vision and Strategic Plan will take us in the future. 

Imagine a time in the not too distant future. 

The world, from scientists to schoolchildren, is continually abuzz with excitement 

over discoveries and achievements made throughout the solar system by teams of 

human and robotic explorers. Robots roll, crawl, fly, and wriggle into every nook and 

cranny on the planet Mars, going where astronauts cannot, in the search for ancient 

and present life. Astronaut scientists at Martian outposts direct this robotic search 

and analyze specimens, reasoning in ways robots cannot, to understand the history 

of life on our sister planet. 

Closer to home, astronaut engineers troubleshoot construction problems as robots 

assemble and maintain constellations of space-based observatories in Earth’s neighborhood. These observatories provide breathtaking images of continents and oceans 

on Earth-like planets around other stars and unprecedented precision in understanding and predicting the global cycles of our home planet. 

At the edges of our solar system, robotic divers plunge the watery depths of Jupiter’s moons, mapping dark oceans and illuminating their potential inhabitants. 

Streaming video is sent back to Earth from these and other locations, allowing researchers and the public to experience the exploration of new worlds firsthand. 

The space systems necessary to enable this vision, such as enhanced power and 

propulsion, intelligent robotics, high-bandwidth communications, lightweight materials, and modular and reusable components, have driven cutting-edge research in 

key sectors such as information technology and nanotechnology. Private industry 

and government employ these tools to benefit the economy, homeland security, and 

national security. The peaceful application of American technology is credited with 

opening the solar system frontier for humanity, and the United States has gone 

down in history as the Nation that made the biggest scientific discovery of all time, 

life beyond Earth. 

This is the future of space exploration if we faithfully implement the vision and 

strategy laid out in the NASA Strategic Plan. I sincerely appreciate the forum that 

the Committee provided today to highlight the NASA Vision and Strategic Plan, and 

I look forward to the opportunity to respond to your questions. 

37 

ATTACHMENT


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Admiral Gehman, welcome back. 

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL HAROLD GEHMAN, USN (RET.), 

CHAIRMAN, COLUMBIA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BOARD 

Admiral GEHMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator 

Hollings, thank you for quoting from our report. That’s the same 

passage I chose to open my remarks with. I won’t repeat it except 

to say that the board stands by those remarks. The institutional 

causes of this accident were just as serious as the foam, in our 

opinion. 

When we wrote this great big 248-page report, which we are very 

proud of, we had three goals in mind. The first one was to determine whether or not the shuttle itself is safe or could be made safe, 

and we made 15 recommendations that are return-to-flight type of 

recommendations to make the shuttle itself safe. 

The second goal we had in mind was to cause NASA to change 

the way it does business because we don’t like their engineering 

and safety practices. We wrote in the report and I quote, ‘‘that the 

shuttle program in its present organizational arrangement is essentially unsafe in the long term.’’ 

The third goal we had in mind was to cause a national debate 

to cover two topics. One is what we call a lack of an agreed national vision of what it is the United States wants to do in space; 

second, the great disappointment that the board found, particularly 

those of us that don’t follow NASA very closely, that here we are 

in 2003 and we do not have a replacement vehicle for the shuttle 

even on the drawing board, much less in production, and we are 

years and many years away from a replacement vehicle. So driving 

a debate to answer those two things is one of our goals. 

I think this hearing is very important to get that debate started 

and get some energy into it and I’m delighted to appear and offer 

whatever help I can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Admiral, and again, welcome back. I’m not sure you’re as glad to be back as we are to have 

you back. We thank you. 

Administrator O’Keefe, the Washington Post yesterday reported 

that Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, Chairman of the House 

Science Committee, asked you to suspend the orbital space plane 

program. The Post reported that Congressman Boehlert stated 

that, ‘‘Until the Nation develops a shared vision to guide such 

projects, public support for the Nation’s civilian space program will 

inevitably founder.’’ What’s your response to Congressman Boehlert’s statements? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, sir, we are preparing that now as a matter of 

fact. It will go over today and I’d be happy to send a copy here to 

this Committee. The approach we’ve taken is to respond to requests 

and entreaties that we examine what it would take in order to accelerate the development of a crew transfer vehicle. What we’ve 

been engaged in with absolutely no commitments at present is the 

development of all the requirements necessary to support what a 

crew transfer vehicle would look like, and we have begun developing the requests for the proposal. That won’t even be issued 

under the present plan until early December, late November at the 

40 

earliest, and there’s no contract envisioned to be awarded even 

under this accelerated approach until August of next year. 

So in deference to the concerns that the House Science Committee has raised in terms of us getting ahead of the headlights, 

if you will, and awarding contracts prior to the concurrence of Congress in this approach we have developed, we are pursuing that 

which is consistent with what’s included in the President’s budget 

for Fiscal Year 2004 with the alternative of looking at what an accelerated approach would take. But that would not be operational 

until next summer at the earliest. So as a consequence, we concur 

in Chairman Boehlert’s concern that we not be ahead of that and 

are not planning to do so. We are making preparation for that outcome should that be desired. 

The CHAIRMAN. Admiral Gehman, the CIAB report states, ‘‘It 

does believe that NASA and the Nation should give more attention 

to developing a new concept of operation for future activities, defining the range of activities the country intends to carry out in space 

that could provide more specificity than currently exists.’’ It states 

further the ‘‘Concept of operations should help identify the capabilities required and prevent the debate from focusing solely on the design of the next vehicle.’’ 

Would you expand a little bit on this concept of operations and 

the role that Congress should play in its development. By the way, 

I notice that the appropriators don’t seem to be as concerned as 

many of us since they added $81 million in pork for NASA on the 

appropriations bill. Go ahead, Admiral. 

Admiral GEHMAN. Mr. Chairman, the board is in its deliberation 

as to how long the service life of the space shuttle as we know it 

now should be. The board decided to take a look at the status of 

the shuttle replacement, and we were trying to determine whether 

or not the shuttle could be made to last 5 years, 15 years, 20 years. 

We wanted to know, what’s the United States’ plan to replace the 

shuttle and how long does it have to last? 

We were somewhat surprised to find that the United States 

doesn’t have a replacement for the shuttle. So we scratched our 

heads and we did a little research and decided to look at the previous programs, X–33 programs, X–34 programs, and other programs, and found that $1 billion had been spent here and $1 billion 

had been spent there. The program lasted 2 years or 3 years and 

then was stopped. We found some common reasons for all of this 

start-stop, start-stop, which was that the institutions, including 

NASA, Congress, the White House and the contractors, and I don’t 

want to point blame at any one entity, tried to design the vehicle 

before they decided what they want the vehicle to do. 

It seemed that every time an engineer or a scientist came forward and said getting out of Earth’s orbit and getting back into the 

atmosphere is very, very difficult and very dangerous to do. Going 

to Mars is easier than getting in and out of the Earth’s atmosphere, and if we could just get out of the Earth’s atmosphere and 

back in again safely that would be a giant engineering step. Yet 

when somebody comes forward with such a modest goal, it costs a 

lot of money, and the program doesn’t fly. 

So we felt that it was very important for there to be an agreement on what you want to do and then let the design of the vehicle 

41 

follow from an agreed mission. And I’ll admit that we were biased, 

because we examined the shuttle in the Columbia accident right 

down to the millimeter, and we became convinced that strapping 

human beings on top of several million pounds of high explosives 

and then launching them to defeat the laws of gravity and to get 

up to 17,500 miles an hour and then trying to dissipate all that energy to come back into the Earth’s atmosphere again is very, very 

dangerous and always will be dangerous, and we’re not very good 

at it. 

We suggested that we try and agree on what we want the vehicle 

to do, while trying to limit our appetite and then go out and design 

the vehicle, and that was our approach. I hope that answers your 

question. 

The CHAIRMAN. It does. It also has to be something that Americans can be excited about and be committed to. I’m afraid that’s 

been lacking recently in NASA’s agenda, but—— 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Mr. Chairman, can I quickly comment? 

The CHAIRMAN.—time is short but go ahead. 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Just very quickly. I concur exactly in Admiral 

Gehman’s assessment of the history as well as what led us to this 

with one further addition. Every previous attempt appears to have 

counted on either a suspension of the laws of physics or a miracle, 

an invention to be developed during the course of its activity in 

order to achieve the objectives it looked to. 

What we’re trying to do with the orbital space plane and a crew 

transfer vehicle, precisely what the board report has recommended, 

which is to separate the crew from the cargo, develop a capability 

that is based on known technologies that presses the edge of what 

that technology can do in order to provide a crew transfer system 

back and forth. 

So I think Admiral Gehman is dead on-point in terms of his assessment of what have caused the prior stops in this case, but your 

point, Mr. Chairman, is also exactly right on. It’s got to be something that’s going to excite the imagination and be based on necessary technology leaps that do not require or imply that a suspension of the law of physics is required in order to achieve it. It can’t 

be done. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hollings. Thank you. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Well, Admiral Gehman, it really depends on 

the President’s appetite. Senators go in one direction, House Members go in another, experts suggest this, other experts suggest that. 

If I were the President, I’d take Admiral Gehman and several 

members from your commission that’s been working all year long 

now and have been debating and everything else, plus perhaps 

some others of national talent and package them together and say, 

go to it now and finalize the Gehman commission report with a vision and a plan and a program. Do you think a Presidential commission is the proper approach, a good approach? 

Admiral GEHMAN. Yes, sir. I’m not an expert in Washington dynamics here, but clearly 

Senator HOLLINGS. You’re the only one making sense. Go ahead. 

Admiral GEHMAN. I support anything which will activate the debate and also put the debate in some kind of order, which a commission would do. There may be other ways too, but yes, sir, I 

42 

would support anything that would cause the branches of the Government plus the scientists and engineers to be forced together to 

come up with an answer. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Right. Now with respect to Mr. O’Keefe, you 

seem to be long on vision of space but short on the safety of space. 

You come up and perform and you take me and I’m following you 

and everything’s happy and then I pick up the newspaper and you 

don’t seem to know what’s going on. Who knows what’s going on 

over there at NASA? Who’s responsible? In other words, you didn’t 

know anything about Columbia until it happened. That’s correct. 

Apparently, you didn’t know anything about the safety going, sending these astronauts back up to the state station until it just about 

happened and you had members signing off down below and everything else, saying the air and the water quality were unsafe, they 

wouldn’t give clearance and everything else and you let it go, and 

when asked, you answered, well, if they’re running out of air, tell 

them to come on home. 

Now, that’s what I saw. Now, that bothers me that nobody seems 

to be in charge of safety. Who is over there in NASA? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Thank you, Senator. That’s a very important line 

of inquiry and I appreciate you raising the question. I am responsible. I am accountable for this agency. In contrast to the press reports, I assure you I knew exactly what was occurring leading up 

to the flight readiness review for Expedition 8. There were two scientists, two technical folks in the medical operations division that 

were concerned about environmental monitoring and the caliber of 

that equipment and its sustainability over time, not its present 

condition, as well as the quality of the exercise equipment that is 

necessary in order to keep the physiological standing of the astronauts up to standard. 

They raised concerns to their superior, who is essentially the 

chief medical officer at the Johnson Space Center, who in turn 

heard those issues, decided that safety of flight considerations were 

a problem, and raised that at the flight readiness review and 

brought them in to attest to that point. I understood there to be 

a persistent concern thereafter on the part of these two medical operations folks, so I therefore asked that there be a reconvening before the Expedition 8 flight occurred to make sure that all those 

issues were vetted again. Their expressions of comfort were that 

there was adequate samples coming back on the Expedition 7 

flight, which just arrived the night before last, in which there was 

a specific set of samples that we can now test and monitor to assure the crew’s safety and condition. 

I spoke to the international space station crew members on Monday as well, and as a consequence of this issue we have the samples back, we’re going to analyze them, but there is no safety of 

flight considerations that the crew feels is necessary. So, notwithstanding the press accounts on this, I assure you, sir, I’m aware 

of it, worked through it, took extra means to assure that we’d run 

the question to ground before the flight took off. I went to Moscow 

myself then flew to Kazakhstan, witnessed that flight, spoke to the 

astronauts involved, and assured that all of the factors had been 

run to ground. 

43 

So all that considered, the last gasp in this case is that if everything else were a problem, yes, indeed, they could return and leave 

the international space station. But nothing at the present time 

would suggest there is any safety of flight considerations. I have 

met with the two folks who had those initial concerns when I went 

to the Johnson Space Center last Friday. This an exercise of due 

diligence I view as part of my responsibility. I am following 

through on that, sir. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Admiral Gehman, what’s your comment? Are 

the safety systems there adequate? 

Admiral GEHMAN. Senator, I don’t have personal knowledge of 

the safety systems; I don’t have personal knowledge of this particular incident. I’m just relaying to you what was in our report, 

which is that it seemed that in the shuttle program, remember we 

only looked at the shuttle program, we didn’t look at all of NASA, 

the motto of proving that it’s safe had been changed to prove that 

it’s unsafe. Here is a situation in which, if you had the motto that 

said prove it’s safe, you would have a hard time doing that if your 

monitors weren’t working and your test equipment wasn’t working. 

Now the question is, whether NASA has fallen back into the 

unhealthy attitude, which we accused the shuttle program of doing, 

of having to prove that it’s unsafe to get anything done. My understanding of this situation is that did not happen. In other words, 

people raised concerns, they didn’t have to prove it was unsafe, 

which is what happened to the picture takers and the engineers in 

the case of the shuttle, so it sounds like they’re listening. 

But, once again, if you took as a rule in space flight that you had 

to prove it’s safe and your monitors aren’t working and your test 

equipment’s not working, then it looks to me like you’re headed toward thin ice. 

Mr. O’KEEFE. If I could add just one quick point. Admiral 

Gehman is exactly right. We have turned that cube and required 

that we prove that it’s safe. The concern raised by the two folks 

within the medical operations community was that it is safe right 

now, but over time we can’t attest to the possibility safety that may 

degrade. The decision—the risk return judgment, or risk management judgment—was made in terms of what remedial action we 

have to take in order to assure if there are failures our ability to 

monitor that condition. 

I think the theme that Admiral Gehman has talked about is exactly right. We have tried to change this to a point of open communications. We want to hear every point of view, and frankly I’d be 

nervous if there were not issues raised. If everyone was of unanimous view, we’d want to go out and seek a minority position in 

order to make sure we weren’t talking ourselves into something. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Well, Mr. Administrator, how is it that Internet had to inform you of the safety concern? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. No, sir, I was informed by the flight readiness review reports that occurred on or about the second of October, if I 

remember correctly, that those issues had been raised. What I got 

through the Internet was a continuing indication that all the way 

up to 3 or 4 days before the flight that there were still lingering 

issues that had not been fully resolved or were not vetted properly. 

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vening of that whole discussion before the flight occurred, so that 

everyone involved, every single interested party, expressed those 

concerns again and be sure that we have the analysis on the table 

to prove that it’s safe. 

I think the point Admiral Gehman makes is exactly on as to the 

approach we took to this. In the end, the risk judgment was made 

that on the present condition this is a future concern that we have 

to continue to monitor. We have to prepare the capability to replace 

equipment on future logistics flights that are going to the international space station. But at the present time those concerns were 

enjoined, they were vetted, they were argued, and in turn analyzed 

in terms of how we respond to them. The comfort level was high 

before that flight ever occurred, and indeed that’s what happened. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hutchison? Senator Brownback? 

Senator HUTCHISON. Is that the right order? Are you sure? Well, 

let me just ask you, Mr. O’Keefe recently I met with Buzz Aldrin 

and I know that you are familiar with his concerns that NASA is 

abandoning the heavy-lift capabilities and looking at the orbital 

space plane to take people to the shuttle or to the station. My question is, will the orbital space plane have the ability to take equipment and will it be able to take what is necessary to do major repairs to the space station in the future, or are his concerns warranted? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, thank you, Senator. The very clear direction 

that we’ve taken with the orbital space plane is consistent with the 

Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s report, which is to separate the crew from the cargo, and as a consequence, this is a crew 

transfer vehicle, or envisioned as such. The continuing effort that 

we’re going to work with here is to answer how you then provide 

the cargo capacity, whether you do it by a number of commercial 

options, and whether you develop a cargo lift capacity. The arrival 

now of the ATV system, which the European space agency will be 

delivering in September of next year, now supplements very dramatically what we have in terms of logistics and cargo capacity on 

the progress vehicles by a factor of about three. 

As a result, the cargo support for the international space station 

will be well covered once the shuttle returns, and ATV arrives. 

Right now, we’re really restricted to the progress vehicles, which 

are unmanned in capability. But no, the orbital space plane, as envisioned and based on the requirements, is consistent with the 

board’s recommendation that we separate the crew from the cargo, 

and I think the issues that are raised by others as well is, what 

is going to provide for that cargo capacity? And we need to address 

that question as well and I think we’re down the road toward meeting that particular concern too. 

Senator HUTCHISON. So you’re looking at some kind of an unmanned vehicle that would take cargo? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes. 

Senator HUTCHISON. And you believe that would provide any 

kind of repair equipment capability needed for the space station, 

and it isn’t going to be left up there damaged and not have a capacity to be fixed? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes. Part of what we’re doing in our return to 

flight efforts now is to develop the on-board repair capacity that 

45 

could be lifted by shuttle, brought to the international space station, and stored aboard international space station for exactly those 

eventualities, as well as on shuttle or any other vehicle that would 

be required. So that’s part of what the first couple of flights after 

we return to flight will really be demonstrating is our capacity to 

do it, and fortunately, a lot of the options we’re looking at today 

are dramatically reduced in terms of weight requirements, space 

requirements, all that, and some of the solutions are really pretty 

straightforward that should not be a show-stopper in terms of mass 

or requirements for stowage. 

Senator HUTCHISON. Can you give us any ballpark estimate of 

when our next space shuttle would go up? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Well, based on the return to flight plan that we 

have been proceeding with, if all the options are selected and are 

implemented, I think we have to be really driven by the milestone 

objectives of complying with 15 recommendations specifically, and 

all 29 recommendations contained in the report as well. If those 

milestone objectives are hit and we are able to do this on the pace 

that we think based on today’s option set, it is conceivable. We 

could be looking at late summer, early fall as a prospect. That said, 

we’re going to be driven by the milestones and when we are fit to 

fly that’s when we’re going to engage in it, not before. The calendar’s not going to drive this. 

Senator HUTCHISON. Let me just ask you a bigger picture question. I know since the accident there has been a lot of give and take 

about the future of NASA and I would just ask, number one, do 

you still consider the space station a core mission for NASA? Let 

me stop there and ask my second question. 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Well, consistent with the strategies that we talked 

about a little bit at the opening statement, the space station’s 

greatest utility at this point is to have us gain a clear understanding of what the human endurance, the physiology requirements are for any space exploration objectives. We’re learning a lot 

as a capacity of a continuous presence in space, now pushing almost 3 years. Next year will be the third continuous year of human 

presence in space. 

Beyond that, the science that we can yield from the research 

that’s performed aboard the station is justified as well. Yes indeed, 

it is a core requirement that we view as necessary to inform the 

human endurance approaches that we need for any exploration objectives beyond low Earth orbit, and to understand, I think, the 

science yield that is yet to come that is really quite promising in 

that regard. We view it as an important requirement. 

Senator HUTCHISON. Last question. Do you envision a big announcement about the reinvigoration of the commitment to NASA 

at some point in our future? Because we’ve all known that you’re 

studying, that there are commissions, there are ongoing efforts at 

the White House to determine what we ought to be doing. Do you 

envision an announcement about what NASA’s future is? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. In our discussions that several members of the 

Committee participated in with the Vice President, I think the understanding clearly is that there is an interagency process underway in which we are looking at various options for the vision objectives as well as the strategic modification to this basic plan we 

46 

have presented. To the extend that the President decides on those 

options, that would be attendant with whatever manner in which 

he would see appropriate to release that. Certainly we remain 

hopeful that that is achievable. We’re doing our best to support 

that outcome, but that is entirely his choice, and I would not want 

to foreclose or preclude his options in that regard. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Nelson? 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, to continue the line of discussion earlier, I take it that in your plan for an orbital space plane 

to take the crew to and from the space station, assumes an unmanned vehicle for cargo. What are your plans to make the space 

shuttle unmanned as a vehicle to carry cargo and when would that 

occur? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, sir. That is an option, that is one approach 

that could be examined, an autonomous capacity on shuttle is one 

of the means that could be examined for a cargo lift capacity. It’s 

got an impressive capability for that purpose. But again, consistent 

with the comments I think Admiral Gehman offered earlier, there 

is no replacement of shuttle per se, because the notion that somehow there would be a crew capability and a cargo capacity embodied in the same asset is part of the reason that drove the board, 

I believe correctly, to say separate the crew from the cargo. 

So this is one option, one approach that could be used. There are 

others that are under examination and certainly there are a lot of 

commercial alternatives that have been proposed and certainly advanced to several members here as well as others, and so which approach would be taken in that case we’re hoping to converge on 

here pretty quickly, but that is one option. 

Senator NELSON. You know, Admiral, there’s an interesting parallel in your report to 17 years ago to the Rogers commission report, because the space shuttle had been developed to be the space 

transportation system. That’s why it was called STS, and it was to 

do everything to and from space. As a result of the destruction of 

Challenger, the Rogers commission said, what you ought to do is 

separate out those cargos that can go that you don’t need the 

human in the loop, and save the space shuttle for those particular 

missions. 

Now, 17 years later we’ve got another iteration as a result of 

your commission. You’re actually saying, let’s develop a new vehicle 

that is much safer to go to and from for humans and put your more 

difficult kind of cargo payloads on something that is not quite as 

reliable. So in that regard I guess we better get upon the matter 

of developing the space plane. It looks like the House of Representatives is beginning to give you some heartburn, Mr. Administrator, 

so we better have a couple of prayer sessions to see what we can 

do, because as the Admiral has said, in the meantime we’re going 

to have to fly the space shuttle and humans are going to have to 

be on it, and we’ve got to make it as safe as possible. But there’s 

a long lead time and we’ve got to develop these new technologies. 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, sir. Well, as for the heartburn I keep Rolaids 

handy all the time as well as Advil, so it’s a daily condition. There’s 

not a problem in that regard. But it is I think a situation where 

the concerns addressed by the House in this case are legitimate in 

that we not get in front of the headlights beyond what the adminisVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
47 

tration has proposed. And that’s exactly what we’re pursuing right 

now. We’re not committing the administration or the Congress ourselves beyond the scope of what is contained in the budget today. 

That said, we are exploring the option to accelerate, and to the 

extent that that would be pursued there would be ample opportunity to review. That question would be incorporated as part of 

the President’s proposal, as part of 2005 as well as the Congress’ 

consideration of such a move well before any contract award in that 

case, so I think we can work our way through this, but we are trying to prepare ourselves as a matter of due diligence to make that 

option possible rather than something that we begin with with a 

clean sheet of paper were that chosen as an approach. 

Senator NELSON. Let me ask you another question about the future of NASA, which is the subject of this hearing. I don’t see a 

direct objective for human exploration and you’ve already stated 

that that’s a decision that would be made by the President. So do 

you need a directive, a direct directive from the President for us 

to state our goal? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Well, the stepping stone chart, strategy that was 

laid out as the second one, would envision the prospect of human 

exploration beyond low Earth orbit, but the emphasis in the strategy, I think, is to really emphasize the question of let’s develop a 

technology and capacity to make that kind of vision, that kind of 

dream a reality. And in two we develop the power generation and 

propulsion capabilities, do so, beat the human endurance challenges that we believe are persistent as well as to assure communications, we are not in the mode or position to do anything more 

than establish that as a goal or a dream, and so therefore to permit 

that to happen, this is going at it from the direction of technology 

development, no question. 

Senator NELSON. Well, how do you go about getting that directive 

out of the White House? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Again, I think process that is underway at present 

with the interagency effort that, again, you were party to the effort 

with the Vice President’s solicitation of views and approaches on 

how we could proceed with that, they are being taken very, very 

seriously and that is being vetted and I’m optimistic that we’ll see 

clarity in that regard at whatever period of time the President so 

chooses. 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, may I just ask one question on 

the last statement? As you develop your technologies for exploration beyond low Earth orbit, what are the human limitations that 

you see beyond low Earth orbit and what are you doing to address 

those? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, sir. Among the many, the three that really impress me as being particularly profound that we really need to get 

some resolution to, the first is a dramatic reduction in muscle 

mass, that typically on the course of a 6-month expedition on the 

international space station, even with the exercise equipment and 

the various physiological regimes that we’ve developed for that, it 

is not atypical to see about a 30, 25 to 30 percent muscle mass loss 

in that span of time. 

Same is true of bone mass. It is as high as about a 10 percent 

bone mass loss as well. And so as a consequence, with those two 

48 

alone, while it is regenerative, and it takes about the span of time 

that it takes during the course of the mission back on Earth for 

that comparable period of 6 months to be regenerated, it nonetheless is a very rapid degenerative capacity or circumstance that occurs. 

The second major variable is the very odd and not understandable from the scientific community’s view they’re really seeing this 

as a conundrum while you see a degradation in one sense, you also 

see a rapid acceleration of cell growth in other area. So trying to 

understand what this phenomenon, what it’s created, why in this 

particular microgravity condition that’s the case is a real severe 

question that we need to have resolution to. 

And the third one is the radiation effect. In low Earth orbit right 

now, the equivalency of radiation exposure is not dramatically 

higher than what we would see in lots of other Earth-bound kind 

of conditions. Beyond 600 miles and up in the Van Allen belt it’s 

a factor of three greater. So surviving that experience without having the bulk and mass of radiation shielding, using material, is 

something that really is a challenge, because otherwise that requires more propulsion, more power generation, more mass and capability and volume to support something like that. All three of 

those 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Keefe, I promised to get you out at 10:30 

and we have two more questioners. I’d appreciate it if you—— 

Mr. O’KEEFE. This is the last statement. All three of those are 

part of the human endurance initiative and human research initiative that’s contained in the Fiscal Year 2004 budget proposal to 

deal with all three of those areas. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Senator Brownback and then Senator Sununu. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And 

Administrator, Admiral, thank you for being here. I’ve got a chart 

that I want to put up and make a point with it and ask first, Admiral, you about this, because I think you alluded to it in some of 

your comments. We’ve had five starts and stops within the last 

number of years costing what I’ve totaled up about $5 billion for 

various types of replacements for space shuttle. 

It’s part of my concern right now with going forward with the orbital space plane when we’re not exactly sure what all of this is 

going to be about that we would have the similar sort of thing, we 

would start, we’d spend a couple billion dollars and not have the 

vision or zest to move this on forward. 

I would ask you, and then I want to ask Mr. O’Keefe, if I could, 

as well, how can we go about establishing this national vision that 

will have sufficient buy-in by the public, and zest, that it would 

keep us from doing a sixth one of these and spending a few billion 

dollars to do that. 

