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INTERNATIONAL SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAMS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, 

AND SPACE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 27, 2004 

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

( 

(II) 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS 

SECOND 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 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SPACE 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas, Chairman 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

TRENT LOTT, Mississippi 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia 

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana, Ranking 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 27, 2004 .............................................................................. 1 

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

Statement of Senator Nelson .................................................................................. 38 

WITNESSES

Grahn, Sven, Vice President Of Engineering, Swedish Space Corporation, 

Solna, Sweden ...................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Logsdon, John M., Director, Space Policy Institute, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University ....................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9 

Oberg, James, Aerospace Operations Consultant, Soaring Hawk Productions, 

Inc. ......................................................................................................................... 24 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

Smith, Marcia S., Specialist in Aerospace and Telecommunications Policy, 

Congressional Research Service .......................................................................... 12 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15 

(1) 

INTERNATIONAL SPACE EXPLORATION 

PROGRAMS 

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2004 

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

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:35 p.m. in room 

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

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM KANSAS 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you for joining me here today. I look 

out and we’re a little thin in attendance, but as I say that, I think 

this will be one of those hearings that we’ll look back or we’ll backdrop for hearings in future years that will be packed with interest 

here in this country and around the world. This is where we build 

the foundational stock of information, and I’m looking forward to 

the input and the thoughts that the panel will give us today. 

One of the most significant products from our space program has 

been images of our beautiful floating in space, this view of spaceship Earth shows best that all mankind shares a common home. 

A closer look, though, shows a diversity of aspirations as significant 

as those we have in common. As we consider the President’s new 

vision for American future in space, we must think about what others around the world are planning and doing. 

Nations and people pursue space programs for many reasons. In 

the 1960s, we had a race to the moon with the Soviet Union. Our 

space program was more about national security than space exploration. In the 1990s, our International Space Station appeared to 

focus on the virtues of international cooperation more than science. 

Other nations, particularly those in Europe, who sought space capabilities independent of the superpowers. 

We have a new American vision for space. January 14 this year, 

President Bush announced a space vision which dramatically refocused our space program. Our space objectives will now be to expand human and robotic presence in the solar system beginning 

with the moon and Mars and beyond. 

As I talk with my colleagues in Congress and at home in Congress, they ask why are we committing significant resources to 

space now with other pressing needs here at home. I believe the 

answer really is quite straightforward and quite important. America has always led on new frontiers, frontiers of science, frontiers 

2 

of freedom and opportunity, and frontiers in space. Other nations 

are mounting impressive new ventures in space, some of them very 

low cost, but significant nonetheless. I for one don’t think we 

should need to explain to our children years from now why others 

are walking on other worlds and reaping the benefits of space exploration when we are not. 

For this reason, I’ve asked experts from the United States and 

outside to tell us about other nations’ space exploration efforts. We 

are in a global competition for the future. Space is a key element 

in this competition, but competition does not exclude cooperation. 

As I know well from our Nation’s private sector that a free range 

of opportunities to compete and cooperate at individual discretion 

benefits all. We need this same spirit globally to reap the benefits 

of an unlimited space future. 

I’ve heard from entrepreneurs throughout America that they 

want a new approach to space. They want the U.S. Government to 

use the private sector to full advantage as we explore and occupy 

the moon and Mars and beyond. I intend to work with my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that that happens, and I want to 

make sure that our private sector can fully utilize the efforts of 

those outside the United States to their and our benefit. In other 

words, I’m looking for new architecture of how we explore space. 

Today we will hear the significant initiatives of nations throughout the world to expand beyond Earth orbit. Space is no longer the 

province of one or two powerful nations, but there is a race on for 

space. This is not necessarily a military race, but a race for the future, and the national security implications of space exploration are 

always there. Leadership has always been America’s strong point 

and I believe it to be our destiny. I hope we will meet this challenge as we always have. We will lead and we will cooperate with 

others to everyone’s mutual benefit. 

We have an outstanding panel of witnesses to present and discuss this topic about what other countries are doing in the space 

race: Mr. Sven Grahn, Vice President of Engineering and Corporate 

Communications, the Swedish Space Corporation out of Sweden; 

Dr. John Logsdon, Director of Space Policy Institute, Washington, 

D.C.; Ms. Marcy Smith, Specialist in Aerospace and Telecommunications Policy, Congressional Research Service; and Mr. James 

Oberg, Aerospace Operations Consultant out of Texas. I look forward to your testimony. 