Admiral GEHMAN. Well, Senator, I know that Senator Hollings 

has proposed a National Space Commission, probably to get at 

some of these issues. I would offer—and this is in response, also, 

to a comment that Senator McCain made earlier, and your comment, about the zest—my board studied the Space Shuttle program 

at Columbia, all the way back to the Nixon years in which they designed the Shuttle, in order to understand how we got to where we 

49 

are today. And in the course of that study, we became convinced 

how difficult it is to get into and out of low-Earth orbit. It is extraordinarily dangerous and very difficult to do. And, unfortunately, I think that one of the missions and goals of however we 

achieve this national consensus is going to have be to convince the 

American taxpayers and the Congress of the United States, that, 

whereas it’s not very jazzy and not very exciting just to get into 

and out of low-Earth orbit, we have to do it, and we have to do it 

more safely than 49 out of 50 times. That’s not good enough. 

Ten years from now, I anticipate us going into and out of lowEarth orbit every month or every week. So we have to have some 

way of doing it reliably and safely and inexpensively. 

No matter what your vision is for human spaceflight, whether it’s 

Mars or the L2 or the Moon or whatever it is, it starts in low-Earth 

orbit. It doesn’t start on the surface of the Earth. We have no possible way to harness enough energy to large objects all the way to 

Mars from the surface of the Earth. It’ll start from low-Earth orbit. 

So we really do need to perfect getting into and out of low-Earth 

orbit reliably. And in our report, we went and looked at these 

things, and they essentially failed for two reasons. One was, as Mr. 

O’Keefe has said several times, they depended upon some kind of 

a giant technological leap to happen during the course of the program—those giant technological leaps don’t happen like that; they 

are developed by robust research development programs—or the 

Congress of the United States got disenchanted when they started 

to go overrun, to cost more, they were behind schedule, and they 

were costing billions, and finally OBM—either the White House, 

OBM, or the Congress said, ‘‘cease and desist.’’ Well, unfortunately, 

that’s the nature of what we’re doing here. 

So my answer is, based on our study of how we got to where we 

are today in the Shuttle Program, and of those the three things is, 

we need some leadership to say just getting into and out of lowEarth orbit is a goal worthy of itself, without killing a lot of people. 

And that’s hard to argue, because it isn’t very jazzy. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Let me ask you, Mr. O’Keefe, because I’ve 

have sensed your frustration for some period of time on this discussion of vision, as, ‘‘Yes, it’s great, but how do we get there,’’ we’ve 

got to get the Project Prometheus that you’re working on, a greater 

power generation, you’ve got to get into low-Earth space orbit. As 

a policymaker, I look at issues that I try to take to the public, and 

I say you’ve got to have the vision, and you’re saying you’ve got to 

have the technology to do the vision. How can we marry those up 

so that we don’t get these unsustainable types of projects? 

And we’ve seen, also, visions articulated that we haven’t fulfilled. 

‘‘Let’s go to Mars,’’ and it sounded great, and we didn’t do it. But, 

I mean, there’s got to be a thread and some learning that we can 

take from all of these things, because I don’t think you don’t get 

there without a vision. Without a vision, the people do perish on 

the way. But we also have to have it tied to that technology and 

a national buy-in that sustains it. 

Your thoughts on how we can tie the vision and the technological 

ability? 

50 

Administrator O’KEEFE. Oh, I think you’ve put your finger right 

to it, Senator. This is the source of the frustration. And it really 

has to be done in tandem. 

The call for a national debate or a national commission, or whatever, in and of itself, is laudable. No question. But it has to have 

some focus, some agenda, some specific approach to it that says, 

let’s look at how you develop a consensus for, not only the vision, 

but the means to get there. Because, you’re right, during the course 

of our history, of recent history, the last couple of decades, we’ve 

done all kinds of effort to look at establishing very, very lofty goals, 

and never attaining it because the technology wasn’t developed to 

achieve it; or we have focused extensively on a number of those 

failed programs, which all required an invention to happen. They 

were dependent upon some suspension of the law of physics, or 

something, in order to make them possible. 

So the approach that we’re right on the verge of, and I think 

we’re really converging nicely, is, not only an approach that we’ve 

advocated of develop a technology based on what you know you can 

achieve, and with a lot of push that you have to stretch the edge 

of in order to make it really perform to its maximum extent, and 

to develop the means to articulate a vision, which several Members 

have all discussed here, as requiring of national focus, and then 

asking, potentially, as both you and Senator Hollings have proposed, the notion of a commission to look at that specific agenda, 

look at that specific focus, and validate it, modify it, amend it, do 

whatever’s appropriate in order to achieve that goal. That could be 

substantial progress that has defied us for the last three decades, 

and that would be an incredible achievement if we could do that. 

I think we’re very much on the verge of doing just that. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you. 

Senator Sununu? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN E. SUNUNU, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Senator SUNUNU. Administrator, in your opinion, who is ultimately responsible for setting that vision? Is it our responsibility 

to enact legislation stating what the vision should be? Is it your responsibility or NASA’s responsibility to move forward and articulate a vision that sort of we buy into and then appropriate funds 

for? Is it the President’s responsibility to say, I’m the chief executive, here is the vision that we shall have for NASA, or is something that we need to or we’re best deferring to a third party, a 

commission, if you will? Who’s ultimately responsible for that? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Thank you, Senator. I am a traditionalist in this 

regard. I’m very much of the school that it is the administration, 

the executive’s responsibility to propose and for Congress to dispose 

in those manners. And in this particular case what we’re working 

on very, very diligently is an interagency effort to provide the best 

advice we can to frame this debate for the President’s consideration, and whatever he chooses is then the point of debate, and I 

think a commission could help potentially frame the nature of that 

discussion thereafter. 

If you hand in an agenda, it ends up differently than I think 

what we saw a decade ago, in which everyone was handed a clean 

51 

sheet of paper to go off and dream something up, and I think the 

profound comment that came from that was, everyone agrees that 

there should be a vision and no two people can agree on what it 

ought to be. This is an attempt where we really have to set that 

agenda, and I think the President is, certainly dispositionally, prepared to engage in that regard. 

Senator SUNUNU. In taking on that challenge as Administrator, 

you have a strategic plan here for 2003 is there anything in here 

that you would argue represents that kind of long-term vision? If 

so, are there things you can point to in the strategic plan that, for 

those reasons, are somewhat at odds with the current budgetary 

path? In other words, if you’re articulating a new vision and it’s not 

necessarily in the 2003 budget resolution that covers the next 3 or 

4 years, what in here fits that description of a leading vision? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. I appreciate that. The strategic plan is just that. 

It is a strategy to achieve the capacity and the capability to aspire 

to any of those objectives, any of those positions taken. It is the 

baseline from which we’re starting our discussion, debate as the 

interagency team, and indeed, as part of what is in the President’s 

budget right now is the minimums of what’s required in terms of 

a baseline approach for power generation, propulsion, human endurance, and communications requirements to upgrade to achieve 

any of those objectives. The vision or the ultimate objective is what, 

I think, we’re working at now as part of the interagency process 

to serve up to the President for his consideration. 

Senator SUNUNU. There was some discussion of the process that 

was used to deal with the questions raised about safety of flight recently, and I think you described pretty clearly the path that you 

followed in gathering information, convening an additional meeting 

to deal with safety of flight questions. Is there anything that you 

described in that process that is different or new as a result of the 

findings of Admiral Gehman’s commission? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Absolutely. I think we’ve been profoundly affected 

by not only the accident but also the very astute observations of 

the board on what caused it. It was hardware and material failures, but it was also human failures, and many of those human 

failures turned on our capacity to communicate. So, if anything, I 

think with this last example leading up to the Expedition 8 launch 

demonstrates for the flight readiness review, when it’s all examined, is an extensive overabundance of coverage of communications 

for folks to really be in a position where they’re free to raise the 

concerns and issues, and again, I would be alarmed if there were 

no concerns raised, and indeed would go seeking minority views of 

this. 

The fact that there was, I think, a continual effort all the way 

up, and leading to the launch had there been lingering concerns I 

was there in Kazakhstan and would not have permitted that to 

occur. So the fact that we’re all resolved by that point and at least 

everyone understood what the circumstances were is a very, very 

hard lesson learned from the communications message that 

emerged from the accident investigation board’s report. 

Senator SUNUNU. One final question following up on the point 

that Senator Brownback made about the series of programs that 

haven’t fulfilled expectations or haven’t been technologically feaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
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sible—$5 billion is a lot of money even in Washington. In the strategic plan there was some discussion, a nice photograph of the 

Scram jet, the X–43. What’s the status of that? You suggested that 

there’s no money being put into specific product development. 

You’re doing some planning for an RFP if one is appropriate, but 

what is the status of the Scram jet and does that more appropriately belong on this list as well? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Not necessarily, no. X–43 is proceeding apace, it is 

part of a cooperative effort of an agreement that we have in place 

with the Defense Department for their national aerospace initiative 

that they’re pursuing to develop hypersonic capacities, and this begins that long trek in that direction. It is severable and divorced 

from the question of whether you need a crew transfer vehicle, 

that’s not the intention. But if we are ever to achieve the capacity 

for a horizontal launch as opposed to a vertical launch system that 

uses expendable launch vehicles, we’ve got to begin this process 

and do it in a way like the X–43 and the Scram jet in developing 

a hypersonic capacity over time that would make that feasible, but 

that’s not something on the immediate horizon, I don’t envision it 

ever being in a condition of cancellation. I think it’s more the one 

bite at a time approach that has been more characteristic of 

NASA’s history in trying to develop each of those incremental 

pieces of the technology to get to some objective, and that’s what 

that’s after and we’re doing it in concert with the Defense Department. 

Senator SUNUNU. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I would ask your indulgence for Senator Hollings 

to ask one additional question. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Mr. O’Keefe, this committee has on its plate 

17 dead astronauts, including three in Apollo 1, preventable, seven 

in the Challenger, preventable, and apparently seven preventable 

in the Columbia. Let me read this one statement appearing in this 

article, if we’ve got it in the record: ‘‘Assuming a starting point on 

the fifth day of the flight, NASA engineers subsequently calculated 

that by requiring the crew to rest and sleep, the mission could have 

been extended to a full month to February the 15th. During that 

time, the Atlantis, which was already being prepared for a scheduled March 1 launch, could have been processed and made ready 

to go by February 10. If all had proceeded perfectly, there would 

have been a 5-day window in which to blast off, join up with the 

Columbia, and transfer the stranded astronauts one by one to safety by means of a tethered space walk.’’ Do you agree? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Yes, sir. It’s a very high-risk maneuver, but it’s one 

we certainly would have attempted had there been an indication at 

that time. 

Senator HOLLINGS. So the lessons of the taking the pictures and 

everything else like that, we could have saved them, and otherwise 

all you got to do is always have a back-up safety shuttle. You can 

start a shuttle flight tomorrow. The foam can knock out the side 

again, and to prevent burning up on re-entry you could have that 

Atlantis or second shuttle up and save those astronauts. Isn’t that 

right? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Well, sir, that is one approach and it’s one that is 

a very high-risk maneuver. 

53 

Senator HOLLINGS. Is something wrong with that? 

Mr. O’KEEFE. It’s a very high-risk maneuver. But if, by gosh, 

you’re trying to save lives. 

Yes, sir, I agree. We would have attempted it. There is just no 

question in my mind we would have tried had we been aware of 

that. 

Senator HOLLINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you both for your indulgence. Thank you 

for being here with us today and I can not assure you that this is 

your last assurance. 

Admiral GEHMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. O’KEEFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Our next panel is Dr. Wesley Huntress, Director 

of Geophysical Laboratory, the Carnegie Institute; Dr. Robert 

Zubrin is the President of the Mars Society; Dr. David Woods, Professor, Institute for Ergonomics at Ohio State University; and Mr. 

Richard Tumlinson, Co-Founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. 

Welcome to our witnesses, and Dr. Huntress, as soon as you’re prepared we’ll begin with you, sir, and thank the witnesses for being 

here, and pull the microphone a little bit closer to you. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF DR. WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, JR., DIRECTOR, 

GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY, CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF 

WASHINGTON 

Dr. HUNTRESS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I’m very 

grateful for the opportunity to testify before you here today on my 

view of the future of this planet’s human space flight program. Mr. 

Chairman, I believe that the American public wants an adventurous space program to exciting destinations in the solar system 

but they’re not getting it. We’re stuck in low-Earth orbit when the 

challenge is to move outward to those exotic places in the solar system where we’ve been given tantalizing glimpses from our robotic 

exploration program. The shuttle and the space station are the legacy of a long-past era, in which the space program was a weapon 

in the cold war. The Apollo program was not primarily the exploration or science program we were all fond of remembering, it was 

really a demonstration of power and national will intended to win 

over the hearts and minds around the world and to demoralize the 

Soviet Union. 

Exploration is not what motivated Kennedy to open the public 

purse. Beating the Russians did. Apollo accomplished that and the 

Nation moved on to other priorities, which did not include what 

space enthusiasts and much of the public thought would happen, 

lunar bases and on to Mars. Nowadays, the imperatives for space 

exploration are very different. Three decades of wishful thinking 

and building space ambitions on inadequate funding has led us into 

a blind alley. The space station is not the transportation node for 

missions beyond Earth’s orbit that it was supposed to be. Instead, 

it’s become an Earth orbital dead-end, and the space shuttle is not 

the low-cost, low-risk, operational space transportation system that 

it was supposed to be, and we’re burdened with a history and a legacy that can not be easily or quickly undone. 

The legacy of the Columbia accident should be to create a new 

pathway and a new sense of purpose for human space flight, and 

54 

if space explorers are to risk their lives it should be for extraordinary reasons such as exploration of the moon, Mars, asteroids, 

construction, and servicing of space telescopes. The whole point of 

leaving home is to go somewhere, not to endlessly circle the block. 

The problem is not human space flight, the problem is this kind of 

human space flight. 

I believe that among all the destinations that are within our 

reach in the next 50 years, such as the moon, libration points in 

near-Earth space, near-Earth asteroids, and Mars, that Mars is the 

ultimate destination we should pursue in the new century. Mars is 

the most scientifically rewarding destination and the one place that 

can galvanize human interest like no other. It’s the logical destination for humans in the next decades of our new century. Mars is 

the most Earth-like of all of the planets in our solar system, it may 

have had life early in its history, it might possibly harbor microbial 

life below its surface today, and 1 day in the future it may become 

a new home for humankind. It has fascinated humans for centuries 

and it’s within our reach. 

In pursuing these destinations, the human space flight program 

needs to be set on a new path that leads to a future that the public 

has been expecting for decades, a path that takes humans beyond 

Earth orbit to compelling new destinations in the solar system. We 

need a national vision that sets destinations for human exploration 

and systematically pursues its fulfillment with both robotic and 

human space flight, and the Nation needs a commitment from the 

administration and Congress for a manifest destiny for American 

in space. 

I’m leading a study by the International Academy of Astronautics 

that recommends the nature adopt a long-term policy for its space 

program along the following lines. First, to set a goal for human 

space flight to establish a permanent presence in the solar system 

and specifically to establish a human outpost on Mars by the middle of the century. Second, to devise a progressive step-by-step approach for achieving this goal, one that does not require an Apollolike spending curve. Third, this progressive approach should include intermediate destinations, such as the libration points, moon, 

near-Earth asteroids, to provide the stepping stones to Mars where 

useful exploration goals can be carried out. Fourth, space exploration is intrinsically global and should involve cooperation with 

other space-faring nations. 

To enable such a vision, NASA’s Earth to orbit transportation 

and on-orbit infrastructure would have to be reinvented. The current space shuttle and international space station are not on this 

critical path other than for conducting research on human physiology in space. First, we need to carry out America’s obligations to 

its international partners for an orderly completion of the ISS. The 

goals of the ISS should be limited and refocused to those specific 

purposes required to enable human exploration beyond Earth orbit. 

Second, retire the shuttle after flying only those missions necessary to complete the ISS. The shuttle is extremely expensive, 

dated, operationally fragile, and risky for its crews. Third, reinvent 

our method of access to Earth orbit. Human transport to and from 

space and within space should be separated from cargo transport. 

New, simpler, lower-risk, lower-cost Earth to orbit transportation 

55 

systems for both humans and cargo should be devised that support 

human requirements for exploration beyond Earth orbit. Fourth, 

develop an architecture for this highway to deep space, leading to 

human outposts on Mars by 2050, engage all space-faring nations 

in developing such a plan, utilizing the best that each nation has 

to offer, and the U.S. should take the lead. And sixth, to continue 

the use of robotic missions for scientific research and to prepare for 

human flights. 

None of this will happen if we go on as we are. Thank you for 

your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Huntress follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, JR., DIRECTOR, GEOPHYSICAL

LABORATORY, CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before you today on my view of the 

future of this planet’s human space flight program. The public wants an adventurous space program, a Mission From Planet Earth to new exciting destinations in 

the solar system and beyond. The public wants to know where we are going, how 

we are going to get there and wants to go along for the ride even if only virtually. 

America has the right stuff, but today’s human space flight program isn’t giving the 

public what it wants. 

Old Legacies 

The challenge for NASA is to throw off the yoke of the Apollo program legacy and 

to move outward beyond Earth to exotic places in the solar system, those places 

where we have been given tantalizing glimpses from our robotic exploration program. The Shuttle and Space Station are the legacy of a long-past era in which the 

space program was a weapon in the Cold War. The Apollo program was not primarily the science or exploration program we are all fond of remembering, it was 

a demonstration of power and national will intended to win over hearts and minds 

around the world and to demoralize the Soviet Union. Exploration is not what motivated Kennedy to open the public purse. Beating the Russians did. It worked. Apollo 

accomplished what was intended and the Nation moved on to other priorities, which 

did not include what space enthusiasts and much of the public thought would happen—lunar bases and on to Mars. 

The Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) are the products of 

NASA attempting over the decades to preserve the Apollo era of human space flight 

already passed by. These are complex, expensive projects that produce enormous 

strain on NASA’s budget and corresponding stress on the heroic people who work 

so hard to preserve the enterprise. The current human space flight program is barely affordable with what NASA is appropriated. The Apollo era is gone, the imperatives for space exploration are very different now than they were in the 1960s, and 

three decades of wishful thinking and building space ambitions on an inadequate 

funding basis has led the Nation into a blind alley. The ISS is not the expected 

transportation node for missions beyond Earth orbit that it was supposed to be; it 

has become an Earth-orbital end unto itself. And the Space Shuttle is not the lowcost, low-risk operational space transportation system that it was supposed to be. 

The legacy of the Columbia accident should be to create a new pathway and sense 

of purpose for human spaceflight. We should provide a more robust transportation 

system for our astronauts and a more rewarding program of exploration for these 

heroes. They should be assured of a reliable, safe system for transporting them a 

distance no farther than the distance between New York and Washington. And if 

space explorers are to risk their lives it should be for extraordinarily challenging 

reasons—such as exploration of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, and for construction 

and servicing space telescopes—not for making 90 minute trips around the Earth. 

The whole point of leaving home is to go somewhere, not to endlessly circle the block. 

Just as for Apollo, the Shuttle and ISS were developed for political imperatives; 

not so much for space exploration but to keep humans flying and to serve a foreign 

policy agenda. The Shuttle and ISS have not proven to be the next steps to human 

deep space exploration as advertised, instead they have become an impediment— 

serving only to maintain a human presence in near-Earth space until society finally 

decides to undertake missions to destinations beyond Earth orbit. Immediately after 

56 

the Columbia accident, Charles Krauthammer, a noted columnist put it far better 

than my scientist training allows: 

‘‘We slip the bonds of Earth not to spend 20 years in orbit studying zero-G nausea, 

but to set foot on new worlds, learn their mysteries, establish our presence . . . 

After millennia of dreaming of flight, the human race went from a standing start 

at Kitty Hawk [almost exactly 100 years ago] to the moon in 66 years. And yet in 

the next 34 years, we’ve gone nowhere . . . For now, we need to keep the shuttle 

going because we have no other way to get into space. And we’ll need to support 

the space station for a few years, because we have no other program in place . . . 

If we are going to risk that first 150 miles of terrible stress on body and machine 

to get into space, then let’s do it to get to the next million miles—to cruise the beauty and vacuum of interplanetary space to new worlds . . . the problem is not 

manned flight. The problem is this kind of manned flight, shuttling up and down 

at great risk and to little end.’’ 

New Options 

We have reached a point now where we reflect fondly on a time past when America shined brilliantly in human space exploration, but can only lament our retreat 

while others climb a path we pioneered and abandoned. We can shine again. We 

are a wealthy and capable nation. We have the resources. The required technology 

is at hand or just around the corner of development. These are not the issues. The 

issue is national will. Space exploration has become a part of our culture. The public 

believes that flying in space is part of who we are as a nation. ‘‘Space exploration 

is an element of our national being’’ [Harrison Schmidt, former astronaut and 

former Senator from New Mexico]. Our robotic explorers generate enormous interest 

when they fly and land on other planets. But the public expectation is that these 

robotic missions are a prelude to sending humans. 

What the public wants is clarity of purpose. A Space Station advertised as ‘‘the 

next logical step’’ without filling in the blank ‘‘to what’’ doesn’t do it. There is a 

growing chorus of leaders inside and outside of government concerned that NASA’s 

post-Columbia-investigation posture is business as usual. The consensus of many is 

that a coherent vision for human spaceflight over the next several decades is required, one that has a clear sense of purpose and destination. According to Neil 

Lane, former NSF Director and Presidential Science Advisor, ‘‘Unless we can get a 

clear, stated mission, we should step back and not risk further lives.’’ 

Sooner or later we must have a clear destination for human spaceflight or it will 

not survive, and America will be much the poorer for it. And a new option doesn’t 

have to be funded like Apollo, it can proceed at a steady pace. The country needs 

the challenge of grander exploration to justify the risk, lift our sights, fuel human 

dreams, and advance human discovery and knowledge. We need to go somewhere! 

There are organizations outside NASA and the U.S. Government that are addressing this issue. The International Academy of Astronautics is conducting a study entitled ‘‘The Next Steps in Exploring Deep Space’’. Its purpose is to provide a logical 

and systematic roadmap for the long-term scientific exploration of the solar system 

beyond Earth orbit with a goal to land humans on Mars sometime in the next 50 

years. The study will be completed this coming spring and envisions the establishment of a permanent human presence in space using an evolutionary approach to 

the development of space transportation infrastructure utilizing well-defined intermediate destinations as stepping stones to Mars. 

In addition, a workshop this past spring run by three organizations—The Planetary Society (TPS), the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and the Association 

of Space Explorers (ASE)—has made recommendations for near-term actions to 

solve our post-Columbia problems in human transportation to Earth orbit. My testimony draws heavily on the results from this joint workshop and from the IAA 

study. The workshop statement and a short briefing on the interim results of the 

IAA study are attached. 

The Exploration Imperative 

Beginning in 1952, a series of symposiums on space travel were held at New York 

City’s Hayden Planetarium that attracted the greatest visionaries of the day, including Werner von Braun, Willey Ley, and the space artist Chesley Bonestel. That vision of our future was subsequently captured in a series of illustrated articles for 

Collier’s Magazine, launching a national dream of space exploration. As a nation of 

people who make dreams happen, and who explore to provide for a better life, we 

didn’t do too badly with making that mid-Century dream of space travel come true. 

But after the Apollo missions the dream to move on was put on hold. So why should 

we revive that dream to explore space in this new 21st Century? For the same reasons that we explored and developed air travel in the 20th Century. Because it chalVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
57 

lenges us! At the beginning of the 20th Century in America the great public adventures were exploration of the polar regions of Earth and powered flight through the 

air. A century later, millions of humans travel in comfort through the air to destinations around the planet. No one in 1900 could have dreamed it possible to fly in 

comfort from New York to Paris in just over six hours. 

And so it will be in the 21st Century. At the beginning of this century we know 

how to travel in space, but are only just on its edge. We fly into space on dangerous, 

unwieldy, bolted-together hunks of thin metal and bulky propellant, spinning 

around our own planet in a fragile metal can strung together with cables and trusses. In one of history’s major anomalies, we even flew men to the Moon and back 

30 years ago, but are unable to do it now. By the end of the 21st Century, space 

travel will be as commonplace as air travel is at the end of the 20th. We just can’t 

predict the details right now, just as the Wright Brothers could never have imagined a Boeing 747 in 1903. 

Exploration and the drive to discover and understand are qualities that have allowed the humans to survive and become the dominant species on the planet. 

Human beings strive to know and understand what surrounds them. By exploring 

the unknown, humans gain security and dispel fear of the unknown, of what is beyond. This survival mechanism is encoded in our genes. Just as human civilization 

uses the challenge of exploration to hone scientific and technological skills for survival, and exploits the adventure to provide hope for the future, human populations 

also have a need for heroes to provide inspiration. This is particularly important for 

our youth, who need to be provided with a positive vision for their future. Every 

generation has had its heroes. Today, the astronaut is a hero figure because astronauts carry out adventurous work that achieves exciting goals, personifying the 

kind of life that our youth would like to lead. Space exploration presents a positive 

image of the future and inspires our youth towards achievement. 

The Science Imperative 

In the 1960s, the space program was popular in the U.S. because the public knew 

precisely what the goal was, how the game was played and followed every play. 

Today, the public’s innate acceptance of the abstract notion of exploration as a 

human imperative does not necessarily extend to their checkbook without clear articulation of goals and benefits. Today the public benefit can be expressed as a clear 

set of goals because science and technology has progressed to the point where it can 

dare attempt answer some of the most burning questions that human beings have 

been asking since they started gazing upward at the sky. Questions such as ‘Where 

do we come from?’ and ‘What will happen to us in the future?’ and ‘Are we alone 

in the Universe?’ These very fundamental human questions can be recast as scientific challenges—goals to be achieved in the course of exploring space. And from 

these scientific goals, plans can be formulated for both robotic and human explorers 

including the destinations and the exploration objectives of each. 

Where did we come from? This is a question that approaches the contemplation 

of existence. Even so, astronomers can address the question by determining how the 

Universe began and evolved, and learning how galaxies, stars and planets formed, 

and searching for Earth-like planets around other stars. The answers require large 

and complex space telescope systems made possible by human construction and 

servicing in space. 

What will happen to us in the future? Every human wonders about the future. 

One form of this question asks if there is any threat to us from space, especially 

from earth-crossing asteroids. The answer will come from surveys of the earth-crossing asteroid population in space and space missions that determine their composition and structure. Another form of this question asks what future humans have 

in traveling to and living on other planets. Is our species destined to populate space? 

Ultimately I believe the answer is yes, and the information will come from exploring 

space and utilizing the resources we can find in the most promising places in space 

such as Mars. 

Are we alone in the Universe? Every human being wants to know the answer to 

this question. We are compelled to find its answer. Some find comfort in the notion 

that we should be alone; others are fearful of the potential for other life ‘‘out there’’. 

Most scientists see the possibilities and are overwhelmed by the notion that the universe might be teeming with life; at least microbial life and perhaps even intelligent 

forms. We will find the answer by searching for life in the most promising places 

in the solar system such as Mars, and by looking for signs of life on planets outside 

the solar system with space telescopes. 

58 

Destinations 

The IAA study starts with these public questions and defines the scientific objectives required to answer them. The scientific objectives in turn determine what kind 

of exploration is required at which destinations in the solar system. Four destinations for human exploration result from this exercise: the Sun-Earth Lagrangian 

point L2, the Moon, Near-Earth Asteroids, and Mars. 

Mars, the most distant and most challenging of these destinations, is also the most 

scientifically rewarding and the one place that can galvanize human interest like no 

other. It is the logical destination for humans in the next decades of our new century. Mars is the most Earth-like of all the other planets in our solar system. It 

may have had life in its early history, it might possibly harbor microbial life below 

its surface today, and one day in the distant future it may become a new home for 

human kind. It has fascinated humans for centuries and it is within our reach. 

A brief description of the scientific and exploration utility of the four identified 

human destinations are described below, arranged in order of energetic difficulty for 

a systematic, progressive approach to exploration beyond Earth orbit. 

Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point L2 (SEL2) is a point about 1 million miles from the 

dark side of the Earth opposite the Sun that is the site of choice for future space 

astronomical telescopes that will search for and image Earth-like planets around 

other stars. These telescopes will of necessity be large, complex systems requiring 

servicing by astronauts in a manner similar to the Hubble Space Telescope. SEL2 

is easy to get to, with round trip times on the order of 2–3 weeks and could serve 

as the initial step in developing a deep space transportation capability. 

The Moon is a scientifically rewarding destination where we can obtain information on the probability for impact of asteroids on the Earth, on the history of the 

Sun and its effect on the Earth’s environment, and perhaps on the earliest history 

of the Earth itself. The proximity of the Moon makes it attractive as a potential 

proving ground for surface systems, habitats and other technologies, possibly including the use of lunar resources, but it is not necessarily on the critical path to Mars 

exploration. 

Near-Earth Objects travel in orbits between the Earth and Mars and represent 

both a potential resource in space and a potential impact hazard to Earth. Robotic 

missions to these objects will be necessary to assess these potentials. The jury is 

out on whether human missions would be necessary for these purposes, but there 

is no doubt that a one-year human mission to a Near-Earth Object would serve as 

an excellent intermediate step before any mission to Mars. An NEO human mission 

would provide a lower-risk test flight of the systems necessary to reach Mars. 

Mars is the ultimate destination for humans in the first half of this century. It 

is on this most Earth-like planet that humans can establish a permanent presence— 

utilizing resources the planet has to offer from its atmosphere, soil and subsurface 

ice and water. The scientific goals will be to understand the similarities and differences between Earth and Mars, particularly the history of water and its distribution on Mars, the geological and climatological histories of Mars and a search for 

evidence of past or present life. The question of possible life on another world is 

probably the largest driver for humans in space and particularly for Mars exploration. 

Our ultimate ability to reach these destinations requires that architectures developed today for transportation from the Earth’s surface to orbit have a top-level requirement to consider the future needs for space transportation to deep space. Otherwise, it is likely that a solution will be derived that is useless for the next step 

beyond Earth orbit. 

The Architecture 

The IAA study proposes an architecture for enabling this vision. Mars is the goal, 

but intermediate destinations are identified that comprise a progressive approach 

to this long-term objective. The approach is science-based to address key questions 

of public interest. These science goals provide the context for destinations, capabilities and technology investments. It is a stepping-stone approach in which there is 

a logical progression to successively more difficult destinations. This approach requires incremental investments to maintain progress, rather than huge new budgets, 

and destinations can be adjusted to manage cost and risk. Major new technology developments early in the program are avoided to reduce cost. Solar electric and nuclear electric propulsion, which are already under development, along with improved 

chemical propulsion can meet early transportation needs. Cargo and crew are separated to minimize crew risk and flight time. Cargo, supplies, and exploration equipment travel slower on more efficient electric propulsion systems in advance of the 

crew, who use faster but less efficient chemical propulsion systems. 

59 

The IAA study proposes development first of a chemically propelled Deep Space 

Transportation Vehicle (DSTV) initially capable of carrying astronauts from lowEarth orbit to SEL2. The DSTV would be equally capable of carrying astronauts to 

lunar orbit if it is decided that lunar missions are an important step toward Mars. 

Later this vehicle could be upgraded for the much longer trips to NEOs and Mars. 

A separate electrically propelled Deep Space Cargo Vehicle (DSCV) would be developed to carry equipment and supplies to these same destinations. 

The IAA study does not address Earth-to-orbit infrastructure requirements. This 

has been done by the TPS/AAS/ASE workshop that recommends the retirement of 

the Shuttle after the ISS has been completed. Both the IAA study and the TPS/AAS/ 

ASE workshop recognize the potential of utilizing non-US launch systems to carry 

crew and cargo to low Earth orbit. In addition, new vehicles for Earth to orbit transportation, separating crew from cargo, would be developed that take into account 

crew and cargo Earth-to-orbit lift requirements for further exploration beyond Earth 

orbit. 

The Space Station is not on the critical path in the IAA transportation architecture. Its high inclination orbit creates a severe penalty for Station-launched missions to the Moon and planets. However, the Space Station is required in order to 

study the effects of space travel on humans and to develop the technologies required 

for human support during long-term space flight. 

Robots and Humans 

So how do we implement such a plan, do we use human or robotic missions? The 

answer has always been: both. The robotic and human space exploration enterprises 

have co-existed and cooperated during the space program’s entire history. The relevant question is whether any potential investigation requires using human explorers, with their associated cost. The argument often used to dismiss humans is that 

technology will produce a machine with sufficient intelligence and dexterity to 

render a human unnecessary. The time to develop such a machine, however, may 

be either unpredictable or too long to meet a reasonable schedule. No matter how 

clever or useful the robots we make, they will always be tools for enhancing human 

capabilities. 

There is a role for both robots and humans. The strategy is to use robotic means 

for reconnaissance and scientific exploration to the full extent that robots can accomplish the desired goals. At the point when human explorers are sent, robotic 

missions can be used to establish local infrastructure before the arrival of humans. 

This is implemented using robotic outposts, which are later occupied and utilized 

by the human explorers. During human occupation, robots provide required support 

services and become sensory extensions and tools for human explorers. 

In any case, science cost effectiveness is not a good exclusive metric for assessing 

human vs. robotic modes for scientific exploration because the decision to proceed 

with human exploration will not be made on scientific grounds alone. Human exploration of space is motivated by societal factors other than science. Nonetheless, 

when a decision is made to continue human exploration beyond Earth orbit, it will 

provide a tremendous opportunity for scientist-explorers and science should be a motivating force in defining human space exploration goals. 

A space exploration enterprise that satisfies the public requires humans in space. 

In the minds of the public, robotic exploration is an extension of the human experience and a prelude to human exploration itself. Robotic exploration is the method 

of choice for reconnaissance and scientific investigation to the extent that robots can 

accomplish the desired goals. However, only human explorers will ultimately to fulfill the public’s sense of destiny in space. 

The Bottom Line 

The human spaceflight program needs to be set on a new path that leads to a 

future that the public has been expecting for decades—a path that takes humans 

beyond Earth orbit to new, important destinations in the solar system. 

We need a national vision that sets a destination for human exploration and systematically pursues its fulfillment with both robotic and human spaceflight. 

Drawing heavily on the IAA study, I believe this vision should involve: 

1. The goal of establishing a permanent human presence in the solar system with 

the stated objective to establish human presence on Mars by the middle of this 

Century. 

2. Recognition that exploration beyond Earth orbit is intrinsically global, and 

should involve cooperation with other space-faring nations. 

60 

3. A progressive, step-by-step approach for human exploration beyond Earth orbit 

that does not require an Apollo-like spending curve. Any requirements for increased spending can then be made incrementally on an annual basis. 

4. A set of exciting and rewarding destinations in this step-by-step approach to 

Mars including the Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point L2, the Moon and Near-Earth 

Asteroids. 

5. Re-invention of our Earth-to-orbit transportation and on-orbit infrastructure to 

support the goals for exploration beyond Earth orbit. The current Space Shuttle and International Space Station are not on that critical path other than research on human physiology in space. 

6. Development of new in-space systems for transporting humans and cargo from 

low Earth orbit to deep space destinations. No large technological breakthroughs are necessary. 

7. Continued use of robotic missions for scientific research and preparation for future human flights. Robotic precursor missions will be required to reduce the 

risk for human explorers and to provide on-site support for humans. Human 

explorers will be required for intensive field exploration and for in-space servicing of complex systems. 

Drawing heavily from the TPS/AAS/ASE workshop, some near-term actions to enable this policy (specifically number 5 above) are: 

1. The Shuttle should be retired after flying only those missions necessary to complete the International Space Station in favor of a simpler, safer and less costly 

system for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit. 

2. Human transport to and from space, and within space, should be separated 

from related cargo transport. New Earth-to-orbit transportation systems for 

humans and cargo should be designed and built, but not until the requirements 

for human exploration beyond Earth orbit are understood and can be accommodated. 

3. The U.S. should carry out its obligations to its international partners to complete the International Space Station. The goals of the ISS should be refocused 

to those specific purposes required to enable human exploration beyond Earth 

orbit. 

None of this will happen if we go on as we are. The national will to carry out 

a new option for space exploration already exists in the people of the United States. 

The nation has the necessary wealth. It is only a matter of leadership by the Administration and Congress. The architecture advocated here does not require an immediate large increase in the NASA budget. It does require a commitment to the 

resources required as the space program gradually and systematically increases in 

scale and scope, but not so much in any one year as would be required for an Apollolike initiative. 

We need a commitment from the Administration and Congress to a manifest destiny for America in space. 

STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE 

A Workshop in Memory of the Columbia 7 

On April 29–30, 2003, The Planetary Society, the Association of Space Explorers, 

and the American Astronautical Society held a workshop at the George Washington 

University’s Space Policy Institute about the future of human space transportation. 

The following conclusions have been endorsed by The Planetary Society and the 

American Astronautical Society and by a number of astronauts present at the workshop. ASE did not take a formal position on the conclusions. 

Conclusions 

Human space exploration is a great and unifying enterprise of planet Earth. The 

loss of Columbia reminds us that astronauts are the emissaries of humankind as 

part of our civilization’s aspirations for great achievements and new discoveries. The 

United States’ commitment to human exploration reflects humankind’s movement 

outward from Earth, to become eventually a multi-planet species. We do this to understand and cope with the limits of Earth, its finite resources and indeed its finite 

lifetime, and to satisfy the innate desire of people to advance civilization and understand their place in the universe. We do this not just for our own country, but also 

for all our planet’s citizens. Furthermore, the space enterprise provides a unique 

means of building national intellectual, technical and personal capabilities. It is a 

commitment to a positive future. 

61 

1Lagrangian points (L1–L5) are points in space where the gravitational forces from the two 

most nearby influential gravitational masses (in this case the Sun and Earth) are in equilibrium. 

The Planetary Society, the Association of Space Explorers-USA, and the American 

Astronautical Society convened a group of experts at a workshop, in memory of the 

Columbia space shuttle crew, to assess launch vehicle requirements to meet the 

needs of human space exploration beyond Earth orbit. Our conclusions from this assessment are: 

The Imperative 

• There are strong societal imperatives for exploring space. The natural curiosity 

to explore new frontiers coupled with an instinctive desire to preserve the future of humankind motivates our continued exploration of space. Space exploration will provide new knowledge and resources for a more prosperous and secure future. 

• There are fundamental questions concerning our cosmic origin, our future and 

whether or not we are alone in the universe. Science in pursuit of these questions can provide a credible goal-oriented strategy for an evolutionary approach 

to exploring deep space destinations with both robots and humans. 

• The exploration of deep space by humans will be energized by the goals of individual nations woven into an international enterprise and infused with a sense 

of human destiny in space. 

The Destinations 

• The most important scientific destinations for human explorers are the Moon, 

Mars, Near-Earth Objects and the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2 1 (for astronomical observatories). 

• Mars is the ultimate destination for human explorers in the foreseeable future. 

Consequently the robotic Mars exploration program should progress beyond 

sample return to robotic outposts in preparation for human presence. 

A Strategy 

• By adopting a phased approach to human exploration beyond Earth orbit, we 

can develop a cost-effective program that is exciting, scientifically rewarding 

and for which the risks can be measured and managed. 

• The initial stages of a robust human exploration architecture can proceed using 

existing and currently planned propulsion technologies. 

• We see no essential role for continuing flight of the shuttle orbiter beyond its 

immediate goal of completing construction of the International Space Station 

and early transport of crewmembers to and from the Station. As soon as an alternate mode of human transport into and from low Earth orbit (LEO) is available, which should be accomplished as soon as possible, the shuttle orbiter 

should be retired. 

• Crew and cargo should be transported separately to increase flexibility, reduce 

cost and reduce risk associated with human space exploration. 

• The underutilized fleet of existing expendable launch vehicles should play a 

major role in the next stages of human space exploration, as well as in human 

and cargo transportation into LEO. 

• Increased investment in on-orbit operations and in-space propulsion technologies is required. 

International Cooperation 

• Exploration beyond Earth orbit is an intrinsically global enterprise. It is unlikely that any nation acting alone will commit the necessary resources for a 

major human exploration mission initiative beyond Earth orbit. 

• International partnerships provide tangible benefits for human space exploration. These include broadening public and political support, sharing of the 

cost and risk, adding resiliency and enriching the scientific and technological 

content. 

• To this end all space faring nations should strengthen mechanisms for exchanging information on human exploration activities and plans, increase international participation in robotic exploration missions, and explore mechanisms 

for sharing critical roles among partners. 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Dr. Zubrin. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT ZUBRIN, PRESIDENT, 

MARS SOCIETY 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here to testify today. Why is 

NASA stuck in low-Earth orbit? To answer this question, you need 

to take a look at the two fundamental ways that NASA has operated in its history, which breaks down basically into two different 

periods. There’s the period from 1961 to 1973, which therefore may 

be fairly called the Apollo period, and the 30 years since, which can 

be called the shuttle era or called well, there it is. 

In the Apollo method of operation, the way things work are as 

follows. The Nation’s political leadership sets a focus goal for the 

human space flight program. NASA develops a plan on how to 

achieve that goal. Vehicles are designed to implement that plan. 

Those vehicles are built and the plan is flown. 

In the shuttle era mode, what happens instead? In this mode, 

technologies and hardware elements are developed in accord with 

the wishes of various technical communities. These projects are 

then justified by arguments that they might prove useful later at 

some time in the future when grand projects are attempted. So, in 

other words, contrasting these approaches, what you see is that the 

Apollo mode is destination-driven, the shuttle mode is constituency-driven, driven by the constituencies within the various NASA 

centers, aerospace, major corporations, and elsewhere. 

If you want to understand it even more clearly, consider an analogy. Imagine two couples, two young couples, both want to build 

their own house. Couple number one has an idea of the kind of 

house they want, so they hire an architect to design that house. 

They then acquire building parts to build out that design and they 

build the house. Couple number two polls their neighbors on what 

house parts they might have for sale, buy those that are most convincingly marketed, acquire a random set of house parts, which 

they pile up in their back yard, and then when their relatives come 

by and ask them why do you have all this junk in your back yard, 

they say, well, it’s to build a house. They say, really, show me the 

design, so they hire an architect to design a house that includes all 

these parts. 

Now such a house design obviously becomes incredibly complex 

and can never be built, but that’s not the point. The plan provides 

a convincing rationale justifying the purchases. That’s the shuttle 

mode. That’s what we’ve got to break from. 

The problem with NASA’s lack of current achievement is not 

money. If you look at the average NASA budget, if you take 

NASA’s total budget from 1961 to 1973, translate it into current 

dollars, average it out over the 12 years, it’s $17 billion a year. 

NASA’s current budget is only 10 percent less than that. The problem is lack of focus, it’s lack of a goal. 

What should the goal be? As Dr. Huntress has said, it should be 

humans to Mars. Mars is where the science is, Mars is where the 

challenge is and Mars is where the future is. However, it shouldn’t 

be humans to Mars in 50 years, it should be humans to Mars in 

10. This is possible. Despite whatever statements people have 

68 

made about problems, real or imagined, the fact remains that we 

are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we 

were to send men to the moon in 1961 when Kennedy started the 

moon program and we were there 8 years later. 

We can do this. We do not need gigantic nuclear electric spaceships to send people to Mars. That is pork, it’s nonsense. We can 

go to Mars with chemical propulsion, you can get to Mars in 6 

months with chemical propulsion. You can overcome all the problems of weightlessness by not going in zero gravity, you can spin 

up the spacecraft, you have artificial gravity, you don’t get these 

bone and muscle problems. We don’t need to spend 30 years on 

orbit watching astronauts’ musculature degrade in 0 G to verify 

that it degrades in 0 G. We can avoid it through engineering solutions. 

The way you get humans to Mars without complex futuristic 

mega-spacecraft is this. You do it in two launches of a Saturn 5- 

class booster, which you can create by either re-engineering the 

Saturn 5 or converting the shuttle, lose the orbiter, replace it with 

an upper stage interfering, you have a Saturn 5-class capability 

that can lift 120 tons to Earth orbit or throw 40 to 50 tons to either 

the moon or Mars. 

Then you do the mission in two launches. The first launch you 

send to Mars an unmanned Earth-return vehicle, nobody in it, it 

flies out to Mars on fuel too. It takes 8 months to get there, minimum energy trajectory, you land it on Mars, you run a pump. You 

suck in the Martian air, which is carbon dioxide, you react the carbon dioxide with a small amount of hydrogen that you bring from 

Earth, produces a large supply of methane oxygen rocket propellant. Now you have a fully fueled Earth-return vehicle sitting waiting for you on the surface of Mars. This is 19th century chemical 

engineering. 

Then once that is done you launch the crew to Mars. Because the 

return ride is waiting on Mars, you don’t need to fly to Mars in 

that gigantic Battlestar Galactica spaceship. You fly to Mars in a 

basic habitation module like a big tuna can with a life support system in it. You fly out to Mars, take 6 months to get there, you land 

near the Earth-return vehicle, use the hab as your house on Mars, 

as your lab on Mars for a year and a half, and you get a launch 

window back to Earth. You get in the Earth-return vehicle, you fly 

home. You leave the hab behind on Mars so each time you do this 

you add another hab to the base. Before you know it we’ve begun 

the beginning of the first human settlement on a new world. There 

is nothing in there that’s beyond our capability. 

That’s a short explanation. If you want a longer one, there’s a 

whole book on it, which I’d be happy to give to every member of 

this Committee, that explains the plan in depth. Now, how do we 

make this happen now? You’ve got to get NASA back on the Apollo 

mode of thinking. How do you do that? Reject their requests to 

fund things. Do not fund the orbital space plane for $17 billion. It’s 

a thing that is not integrated into any plan. It will not take you 

anywhere. 

Instead, what you should do this year is fund them $60 million 

to fund two $30 million 6-month studies, one by NASA JSC, one 

by an interagency task force led by somebody from the non-NASA 

69 

space community, two competing teams, each commissioned to develop a plan to get humans to Mars in 10 years with a cost cap 

of say $30 billion for all the development, $3 billion for the recurring mission, have them report back with their plans, present it to 

a blue ribbon commission headed by somebody like Admiral 

Gehman or whomever to judge the plans for feasibility, cost, technical merit, exploratory punch, choose the better plan, choose the 

better team, and fund that plan. 

It is within your power to make this happen. It is within your 

power to give the American people a space program that is actually 

going somewhere, and I ask that you do so. Thank you for your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Zubrin follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT ZUBRIN, PRESIDENT, MARS SOCIETY

Senator McCain, members of the Commerce Committee, I would like to thank you 

for inviting me to testify here today on the future of the U.S. space program. Since 

many of you may be unfamiliar with me, I hope you will forgive me if I take a few 

seconds to establish my credentials. I am an engineer with a Masters degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics, a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering, and fifteen years 

aerospace industry experience. I currently lead my own company, Pioneer Astronautics, which has five NASA and military R&D contracts at this time. I am the author 

or co-author of over 100 papers, three patents, and five books related to the field, 

and am the head of an international non-profit organization known as the Mars Society which has built and run a human Mars exploration operations research station 

on Devon Island, 900 miles from the North Pole. 

My remarks today will address four areas. First, I will discuss why NASA is failing, and what fundamental change in method of operation needs to be undertaken 

if the space agency is to be made effective again, and in particular, explain why an 

overarching goal must be adopted if that is to occur. Second, I will explain what 

that goal should be. Third, I will present a plan for a pioneering space program that 

would allow NASA fulfill its promise and achieve that goal within ten years. Finally, 

I will make specific recommendations as to what Congress and the Executive branch 

need to do this year in order to put the space program on the right track. 

1. Why is NASA Failing? 

In the recent Columbia hearings, numerous members of congress continually decried the fact that the U.S. space program is ‘‘stuck in Low Earth Orbit.’’ This is 

certainly a serious problem. If it is to be addressed adequately, however, America’s 

political leadership needs to reexamine NASA’s fundamental mode of operation. 

Over the course of its history, NASA has employed two distinct modes of operation. The first, prevailed during the period from 1961–1973, and may therefore be 

called the Apollo Mode. The second, prevailing since 1974, may usefully be called 

the Shuttle Era Mode, or Shuttle Mode, for short. 

In the Apollo Mode, business is conducted as follows. First, a destination for 

human spaceflight is chosen. Then a plan is developed to achieve this objective. Following this, technologies and designs are developed to implement that plan. These 

designs are then built, after which the mission is flown. 

The Shuttle Mode operates entirely differently. In this mode, technologies and 

hardware elements are developed in accord with the wishes of various technical 

communities. These projects are then justified by arguments that they might prove 

useful at some time in the future when grand flight projects are initiated. 

Contrasting these two approaches, we see that the Apollo Mode is destination 

driven, while the Shuttle Mode pretends to be technology driven, but is actually constituency driven. In the Apollo Mode, technology development is done for mission directed reasons. In the Shuttle Mode, projects are undertaken on behalf of various 

internal and external technical community pressure groups and then defended using 

rationales. In the Apollo Mode, the space agency’s efforts are focused and directed. 

In the Shuttle Mode, NASA’s efforts are random and entropic. 

Imagine two couples, each planning to build their own house. The first couple decides what kind of house they want, hires an architect to design it in detail, then 

acquires the appropriative materials to build it. That is the Apollo Mode. The second 

couple polls their neighbors each month for different spare house-parts they would 

like to sell, and buys them all, hoping to eventually accumulate enough stuff to 

70 

build a house. When their relatives inquire as to why they are accumulating so 

much junk, they hire an architect to compose a house design that employs all the 

knick-knacks they have purchased. The house is never built, but an adequate excuse 

is generated to justify each purchase, thereby avoiding embarrassment. That is the 

Shuttle Mode. 

In today’s dollars, NASA average budget from 1961–1973 was about $17 billion 

per year. This is only 10 percent more than NASA’s current budget. To assess the 

comparative productivity of the Apollo Mode with the Shuttle Mode, it is therefore 

useful to compare NASA’s accomplishments between 1961–1973 and 1990–2003, as 

the space agency’s total expenditures over these two periods were equal. 

Between 1961 and 1973, NASA flew the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Ranger, 

Surveyor, and Mariner missions, and did all the development for the Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager missions as well. In addition, the space agency developed hydrogen oxygen rocket engines, multi-staged heavy-lift launch vehicles, nuclear rocket 

engines, space nuclear reactors, radioisotope power generators, spacesuits, in-space 

life support systems, orbital rendezvous techniques, soft landing rocket technologies, 

interplanetary navigation technology, deep space data transmission techniques, reentry technology, and more. In addition, such valuable institutional infrastructure 

as the Cape Canaveral launch complex, the Deep Space tracking network, Johnson 

Space Center, and JPL were all created in more or less their current form. 

In contrast, during the period from 1990–2003, NASA flew about three score 

Shuttle missions allowing it to launch and repair the Hubble Space Telescope and 

partially build a space station. About half a dozen interplanetary probes were 

launched (compared to over 30 lunar and planetary probes between 1961–73). Despite innumerable ‘‘technology development’’ programs, no new technologies of any 

significance were actually developed, and no major space program operational infrastructure was created. 

Comparing these two records, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that that 

NASA’s productivity in both missions accomplished and technology development 

during its Apollo Mode was at least ten times greater than under the current Shuttle Mode. 

The Shuttle Mode is the expenditure of large sums of money without direction by 

strategic purpose. That is why it is hopelessly inefficient. But the blame for this 

waste cannot be placed on NASA leaders alone, some of whom have attempted to 

rectify the situation. Rather, the political class must also accept major responsibility. 

Consider the following. During the same week in September that House members 

were roasting Administrator O’Keefe for his unfortunate advocacy of a destinationfree NASA, a Senate committee issued a report saying that a top priority for the 

space agency was to develop a replacement Space Shuttle system. Did any of the 

Senators who supported this report explain why? Why do we need another Shuttle 

system? To keep doing what we are doing now? But is that what we actually want 

to do? 

Congress and the Executive branch need to get together and open a discussion 

as to what the Nation actually wants to accomplish in space. Hearings should be 

held, and the options for a strategic objective examined in public. Is our primary 

aim to keep sending astronauts on joyrides in low Earth orbit? In that case, a second generation Shuttle might be worth building. But if we want to send humans 

to the Moon or Mars, we need make that decision, and then design and build a 

hardware set that is appropriate to actually accomplish those goals. 

Advocates of the Shuttle Mode claim that by avoiding the selection of a destination they are developing the technologies that will allow us to go anywhere, anytime. That just isn’t true. The Shuttle Mode will never get us anywhere at all. The 

Apollo Mode got us to the Moon, and it can get us back, or take us to Mars. But 

leadership is required. 

In the beginning, there was the Word. 

2. What Should our Goal Be? 

In order to accomplish anything in space we need to set a goal. What should that 

goal be? In my view, the answer is straightforward: Humans to Mars within a decade. 

Why Mars? Because of all the planetary destinations currently within reach, Mars 

offers the most, both scientifically, socially, and in terms of what it portends for the 

human future. 

In scientific terms, Mars is critical, because it is the Rosetta Stone for letting us 

understand the position of life in the universe. Images of Mars taken from orbit 

show that the planet had liquid water flowing on its surface for a period of a billion 

years during its early history, a duration five times as long as it took life to appear 

71 

on Earth after there was liquid water here. So if the theory is correct that life is 

a naturally phenomenon, emergent from chemical complexification wherever there 

is liquid water, a temperate climate, sufficient minerals, and time, then life should 

have appeared on Mars. If we can go to Mars, and find fossils of past life on its 

surface, we will have good reason to believe that we are not alone in the universe. 

If we send human explorers, who can erect drilling rigs which can reach ground 

water where Martian life may yet persist, we will be able to examine it, and by so 

doing determine whether life as we know it on Earth is the pattern for all life everywhere, or alternatively, whether we are simply one esoteric example of a far vaster 

and more interesting tapestry. These things are worth finding out. 

In terms of its social value, Mars is the bracing positive challenge that our society 

needs. Nations, like people, thrive on challenge and decay without it. The challenge 

of a humans-to-Mars program would also be an invitation to adventure to every 

youth in the country, sending out the powerful clarion call: ‘‘Learn your science and 

you can become part of pioneering a new world.’’ There will be over 100 million kids 

in our Nation’s schools over the next ten years. If a Mars program were to inspire 

just an extra one percent of them to scientific educations, the net result would be 

1 million more scientists, engineers, inventors, medical researchers and doctors, 

making technological innovations that create new industries, finding new medical 

cures, strengthening national defense, and generally increasing national income to 

an extent that utterly dwarfs the expenditures of the Mars program. 

But the most important reason to go to Mars is the doorway it opens for the future. Uniquely among the extraterrestrial bodies of the inner solar system, Mars is 

endowed with all the resources needed to support not only life but the development 

of a technological civilization. In contrast to the comparative desert of the Earth’s 

Moon, Mars possesses oceans of water frozen into its soil as permafrost, as well as 

vast quantities of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, all in forms readily accessible to those clever enough to use them. These four elements are the basic stuff 

not only of food and water, but of plastics, wood, paper, clothing, and most importantly, rocket fuel. 

In addition, Mars has experienced the same sorts of volcanic and hydrologic processes that produced a multitude of mineral ores on Earth. Virtually every element 

of significant interest to industry is known to exist on the Red Planet. While no liquid water exists on the surface, below ground is a different matter, and there is 

every reason to believe that geothermal heat sources could be maintaining hot liquid 

reservoirs beneath the Martian surface today. Such hydrothermal reservoirs may be 

refuges in which survivors of ancient Martian life continue to persist; they would 

also represent oases providing abundant water supplies and geothermal power to future human settlers. With its 24-hour day-night cycle and an atmosphere thick 

enough to shield its surface against solar flares, Mars is the only extraterrestrial 

planet that will readily allow large scale greenhouses lit by natural sunlight. Mars 

can be settled. For our generation and many that will follow, Mars is the New 

World. In establishing our first foothold on Mars, we will begin humanity’s career 

as a multi-planet species. 

Mars is where the science is, Mars is where the challenge is, and Mars is where 

the future is. That’s why Mars must be our goal. 

3. How Do We Get There? 

Humans to Mars may seem like a wildly bold goal to proclaim in the wake of disaster, yet such a program is entirely achievable. From the technological point of 

view, we’re ready. Despite the greater distance to Mars, we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars than we were to launch humans to the Moon 

in 1961 when John F. Kennedy challenged the Nation to achieve that goal—and we 

were there eight years later. Given the will, we could have our first teams on Mars 

within a decade. 

The key to success come from rejecting the policy of continued stagnation represented by senile Shuttle Mode thinking, and returning to the destination-driven 

Apollo Mode method of planned operation that allowed the space agency to perform 

so brilliantly during its youth. In addition, we must take a lesson from our own pioneer past and from adopt a ‘‘travel light and live off the land’’ mission strategy similar to that which has well-served terrestrial explorers for centuries. 

The plan to explore the Red Planet in this way is known as Mars Direct. Here’s 

how it could be accomplished 

At an early launch opportunity, for example 2009, a single heavy lift booster with 

a capability equal to that of the Saturn V used during the Apollo program is 

launched off Cape Canaveral and uses its upper stage to throw a 40-tonne unmanned payload onto a trajectory to Mars. (Such a booster could be readily created 

by converting the Shuttle launch stack, deleting the Orbiter and replacing it with 

72 

a payload fairing containing a hydrogen/oxygen rocket stage.) Arriving at Mars eight 

months later, the spacecraft uses friction between its aeroshield and Mars’ atmosphere to brake itself into orbit around the planet, and then lands with the help of 

a parachute. This payload is the Earth Return Vehicle (ERV). It flies out to Mars 

with its two methane/oxygen driven rocket propulsion stages unfueled. It also carries six tonnes of liquid hydrogen cargo, a 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor mounted in 

the back of a methane/oxygen driven light truck, a small set of compressors and 

automated chemical processing unit, and a few small scientific rovers. 

As soon as the craft lands successfully, the truck is telerobotically driven a few 

hundred meters away from the site, and the reactor deployed to provide power to 

the compressors and chemical processing unit. The hydrogen brought from Earth 

can be quickly reacted with the Martian atmosphere, which is 95 percent carbon dioxide gas (CO2), to produce methane and water, thus eliminating the need for longterm storage of cryogenic hydrogen on the planet’s surface. The methane so produced is liquefied and stored, while the water is electrolyzed to produce oxygen, 

which is stored, and hydrogen, which is recycled through the methanator. Ultimately, these two reactions (methanation and water electrolysis) produce 24 tonnes 

of methane and 48 tonnes of oxygen. Since this is not enough oxygen to burn the 

methane at its optimal mixture ratio, an additional 36 tonnes of oxygen is produced 

via direct dissociation of Martian CO2. The entire process takes ten months, at the 

conclusion of which a total of 108 tonnes of methane/oxygen bipropellant will have 

been generated. This represents a leverage of 18:1 of Martian propellant produced 

compared to the hydrogen brought from Earth needed to create it. Ninety-six tonnes 

of the bipropellant will be used to fuel the ERV, while 12 tonnes are available to 

support the use of high powered, chemically fueled long range ground vehicles. 

Large additional stockpiles of oxygen can also be produced, both for breathing and 

for turning into water by combination with hydrogen brought from Earth. Since 

water is 89 percent oxygen (by weight), and since the larger part of most foodstuffs 

is water, this greatly reduces the amount of life support consumables that need to 

be hauled from Earth. 

The propellant production having been successfully completed, in 2011 two more 

boosters lift off the Cape and throw their 40-tonne payloads towards Mars. One of 

the payloads is an unmanned fuel-factory/ERV just like the one launched in 2009, 

the other is a habitation module carrying a crew of four, a mixture of whole food 

and dehydrated provisions sufficient for three years, and a pressurized methane/oxygen powered ground rover. On the way out to Mars, artificial gravity can be provided to the crew by extending a tether between the habitat and the burnt out 

booster upper stage, and spinning the assembly. 

Upon arrival, the manned craft drops the tether, aerobrakes, and lands at the 

2009 landing site where a fully fueled ERV and fully characterized and beaconed 

landing site await it. With the help of such navigational aids, the crew should be 

able to land right on the spot; but if the landing is off course by tens or even hundreds of kilometers, the crew can still achieve the surface rendezvous by driving 

over in their rover. If they are off by thousands of kilometers, the second ERV provides a backup. 

However, assuming the crew lands and rendezvous as planned at site number 

one, the second ERV will land several hundred kilometers away to start making 

propellant for the 2013 mission, which in turn will fly out with an additional ERV 

to open up Mars landing site number three. Thus, every other year two heavy lift 

boosters are launched, one to land a crew, and the other to prepare a site for the 

next mission, for an average launch rate of just one booster per year to pursue a 

continuing program of Mars exploration. Since in a normal year we can launch 

about six Shuttle stacks, this would only represent about 16 percent of the U.S. 

launch capability, and would clearly be affordable. In effect, this ‘‘live off the land’’ 

approach removes the manned Mars mission from the realm of mega-spacecraft fantasy and reduces it in practice as a task of comparable difficulty to that faced in 

launching the Apollo missions to the Moon. 

73 

Fig. 1 The Mars Direct plan. First an unfueled Earth Return Vehicle (ERV, right) is delivered 

to Mars where it manufactures its propellant from the Martian atmosphere. The crew then flies 

to Mars in the tuna-can-shaped hab module, which also provides living quarters, lab, and workshop for a 1.5 year Mars stay. (Artwork courtesy of Robert Murray, Pioneer Astronautics.) 

The crew will stay on the surface for 1.5 years, taking advantage of the mobility 

afforded by the high powered chemically driven ground vehicles to accomplish a 

great deal of surface exploration. With a 12 tonne surface fuel stockpile, they have 

the capability for over 24,000 kilometers worth of traverse before they leave, giving 

them the kind of mobility necessary to conduct a serious search for evidence of past 

or present life on Mars—an investigation key to revealing whether life is a phenomenon unique to Earth or general throughout the universe. Since no-one has been 

left in orbit, the entire crew will have available to them the natural gravity and protection against cosmic rays and solar radiation afforded by the Martian environment, and thus there will not be the strong driver for a quick return to Earth that 

plagues alternative Mars mission plans based upon orbiting mother-ships with 

small landing parties. At the conclusion of their stay, the crew returns to Earth in 

a direct flight from the Martian surface in the ERV. As the series of missions progresses, a string of small bases is left behind on the Martian surface, opening up 

broad stretches of territory to human cognizance. 

In essence, by taking advantage of the most obvious local resource available on 

Mars—its atmosphere—the plan allows us to accomplish a manned Mars mission 

with what amounts to a lunar-class transportation system. By eliminating any requirement to introduce a new order of technology and complexity of operations beyond those needed for lunar transportation to accomplish piloted Mars missions, the 

plan can reduce costs by an order of magnitude and advance the schedule for the 

human exploration of Mars by a generation. Indeed, since a lunar-class transportation system is adequate to reach Mars using this plan, it is rational to consider 

a milestone mission, perhaps five years into the program, where a subset of the 

Mars flight hardware is exercised to send astronauts to the Moon. 

Exploring Mars requires no miraculous new technologies, no orbiting spaceports, 

and no gigantic interplanetary space cruisers We don’t need to spend the next thirty 

years with a space program mired in impotence, spending large sums of money and 

taking occasional casualties while the same missions to nowhere are flown over and 

over again and professional technologists dawdle endlessly in their sand boxes without producing any new flight hardware. We simply need to choose our destination, 


1029ZUBR1.eps
74 

and with the same combination of vision, practical thinking, and passionate resolve 

that served us so well during Apollo, do what is required to get there. 

We can establish our first small outpost on Mars within a decade. We and not 

some future generation can have the eternal honor of being the first pioneers of this 

new world for humanity. All that’s needed is present day technology, some 19th century industrial chemistry, a solid dose of common sense, and a little bit of moxie. 

4. What Congress Needs to Do Now 

The U.S. civilian space program is presently in a crisis. It is now apparent that 

the Shuttle Orbiter cannot be used much longer as a system for transporting crews 

to Earth orbit. The Columbia disaster has made it clear that the antiquated Orbiters are becoming increasingly unsafe. Moreover, even if the Orbiter could be flown 

safely, it is clear that using a launch vehicle with a takeoff thrust matching that 

of a Saturn V to transport half a dozen people to the Space Station makes about 

as much sense as using an aircraft carrier to tow water skiers. The Shuttle was designed as a self-launching space station. Absent a permanent space station on-orbit, 

such a vehicle had some justification. But with the establishment of the ISS, the 

rationale for using a flying Winnebago as a space taxi is no longer sustainable. 

NASA has already begun to respond to this reality by starting the Orbital Space 

Plane (OSP) program, which will move the human taxi-to-orbit function from the 

Shuttle to a small capsule or mini-orbiter that can be launched on top of an Atlas 

or Delta. If constrained to the objective of producing a simple reliable capsule instead of a complex mini shuttle, such a program could make a great deal of sense. 

A simple capsule will be much safer than a more complex system, will have a much 

lower development cost, and can be made available for flight much sooner, thereby 

cutting short the risks and costs associated with prolonged Shuttle operations. 

Launched aloft a medium lift expendable launch vehicle, it could assume the Shuttle’s crew transfer function at less than 1/5th the cost. 

As rational as such an approach might be, however, it poses a direct threat to 

the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people associated with the existing Shuttle program, and to the bottom line of several major and many minor aerospace companies. 

For this reason, some people have been lobbying for making the OSP a complex 

mini shuttle program that would take many years to complete, and cost, at most 

recent estimate, some $17 billion. 

This is the wrong approach, and is emblematic of the pathology associated with 

what we have termed NASA’s Shuttle Mode of operation. The raid upon the treasury it involves would sap funding for any other space initiatives, and the delay it 

would entail in Shuttle replacement would expose our astronauts to serious unnecessary risk. Furthermore, despite patently false claims to the contrary, the wingand-landing gear ballasted mini-Shuttle is wildly suboptimal for use in any missions 

beyond low Earth orbit. 

As presently constituted, Congress should not fund this program. Making a goldplated mini-shuttle the centerpiece of NASA’s development efforts for the next ten 

years would prevent any human exploration operations for a generation, at the end 

of which we would be no better prepared to commence piloted planetary exploration 

than we are today. In fact, we would be worse off, since by simply downsizing from 

the Orbiter to the OSP mini-Shuttle as a means of transporting humans to orbit 

at lower recurring cost, we would end up discarding the ten-billion dollar asset represented by the STS launch stack. This would be a disaster, since in the context 

of a well-planned human exploration initiative, the STS stack would almost certainly be converted into a heavy lift vehicle, rather than scrapped. Such would be 

the consequences of adopting the piecemeal, reactive approach to dealing with the 

Shuttle/OSP problem. 

Rather than appropriate $17 billion for an OSP program that will not take us 

anywhere, Congress should appropriate $60 million to fund two six-month $30 million studies to develop end-to-end plans for human exploration of Mars. One of these 

$30 million studies should be conducted at NASA Johnson Space Center. The other 

$30 million should go to fund a competing interagency team led by someone from 

one of the non-NASA government space agencies. Each of these teams should be 

charged with the task of developing a complete space architecture and mission plan 

that enables humans to Mars within ten years of program start, with lunar missions 

enabled by a modified subset of the Mars mission hardware. Constraints should be 

placed on the plans such as a total development cost limit of $30 billion or less, with 

a recurring Mars mission cost no greater than $3 billion. 

Upon completion of the study, each of the plans should be submitted to a blueribbon panel appointed by Congress for evaluation on merit of cost, technical feasibility, and exploration capability. Based on that assessment, the team deemed superior should be selected to lead the human exploration program, and the hardware 

75 

elements required to implement its plan should be funded and built in accordance 

with a multi-year schedule laid down in the plan, and then flown. 

Once again, Congress should not fund the construction of things. It should fund 

the implementation of a plan. 

Directing funding in this focused way does not preclude engaging in exploratory 

research. What it does mean, however, is that the technologies chosen for research 

and development are those necessary to enable or enhance the plan, rather than 

those needed to maintain or enhance the funding of established research and development constituencies. 

The recommendation to fund two competing program design teams may seem surprising to some. However the experience of the past several decades has made it 

clear that, absent the spur of competition, efficient plans will not be generated. The 

nation does not need a Mars program plan that is bloated with funding for a plethora of unnecessary technology and infrastructure developments. Yet the incentive of 

as bureaucracy is to use the Mars mission as a kind of Christmas tree upon which 

to hang various desired technology programs as ornaments. This is the problem that 

caused NASA to respond to the elder president Bush’s call for a Space Exploration 

Initiative with a hopelessly bloated and overpriced plan in 1989, and is the root pathology that drove the generation of a hyper-complex gargantuan space program design by the NASA Headquarters NExT group during the more recent period. 

Mark Twain once said that nothing so focuses the mind as the knowledge that 

you are going to be shot in the morning. Only the certain knowledge that the cost 

increases associated with insertion of unnecessary elements in the mission plan 

threatens the complete loss of programmatic control will force either NASA or an 

alternative government organization to put parochial interests aside and design the 

best and most streamlined program possible. 

5. Conclusion 

Senator McCain, distinguished members of the Commerce Committee. Humanity 

today stands at the brink of a liberating development which will be remembered far 

into future ages, when nearly all the other events of our time are long forgotten. 

That development is the initiation of the human career as a spacefaring species. 

The Earth is not the only world. There are numerous other planetary objects in 

our own solar system, millions in nearby interstellar space, and hundreds of billions 

in the galaxy at large. The challenges involved in reaching and settling these new 

worlds are large, but not beyond humanity’s ultimate capacity. Were we to become 

spacefarers, we will open up a prospect for a human future that is vast in time and 

space, and rich in experience and potential to an extent that exceeds the imagination of anyone alive today. When we open the space frontier, we will open the door 

to the creation of innumerable new branches of human civilization, replete with new 

languages, new cultures, new literatures, new forms of social organization, new 

knowledge, technological contributions, and epic histories that will add immeasurably to the human story. 

We were once a small collection of tribes living in the east African rift valley. Had 

we stayed in our native habitat, that is all we would be today. Instead, we ventured 

forth, took on the challenges of the inhospitable ice age environments to the north, 

and then elsewhere, and in consequence, transformed ourselves into a global civilization. When we go into space, the expansion of our possibilities will be equally dramatic. As a result, the human experience a few thousand years from now will be 

as rich in comparison to ours, as our global society is in comparison to tribal culture 

of the Kenyan rift valley at the time of our species’ origin. 

Therefore, I believe that we here today sitting in this historic chamber are gathered not at the end of history, but at the beginning of history. That our Nation shall 

be remembered not so much for the great deeds our predecessors have already done, 

but for the still greater accomplishments they have prepared us, and those who will 

follow us, to do. Let us therefore embrace our role as humanity’s vanguard, as pioneers of the future. Let us honor the true American tradition by continuing it, and 

bravely take on the untamed space frontier to open new worlds for our posterity, 

as our courageous predecessors did for us. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I ask that you embrace the challenge of 

Mars, and act forcefully to put NASA on a track that will deliver real results. The 

American people want and deserve a space program that is actually going somewhere. For that to occur, it needs be given a goal, from that goal a produce a plan, 

and from that plan, action. It is within your power to make this happen. It is within 

your power to initiate a program of exploration that will lead in time to the greatest 

flowering of human potential, knowledge, progress, and freedom that history has 

ever known. I ask that you do so. 

Thank you for your attention. 

76 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ll look forward to reading your book, Doctor. 

Thank you for your enthusiastic testimony. Dr. Woods. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID WOODS, PROFESSOR, INSTITUTE FOR 

ERGONOMICS, THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 

Dr. WOODS. Senator McCain and Members of the Committee, I 

want to thank you for investing your time and energy on the future 

of NASA. As a specialist on risky decisionmaking, I’ve spent my career investigating failures and improving safety in complex settings, including nuclear power, health care, and aerospace, including studies of how mission control handles anomalies. 

To look forward and envision NASA as a high-reliability organization, to shift topics a little bit from the future missions, we first 

need to look back with clarity unobscured by hindsight bias. Admiral Gehman, as he’s pointed out this morning already, found that 

the hole in the wing was not produced simply by debris, but by 

holes in organizational decisionmaking. The factors that produced 

the holes in decisionmaking are not unique to NASA, but are generic vulnerabilities we’ve seen before in other tragedies and we 

unfortunately are likely to see again. 

The board’s investigation shows how NASA failed to balance 

safety risks with intense production pressure. As a result, this accident matches a classic pattern, a drift toward failure as defenses 

erode in the face of production pressure. The paradox of production 

and safety conflicts is that safety investments are most important 

when least affordable by schedule. The NASA of the future will recognize when the side effects of production pressure increase safety 

risks and will be able to add investments to safety. 

Another general pattern revealed in Columbia is an organization 

that takes past success as a reason for confidence instead of constantly monitoring for new emerging risks. NASA could not see the 

holes in its own decision-making process. The NASA of the future 

will have a safety organization that questions NASA’s own model, 

the risks it faces, and the counter-measures it deploys. Such a reassessment will help NASA find places where it has underestimated 

the potential for trouble. 

A third general pattern is a fragmented problem-solving process 

where no one could see the big picture, combined with breakdowns 

at the boundaries of organizational units. People were making decisions about what did or not pose a risk on very shaky technical 

data and without meaningful cross checks, but even more critically, 

no one noticed how their decisions rested on such shaky grounds, 

and no one noted the cross checks were missing. 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization with the 

technical expertise and authority to enhance coordination across 

the normal chain of command. A final pattern in Columbia is a 

failure to revise assessments as new evidence accumulates. Research has consistently shown that revising assessments is quite 

difficult and usually requires a new way of looking at previous 

facts. We provide this fresh view through interactions across diverse groups with diverse knowledge and tools. 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization that provides a fresh view on risk to help NASA see its own blind spots. 

How will this future for NASA come about. A new safety organizaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
77 

tion and culture can arise based on the principles of the emerging 

field of resilience engineering. Resilience engineering is build on 

the insights from the above patterns that we found in too many 

tragedies, and is concerned with assessing organizational risk, that 

is, the risk that the holes in organizational decisionmaking will 

produce an unrecognized drift toward failure boundaries. Resilience 

engineering also depends on having techniques, resources, and authority to make extra targeted investments in areas that can rebalance safety and production when they conflict. 

A traditional dilemma for safety organizations is the problem of 

cold water and an empty gun. Safety organizations raise questions 

which stop progress on production goals. We just saw that in the 

discussion on ISS. That’s the cold water. Yet, when line organizations ask for help on how to address the concerns, safety organizations may be unprepared to contribute the empty gun. As a result, 

in the long run the safety organization will fail in its mission. 

To avoid this pitfall and to achieve the vision, there are several 

actions that Congress can consider. First, create a new safety leadership team in NASA, well versed in organizational decisionmaking, systems approaches to safety, and human factors in complex systems. Second, provide the resources and authority to 

achieve what I call the three ‘‘I’’s of an effective safety organization. That is, to provide an independent voice that will challenge 

the conventional assumptions within management. Second, constructive involvement in targeted everyday decision-making so they 

have a finger on the pulse of what goes on, and actively generate 

information about weaknesses and how the organization is actually 

operating. 

To accomplish these three ‘‘I’s’’; independence, involvement, and 

information, Congress needs to provide funding directly and independent from NASA headquarters. Similarly, the safety leadership 

team needs to be chosen and accountable to designees of Congress, 

not directly to the NASA chain of command. For the safety organization to able to monitor what goes on and to be a constructive contributor, it needs to control a set of resources with its own authority to decide how to invest those resources to help line organizations. 

In conclusion, unfortunately it sometimes takes tragedies such as 

Columbia to create windows of opportunity for rapid learning and 

improvement. It is our responsibility to those who sacrificed so 

much to seize the opportunity to lead change. Congress can energize the creation of an independent, involved, and informed safety 

organization using principles of resilience engineering so that the 

NASA of the future will be able to create foresight about the changing patterns of risk before failure and harm occurs. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Woods follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID WOODS, PROFESSOR, INSTITUTE FOR ERGONOMICS, 

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

CREATING FORESIGHT: HOW RESILIENCE ENGINEERING CAN TRANSFORM NASA’S

APPROACH TO RISKY DECISION MAKING

Introduction 

To look forward and envision NASA as a high reliability organization, we need 

first to look back with clarity unobscured by hindsight bias. Admiral Gehman and 

78 

1Woods, D.D. and Cook, R.I. (2002). Nine Steps to Move Forward from Error. Cognition, Technology, and Work, 4(2): 137–144. 2The hindsight bias is a well reproduced research finding relevant to accident analysis and 

reactions to failure. Knowledge of outcome biases our judgment about the processes that led up 

to that outcome. 

In the typical study, two groups of judges are asked to evaluate the performance of an individual or team. Both groups are shown the same behavior; the only difference is that one group 

of judges are told the episode ended in a poor outcome; while other groups of judges are told 

that the outcome was successful or neutral. Judges in the group told of the negative outcome 

consistently assess the performance of humans in the story as being flawed in contrast with the 

group told that the outcome was successful. Surprisingly, this hindsight bias is present even if 

the judges are told beforehand that the outcome knowledge may influence their judgment. 

Hindsight is not foresight. After an accident, we know all of the critical information and 

knowledge needed to understand what happened. But that knowledge is not available to the 

participants before the fact. In looking back we tend to oversimplify the situation the actual 

practitioners faced, and this tends to block our ability to see the deeper story behind the label 

human error. 

the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) found the hole in the wing was 

produced not simply by debris, but by holes in organizational decision making. The 

factors that produced the holes in decision making are not unique to today’s NASA 

or limited to the Shuttle program, but are generic vulnerabilities that have contributed to other failures and tragedies across other complex industrial settings. 

For 24 years my research has examined the intersection of human decision making, computers, and high risk complex situations from nuclear power emergencies 

to highly automated cockpits to medical decision making, and specifically has included studies of how space mission operation centers handle anomalies. 

CAIB’s investigation shows how NASA failed to balance safety risks with intense 

production pressure. As a result, this accident matches a classic pattern—a drift toward failure as defenses erode in the face of production pressure. When this pattern 

is combined with a fragmented problem solving process that is missing cross checks 

and unable to see the big picture, the result is an organization that cannot see its 

own blind spots about risks. Further, NASA was unable to revise its assessment of 

the risks it faced and the effectiveness of its countermeasures against those risks 

as new evidence accumulated. What makes safety/production tradeoffs so insidious 

is that evidence of risks become invisible to people working hard to produce under 

pressure so that safety margins erodes over time. 

As an organizational accident Columbia shows the need for organizations to monitor their own practices and decision processes to detect when they are beginning 

to drift toward safety boundaries. The critical role for the safety group within the 

organization is to monitor the organization itself—to measure organizational risk— 

the risk that the organization is operating nearer to safety boundaries than it realizes. 

In studying tragedies such as Columbia, we have also found that failure creates 

windows for rapid learning and improvement in organizations. Seizing the opportunity to learn is the responsibility leaders owe to the people and families whose 

sacrifice and suffering was required to make the holes in the organization’s decision 

making visible to all. NASA and Congress now have the opportunity to transform 

the culture and operation of all of NASA (Shuttle, ISS, and space science missions), 

and by example transform other high risk organizations. 

The target is to help organizations maintain high safety despite production pressure. This is the topic of the newly emerging field of Resilience Engineering which 

uses the insights from research on failures in complex systems, including organizational contributors to risk, and the factors that affect human performance to provide 

practical systems engineering tools to manage risk proactively. 

NASA can use the emerging techniques of Resilience Engineering to balance the 

competing demands for very high safety with real time pressures for efficiency and 

production. By following the recommendations of the CAIB to thoroughly re-design 

its safety organization and provide for an independent technical authority, NASA 

can provide a model for high reliability organizational decision making. 

The Trouble with Hindsight 

The past seems incredible, the future implausible.1

Hindsight bias is a psychological effect that leads people to misinterpret the conclusions of accident investigations.2 Often the first question people ask about the decision making leading up to an accident such as Columbia is, ‘‘why did NASA continue flying the Shuttle with a known problem . . .?’’ (The known problem refers 

79 

3See S. Dekker’s The Field Guide to Human Error Investigations. Ashgate, 2002. 

4 Hollnagel, E. (1993). Human Reliability Analysis: Context and Control. London: Academic 

Press. 

to the dangers of debris striking and damaging the Shuttle wing during takeoff 

which the CAIB identified as the physical cause of the accident.) 

As soon as the question is posed in this way, it is easy to be trapped into oversimplifying the situation and the uncertainties involved before the outcome is known.3

After-the-fact ‘‘the past seems incredible,’’ hence NASA managers sound irrational 

or negligent in their approach to obvious risks. However, before any accident has 

occurred and while the organization is under pressure to meet schedule or increase 

efficiency, potential warning flags are overlooked or re-interpreted since the potential ‘‘future looks implausible.’’ For example, the signs of Shuttle tile damage became an issue of orbiter turn around time and not a flight risk. 

Because it is difficult to disregard ‘‘20/20 hindsight’’, it is easy to play the classic 

blame game, define a ‘‘bad’’ organization as the culprit, and stop. When this occurs, 

the same difficulties that led to the Columbia accident will go unrecognized in other 

programs and in other organizations. 

The CAIB worked hard to overcome hindsight bias and uncover the breakdown 

in organizational decision making that led to the accident. All organizations can 

misbalance safety risks with pressure for efficiency. It is difficult to sacrifice today’s 

real production goals to consider uncertain evidence of possible future risks. The 

heart of the difficulty is that it is most critical to invest resources to follow up on 

potential safety risks when the organization is least able to afford the diversion of 

resources due to pressure for efficiency or throughput. 

Five General Patterns Present in Columbia 

The CAIB report identifies a variety of contributors to the accident. These factors 

have been seen before in other accidents.4 Focusing on the general patterns present 

in this particular accident helps guide the process of envisioning the future of NASA 

as a high reliability organization. 

Classic patterns also seen in other accidents and research results include: 

• Drift toward failure as defenses erode in the face of production pressure. 

• An organization that takes past success as a reason for confidence instead of 

investing in anticipating the changing potential for failure. 

• Fragmented problem solving process that clouds the big picture. 

• Failure to revise assessments as new evidence accumulates. 

• Breakdowns at the boundaries of organizational units that impedes communication and coordination. 

1. The basic classic pattern in this accident is—Drift toward failure as defenses erode in the face of production pressure. 

My colleague, Erik Hollnagel in 2002, captured the heart of the Columbia accident 

when he commented on other accidents: 

If anything is unreasonable, it is the requirement to be both efficient and thorough at the same time—or rather to be thorough when with hindsight it was 

wrong to be efficient. 

Hindsight bias, by oversimplifying the situation people face before outcome is 

known, often hides tradeoffs between multiple goals. The analysis in the CAIB report provides the general context of a tighter squeeze on production goals creating 

strong incentives to downplay schedule disruptions. With shrinking time/resources 

available, safety margins were likewise shrinking in ways which the organization 

couldn’t see. 

Goal tradeoffs often proceed gradually as pressure leads to a narrowing focus on 

some goals while obscuring the tradeoff with other goals. This process usually happens when acute goals like production/efficiency take precedence over chronic goals 

like safety. If uncertain ‘‘warning’’ signs always lead to sacrifices on schedule and 

efficiency, how can any organization operate within reasonable parameters or meet 

stakeholder demands? 

The paradox of production/safety conflicts is: safety investments are most important when least affordable. It is precisely at points of intensifying production pressure that extra investments for managing safety risks are most critical. 

The NASA of the future will need a means to recognize when the side effects of 

production pressure may be increasing safety risks and under those circumstances 

develop a means to add investments to safety issues at the very time when the organization is most squeezed on resources and time. 

80 

5 Rochlin, G. I. (1999). Safe operation as a social construct. Ergonomics, 42 (11), 1549–1560. 6For example, see: E.S. Patterson, J.C. Watts-Perotti, D.D. Woods. Voice Loops as Coordination Aids in Space Shuttle Mission Control. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 8, 353—371, 

1999. J.C. Watts, D.D. Woods, E.S. Patterson. Functionally Distributed Coordination during 

Anomaly Response in Space Shuttle Mission Control. Proceedings of Human Interaction with 

2. Another general pattern identified in Columbia is that an organization 

takes past success as a reason for confidence instead of digging deeper 

to see underlying risks. 

One component in the drift process is the interpretation of past ‘‘success’’. The absence of failure is taken as positive indication that hazards are not present or that 

countermeasures are effective. An organization usually is unable to change its model 

of itself unless and until overwhelming evidence accumulates that demands revising 

the model. This is a guarantee that the organization will tend to learn late, that 

is, revise its model of risk only after serious events occur. An effective safety organization assumes its model of risks and countermeasures is fragile and seeks out evidence to revise and update this model.5 To seek out such information means the organization is willing to expose its blemishes. 

During the drift toward failure leading to the Columbia accident a mis-assessment took hold that resisted revision (that is, the mis-assessment that foam strikes 

pose only a maintenance and not a risk to orbiter safety). It is not simply that the 

assessment was wrong, but the inability to re-evaluate the assessment and re-examine evidence about risks that is troubling. 

The missed opportunities to revise and update the organization’s model of the 

riskiness of foam events seem to be consistent with what I have found in other cases 

of failure of foresight. I have described this discounting of evidence as ‘‘distancing 

through differencing’’ whereby those reviewing new evidence or incidents focus on 

differences, real and imagined, between the place, people, organization and circumstances where an incident happens and their own context. By focusing on the 

differences, people see no lessons for their own operation and practices or only narrow well bounded responses. 

Ominously, this distancing through differencing that occurred throughout the 

build up to the final Columbia mission can be repeated in the future as organizations and groups look at the analysis and lessons from this accident and the CAIB 

report. Others in the future can easily look at the CAIB conclusions and deny their 

relevance to their situation by emphasizing differences (e.g., my technical topic is 

different, my managers are different, we are more dedicated and careful about safety, we have already addressed that specific deficiency). 

One general principle to promote organizational learning in NASA is—Do not discard other events because they appear on the surface to be dissimilar. Rather, every 

event, no matter how dissimilar on the surface, contains information about underlying general patterns that help create foresight about potential risks before failure 

or harm occurs. 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization that question NASA’s own 

model of the risks it faces and the countermeasures deployed. Such review and reassessment will help NASA find places where it has underestimated the potential 

for trouble and revise its approach to create safety. 

3. Another general pattern identified in Columbia is a fragmented problem 

solving process that clouds the big picture. 

During Columbia there was a fragmented view of what was known about the 

strike and its potential implications. There was no place or person who had a complete and coherent view of the analysis of the foam strike event including the gaps 

and uncertainties in the data or analysis to that point. It is striking that people 

used what looked like technical analyses to justify previously reached conclusions, 

instead of using technical analyses to test tentative hypotheses (e.g., CAIB report, p. 

126 1st column). 

People were making decisions about what did or did not pose a risk on very shaky 

or absent technical data and analysis, and critically, they couldn’t see their decisions 

rested on shaky grounds (e.g., the memos on p. 141, 142 of he CAIB report illustrate 

the shallow, off hand assessments posing for and substituting for careful analysis). 

The breakdown or absence of cross-checks is also striking. Cross checks on the rationale for decisions is a critical part of good organizational decision making. Yet 

no cross checks were in place to detect, question or challenge the specific flaws in 

the rationale, and no one noted that cross-checks were missing. 

There are examples of organizations that avoid this fragmentation problem. Ironically, one of them is teamwork in NASA’s own Mission Control which has a successful record of analyzing and handling anomalies.6 In particular, the Flight DirecVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
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Complex Systems, IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1996. Patterson, E.S., and 

Woods, D.D. (2001). Shift changes, updates, and the on-call model in space shuttle mission control. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 10(3–4), 317–346. 7Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M. and Obstfeld, D. (1999). Organizing for High Reliability: Processes of Collective Mindfulness. Research in Organizational Behavior, Volume 21, pp. 81–123. 8D.D. Woods, J. O’Brien, and L.F. Hanes. Human factors challenges in process control: The 

case of nuclear power plants. In G. Salvendy, editor, Handbook of Human Factors/Ergonomics, 

Wiley, New York, 1987. 

tor and his or her team practice identifying and handling anomalies through simulated situations. Note that shrinking budgets lead to pressure to reduce training investments (the amount of practice, the quality of the simulated situations, and the 

number or breadth of people who go through the simulations sessions can all decline). 

The fragmentation of problem solving also illustrates Karl Weick’s point 7 about 

how important it is that high reliability organizations exhibit a ‘‘deference to expertise’’, ‘‘reluctance to simplify interpretations’’, and ‘‘preoccupation with potential for 

failure’’ none of which were in operation in NASA’s organizational decision making 

leading up to and during Columbia. 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization that ensures that adequate technical grounds are established and used in organizational decision making. 

To accomplish this for NASA, the safety organization will need to define the kinds 

of anomalies to be practiced as well as who should participates in those simulation 

training sessions. The value of such training depends critically on designing a diverse set of anomalous scenarios with detailed attention to how they unfold. By 

monitoring performance in these simulated training cases, the safety personnel are 

able assess the quality of organizational decision making. 

4. The fourth pattern in Columbia is a Failure to revise assessments as new 

evidence accumulates. 

I first studied this pattern in nuclear power emergencies 20 plus years ago.8 What 

was interesting in the data then was how difficult it is to revise a mis-assessment 

or to revise a once plausible assessment as new evidence comes in. This finding has 

been reinforced in subsequent studies in different settings. 

The crux is to notice the information that changes past models of risk and calls 

into question the effectiveness of previous risk reduction actions, without having to 

wait for complete clear cut evidence. If revision only occurs when evidence is overwhelming, there is a grave risk of an organization acting too risky and finding out 

only from near misses, serious incidents, or even actual harm. Instead, the practice 

of revising assessments of risks needs to be an ongoing process. In this process of 

continuing re-evaluation, the working assumption is that risks are changing or evidence of risks has been missed. 

Research consistently shows that revising assessments successfully requires a 

new way of looking at previous facts. We provide this ‘‘fresh’’ view: 

(a) by bringing in people new to the situation 

(b) through interactions across diverse groups with diverse knowledge and tools, 

(c) through new visualizations which capture the big picture and re-organize data 

into different perspectives. 

One constructive action is to develop the collaborative inter-changes that generate 

fresh points of view or that produce challenges to basic assumptions. This cross 

checking process is an important part of how NASA mission control responds to 

anomalies. One can also capture and display indicators of safety margin to help people see when circumstances or organizational decisions are pushing the system closer to the edge of the safety envelope. 

What is so disappointing about NASA’s organizational decision making is that the 

correct diagnosis of production/safety tradeoffs and useful recommendations for organizational change were noted in 2000. The Mars Climate Orbiter report of March 

13, 2000 clearly depicts how the pressure for production and to be ‘better’ on several 

dimensions led to management accepting riskier and riskier decisions. This report 

recommended many organizational changes similar to the CAIB. A slow and weak 

response to the previous independent board report was a missed opportunity to improve organizational decision making in NASA. 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization that provides ‘‘fresh’’ 

views on risks to help NASA see its own blind spots and question its conventional 

assumptions about safety risks. 

82 

9For initial background on the emergence of resilience engineering see Rasmussen, J. Risk 

Management, Adaptation, and Design for Safety. In B. Brehmer and N.-E. Sahlin (Eds.) Future 

Risks and Risk Management. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, 1994. Rasmussen, J. (1997). Risk 

Management in a Dynamic Society: A Modelling Problem. Safety Science, 27, 183–213. Reason, 

J. (2001). Assessing the Resilience of Health Care Systems to the Risk of Patient Mishaps. 

Carthy, J., de Leval, M. R. and Reason, J. T. (2001). Institutional Resilience in Healthcare Systems. Quality in Health Care, 10: 29–32. Weick, K. E. and Sutcliffe, K. M. (2001). Managing 

the unexpected: assuring high performance in an age of complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Cook, R. I., Render, M. L. and Woods, D.D. (2000). Gaps in the continuity of care and progress 

on patient safety. British Medical Journal, 320, 791–794, March 18, 2000. Woods, D. D. and 

Shattuck, L. G. (2000). Distance supervision—local action given the potential for surprise Cognition, Technology and Work, 2, 86–96. Leveson, N. G. (in press). A New Accident Model for Engineering Safer Systems. Safety Science. Roberts, K.H., Desai, V., and Madsen, P. (in press) 

Work Life and Resilience in High Reliability Organizations. In E. Kossek and S. Lambert (Eds.) 

Work and Life Integration Mahwah: NJ: Erlbaum. 

5. Finally, the Columbia accident brings to the fore another pattern: Breakdowns at the boundaries of organizational units. 

The CAIB notes how a kind of catch 22 was operating in which the people charged 

to analyze the anomaly were unable to generate any definitive traction and in which 

the management was trapped in a stance shaped by production pressure that views 

such events as turn around issues. This effect of an ‘‘anomaly in limbo’’ seems to 

emerge only at boundaries of different organizations that do not have mechanisms 

for constructive interplay. It is here that we see the operation of the generalization 

that in risky judgments we have to defer to those with technical expertise (and the 

necessity to set up a problem solving process that engages those practiced at recognizing anomalies in the event). 

This pattern points to the need for mechanisms that create effective overlap 

across different organizational units and to avoid simply staying inside the chain 

of command mentality (though such overlap can be seen as inefficient when the organization is under severe cost pressure). 

The NASA of the future will have a safety organization with the technical expertise and authority to enhance coordination across the normal chain of command. 

Resilience Engineering 

Resilience Engineering is built on insights derived from the above five patterns. 

Resilience Engineering is concerned with assessing organizational risk, that is the 

risk that holes in organizational decision making will produce unrecognized drift toward failure boundaries.9

While assessing technical hazards is one kind of input into Resilience Engineering, the goal is to monitor organizational decision making. For example, Resilience 

Engineering would monitor evidence that effective cross checks are well-integrated 

when risky decisions are made or would serve as a check on how well the organization is practicing the handling of simulated anomalies (what kind of anomalies, who 

is involved in making decisions). 

Other dimensions of organizational risk include the commitment of the management to balance the acute pressures of production with the chronic pressures of protection. Their willingness to invest in safety and to allocate resources to safety improvement in a timely, proactive manner, despite pressures on production and efficiency, are key factors in ensuring a resilient organization. 

The degree to which the reporting of safety concerns and problems is truly open 

and encouraged provides another significant source of resilience within the organization. Assessing the organization’s response to incidents indicates if there is a 

learning culture or a culture of denial. Other dimensions include: 

Preparedness/Anticipation: is the organization proactive in picking up on evidence of developing problems versus only reacting after problems become significant? 

Opacity/Observability—does the organization monitors safety boundaries and 

recognize how close it is to ‘the edge’ in terms of degraded defenses and barriers? To what extent is information about safety concerns widely distributed 

throughout the organization at all levels versus closely held by a few individuals? 

Flexibility/Stiffness—how does the organization adapt to change, disruptions, 

and opportunities? 

Revise/Fixated—how does the organization update its model of vulnerabilities 

and the effectiveness of countermeasures over time? 

83 

The NASA of the future will create a new safety organization and culture that 

is skilled at the three basics of Resilience Engineering: 

(1) detecting signs of increasing organizational risk, especially when production 

pressures are intense or increasing; 

(2) having the resources and authority to make extra investments in safety at 

precisely these times when it appears least affordable; 

(3) having a means to recognize when and where to make targeted investments 

to control rising signs of organizational risk and re-balance the safety and production tradeoff. 

These mechanisms will produce an organization that creates foresight about 

changing risks before failures occur. 

Redesigning NASA for Safety: An Independent, Involved, and Informed 

Safety Organization 

One traditional dilemma for safety organizations is the problem of ‘‘cold water and 

an empty gun.’’ Safety organizations raise questions which stop progress on production goals—the ‘‘cold water.’’ Yet when line organizations ask for help on how to address the safety concerns, while being responsive to production issues, the safety organization has little to contribute—the ‘‘empty gun.’’ As a result, the safety organization fails to better balance the safety/production tradeoff in the long run. In the 

short run following a failure, the safety organization is emboldened to raise safety 

issues, but in the longer run the memory of the previous failure fades, production 

pressures dominate, and the drift processes operate unchecked (as has happened in 

NASA before Columbia and appears to be happening again with respect to ISS). 

Re-shuffling personnel and re-tuning the existing safety organization does not 

meet the spirit of the CAIB recommendations. First, a new leadership team well 

versed in organizational decision making, systems approaches to safety, and human 

factors in complex systems needs to be assembled and empowered. 

Second, the key target for the new safety organization is to monitor and balance 

the tradeoff of production pressure and risk. To do this the leadership team needs 

to implement a program for managing organizational risk—detecting emerging 

‘holes’ in organizational decision making—based on advancing the techniques of Resilience Engineering. 

Third, the new safety organization needs the resources and authority to achieve 

the three ‘‘I’s’’ of an effective safety organization (independence, involvement, information): 

provide an independent voice that challenges conventional assumptions within 

NASA management, 

constructive involvement in targeted but everyday organizational decision making (for example, ownership of technical standards, waiver granting, readiness 

reviews, and anomaly definition). 

actively generate information about how the organization is actually operating, 

especially to be able to gather accurate information about weaknesses in the organization. 

Safety organizations must achieve independence enough to question the normal 

organizational decision making. At best the relationship between the safety organization and NASA senior management will be one of constructive tension. Inevitably, 

there will be periods where senior management tries to dominate the safety organization. Congress needs to provide the safety organization the tools to resist these 

predictable episodes by providing funding directly and independent from NASA 

headquarters. Similarly, to achieve independence, the safety leadership team needs 

to be chosen and accountable to designees of Congress, not directly to the NASA administrator or NASA headquarters. 

Safety organizations must be involved in enough everyday organizational activities to have a finger on the pulse of the organization and to be seen as a constructive part of how NASA balances safety and production goals. This means the new 

safety organization needs to control a set of resources and the authority to decide 

how to invest these resources to help line organizations provide high safety while 

accommodating production goals. For example, the safety organization could decide 

to invest and develop new anomaly response training programs when it detects 

holes in organizational decision making processes. 

In general, safety organizations risk becoming information limited as they can be 

shunted aside from real organizational decisions, kept at a distance from the actual 

work processes, and kept busy tabulating irrelevant counts when their activities are 

seen as a threat by line management (for example, the ‘cold water’ problem). IndeVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00087 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
84 

pendent, involved and informed—these three properties of an effective safety organization are closely connected and mutually reinforcing. 

Conclusion 

The future NASA will balance the goals of both high productivity and ultra-high 

safety given the uncertainty of changing risks and certainty of continued pressure 

for efficient and high performance. To carry out this dynamic balancing act requires 

a new safety organization designed and empowered to be independent, involved and 

informed. The safety organization will use the tools of Resilience Engineering to 

monitor for ‘‘holes’’ in organizational decision making and to detect when the organization is moving closer to failure boundaries than it is aware. Together these processes will create foresight about the changing patterns of risk before failure and 

harm occurs. 

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes tragedies such as Columbia to create windows 

of opportunity for rapid learning and improvement. It is our responsibility to seize 

the opportunity created at such cost to lead change. Congress can energize the creation of an independent, involved and informed safety organization in NASA. The 

NASA of the future can become the model of an organization that escapes the trap 

of production pressure eroding safety margins. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Tumlinson, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF RICK TUMLINSON, FOUNDER, 

SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Good afternoon, Senator McCain, Members of 

the Committee. Before I start I want to plant a thought in your 

mind. The next American to enter space will do so within a year. 

They will not be a government employee and they will not be flying 

on a government vehicle. Just think about that. 

I’m honored to be given this chance to discuss our future in space 

and I’m honored and pleased 

The CHAIRMAN. Who will it be, Mr. Tumlinson? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. I’ll get to that as we move along, building the 

suspense there, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. TUMLINSON. I’m honored to be given the chance to discuss 

the future of America’s agenda in space and I congratulate you for 

reaching outside the usual circle of suspects. Over the years I’ve 

been known to give NASA a bit of a hard time for failing to open 

space to the American people, but to be frank, they’ve really never 

been given that job. In fact, as ironic as it is for such a frontier 

nation as our own, it’s not now, nor has it ever been, the policy of 

the United States to open space to human settlement, and without 

such a powerful vision to develop, to organize itself around, and 

steer toward, other interests have taken the wheel, turning what 

was once the greatest tool for exploration ever seen in human history into a jobs program and a corporate cash cow. Worse, it’s 

squandered the position of the symbol of American spirit and as an 

inspiration to new generations here and around the world. 

So what do we do to change this sad state of affairs? First, we 

must agree that the development and permanent human habitation 

of space is the goal of the human space flight program, for if it is 

not then I must agree with the scientists, who say that this is a 

waste of time. Cancel the program, send the astronauts home, let 

them get jobs with airlines. Personally, I don’t want to see that 

happen. We’re America, we’re a nation of pioneers, and we must 

recognize the reason we send people into space is to send people 

into space to live, to work, and to expand the human domain. 

85 

If America can recognize this truth we can make it the drive of 

our space agenda. Then the way forward becomes very clear. We 

will begin to see the Earth as the center of an expanding bubble 

of life. So far that bubble has been expanded to the moon. The inside of that bubble is what I call the near frontier. It’s a place 

where our government explorers have done their job. The closer we 

get to the Earth the more sense it makes for the settlers and shopkeepers to take over in the form of commercial enterprises. 

From the moon outwards extends the far frontier, where private 

investment offers little hope of return, but the investment of our 

society in the form of tax dollars does. It’s returned in the form of 

science, knowledge, and the understanding of what is next as the 

bubble expands. We must get NASA as our modern day Lewis and 

Clarks out of the near frontier of low-Earth orbit and back to the 

job of exploring, and that means sending them to the far frontier 

of the moon and Mars. 

At the same time, we must mobilize the incredible power and 

imagination of the American private sector that has made this Nation great, to take on the operational tasks that it does best in the 

near frontier. In other words, NASA should get out of what should 

be the business of driving trucks and building housing in a place 

where their work is done. Such things are done far more efficiently 

in our culture by the private sector. 

For example, NASA long ago pioneered the concept of earth to 

space transportation. Now it must hand this function to others. In 

fact, the private sector is already moving into this new market and 

doing so quickly. Contrast NASA’s plans for a $10 billion orbital 

space plane with the innovative $30 million suborbital rocket ship 

now under constructed by famed aircraft builder Burt Rutan and 

the half-dozen or so other rocket ships in the suborbital realm that 

are being built by what I call the alternative space firms, we’re the 

alt. space firms. 

Sure, orbital spacecraft design is far more complex than sub- orbital, but $10 billion more complex? Imagine what the Rutans 

and these other elements of the alt space community could do in 

a competitive transportation marketplace for just a fraction of the 

orbital space plane’s budget. Obviously, given these new set of 

players in the field, I believe we should end the orbital space plane 

project and the shuttle programs now. The government should offer 

prizes and multiple NASA and DOD launch contracts to any U.S. 

firms that can demonstrate safe and reliable orbital transportation 

at the lowest cost. Plus, we should create a nurturing regulatory 

environment for these innovative projects. 

NASA can then concentrate on the challenge of space-to-space 

transportation and the surface habitations it will need to return to 

the moon and go on to Mars as it rediscovers its role as an exploration agency. Now, if these things are done, within a decade we 

could see a thriving community of hotels, science, industrial, and 

government facilities orbiting the Earth like a string of pearls. Our 

first space town, Alpha Town, could be created. 

Meanwhile, NASA astronauts will train for Mars missions at 

NASA’s planetary surface training base on the South Pole of the 

moon, spending their free time at the nearby lunar Hilton, also 

home to astronomers working on giant far-side observatories as 

86 

they look for signs of life on the other world, selenologists studying 

the moon’s surface for hints to the history of the Earth, helium-3 

and platinum miners back from surveying new mining sites, and 

the usual guest lists of poets, artists, and the few people there just 

for the view of Earth outside of their window. 

This all is a tiny hint of what is possible if we do the things we 

need to do now. We must decide to go outwards, this time to stay. 

We must create a new partnership between the Government and 

the private sector, the people, as we’ve done in the computer and 

Internet worlds, and trust the people to do what they do best for 

the benefit of both. And someone of vision must stand up, declare 

the frontier open for business, and tell NASA which way to go. As 

I know, the great people of that organization can do it if their orders are clear. 

Opening the frontier of space will give our children choices, as 

Kennedy said, by providing new opportunities and turn the future 

before them from an ever-narrowing wedge of declining possibilities 

in an ever-more depleted and controlled world to a wide-open vista 

of hope. Space offers us vast new resources to supply our civilization, from the unlimited energy available in space to asteroids 

made up of more gold and platinum than the human race has used 

in its entire history. It will create unimaginable new wealth and 

an economy that is endlessly expanding as space itself. 

Given the new spaces and places out there, our children will 

have the chance to grow democracy and freedom into new forms 

and continue this great experiment our ancestors began when they 

came to this world not so long ago. For me, that is a dream worth 

having, and for me that is a worthy goal for America. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tumlinson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICK TUMLINSON, FOUNDER, 

SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION

Rick Tumlinson—Biographical Information—October 2003 

Rick N. Tumlinson—Born to a long time Texas family whose pioneering credits 

include co founding the Texas Rangers and fighting in the Alamo, Rick Tumlinson 

is a well-known firebrand and evangelist for the space frontier. He is the son of an 

Air Force Sergeant and his English wife, and was educated primarily in England 

and Texas. A regular contributor to the space industry paper ‘‘Space News’’ 

Tumlinson’s writings and quotes have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street 

Journal, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Reader’s Digest and dozens of other publications. He has appeared on such national television programs as ABC’s World 

News Tonight, the CBS Morning Show, and Politically Incorrect. Internationally he 

has appeared on TV sets from Russia to China’s CCTV and the BBC and been 

quoted in a wide range of journals, from the Economist to China’s People’s Daily. 

Tumlinson worked for noted scientist Gerard K. O’Neill at the Space Studies Institute, produced the animated videos used to gain funding for the Air Force’s DC– 

X rocket project and created the first ever paid political announcement for space. 

He was the first space consultant for the Sci Fi channel and played a major role 

in raising funding the International Space University. He helped pass the Space 

Settlement Act of 1988, testified before the National Commission on Space, was a 

founding trustee of the X-Prize and has been a lead witness in three congressional 

hearings on NASA in the 1990s. Rick is Executive Director and co-Founder of the 

Foundation for the International Non-Governmental Development of Space 

(FINDS),a multi-million dollar foundation which funds breakthrough projects and 

activities such as Helium 3 research, laser launch studies, and asteroid processing 

projects, The organization provided $1OOk in seed money for the Mars Society, operated the Cheap Access to Space Prize and supported such projects as The WATCH 

asteroid search program. FINDS was also the primary funding source and co sponVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
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sored a very successful series of Senate Space Roundtables in conjunction with the 

Space Frontier Foundation and the lobby Pro-Space over the last few years. 

Mr. Tumlinson co-founded the firm LunaCorp, which produced the first ever TV 

commercial shot on the International Space Station for Radio Shack. He led the 

team which turned the Mir Space Station into the world’s first commercial space 

facility, co founded the space firm MirCorp, signed up Dennis Tito, the world’s first 

‘‘citizen explorer,’’ and has assisted in numerous other such projects. 

Recently, Rick has appeared as an expert guest on the ‘‘CBS Evening News with 

Dan Rather,’’ CNBC’s ‘‘Open Exchange’’ and was quoted in the Washington Post, LA 

Times, and the Orlando Sentinel, regarding the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. 

He appears often as a space commentator on CNN and is working on his first book. 

‘‘Manifesto for the Space Frontier.’’ 

In his spare time Rick collects vintage tin space toys and robots from the 1950s, 

is into four-wheel drive off-roading, raising tropical fish and riding his motorcycle. 

SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION

Background 

Who We Are 

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization of space activists, scientists and 

engineers, media and political professionals, entrepreneurs, and citizens from all 

backgrounds, beliefs and nations. Our central and driving goal is the large-scale permanent settlement of space as soon as possible, using the resources we find there, 

and the imaginations we bring to the task. 

We believe all people have the ‘‘right stuff’ and that everyone will benefit from 

opening the space frontier. Given the fragility of our planet we also believe that it 

is vital that we not only preserve the biosphere of earth using the resources of 

space, but that we expand that biosphere, taking life to worlds now dead. If successful, we see our future as exciting and full of possibility. 

We reject the ideas that the world’s greatest moments are in its past, that the 

advancement of our technological civilization must mean the decline of our ecosystem, and we are determined to transform the image held by many that the future will be worse than the present. 

We believe that free people, free markets and free enterprise will become 

unstoppable forces in the irreversible settlement of this new frontier, and that our 

world is on the verge of a truly historic breakthrough—access to space for all. 

To make that happen, we are engaged in the transformation of space from a government-owned bureaucratic program-into a new partnership between the public 

and private sectors-that will lead to a dynamic and inclusive frontier open to all people. 

This all means we are about opening space for you and your children, and doing 

it now! So get involved! 

The Business of the Foundation: 

Foundationers inspire! 

Foundation speakers present a future that excites inspires and includes citizens 

from all nations, and through awards, briefings, gatherings and presentations our 

ideas are driving the portrayal of space into new directions. 

Foundationers Are Active! 

We work on policy issues at the national and international level, interacting with 

those who make the decisions. We speak to the media, challenging their old assumptions about space and the future, and using our access to let the world know what 

is possible on the frontier, and needs to be done today to get us there. We teach, 

letting the children of our world know they have a better tomorrow in store, and 

using the vastness of our universe to bring them together as we all reach for the 

dream of a tomorrow that is full of choices and hope. 

Foundationers Make Things Happen! 

• Remember the Lunar Prospector that found signs of water on the Moon? 

Foundationers helped start that project. 

• Recall the breakthrough flights of the little rocket called the DC–X? 

Foundationers helped get it off the ground. 

• Who were the people who made the Mir the world’s first commercial space station? Foundationers put up their sweat and cash and took a stand. 

88 

• Who shot the first TV commercial on the space station? Foundationers worked 

with the space station partners and put Radio Shack in space. 

• Who signed up Dennis Tito to fly and fought for his right to go into space? 

Foundationers did the deal and helped clear the path for his incredible adventure. 

• Who are the people building many of the new and innovative vehicles to fly people like you and I into space? Foundationers are building new re-usable 

rocketships right now. 

• Who threw the world’s first global space party known as Yuri’s Night? 

Foundationers put the ‘‘rock’’ into rocket and reached out to a new generation. 

Our members are encouraged to take actions that help to open the Frontier in 

their private lives jobs and businesses. Dozens of our members have formed companies and organizations that further our goals in different ways. From other nonprofits to rocket companies to space services and travel groups to publishing and 

Internet firms, they are getting the word out and making space happen! 

Events and Projects of the Foundation 

Space Enterprise Symposiums—In space, nobody stays until somebody pays. That 

means we either create profitable enterprises or remain dependent on the government and taxpayer largesse. In our SES events we bring space entrepreneurs and 

real financiers and investors together, to educate both on the economic promise and 

peril of this new frontier. 

Return to the Moon Conference— 

Yuri’s Night— 

Roundtables— 

Conference—As a manifestation of our ‘‘All of the above’’ philosophy, the Space 

Frontier Conference (SFC) is the center-piece event in the Foundation’s annual calendar. It brings together entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, entertainment leaders, government representative and private citizens to talk about, present, share 

and debate the latest and greatest ideas and activities affecting space. 

The WATCH 

Permission to Dream 

Vision to Reality Award 

Vision of the Tomorrow Award 

Chained Rocket Award 

Return to the Moon Symposium—One of the most important ways we can accelerate the exploration and settlement of the Solar System is to Return to the Moon 

to establish a permanent government and commercial base. Held each year in Houston on the day humans first stepped on the Moon, the RTM Symposium is the 

world’s premiere gathering of experts, entrepreneurs, astronauts and activists working to make this happen. 

Senate Space Roundtables—The Foundation keeps a strong presence in Washington D.C. . . From the asteroid threat to commercializing the space station and 

space solar power, our Space Roundtables provide an important forum to educate 

lawmakers and staffers about issues facing the space frontier movement. 

Yuri’s Night—Each April this global space party puts the ‘‘Rock’’ back into 

‘‘Rocketship’’. Aimed at the under 30 set, Yuri’s night celebrates the historic flight 

of Yuri Gagarin that opened the era of humans in space, bringing a new generation 

into the fight for the frontier. 

The WATCH—The WATCH program is focused on leveraging and focusing the attention of astronomers and the media on the threat and promise we face from near 

Earth objects such as asteroids and comets. To date the WATCH has funded discovery and tracking programs, and supported important NEO educational outreach 

events and meetings. 

Permission to Dream—PTD uses space to deliver a message of hope, unity and 

involvement to youth around the world. To date PTD has supported the placement 

of donated telescopes and lessons in countries as diverse as Chile, Iran, Zimbabwe, 

Russia and India, and is developing classroom projects and hands on space educational outreach in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities. 

Awards—The Foundation uses various awards to move our agenda ahead and reward those who help create and realize our vision of an open Space Frontier. Our 

Vision to Reality Award goes to those projects and firms who make things happen 

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in space, and our Vision of the Future Award is given to the film or media project 

that best inspires and educates people about the possibilities offered by the Frontier. 

‘‘The Space Frontier Foundation is pound for pound the most effective space group 

in the world.’’ 

TESTIMONY OF RICK TUMLINSON, FOUNDER, SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION

Why space? 

‘‘We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and 

do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because 

that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to 

postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. . .’’ 

Standing in Houston, Texas in the early 1960s, a young and vibrant President 

named John F. Kennedy looked skyward and offered a new and hopeful future to 

his generation. In the middle of a Cold War, in the heart of a time when the threat 

of total annihilation loomed over the heads of everyone, he dared to challenge those 

listening to take on a higher goal. Rather than succumb to the darkness, he held 

out light, and rather than cast what was in reality a technological face off into the 

mix of that shadow war, he held it aloft, a beacon to all who could hear and understand what he meant. At just the time when it seemed there was no choice but the 

continuation of a pointless global wrestling match which at any moment could result 

in the end for all, he spoke of choices. 

Choices 

Today we must ask ourselves again. What kind of tomorrow do we want to give 

to our kids? The choice is ours. You might say we have three possible futures we 

can give them—less, the same and more. 

Our first possible choice, and the one lots of folks sometimes seem to believe is 

inevitable, is the worst. It’s what might happen if we keep on rolling along and do 

nothing about conserving our natural resources or accessing new. The characterization we see in popular culture and films such as the Matrix, the Terminator series, 

and other dark dystopian images. It is an apocalyptic vision, the result of a time 

when all the world’s cultures rush to create consumer societies such as those in Europe, Japan and the USA. Eventually our excesses exceed our limits and we end 

up with a polluted and stripped world whose environment collapses, bringing down 

whole societies, leading to war, famine, the end of global culture, and the dawn of 

a new dark age. 

Our second choice is to attempt to sustain the human race on this one world 

through rationing of resources—at the cost of personal freedom—as we anesthetize 

ourselves with virtual realities and sensory distortions. . . Under the heavy hand 

of global Big Brother, our lives, actions, and even our very thoughts will be monitored and controlled. Imagination and innovation will be seen as threats to order 

and safety. Risk will be avoided at all cost. Perhaps we will eventually become so 

physically and intellectually passive that we finally load ourselves into banks of virtual electronic realities and pass the eons in a bliss of pretend adventures and paradises uncounted, until some global catastrophe such as an asteroid strike sends us 

into oblivion. 

Or there’s the third choice, opening the High Frontier of space and breaking out 

into the galaxy. Celebrating the spirit of exploration and individuality, we begin to 

truly explore and open the space around us to human settlement. Turning debates 

between free enterprise technologists and protectors of the Earth on their heads, we 

unleash the power of human imagination to create ways to harvest the resources 

of space, not only saving this precious planet, but also blazing a path to the stars. 

This is a tomorrow where life is exciting, new possibilities open up each day, and 

humanity spreads outwards, as the harbinger of life to worlds now dead. This future 

is characterized by new ideas and cultures spreading everywhere, the entire human 

race engaged in spreading life to the stars and a future that is ever expanding and 

hopeful. 

Opening the space frontier will also change what it means to be an American. The 

effect of the space frontier on America will be profound. Our pioneering past will 

at last have a direct link to our future. Our heritage will be connected with our tomorrow in a visible and exciting way. The paths blazed by Daniel Boone, Davy 

Crockett and Lewis and Clark will continue onward and upward across the stars. 

The spirit of family will be resurrected as the frontier ethics of hard work and familial support are reinforced through the simple need to survive and prosper in a hosVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
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tile environment. Our relationship to the rest of the world will change, as we throw 

open the doors to a better tomorrow for all, and as we always do, offer to hold those 

doors open for all and everyone to follow. Opening the frontier will change what it 

means to be a human being. We will become a multi-planet species, assuring our 

survival, and that of the life forms for which we are responsible. And a child living 

in such times will know why they are alive, and be able to see an unending and 

ever opening panorama of possibility stretching out before them 

A Human Need 

The simplicity of the needs which are fulfilled by opening this frontier is what 

makes it all so compelling and at once so elusive. We always want to make things 

seem more practical. In conversations and talk we speak of the need for ‘‘down to 

Earth’’ answers to such questions as those the frontier poses. But the real needs 

are often much more spiritual, much more about the core issues of life, and those 

of us who speak of the frontier often do ourselves a disservice by trying to dress 

down our Vision. We want to answer engineers and accountants with numbers, politicians with political reasons, environmentalists with new fixes for the seemingly intractable challenges we face in resource utilization and pollution. 

The reasons we must open the frontier are as varied as the people who want to 

see it opened. And almost all of the reasons are good ones, although some, to me 

begin to rise above the rest. But in the end, most either enable or lead to a few 

basic and very core rationales. 

We must open the frontier to expand this grand experiment called freedom, because without an arena to feed and nurture the ideals of liberty, individual choice 

and the right to do and be whatever you want they may well perish from the Earth. 

We must open the frontier because without an edge to our packed culture of individuals, nurturing and then bringing in new ideas and giving release to bad ones, the 

center comes apart. We must open the frontier to find and create new wealth for 

humanity, because everyone in the world deserves the chance to have the same fine 

house, fine cars, and good life you can potentially have, and this planet alone simply 

cannot provide support that, unless you give up yours (and someone, sometime will 

try and make you do so). We open the frontier to help save the planet we love from 

the ravages caused by our ever growing numbers and our hunger for new forms of 

energy, materials and products. Finally, and most importantly, we must open the 

frontier as humans to survive as a species and to protect our precious biosphere 

from destruction by the forces of the universe or ourselves by making it redundant. 

As you can see, there are ‘‘Big’’ reasons, such as species survival and the need 

to provide new choices to future generations. For example, to those who must look 

into the eyes of a child who carries their immortality, we must open the frontier 

because our children deserve a future of more and better, not the drab and boring 

and potentially scary place we hold before them now. As Kennedy was pointing out, 

we must offer them more choices, not fewer. 

Yet, many of the real reasons we reach outwards aren’t easily quantifiable, often 

boiling down to the examination of history, the faith we have in what is possible 

in any new arena of human endeavour, and in fact, down to a deep, almost mystical 

belief that this is the ‘‘right’’ thing to do. And then, just below the surface of all 

of these lies something that is simply genetic-the drive for any species to expand 

its domain. 

I believe that the human species is pioneering creature, that for us to be at our 

best we must always be pushing out from the center into new realms, that we must 

always be expanding outwards or we turn on ourselves. I believe it is the destiny 

of the human race to open the Frontier of space, and that if we do not we shall 

be doomed to the long slow spiraling decay of stagnation. Our move into space must 

be irreversible before this occurs, or society will turn inwards and our destiny in 

the stars will be forgotten for decades, if not centuries. 

These aren’t all the reasons, but they should give you the flavor of what this important movement is all about, for as you can see, they touch on the central issues 

of our time, of all times. 

How are we doing in relation to these goals? 

We aren’t. 

As driving, important and exciting as the possibilities offered by the frontier are, 

we aren’t trying to open it. We are wandering around and around in circles at the 

edge of this new ocean, going nowhere and doing nothing of importance. It’s no mystery why our space efforts are in trouble. As currently structured the U.S. national 

space program not only cannot open space, but has no intention of ever doing so! 

It is not now, nor has it ever been the policy of the United States to open the space 

frontier to human settlement and development. 

91 

Any belief amongst those in the space community that opening the space frontier 

to wide spread participation, development and settlement is national policy is self 

delusion. A delusion well fed by those promoting projects originated by our space 

agency and its totally dependent contractors, who’s rhetoric is often sprinkled with 

references to the space frontier and the inevitability of its settlement. Using loaded 

terms, such as ‘‘the next logical step,’’ the public has been repeatedly sold lavish and 

expensive projects. The goal we are supposedly ‘‘stepping’’ towards is illustrated by 

beautiful propaganda art and simulations portraying the great and glorious frontier 

on which we are supposedly putting our multi-billion dollar down payment. Yet the 

projects and programs promoted actually have no connection to the opening of a 

frontier in a historical sense and there is no ‘‘logical’’ progression from today’s program to an open frontier in space. Such ‘‘future fluff’’ is actually verbal and visual 

candy, cynically used to excite and titillate those whose support is needed for constant budget battles in Congress. 

Even if one does not buy the idea that space is a frontier for human settlement, 

the current human space program is a failure. It will perhaps surprise you to hear 

me say this, but if NASA’s charter in space is purely to expand our scientific understanding of the universe, then we should cancel our human space flight program 

right now. If the question is phrased that way, I find myself agreeing with a large 

portion of the scientific community who say it is neither the most effective nor cost 

efficient way of doing this type of work. Cancel it now and spend the money on 

probes and robotic spacecraft. 

But for me that is not the reason to have a human space program. It is all those 

I listed above. The expansion of the human species beyond planet Earth. The creation of a better future with more choices for our children. The opening of a new 

and endless frontier. Unfortunately when judged by these criteria as well, the current U.S. space program is a failure. 

If the job of NASA’s human space flight program is to support the exploration of 

space in terms of the pure quest for knowledge and to prepare the way for others 

to follow as we expand the human domain, then they have failed. In other words, 

if the agency’s job is to explore and survey the unknown ‘‘lands’’ of space for both 

scientific and economic benefit in the same way that James Cook explored the then 

unknown world of the Pacific for his nation, or the way Lewis & Clark explored the 

west for ours, they have not succeeded. And if the agency is to be judged on how 

well it has trail blazed, opened new paths and created a route to the frontier for 

the rest of America to travel, it has been an utter, expensive and embarrassing disaster. 

The Space Frontier Principles 

To date our national human space flight program has been elitist, exclusive and 

a dead end. It has never included the people for whom it was allegedly created, and 

who foot the bills. Our space leaders to date have also ignored at their own peril 

several essential truths. And, although the propaganda and imagery they put forth 

as they seek more and more taxpayer funds may seem to indicate otherwise, most 

people would be shocked to learn, it is NOT their intention to open space to human 

settlement. Our space programs are just that programs—they are not part of any 

larger cohesive or visionary agenda. These programs are a hodge-podge of activities 

that just happen to use space to achieve their short-term goals. Composed of 

projects with no long term unifying agenda there is no over arching and transformational goal, and no plan to blaze a path the rest of us can follow into space. 

The low level goals they do have include technology development, military domination, enhancing national pride, indirectly inspiring education, supporting terrestrial 

industries, and at times advancing science. Nowhere is it written in their operational guiding documents or principles that space is a place to be pioneered or 

opened to permanent human habitation. 

Foundationers see space as a place, as the next frontier for humans to explore, utilize and settle as their home. This to us is the real goal of any national or international human space flight agenda, and we are working to make it the goal of our 

activities in space, both public and private. Although it may seem academic, this difference is key, and completely changes the type of space activities we undertake, how 

we spend our money and what investments we make. 

We also believe that the ideals of free enterprise based democracy should be extended into space. Democracies consist of free peoples bound together by the belief 

that the people have primacy over the state, and that individuals should have the 

power to create new wealth unimpeded by that state. The settlement of the American western frontier was a result of the application (often by default) of these core 

concepts. 

92 

Extended and applied to space, they add up to what I call the Space Frontier 

Principles. I believe that unless these ideas underlie our future space plans they are 

doomed to failure. After all, space is a frontier then we should treat it as one, including our government space policy leaders. 

• Without low cost, reliable and regular access to space there can be no Frontier. 

• Space is a Frontier, not a Program 

• If space is a frontier then the government should treat it as one. 

• In free societies opportunities are exploited by individuals or groups in the form 

of companies and private institutions. 

• Frontiers are not opened by governments for the people—but by the people— 

supported by or in spite of their government. Put another way, our Federal 

space program must be designed to help the American people open the frontier. 

It must not attempt to open the frontier for us. 

• A Frontier based space agenda must focus on creating technologies and infrastructure that are long term in nature, re-usable, build a foundation for those 

who follow, are low cost to build and operate, and supportable over time by the 

wealth they create. 

I believe that unless these ideas underlie our future space plans they are doomed 

to failure. 

The Near Frontier and the Far Frontier 

We have the wrong people doing the wrong job in the wrong place for the wrong 

reasons. To understand what I mean, we need to have a new way of looking at 

space. One that can create a context for our discussion. To help with this I developed a map of space that can be used to see where we are in the opening of the 

frontier, and who in our culture should be doing what, and where. 

The way I see it, the Earth is the center of an expanding bubble of human activity 

and life. As we have lifted ourselves off of the planet, that bubble has grown outwards with our human presence. First Gagarin and the Mercury astronauts moved 

the edge of that bubble to LEO, and then Apollo pushed it even further. Now its 

edge sits at the Moon. This area of space I call the Near Frontier. 

The Near Frontier 

The Near Frontier is comprised of the Earth, and the surprisingly large number 

of comets and asteroids that either 

inhabit or pass regularly through our neighborhood. It is the next step outward 

for our species, the next zone for expanded human activity. This area is unique in 

all the Solar System, since the costs of accessing it are far lower than other areas, 

and much time has been spent exploring its potential. I believe that NASA’s Lewis 

and Clark’s have done their job here in the neighborhood of Earth. 

In the Near Frontier the presumption is that the first stages of exploration are 

complete. One might say that Lewis and Clark have surveyed this region. And now 

it is time for the rest of the Nation to take over. The Near Frontier should be handed over to universities and private firms to explore and develop for human use. The 

billions of dollars now spent on constructing massively expensive, non-focused and 

expendable government housing and developing and operating incredibly inefficient 

elitist transportation systems to support them is a complete waste of taxpayer 

funds. 

The Near Frontier is the wrong place for the Federal government to focus its energy and funding. Rather, it is a place that is not only primed for the private sector 

to develop but is already seeing its first potentially successful private operations, 

and rather than being a drain on the national treasury, it is ready to become a prosperous zone of human activity and a generator of wealth for our Nation. 

To encourage this, our government should end its inappropriate operational activities in this area and hand it off to the people by creating a climate that incubates, 

enables and encourages private sector activities of all sorts. 

The Far Frontier 

Beyond the Moon lies the Far Frontier. This is the place yet to feel the touch of 

humanity, and it includes Mars, the rest of the Solar System and the entire Universe. This area is beyond the reach of commercial entities and projects based on 

private investment. But, like pure scientific research, the Far Frontier does qualify 

as a place where long term cultural investment makes sense, both for its own sake, 

and as the next place to be developed and opened to human activity, where appropriate. This is where the pooled resources of the people can be used to support exploration in the quest for knowledge and as a precursor to the following wave of 

93 

civilization. Such support can come in the form of taxes, academia or the dues collected by a membership society such as the terrestrial National Geographic Society. 

This is where NASA and the space agencies of Earth should aim themselves now 

their job is essentially done in the Near Frontier. 

But first they must pry themselves from the useless activities they now cling to 

in low Earth orbit. If they do so they can give society a new domain to explore and 

open to humanity. The entire rest of the universe is their reward for getting out 

of the way in the Near Frontier. Thus the Far Frontier is where we must set the 

sights of our national space program. It is beyond the known and out into the new 

and untouched horizons that we need our 21st century Lewis and Clarks and Cooks 

to go. It is on these unexplored worlds and places that we should focus the eyes of 

science. Our corps of highly skilled government astronauts should not be driving 

trucks from Earth to buildings in the sky. Instead they should be climbing over the 

hills of Mars and telling an anxious world what they have found, or combing the 

skies for evidence that we are not alone in this vast universe. 

ISS and AlphaTown 

If we are to develop a true space economy, not only must transportation costs be 

brought down, but the entire mental framework of our past ‘‘mission orientation’’ 

must change. In the past our forays into space have each had an endpoint and each 

was intended to achieve some near term goal, often without being used as a stepping stone to the next. We have traded the success of short term stunts and triumphs for sustainability, making it more important to get up there at any cost, than 

to be able to operate in space cheaply and efficiently. The frontier mindset rejects 

this thinking. We go into space to stay, and whatever we do there today is meant 

to become a ‘‘foundation’’ upon which others can build. Just as in space transportation, we reject the idea of ‘‘use it once and throw it away’’ that was the hallmark 

of our dead end space efforts in the past and continues to this day, as NASA and 

its partners in the international Space Station begin plans to de-orbit the massive 

facility a few years from now, even as they are still building it. 

Based on the Frontier concept, and staying true to our pioneer beliefs, we reject 

these plans and will fight to see the ISS retained in space as a nexus for future 

activities, even if it must be flown into a storage orbit and mothballed. We believe 

in using what we have at hand to leverage the opening of the frontier, be it the 

discarded parts of the old Cold War space program, or the shiny new government 

works programs orbiting overhead today. 

It is ideas that change actions, and mindsets, once created take a long time to 

change. The Cold War space program was a win at any cost activity, and led to a 

mindset that short-term success can come at the expense of long term sustainability. 

Goals, no matter how arbitrary or non-realistic, were to be achieved by throwing 

large amounts of money at them, so long as progress could be shown—no matter 

how dubious. As government centric, it also engendered a mentality that to sustain 

legislative support, the importance of the government effort must be highlighted and 

take precedence over any commercial or other efforts to achieve the same goals. In 

fact, government managers came to see other efforts to create space facilities as 

threats to their own program, and in many cases sabotaged or in other ways worked 

to undermine private efforts. After all, how would a government bureaucrat, having 

spent years lobbying for billions to build their space station, be able to defend those 

expenditures in the light of a commercial facility operating more cheaply, and producing better results just down the orbital street? 

Thus the challenge is to create a new way of thinking in the minds of those currently dominating the space field, and also those who might wish to join in space 

activities in the future. Rather than seeing commercial efforts as threats to their 

turf and jobs security, the Foundation has been working to show how new partnerships can be created in space that parallel those on Earth. For example, here on 

Earth government activities are often used to catalyze commercial offshoots, and 

Federal investments in technology often lead to private sector economic drivers. 

From highways funded by taxpayer dollars to forts on ancient frontiers that became 

the seeds of cities, we see the government and private sectors as complimentary to 

each other, not competitors. 

In 1995 the Foundation started a campaign called ‘‘Alpha Town’’ to create an 

image and conceptual framework in people’s minds that related to how our culture 

and communities work here on Earth. One goal is to transform the International 

Space Station (ISS) from a multi-billion-dollar public-works project, into the kernel 

of the first human town in space. The Foundation is working to promote policies 

and activities that will turn ISS into the catalyst at the center of a true LEO community. ‘‘AlphaTown’’ encompasses projects that are policy oriented as well as technological. 

94 

A Space Station Authority 

The Foundation believes the right management in charge of the space station is 

critical to making it an outpost for all humanity rather than stagnating as a government lab and public works project. Although built and operated today by government for government, we believe that if the station is to achieve its full potential 

and truly become ‘‘the next logical step’’ to opening the frontier, it must begin to 

serve a much broader constituency, including the private sector. We believe a civic/ 

private authority would function as a landlord for the entire space station, and act 

as a catalyst for new activities and growth, while streamlining operations and lowering costs for all. Much like a terrestrial port authority, its goal would be the economic and scientific success of the station. 

ET 

The U.S. space shuttle’s giant external tanks are one example of an extremely valuable artificial space resource that now goes to waste. At present, with each successful flight of a shuttle, an empty tank with mass greater than the full payload of 

the shuttle itself is brought to 99 percent of orbital speed and then discarded to bum 

up in the atmosphere. Over a 10-year period about 10,000 tons of that tankage will 

be brought almost to orbit and then discarded, with a value on orbit of about $35 

billion. The ET project is determined to stop this waste and begin to have this valuable resource stockpiled in orbit. 

Mir 

In keeping with our frontier philosophy, the Space Frontier Foundation began in 

the mid-nineties to take a stand in favor of keeping the Russian space station Mir 

from being destroyed. Our Keep Mir Alive campaign stood in direct opposition to 

those who wanted to ‘‘bulldoze’’ the facility to clear the way for the new ISS. Yet, 

to Foundationers the Mir, as old and aged as it was represented yet another ‘‘place’’ 

in space, and perhaps not as shiny as the new facility, could still be used as a lever 

for future space activities by those with imagination. 

Foundation members led the team that eventually leased the Mir, converting it 

for a few months into the world’s first commercial space station. Although we lost 

the battle to save the facility, this action showed human activities in space weren’t 

exclusive to governments, and that individuals and non-government groups could 

take on big, human oriented projects in space—a historic first that eventually led 

to the flight of California businessman Dennis Tito a year later. 

Space Hotels 

With the flight of Dennis Tito into space, the door opened for a new industry to 

arise on the frontier. As we have seen he was not the last, but the first of this new 

type of visitor to space. Given the difficulties presented by his stay on the currently 

government operated space station; some are advocating and developing plans for 

separate commercial space hotel facilities. Even if ISS were to become a commercially operated facility, it would still be mainly a research and technology oriented 

facility, and not truly suitable for ‘‘casual’’ visitors or those simply wanting to experience space for periods of time. After all, a laboratory and a hotel are different 

things, and serve different roles. There are many proposals for building orbiting hotels and tourist facilities on orbit, a potentially huge market. From re-cycled spacecraft and external tanks to new facilities, perhaps based on inflatable technology, 

these new ‘‘buildings’’ and facilities will increase the size and economic potential of 

Alpha Town, creating new destinations and locations for development. 

The Moon 

The Moon lies on the edge of the Near and Far Frontiers. It represents a transition zone between the area that can be best developed and whose over all activity 

base should begin to be led primarily by the private sector, and the Far Frontier, 

where business plans don’t yet make sense, infrastructure is non-existent and travel 

times and mission costs preclude most private concerns from operating. As we reach 

the Moon, although we find there are businesses in the embryonic stages who have 

realistic plans and even funding for Lunar projects, we are just on the edge of the 

‘‘giggle zone’’ of private finance. Yet, our feet have literally been upon it several 

times. For the Moon, the time has come to move from being a totally unknown entity, to one that, although it still needs major exploration, can begin to fit into plans 

for development and utilization. 

If we are successful there will be facilities on the Moon, such as hotels, mining, 

science and training facilities such as I discuss below, and over time some will 

choose to live there perhaps. But, given the difficulties of differences in gravity, day/ 

night cycles etc. . . it may not ever become a thriving space metropolis with a 

breeding population of humans (whose children might well be forever bound to the 

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lightly gravity world and unable to return to Earth. . .) By the way, I do not recognize the spurious Moon vs. Mars debate. They are different places, and we have different ends in mind for them. To Foundationers they are complimentary, not competitive. 

Planetary Exploration Training Base 

Most serious participants in the space community realize that as NASA sheds the 

burden of trying to operate the ISS and begins to look at sending humans to Mars, 

they will need a place to go to train, to develop infrastructure and transportation 

systems and ‘‘get their feet wet’’ (or dusty in this case). The moon is the perfect 

place for this exercise. LEO to Lunar transfer vehicles, lunar orbit to surface vehicles, habitats, life support, energy systems, all can be developed and tried out on 

the Moon before we risk human lives on a one way trip to Mars. I believe that a 

Planetary Exploration Training Base should be a high priority on the Moon. Potential Mars explorers need to be trained somewhere with high radiation, extreme temperatures, and temperature differentials, lots of dust and dirt, where, if they tear 

their space suits or damage their equipment, they can die. We need to know what 

happens to a space suit when it is worn in such an environment every day for weeks 

at a time before a Mars explorer can trust her life to it, and that can’t be done on 

Earth. 

There are many large scale Lunar based science projects which demand a strong 

and ongoing infrastructure that could be commercially provided. One exciting idea 

is the construction of a new Lunar far side observatory, made up of dozens of small 

telescopes that scientists say could combine their power to see objects as small as 

continents, on planets circling other suns. In this case the NASA might well help 

form a team of co-operating universities and observatories. This team could then 

contract out the construction and operation of this project to companies which would 

specialize in economic lunar surface operations. 

NASA and the space agencies can build training facilities for future Mars and 

planetary surface exploration and operations, scientists can build far side observatories shielded from the light and radio noise of Earth, others can study the Lunar 

crust for hints as to the formation of the universe itself. At the same time, the private sector can develop and supply housing based on its learning curve in LEO as 

it takes over ISS and builds new commercial space stations. Such industries can 

provide economic leverage and support for the agency’s activities, saving the government millions. For example, a private firm might build a luxury hotel facility for 

those who might want to fly under a lunar dome on their own human powered 

wings, or relax in the low gee for a few weeks while contemplating the blue marble 

of Earth on the horizon. Meanwhile, also renting rooms in the hotel are those specialists listed above, and space agency teams, perhaps managing a group of astronauts in a nearby crater as they develop a simulated Mars surface base and test 

their systems. 

All of this then helps argue for a strong and robust interplanetary transportation 

system. Again, the interests of the two cultures coincide. The commercial firms will 

need low cost and regular transport to and from the Moon, and cannot afford to 

fund the development of transportation infrastructure. The governments need such 

systems for any future human exploration of the solar system and/or Mars settlements, if future exploration of Mars is not to be a dead end set of stunts. The government can support the technology development and help build the highway, much 

as they do on Earth, and the private sector can build and operate the ‘‘trucks’’ over 

time, also as they do on Earth. And everyone wins. 

NEOs 

Contrary to the view that space is empty, our Solar System is filled with millions 

and millions of small objects. Those that approach the Earth or are easy to reach 

in terms of energy are called NEOs or Near Earth Objects. There are several types 

of objects in the area referred to as NEO Space, some orbiting in relatively the same 

place, such as the small clusters we find at various stable points, which are caused 

by the interacting gravity of the Earth, Moon, Sun and other planets. But most follow long looping elliptical orbits, crossing the orbits of the Earth and Moon in a predictable manner. And yes, somewhere out there the younger sibling of the dinosaur 

killer is hurtling towards the Earth at thousand of mile per hour. When it hits, be 

it tomorrow, next week, or in a hundred thousand years, our party will be over. 

What to Do Now? 

I believe that the space aware (us) have a duty to point out such threats as those 

posed by NEO’s, after all, the potential destruction of our home world is a great argument for getting our eggs out of this one basket. By the same token, and why 

we should care about such things as sky searches and asteroid shield plans is that 

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it makes little sense to try and expand the human race into space if we are going 

to be wiped out by some careening solar iceberg while getting our act together. 

Valiant sweaty Bruce Willis’s saving the Earth and spectacular ‘‘we all gonna 

die!’’ scenarios aside, the promise of the resources such rockpiles might contain that 

excites us from a frontier perspective, and it is here where we focus our attentions. 

Many believe that long term, such resources are integral to the human break out 

into space. 

The threat from asteroids and comets is often the focus of the media, highlighting 

the need for a much expanded search for these objects, which could wipe out life 

as we know it. But the same rocks which could kill us can help us live better lives 

due to the resources they contain. Many of these objects are literally floating gold 

mines, continuing amounts of gold, platinum and other precious metals that would 

stagger the imagination. They also offer us the chance move environmentally destructive mining operations from the living Earth to the dead emptiness of space. 

The search itself, with its broad societal implications, is the proper domain for the 

government to provide support. As with the Moon, NASA should support early exploration now and later, transitional missions, with large com mercial participation 

in the form of partnerships or outright purchases of data. But eventually, it is the 

private sector that should lead the actual exploration, characterization, sampling 

and utilization of these important resources. I would like to see the Federal government offering prizes for the location of potential threats and acting as a clearing 

house for NEO information. 

It could also offer to buy data from those who can mount missions to NEOs privately, thus saving tax dollars and catalyzing a potential new industry. The government has an important role in updating laws regarding ownership of such data, and 

of course the thorny issue of mining and ownership rights must all be clarified before anyone seriously tries to stake a claim on one of these floating goldmines. 

Mars 

I and the Foundation have always been for the exploration of Mars, particularly 

as a prelude to permanent settlement of Mars and the rest of the solar system. But 

we are against dead-end stunt type missions to Mars that do not provide stepping 

stones to possible future settlement. 

However, although we may support the concept, as mentioned above, the idea of 

settlement was and is still not our national goal in space. In the past NASA’s 

planned paper missions to the Red Planet have simply presented it as a place to 

perform the Apollo Program Mark II. For government planners, flags and footsteps 

are the goal for Mars, as they were for the Moon. In fact, all of the official plans 

so far introduced for sending humans to Mars fall under the category of stunt. 

Somehow, the lessons of the past failed to reach the ears of this group, and they 

do not understand that we simply cannot afford another let down like that we have 

seen since the end of the Apollo era. 

To advocates of human settlement ‘‘Das Mars Project’’ used to represent all that 

was bad about our government space program; centralized in the traditional government/aerospace cabal, stunt oriented, elitist, vastly overpriced and with no long 

term growth plan for growth from first missions to settlements. Unfortunately, 

thanks to the NASA attitude that all space is theirs, this entire debate is based on 

confusion between the roles of government and the private sector. What both sides 

have missed is what I have laid out in the Near Frontier/Far Frontier paradigm. 

The government is never going to succeed in developing space businesses, and those 

planning space businesses are not going to propose going to Mars in a business 

plan. 

The Settlement of Mars 

We must greatly expand and accelerate the exploration of Mars, particularly as 

it enables the settlement of Mars and the rest of the solar system. Money’s saved 

from space station shuttle and center operations should be used to fund the development and demonstration of pioneering technologies that will enable the exploration 

and settlement of Mars. And yes, humans should go to Mars, as humans should go 

everywhere that it makes technical, economic, scientific, environmental sense to go. 

That’s what an open frontier means. 

The drive to open Mars to human settlement will fire the imaginations of our 

youth in a way that the more routine operational aspects of settling the Near Frontier will not. It is a symbol that will have a positive effect on all space activities, 

if it is part of the agenda I have outlined here. It will be seen as a national endorsement of space as a frontier, and it will be the most visible aspect of the government’s role in the new space partnership I suggest. In frank political terms, human 

exploration of Mars also provides the carrot needed to pull NASA’s management, 

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human space flight centers, the astronaut corps and its cheerleaders away from the 

Near Frontier. 

If NASA needs public support, it need not fly members of the Senate in space. 

The camera shot from the helmet of the first woman to peer down the vast depths 

of the Valles Marinaris canyon will be enough by far. 

Defining the Roles is the Key to Mars 

The key to making Mars a real frontier is to understand the separate and very 

different roles the government and the private sector must play to make it so. 

’These roles are not only differentiated by the area or location, but by the activities 

themselves. Just as on Earth we see the government’s role in this new field of 

human activity as one of catalyst, cheerleader, guarantor of safety and lawful behavior. Right now, and until Earth’s governments either begin to divest and hand 

over Near Earth space and we see the development of low cost space transportation, 

there simply is no money to even begin talking about large scale plans for Martian 

exploration, let alone settlement. However, if the Nation adopts the Near Frontier/ 

Far Frontier model, NASA can release its grip on the Earth-Moon system by 

privatizing and commercializing all operational activities such as the station and 

space transportation systems and move its focus to the exploration of the Far Frontier. If structured correctly, government could prime the pump for the creation of 

leading edge technologies to aid in that quest, and be a good customer for the private sector to provide the bulk of needed services for such a program. If this happens, enormous resources would then become available to begin the quest, IF the 

taxpayers can then be persuaded to do so. 

Continuity and economic viability must be designed into any exploration program 

from day one. Remember Lewis and Clark. Just as Jefferson’s mandate was not just 

to explore but also to survey the Louisiana Purchase, so to on Mars we must explore 

for both science and development. The Reagan appointed 1986 National Commission 

on Space report did recognize the need for permanence to be built in to any Mars 

planning, but it too was based on a massive infrastructure and in-space transportation build up, and would not allow any permanent development to occur on the 

Red planet for decades. 

The Space Exploration Initiative presented during the Bush administration not 

only didn’t build on the permanence idea presented by NCOS, it retreated to the 

old flags and footsteps approach to space exploration. With its unspoken mandate 

to rationalize then current NASA projects such as the space station, it called for the 

station to be used as a port of departure. For their money, the taxpayers would get 

to watch three to six people plant a flag, and once again leave our spoor behind in 

the Martian dust with no plan or promise of anything of substance coming from the 

adventure. Needless to say, it was DOA in Congress. 

Even the smallest humans to Mars missions will require a substantial investment 

and to spread out that investment across an entire culture is not a bad idea. I believe in democracy, and if the taxpayers can be persuaded and the goal remains the 

first permanent human settlements on the Red Planet, we support the concept—as 

long as all aspects of the project utilize commercially provided data and support systems to the maximum extent possible. Any agenda that includes the Moon and Mars 

should be designed to create infrastructure that will support long term access and 

transportation to and from those worlds, and be carried out in a way that leverages 

one off of the other and all off of the activities of the commercial sector—as well 

as the taxpayer funded specific missions and programs along the way. 

The Right to Own New Land in Space 

Finally, for all of these new areas in both the Near Frontier and Far Frontier (including the Moon, Mars and the NEOs) to become the great sources of wealth and 

possibility they can be, we need to begin putting in place the rights of those who 

explore and develop such new ‘‘lands’’ in space to own them. Throughout history, 

it has been the ability to gain and hold land which has driven them forth, and given 

them the will to carve new human domains out of wilderness. Space is no different. 

If people are going to invest their wealth and lives in opening the frontier, they 

should have the right to pass what they have done down to the next generations. 

When the time is right, the U.S. should stand up and recognize that in space, the 

same rights to own property exist as on Earth. 

Earth to LEO 

The primary goal for the Nation in this decade must be achieving cheap access 

to space. Because if you can’t get there regularly and cheaply to develop, test and 

manufacture your product you can’t make a profit. If there is no profit, there will 

be no frontier. 

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Unfortunately, costs about the same today to put a human in space on the government shuttle as it did 30 years ago thanks to the incestuous, self-preserving and 

self-feeding institution that our shuttle program has become. And according to 

NASA the new OSP program will not help that situation and may make it worse, 

while costing us billions of dollars we need not spend. 

The development of cheap, reliable and regular transportation to and from space 

is THE key requirement for opening the space frontier. Once again, there are strong 

mutual interests between the private and public sectors to be satisfied, once again, 

there is a chance for a partnership, and once again there is the chance to create 

new industries and jobs. And unfortunately, once again we are faced with a government controlled monopoly—this time operating the only human capable space transportation system in the United States. 

It is time for change. NASA and the U.S. Government need to get out of the 

trucking and passenger carrying business as represented by the shuttle and OSP 

programs, and back to supporting exploration and scientific progress. NASA and its 

parasitic contractors must no longer be allowed to manage the designing, building 

and operation of what are essentially glorified government space trucks/vans. Can 

you imagine if the government had done the same thing with an airline? It is as 

if the FAA owned our single national air carrier. With no real competition it would 

never get cheaper, better or more efficient . . . and no one would be able to afford 

to fly on it. That’s the socialist monopoly we have in space flight. It has not improved safety or access and wasted billions of tax dollars. And with the announced 

plans for the Orbital Space Plane (or what some call the Orbital Stupid Plane) our 

Nation will be pouring even more billions into a giant step backwards when it comes 

to access to space. 

In contrast to this dinosaurian penchant for repeatedly getting stuck in quickly 

evaporating swamps of old ideas, a new lean, mean set of alternative space firms 

are out there building truly innovative systems for carrying paying passengers and 

payloads on sub-orbital flights for what may turn out to be less than a hundred 

thousand dollars a flight. Unencumbered by traditions, bureaucracies and structures 

designed to siphon tax dollars rather than realize profits, these firms are where innovations and new ideas can be born and tested on the anvil of the market system. 

But they face enormous challenges on the road to success. Often self-funded and 

working close to the economic edge they have waited and watched as our government hasn’t done the job and are now going to open space their way—if they survive. These little mammals are doing their best to dodge the smothering feet of government regulations and paranoia and hold out hope for a whole new path into 

space, but they need help to survive. And if they are truly to contribute to our national space efforts they need the current system changed dramatically to acknowledge them, to support rather than hinder them, and to let them in. 

Rise of the Alt. Space Firms 

Several years ago in writings and talks I pointed out that I thought the new so 

called ‘‘robber barons’’ of space would come from the computer world. I saw these 

people as pre filtered for technological savvy, comfortable with new and innovative 

ideas, definitely out of the box thinkers, and raised on the space program, science 

fiction literature, and media such as Star Trek, B–5 and Star Wars. Oh, and also— 

although I was saying this before the dot-com melt down—they have lots of money 

in a culture where they will feel the need to do something great and important. In 

other words they would want to give something back. Well, some of them made it 

through the rough times in their own industry, and have done as we hoped, and 

jumped into the space field. 

I call these new players Alternative Space Companies, or to put it into techno 

speak, the Alt.Space movement. They do have the money and the dreams, and yes, 

in their hearts they want to see the human species expand into space, of this I am 

sure. Or as Paypal founder and rocket builder Elon Musk said in meeting in his 

living room recently, our job is to ‘‘Back-up the Biosphere.’’ 

The first shots of this revolution were fired when telecom millionaires Walt Anderson and Chirenjeev Kathuria joined with the Jeff Manber (former Executive Director of the Space Business Roundtables) myself and other Foundationers to go to 

Moscow and found MirCorp, with the goal of transforming the old Russian Mir into 

the world’s first commercial space station (which led to Dennis Tito and others flying aboard the ISS). Shortly afterwards, the X-Prize was founded. (Which directly 

influenced Rutan to finance and build his spaceship.) These activities began to fire 

up the imaginations of private citizens, who had thought themselves shut out of the 

space game. Within a couple of years, several new firms had been founded by those 

wanting to leverage off of the potential for flying what I call ‘‘citizen explorers’’ into 

space. 

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Within the last few months we have recently seen the first ripples that will be 

caused by the new Alt.Space ‘‘barons’’ and their own rocketship projects, in the form 

of Scott Bezos of Amazon.com’s Blue Horizons, Elon Musk’s Space X, and John 

Carmack (owner of Id Software created the hugely popular video games ‘‘Quake’’ 

and ‘‘Doom’’) who owns Armadillo Aerospace. The recent highly publicized roll out 

of famed aircraft builder Burt Rutan’s test vehicle, which was apparently financed 

by a major software firm’s founder gave the world its first Alt.Space poster child, 

yet there are also many other firms working in this field. 

Serious, business oriented, successful survivors of a tough industry, with big 

dreams and deep pockets these sole source funded projects join with other not so 

new players in the field with funded firms like Bob Bigelow (sole owner of Budget 

Suites of America) whose Bigelow Aerospace is building a prototype space hotel, 

Charlie Chaffer’s Celestis and Team Encounter whose Solar Sail Project just contracted with NASA to collect data on its voyage out of the solar system, and Constellation Services Incorporated, whose cargo containers promise to reduce cost tore 

supply ISS at this critical time. Others, like Dennis Wingo’s SpaceCorp., Walt Anderson’s Orbital Recovery, John Powell’s JP Aerospace, Pioneer Aerospace, and X-Cor 

Aerospace complete a mix that is wide and deep in its potential to profoundly change 

the space transportation habitation and services field. 

These are real firms, and are poised to transform space access and operations as 

we know it—if they get the right breaks, and the support of the Nation they call 

home. 

According to some experts, $1 in market potential offered to the private sector will produce $10 in the type of technological and operational breakthroughs we might 

get from the current government -centric approach we have today. Some put the 

ratio even higher. If Burt Rutan can build a re-usable sub-orbital space ship system 

for under $40 million, what can he and the other alternative firms out there do for 

let’s say the $10 billion we are about to waste on OSP? (The equivalent of 3 or 4 

shuttle flights.) Rather than waste that money on yet another specific-use dead end 

program, let’s offer that money to the private sector to carry humans and cargo to 

and from space and get $100–200 billion of innovation and common sense. A few 

billion dollars a year market for separate payload and passenger flights to and from 

ISS and to fulfill other NASA and DOD needs would produce a huge change in our 

Nation’s space access capabilities. Imagine, rather than one or two inside firms 

working on cost-plus contracts to fulfill single use needs they helped develop in the 

first place, we could have a dozen space delivery and transportation firms. NASA 

and DOD would no longer fund multi-million dollar studies, multi-billion dollar development programs or prop up aging technologies, but would simply pay on delivery when their payloads were delivered . . . just like the rest of America and most 

of the world does on Earth. These new commercially oriented space trains, trucks, 

buses and taxis would carry not only government payloads, but also compete to 

carry commercial passengers and payloads to what could become a rapidly expanding human frontier in space. 

To get there we must make radical changes, not just operationally, but most importantly, mentally, and in the structure and management of our current system. 

To that end I offer a ten point plan to tum our space agenda around. This plan will 

assure the maximum science and commercial activity in space, while creating an expanding wedge of human activities that will lead to a prosperous and growing 

human frontier in space. (It will also save the tax payers a huge chunk of change!} 

• NASA should immediately be ordered to begin planning the retirement of the 

shuttles, and all human oriented shuttle and Earth to low Earth orbit (LEO} 

vehicle development offices, centers, programs and studies should be canceled 

as soon as possible. 

• Congress should kill such projects as the Orbital Space Plane and its current 

space capsule program immediately and transfer the $10 billion it was about 

to waste to a set of new activities to open LEO to the people and new industries 

that should by right follow our 30 years of Federal exploration of this area. To 

do this, while also seeding the agency’s return to real exploration beyond the 

Near Frontier, the following things should be implemented ASAP: 

• The agency should be mandated to begin creating new procedures that will 

allow it to sign multiple payload and passenger delivery contracts at some date 

certain in the future, just as it does today when it uses FedEx, UPS or American Airlines to move its valuable cargo and employees around on Earth. 

• At least $1 billion of former OSP/capsule related funds should be transferred 

to the Alternative Access to Space program immediately to begin the re-education of agency managers away from exclusionary cost-plus contracting methods and start implementation of commercial LEO freight delivery. 

100 

• A set of National Space Prizes (NSP} should be created.-To incentivize the development of the vehicles needed to serve the former shuttle/OSP/capsule market and to assure multiple players and real competition down the road, several 

billion dollars of the saved OSP/capsule/shuttle money should be used to fund 

four/five prizes for the first teams to fly four people (or relative mass) safely to 

and from LEO at the lowest demonstrated cost, with the shortest turn around 

period. (Perhaps funded using a portion of current OSP/capsule development 

money, as a means of helping.) 

• To provide an ongoing market for the NSP winners, all Federal entities needing 

access to LEO should be mandated to use their current multi-billion dollar 

budgets (such as that about to be wasted on shuttle flights) to buy their rides 

using roughly the same criteria as the NSP. They must begin creating new procedures that will allow them to sign multiple payload and passenger delivery 

contracts at some date certain in the future, just as they do when using FedEx, UPS or American Airlines to move valuable cargo and employees around on 

Earth. 

• To further assist their new partners in the national space effort, all Federal 

space transportation regulations should be streamlined to allow the maximum 

freedom of development for the alternative space firms. This includes giving 

them the same regulatory over-rides now given to government systems such as 

government space launches, the space shuttles and the airline industry. 

• As this space revolution is implemented, near term access to ISS should be purchased from the Russians, using Soyuz, Progress and other very capable vehicles. 

• NASA and the Department of Defense should implement a series of X programs 

in cooperation with the private sector based on the old NACA model of enhancing commercial and military capabilities. And this effort must not be allowed 

to morph into development programs for government vehicles. Potential areas 

of research might involve thermal protection systems (TPS), and robust (airlinelike) engine development projects. 

• We should mothball or give our very capable Russian friends managerial leadership of the current high inclination space station and use the remaining elements still on the ground to build a lower inclination, more commercially accessible station. 

• In either case, the ISS management structure on both should be changed to an 

Airport/Seaport Authority model, not a scientific institute, which will be too 

narrow in focus, expertise and bias. A Space Station Authority can do a much 

better job at creating a safe, efficient and productive environment for all users, 

commercial and scientific. This I SSA will be encouraged to lower station costs 

in all areas of operations, and not just allow, but encourage access to the station 

and its airlocks by the widest range of commercial space transporters and suppliers. 

• All NASA vehicle and habitat development activity should be re-focused from 

Earth to LEO operations to in space missions aimed at the Far Frontier, such 

as a permanent Return to the Moon and the long term exploration and opening 

of the Martian frontier. 

Heavy Lift 

If massive heavy lift is needed for such things as supporting a permanent human 

return to the Moon or a humans-to Mars initiative, we have two choices. The first 

is to utilize the existing shuttle infrastructure investment in people, hardware and 

facilities. The current external tank and solid rocket stacks could be used as the 

basis of an automated re-usable cargo ship (near term this could easily be the existing space shuttles, as they apparently can be flown remotely) or grown into a very 

heavy lift vehicle. If this path is chosen, I would encourage the use of the external 

tanks that it would be carrying into orbit as part of any planned orbital infrastructure. 

However, if I am to stay true to the idea that NASA should get completely out 

of the Earth to LEO transportation business-and that our goal is to grow a strong 

space transportation industry for all sorts of payloads-my answer in the area of 

heavy lift is a bit different. As I have been educated over time by my peers in the 

field on this issue, my preference has become more pure in relation to this cause. 

I believe the best way to get heavy lift to support a return to the Moon and a 

human mission to Mars is to have NASA stay out of it entirely and buy the rides 

in this area as well. Rather than a massive new NASA vehicle development project, 

the agency and its contractors should instead focus on the development and conVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:40 Aug 01, 2016 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\20898.TXT JACKIE
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struction of the habitats and transportation systems it will need on and between 

those two worlds, and stay out of the Earth to LEO transportation arena entirely. 

There already exists capability in the U.S. Delta class and Russian Progress vehicles to loft many tons of payloads to LEO and Lunar orbit. Using the new and exciting concept of on-orbit assembly or in-space construction that the agency has been 

allegedly learning by building ISS, these components can be assembled into any size 

needed for either project. Although not available on the scale of a potential automated shuttle derived cargo vehicle, if one considers the development and operational costs of such a brand new system versus the eventual freight bill of a competitively bid delivery to space contract using modified current day systems or those 

in development already in the private sector, the taxpayers could save millions. 

Meanwhile, such an approach would continue to fuel, rather than compete with the 

space transportation industry. 

The time is now. 

It is time for America to step up and face the future. 

Time for the United States to push into a new frontier of technology and leadership. 

It is time for the White House and Congress to give the people of this Nation a 

new and positive tomorrow. It is time to show the world that America doesn’t just 

drop bombs, but can build dreams. 

Let’s be frank. NASA as currently constituted cannot do the things I have outlined. It is bloated, self preservation oriented, and is spending it’s time wasting billions of our tax dollars re-inventing the wheel and re-reinventing the wheel and so 

on. . .without knowing why it even needs a wheel, and where it wants to go once 

it has a vehicle. The agency and its encrustation of existing contractors need to be 

totally re-vamped. This can be done by Congress and the White House via enacting 

new policies and changes over time, or by giving the agency a tough clear and hard 

to achieve goal, which may well force the needed changes. After all, as Kennedy said 

‘‘we don’t do these things because they are easy, but because they are hard!’’ 

Some call for the agency to be shut down, and I admit there are times I feel the 

same way. The private sector is already beginning its own space program, and the 

agency, especially its human space flight component, may soon be redundant. One 

former shuttle astronaut pointed out recently that the next American to ride into 

space on an American spaceship will be a civilian riding in a private rocket! Think 

about it! The contrast between the Alt. Space firms approach to space and NASA’s 

reveals a true split in the genetic line of the evolution of human space flight. Those 

who lead our Nation can ignore this reality, try to stomp it to death, or embrace 

it, nurture it and leverage off of it for the greater good and glory of all Americans. 

The Frontier is Open and On to Mars! 

It is time for dramatic action. . .or the future will pass into the hands of others. . . 

The Congress and White House should unite behind a declaration that the Near 

Frontier is open for business, and the Nation is going to explore and open the Far 

Frontier of the Moon and Mars. . .this time to stay! No hesitation, no endless 

timescales, no wimping out for the greatest nation on Earth. We must do this hard 

and fast and do it now, and on a very tight and challenging time scale. (Don’t tell 

me we can’t do it quickly and well, this is the same nation that went from a standing start to the Moon in under ten years forty years ago!) 

As President Kennedy recognized in the middle of the darkest days of the Cold 

War, there is no perfect time to do something bold and beautiful. Or perhaps, such 

times as then and now are exactly the right time to take a stand for what is great 

and honorable in humanity. If such incredible boldness can be summoned in such 

a time, then it can be summoned now. And we need it now more than ever. America 

needs a shining light. The world needs a shining light. Space can be the place where 

that light can hang for all to see. And now is exactly when such choices must be 

called out by those of vision. 

Within my lifetime I want to be able to cast my eyes upwards and see a string 

of pearls in the night above the Earth as the first orbital community of Alpha Town 

celebrates its first quarter century, while glittering lights shimmer at the South 

Pole of the Moon. . .as the first Lunar city celebrates its first decade. And shooting 

like a star across the night, the glow of nuclear motors in the night above, as the 

first regular space liners begin their service to and from Mars. . .where a whole 

new branch of humanity is being born beneath the amber skies of a new world they 

call Home. 

102 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Tumlinson. We have 

a vote on and so I’d like to ask very briefly Dr. Huntress, Dr. 

Woods and Mr. Tumlinson, do you agree with Dr. Zubrin’s assertion that we shouldn’t fund the orbital space plane? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. I agree with Bob that we should be going to 

Mars, that we should have an alternate vision of where we’re going 

in space, and I think we ought to consider carefully what system 

we use to send our humans to Earth orbit, and they need to be lowcost and low-risk and I’m not sure 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Huntress, should we fund the orbital space 

plane? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. No. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Woods? 

Dr. WOODS. My expertise is on the safety organization and NASA 

and how to improve that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Tumlinson? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Obviously cancel it right away, get the free market in there. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Huntress and Dr. Zubrin and Dr. Woods, Mr. 

Tumlinson, very quickly, what’s the implications of China’s launch? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. That we have a new potential international partner for the enterprise of going back into space. 

The CHAIRMAN. Partner or competitor? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. They can be both. Partners often are competitors 

as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Overall, good or bad? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. Good. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Zubrin? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. I think it’s good because we need a kick in the butt 

and it’s a message that, you know, the tortoise can catch the hare 

and we better wake up and start moving again. This is America’s 

time right now, this is our time on the world stage, and we have 

a chance to do something very historic, shaping future human history in terms of leading the settlement of the solar system. I think 

that it should be Americans that do that because I think that the 

former civilization we have should be the starting point for humanity as it branches out further into space and worlds to Mars, worlds 

beyond. So I think it’s a wake-up call. I’m glad we have it but I 

don’t want to lose. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Tumlinson? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. You’re talking to a guy here who’s got the tank 

of Tiananmen on his wall at home. I would also ask you how many 

items you have in your office that were made in China that began 

as American projects or American ideas. And then I would say I 

agree with Bob, I want a free enterprise democracy to lead our way 

into space. I told that to China TV just last week and the People’s 

Daily and a little confused by that one, but I would also say that 

I think we have a choice here. Do we answer their socialist space 

program with our socialist space program or do we answer their socialist space program with the power of free enterprise? 

The CHAIRMAN. Good point. Dr. Zubrin, just in closing, we’re 

going to launch a little vehicle that’s going to land on one of the 

poles of Mars and it’s going to dig into the ground to see if there’s 

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water there. Do you believe they’re going to find it, and number 

two is, what’s the implication? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Well, they’ll certainly find water on the poles of 

Mars, we know there’s water. What they’re looking for are traces 

of past life. The implications of whether or not there ever was life 

on Mars are absolutely profound. We know Mars is a suspect for 

life. There’s water erosion features all over the surface of Mars, 

and in fact some of these things were created by recent outflows 

that came out of the side of craters and things, which means 

there’s liquid water underground on Mars now and there was liquid water on the surface of Mars for a much longer period of time 

than it took life to appear on the surface of the Earth after there 

was liquid water here. 

So if the theory is correct that life is a naturally emerging phenomenon from chemistry wherever you have an aqueous environment and sufficient periods of time, life should have appeared on 

Mars. And if life did appear on the surface of Mars, there’s a very 

good chance it’s still underground on Mars. Now, if we can establish that, if that’s true, then it means life is a generally phenomenon of the universe. If it’s not true, it means we’re alone. Either way it’s of immense philosophical importance, it’s of much 

greater scientific significance than anything having to do with 

lunar geology, for example 

The CHAIRMAN. And this discovery could spark enormous, enormous interest, it seems to me, in Mars, yes, no? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. I think it could, yes, and it should. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Brownback is going to come back with 

additional questions. I don’t know if Senator Nelson will be able to 

or not, but as an amateur, if we can get this out to the American 

people I don’t know how many Americans know that this project 

is about to go—— 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, this would be the spark that 

will take us to Mars. 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Let me just make a comment. Whenever I talk to a 

public audience I’m not talking about space industry people, I’m 

talking about just regular folks that I present to at some length 

with a plan of how we can send humans to Mars, the primary question I get from American people is, why aren’t we doing this? 

There’s a big sense of disappointment almost verging on a sense of 

betrayal. Looking at Washington, they say, this is the sort of thing 

this country ought to be doing, this is the sort of thing that NASA 

ought to be doing, and this is the sort of path that our political 

leadership should lead us on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Obviously you agree, Mr. Tumlinson. 

Mr. TUMLINSON. I agree. 

The CHAIRMAN. You agree with Dr. Huntress? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Woods, from a safety standpoint? 

Dr. WOODS. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. We got to go vote and Senator Brownback will 

be back. 

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, you can’t do it and I can’t do it. 

It’s going to take the President of the United States making a declaration that that’s what the vision of this country is. 

104 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ve thought about that on occasion. Wait just a 

minute until Senator Brownback comes back. 

[Recess.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. If we could have the panelists retake their 

seats, I would appreciate that, so that we could have a discussion 

and move forward. Sorry about the vote that took place in the middle of the discussion. Thank you all for being willing to stay here. 

I thought, during your presentations and quick questioning with 

the Chairman, this is just too rich of a panel to let pass, and so 

I appreciate your willingness to let us go vote so we could come 

back and can have a discussion. 

Dr. Zubrin, I was very taken by your comments and the way you 

put this forward in a fairly straightforward technological manner, 

that we could go to Mars now. You’ve put this forward, I’m sure, 

previously. What have the people, either the contractors or the people at NASA, said in response to your pretty direct, straightforward 

way of how we could get to Mars? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Well, what happened was this. The plan that I was 

describing to you is known as the Mars Direct Plan, and it was developed at the Martin Company by a team of engineers, led by 

me—I was at the Martin Company in the early 90s—in response 

to the excessively complex and costly Space Exploration Initiative 

90-day report that was causing Congress to reject the Space Exploration Initiative of 1989–90 time frame. 

Senator BROWNBACK. The Mars mission then? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. The previous President George Bush called for humans—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. Right. 

Dr. ZUBRIN. OK. And NASA came up with this incredible 30-year 

plan to build giant orbiting space stations to build giant orbiting 

spaceships to get to Mars in 30 years, and the cost estimate ran 

into several hundred billion dollars, and Congress said, ‘‘We’re 

outta here.’’ OK? So at the Martin Company, a number of us engineers convinced management that a alternative plan had to be developed that was more practical if there was to be any program, 

and they gave us a green light, and we did, and then we went and 

presented at various NASA centers. 

Now, the plan—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. What was the cost of your plan that you 

came up with? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. The cost estimates at that time ranged in the neighborhood of $30 billion for development, and then recurring mission 

costs on the order of $2 to $3 billion after you had the hardware 

set. 

Now, we presented it to NASA originally in 1990, at various 

NASA centers. It became immediately controversial. A lot of people 

in NASA supported it; some opposed it, especially people associated 

with the Space Station Program, who felt we were dejustifying 

their program, because we didn’t make use of the Space Station. 

However, it got around, and eventually I was invited to brief Michael Griffin, who was the associate administrator for exploration 

that came in around 1991 or so, and he became a supporter of the 

plan. He briefed Golden, who became supportive in vaguer terms. 

105 

They had me go back to JSC, telling everybody to listen. So they 

listened, and then they came up with their own version of the plan, 

which was somewhat modified. It was expanded. They went—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. Who came up with this? 

Dr. ZURBIN. Johnson Space Center, the human exploration team 

there, which, at that time, was led by people like Mike Duke, Dave 

Weaver, John Connolly. 

Anyway—I could give you some more names—Carl Mandel—anyway, these folks, they said, ‘‘Look, we like your principles. OK? No 

on-orbit assembly direct launch to Mars, use of Martian resources 

starting on the very first mission, long-duration stays on Mars 

starting on the very first mission, which helps the plan, it actually 

lowers propulsion requirements to do it that way. OK? But we’ve 

got to design it ourselves to see that the numbers work.’’ 

Now, they went, and they designed an expanded version of the 

plan. It had a larger crew. They had a crew of six. I had recommended a crew of four. They had bigger vehicles. They had more 

equipment. But it was—and they needed three heavy-lift launch 

permission, instead of my two. So I called their plan the Semi-Direct Plan. But, be that as it may, they then went and did a cost 

estimate. And this was the same group that had costed out the 90- 

day report at $400 billion. They costed out their expanded version 

of Mars Direct at $55 billion. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Is that publicly available? 

Dr. ZURBIN. You could probably—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. That proposal? 

Dr. ZURBIN.—you could probably get it. Some of these guys are 

gone. But, for instance, John Connolly, of Johnson Space Center, 

is still there. And they did write up this report. They called it a 

Design Reference Mission. Carl Mandel is no longer at JSC, but I 

think he’s at the Governor’s office or something, in Texas. I’m sure 

these people can dig up these reports. 

Senator BROWNBACK. But, I mean, did they file a report that 

would be publicly such that I could access that report? 

Dr. ZURBIN. I believe there was a report written by the Government Printing Office. 

Now, the fact is that by the time they came out with this, there 

was a new Administration which was not favorable to human Mars 

exploration, and it was kind of like, you know, ‘‘Put it on the back 

shelf and don’t, you know, make a big deal about this, you know, 

because we’re not doing this.’’ OK? 

But I think the report’s available. I believe the Government 

Printing Office did do a printing of what they called their Design 

Reference Mission, and I think you can get it. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Why not go to the Moon again, in testing 

your model and design of what you’re talking about, I mean, on a 

much closer-in scale to—or does that model not work? 

Dr. ZURBIN. OK. If you do Mars in the way that I have recommended, you can use a subset of the hardware to also do the 

Moon. And in that context, it is rational, as a milestone exercise 

within the mission plan, to do a mission to the Moon perhaps 6 

years into the program, on your way to Mars. Just as in Apollo, before we actually landed the astronauts on the Moon, we flew the 

106 

Apollo hardware in Earth orbit and then in lunar orbit before we 

actually committed it to a lunar landing. 

But you don’t want to design a separate lunar program. You 

don’t want to go to the Moon with the idea of, ‘‘We’re going to the 

Moon, and, trust us, this hardware will probably be handy when 

you want to go to Mars.’’ 

So you design for Mars, and you design the hardware, set in a 

modular way, that a subset of it can also do the Moon. And then, 

in that context, you can do the Moon, and the Moon can be done 

as an ancillary part of the Mars program and even give you an 

early milestone within the program. So I think that’s a good way 

to proceed. But you don’t want to just make a Moon program as 

a thing in itself. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Dr. Huntress, there’s a lot of vision capacity in going back to the Moon. There’s a great vision capacity in 

going to Mars. I think a number of people technologically feel like 

it’s too difficult to go to Mars today, or too expensive, given the earlier attempt, or that this is a vision that a President previously had 

tried, and it didn’t sustain itself. The vision of going to the Moon 

sustained itself amongst the American public, and so woe be to a 

Member of Congress that would vote against monies to go to the 

Moon, when the public was really sold on this concept. Could we 

present that and sell that to the public, to go back to the Moon? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. I think it would be more difficult to sell going 

back to the Moon to the public than going to Mars. There’s going 

to be a ‘‘been there, done that’’ sort of a thing, and what are we 

going to do that’s new. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well—— 

Dr. HUNTRESS. You could—— 

Senator BROWNBACK.—let me ask you this—answer your own 

question, then. What would we learn, going back to the Moon, 

that’s new, that’s useful, scientifically? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. There are some scientifically useful things that 

we could learn from the Moon. We can sort through the layers of 

the Moon to learn about the history of asteroid fluxes on the Earth. 

The Moon is a witness plate that preserves its record of asteroid 

impacts. So we could understand the impact flux on our planet 

much better by doing that. We could also do something very similar, looking at implanted solar wind that would tell us about the 

history of the Sun and how the Sun has helped, or not, to create 

a habitable planet for us. We can learn about the Earth-Moon history, how this twin planet system developed. Those are geological 

kinds of explorations. We could use the back side of the Moon for 

radio telescopes, because it’s in radio silence on the other side of 

the Earth. 

So there are good scientific reasons that you—to go back to the 

Moon. But science is not why we send human beings into the Solar 

System. Science benefits. We can do scientific exploration. But the 

reason we send humans instead of robots is because of sociological 

reasons, it’s because that’s what we want to do, because we want 

humans to explore, and society regards our robotic program as a 

prelude, in fact, to sending human beings. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Mr. Tumlinson, I’ve met with a number of 

individuals that have talked along the lines of what you have, that 

107 

we need to get more of the commercial sector involved in this. Matter of fact—and they have talked for various reasons, but they have 

talked about the engine that that is in this country, and always 

has been, of a great engine. 

But one of them was saying, in particular, that our vision that 

we could and should step toward now would be the dominance of 

Earth-Moon orbit, the dominance of this region that the Earth and 

the Moon inhabit, and dominate it for exploration and research and 

sociological. But also for commercial, strategic, and military purposes. What do you think of that as a national vision, the dominance of Earth-Moon orbit, for those various component reasons? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Well, I go back to my near-frontier/far-frontier 

model there, and I, frankly, believe that the dominant forces between the Earth and the Moon, especially as we get close to LEO, 

should now become more and more the private-sector domination 

of that area. Were seeing lots of uses that are occurring. We’re seeing the development of these transportation system, these suborbital, what some people call, space tourism vehicles, those types 

of things, into that area. 

I think when we start looking at the expansion of our society, literally the expansion up into LEO and beyond, what we have to do 

is, again, look at our terrestrial model and the role that our government plays here on Earth. What I would like to see up there is, 

the government’s role would be the tax incentives. You’ll have a 

military role, because I, frankly, don’t see the United States military letting a lot of people do a lot of activities in space unless they 

can bring them down at their—whenever they want to, frankly. I 

think that we would see a Coast Guard function provided by the 

government out there, and those types of activities. 

But I also see this in partnership with that high goal of, shall 

we say, going to Mars. The going to Mars is like the fancy Crysler 

sports car that draws you into the dealership, and there you end 

up buying the smaller vehicle for yourself. In other words, people—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. You think we’d get it thrown in for—that 

this is part of the project of going to Mars, is going to the Moon. 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Well, I think it’s a duality, and I think the costs 

of going to Mars could be lowered by bringing in the private sector 

to handle that Earth-to-LEO function. You know, in the old days, 

up until now, NASA astronauts began their missions on the Earth, 

and that’s where they began. I believe now that NASA begins its 

mission in LEO, and that from LEO down we can begin handing 

that off to the private sector. And, you know, rather than driving 

their cars to the space ports, they can take private-sector transportation to LEO. 

Senator BROWNBACK. How many companies, credible companies—credible, the key word—could jump in if we said today, ‘‘We 

want to contract with a credible company to take this exploration 

device to the moon and set it there?’’ 

Mr. TUMLINSON. It depends on how big a device you’re talking 

about, and it depends on the price to put it there. I was a founder 

of a company called Lunar Corp. We were looking at lunar rovers 

that we were going to try and put on the Moon. Commercially, the 

Moon is at the edge of what I call ‘‘the giggle factor.’’ That’s where 

108 

you start getting laughed out of the room when you’re talking to 

investors, but it’s right on the edge. And companies, like Radio 

Shack and others, actually seriously looked at lunar activities. 

I think lunar orbiting activities could be contracted out to—there 

are a lot of—several small companies that could take a shot at 

that. And those types of—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. What sort of price range would we be talking about if we want to contract you to put something in orbit 

around the moon? 

Mr. TUMLINSON. I would hesitate to guess on that one. I think 

that it’s much lower than a NASA-owned and operated system, and 

you could competitively bid that, or you could also combine that 

with prizes, sets of prizes for showing that you could land something on the Moon. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Like the Lindberg—— 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Lindberg Prize, exactly. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—Prize of—— 

Mr. TUMLINSON. There are models out there now of prizes inspiring people, and starting a lot of people up. 

But I do want to point out that there are at least a half dozen 

companies right now looking at carrying paying passengers to lowEarth orbit, and they are funded, real companies. 

Senator BROWNBACK. I had a hearing of private commercial companies doing this with a couple of the entrepreneurs here testifying 

that, yes, they are, and they’ve got real dollars, and they’re looking 

at the old Earth—or the old barnstorming model, as you somewhat 

point out, is that we started commercial aviation barnstorming, 

just a guy going up and coming into town and saying, ‘‘I’ll give you 

a ride in the airplane for five bucks,’’ and that kind of started the 

commercial industry. And they’re saying, ‘‘We think that space can 

go some of the same way.’’ 

Mr. TUMLINSON. Now, I can tell you, too, sir, that, in their 

hearts, their end result, their end goal, is very much like Bob’s and 

I, which is human settlement. These are people who grew up in the 

1960s and 1970s watching Apollo, Star Trek and Star Wars. They 

made their money on the dot-coms, survived the meltdown, and 

now they’re out there wanting to do something big and give back 

to civilization, and this is the entry level, sort of, market that they 

can see as a way of participating. But, again, it’s a dual thing. The 

big goal, and then the operational activities. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Dr. Zubrin, in your testimony you were 

very passionate, but also were mad. You’re mad we haven’t done 

this, or that this vision has been stolen from a generation? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. I guess you could say that. You know, I was 17 when 

we landed on the moon, and if you had told me then that, you 

know, 34 years later, humans would not be doing anything beyond 

low-Earth orbit, that we wouldn’t be established on the Moon, that 

we wouldn’t have already gone to Mars—you know, NASA’s plans 

in 1969 were for humans to Mars by 1981. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Is that right? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Yes, take a look at the report of the Space Task 

Group that was done for the Nixon Administration in 1969. It’s humans to Mars by 1981. And they could have, if they had been allowed to continue. We had a—— 

109 

Senator BROWNBACK. Why weren’t they allowed to continue 

then? 

Dr. ZUBRIN. The Nixon Administration turned their back on the 

whole Apollo vision. It was not invented here. It’s like Columbus 

coming back from the New World and Ferdinand and Isabella saying, ‘‘Aw, so what? Forget it. Burn the ships.’’ OK? You know, 

that’s what has happened in this country. And we should have 

been on Mars by 1981. We should have had a Mars base by the 

early 1990s. The first children born on Mars should be entering 

school right about now. 

Senator BROWNBACK. And you have no question that technologically we’ve got the capacity—we had the capacity then, and we 

clearly have it now, to do this. 

Dr. ZURBIN. Yes. OK? Now, there’s various pieces of hardware 

that need to be developed, and it can be developed. I mean, you 

know, it’s—we’re not talking here about Los Alamos 1943, where 

we’re going a scientific adventure into unknown realms of physics 

and we have no idea of what we’re about to encounter. We understand how to do space engineering. This is a question of brass tacks 

engineering. Got to do it right, it’s a lot of hard work, OK, but we 

can do it. And, you know, I also—I might say that I believe that 

this is doable within roughly the existing NASA budget. You’re 

going to have to re-prioritize that budget, OK, within the context 

of an overall plan that guides expenditures to be spent on the hardware elements to implement your plan. OK? But that’s what you 

can do. OK? You know, we spent, what, four billion, five billion a 

year on the Shuttle flights back to Earth orbit, up and down? 

Senator BROWNBACK. Yes. 

Dr. ZURBIN. OK, you could build a lot of hardware for that. And, 

indeed, within 10 years, you could build the hardware required to 

be flying humans to the Moon, and Mars and the near-Earth asteroids, with a common set of hardware. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Are we learning much with the International Space Station? 

Dr. ZURBIN. We’re learning some things, but in a lot of cases 

we’re solving the wrong problems. And, once again, this is a product of the constituency-driven mode of operation that we have. 

The right way to go to Mars is with artificial gravity. Artificial 

gravity will get rid of all these loss of bone and musculature and 

all these problems that you have with zero gravity, because the 

human organism evolved in gravity and we’re not adapted to this. 

However, because the NASA space research community is heavily 

dominated by zero-gravity health researchers. NASA has not even 

funded, in its entire history, a single artificial gravity mini satellite 

with mice in it or something, which would be an easy thing to do, 

and it costs, you know, $30 million or something. Who knows. 

Nothing. 

So we’re doing extended research on the effects of zero gravity, 

which is not the right way to go to Mars. Any space mission, and 

certainly Space Station missions included, you get some experience, 

there’s a learning process, you’re learning how to do things, you get 

some lessons. But if somebody was to say, ‘‘OK, look, here’s $40 billion. Do humans to Mars,’’ within the context of that program I 

would not be taking this amount of money and spending it on a 

110 

space station and space-station operations for several decades. I 

might do something like take half module, launch it in low-Earth 

orbit, shake it down there, test it out, and get some experience 

with it in low-Earth orbit as part of my program. But the idea of 

making Earth orbital operation the centerpiece of the American, 

and virtually the world space program, at this point, for several 

decades, I think, is wrong. 

In Apollo, we knew where we were going. We went to the Moon. 

Now, there were some things to be done in Earth orbit, so we built 

a Sky Lab, and, as an afterthought, with the Saturn 5, we 

launched the Space Station in the afternoon, and we did that as 

long as it was interesting to us, which was three missions, about 

over a year or a little more. I think, you know, it would have been 

worth saving Sky Lab, and there’s more—there’s things you can 

learn in low-Earth orbit. 

But I think it is—I mean, imagine if Prince Henry, the navigator, 

the guy who initiative the European age of exploration, going to do 

maritime exploration. Instead of sending ships down the coast of 

Africa, you know, further and further and further, he devoted his 

program to sending ships a hundred miles out to sea and have 

them sit there and watch the health effects on the sailors. That is 

the space program that we have now, watching the health effects 

on the sailors. The purpose of spaceships is to actually travel 

across space and go to new worlds, not to hang out in space and 

observe the health effects of doing so. And that’s what we’re doing 

wrong. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well, it struck me when you described the 

period of Apollo and then the period afterwards, that is exactly the 

case we’re without a vision. And instead of us driving it, as policymakers, and setting vision, we’re kind of, ‘‘Well, OK, what do you 

want,’’ and looking at it, ‘‘Let me think about it. Well, we’ll give 

you $10 billion instead of $12 billion,’’ and that’s been the extent 

of the—not completely. I mean, that’s very oversimplified, but 

that’s been somewhat of the discussion for the last decade or so. 

Dr. ZUBRIN. Yes. And—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. I mean, and it does rob a society of vision. 

And I’ve looked and studied some in past societies. When you take 

that vision that really pushes them out sociologically, mentally, 

their soul, pushes it out there, when you take that away, and you 

pull it back in, it has a detrimental effect on the society, on the 

whole of society. It has a detrimental effect on the culture. 

Conversely, you put an aggressive mission out there that this is 

going to stretch us and this is going to challenge us, and the people 

that are doing this, that are going to go on this Mars mission, are 

virtuous heroes, that stretches us to say. I think that’s why China 

went into space, to stretch the society, as much, if not more, than 

anything else. And we’ve got to constantly stretch. But I don’t feel 

like we’ve got a vision right now that stretches this much. 

Dr. ZURBIN. Yes, it has a tremendously positive effect on all levels of society, most notable among the youth. During the 1960s, the 

number of science graduates in this country doubled at every 

level—high school, college, Ph.D. And, people asked what’s the payback? What did we get paid back from Apollo? Teflon? Who cares? 

What we got paid back for were millions of scientists, engineers, 

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doctors, medical researchers, inventors. OK? Who are the people 

who created the economic boom of the 1990s, these 40-year-old 

techno- billionaires who built Silicon Valley? These are the 12-yearolds of the 1960s, paying back huge, big time, to the economy, to 

national defense, advancing the human condition, medical cures. 

The intellectual capital is the wealth of the nation, and the way 

you get that is by inspiring people with a, you know, a vision of 

something they can do with their lives by developing their lives. 

And this would be tremendously valuable to the country if we were 

to do this. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Gentlemen, thank you very much. I don’t 

know if anybody else had a final thought that they wanted to put 

forward, but I did want to come back, and I would like to see the 

book—— 

Dr. ZURBIN. OK. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—Dr. Zurbin. 

Mr. TUMLINSON. I just wanted to concur with Bob on this. And, 

a lot of the hearing had to do with the safety issues. We’ve got an 

exploration agency that’s totally consumed by safety. If you pay attention to the pop cultures that’s out there, the modern youth are 

actually consumed about taking risks. They’re out there doing X 

sports. They’re doing all kinds of crazy things to take risks. And 

I think that that’s a call inside. Because when you take a risk, you 

find out who you really are, and that needs to be exemplified in 

this sort of mission and these other sorts of activities. 

So I think it’s a very great idea that we could get onto this sort 

of thing. But, again, as a partnership. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Dr. Huntress, did you want to comment? 

Dr. HUNTRESS. Just a parting comment, that I really do believe 

that sooner or later we have to have a clear destination for human 

spaceflight or it simply won’t survive, and America will be much 

poorer for it. I’m a Sputnik kid. I could tell you the exact same stories that Bob just told you about what happened to our generation 

and the explosion of scientists and engineers that came out of that 

generation because of the inspiration that we had there. 

The country needs the challenge of grander exploration, simply, 

to justify the risk, kind of lift our sights, fuel human dreams, advance human discovery and knowledge. But to do that, we need to 

go somewhere. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well, I’ve learned, in my time in public life, 

that a big part of my job is inspiring, probably the biggest part of 

it. And you can speak to the body, or you can speak to the soul, 

and the body generally likes safer confines, and the soul likes to 

be yearned forward and pushed, and it’s a far more powerful thing, 

the soul, than the body. 

Thank you. You’ve been very instructional and educational. I appreciate it greatly. 

The hearing’s adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:50, the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