What we will do is we’ll put all of your testimonies completely 

in the record, the written testimonies. You are free to summarize 

or you can present it as well. What I like to do in this Committee 

is to have as much free and candid dialogue and discussion on your 

points of view after they’re presented. 

Mr. Grahn, delighted to have you here. Welcome, and I look forward to your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF SVEN GRAHN, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

ENGINEERING, SWEDISH SPACE CORPORATION 

Mr. GRAHN. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I’m here to talk about 

SMART–1, Europe’s first moon probe. This spacecraft was developed on behalf of the European Space Agency by my company, the 

3 

Swedish Space Corporation, which is a small company in a small 

country, and that’s actually my message, how is that possible. 

The spacecraft was launched piggyback on Ariane–5 rocket in 

September last year, and it’s expected to reach an orbit around the 

moon in November of this year, so it’s on its way and it works very 

well. The objective of SMART–1 is to test solar electric propulsion 

for a future deep space mission. The moon is a convenient target 

for this technical test, but it’s not the main objective. By the way, 

SMART means—it’s not a pun—it means small missions for advanced research and technology. But investigations of the lunar 

surface and other objects in space are sort of a bonus. 

The reason why it takes 16 months to reach the moon is that the 

electric rocket motor has very low thrust. It’s very efficient in 

terms of mass, but very low thrust, so it takes a while to spiral out 

to the moon and get there. That is the purpose of the flight to test 

this engine and the moon is nice conveniently nearby. 

SMART–1 was not developed within the skunk-works or faster 

by a cheaper paradigm, but rather used a light version of the traditional system’s management and methodology pioneered by the 

United States in development of ICBMs in the 1950s. The time between our first contact with ESA and the launch was 61⁄2 years, 

which is a rather short time in the space field, and the design, 

manufacture, and test phase of the spacecraft, what we call the CD 

phase in the space world, lasted 39 months, which is really short 

for a brand new design from the bottom up, it was brand new. So 

that could be said to be part of a truly industrial approach to 

spacecraft development, how to be used to permit a small company 

that cannot reinvent everything to develop such a capable spacecraft in a short time, and I’d like to list those the main part of my 

testimony. 

We used commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software items 

from non-aerospace industry. These were modified by space use or 

used as is. An example is the data bussing board, which comes 

from the automotive industry. The most efficient commercial software development methods available were used, and these come 

from industries where the time to market for new products is extremely short due to cutthroat competition. I don’t have to mention 

what it is, but the mobile phone industry, of course, where software 

development has to be made very rapidly. 

Though ESA itself provided some very good things, standard software building blocks for spacecraft basic functions, and standardized logic circuit designs for implementing international standards 

of geometry and telecom, they were using the spacecraft, and these 

have been developed under ESA’s leadership. And that’s very similar to what happened in the United States within national advisory 

committee on aeronautics, which developed, for example, Air Force, 

to use in the airplane industry. 

I think my last thought in terms of method is that modern industry has created a large group of freelance software engineers that 

are used to working in a new environment where the time to market and industrial working style are primary values, and we need 

to tap this talent pool. Without them, we couldn’t have made it, 

and they come from the mobile phone industry, for example. 

4 

All of this is nothing revolutionary, but it boils down to that for 

a small company we can’t reinvent everything, so this off-the-shelf 

approach is the only way forward. And my final punch line is one 

might say that space technology needs to spin on terrestrial and 

non-aerospace technology in order to be able to provide more spinoff technology that is honed to perfection by the forbidding environment of the space mission. Thank you, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grahn follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SVEN GRAHN, VICE PRESIDENT OF ENGINEERING, 

SWEDISH SPACE CORPORATION

SMART–1, Europe’s First Moon Probe 

Facts about the project and how the probe was developed by a small company in a 

small country 

Distinguished members of the Subcommittee, 

It is a great honour to describe SMART–1, Europe’s first space probe to the Moon 

which has been developed by the Swedish Space Corporation on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). The spacecraft weighed 367 kg (810 lbs) when it was 

launched by an Ariane-5 rocket on 27 September 2003. It is expected to reach an 

orbit around the Moon perhaps as early as in November of this year. In my statement I intend to concentrate on those aspects of the project where my own organization has contributed. The account is made from the perspective of the supplier, a 

quite small company in a small member country of ESA’s. 

What methods were used to permit us, a company of about 300 employees, to develop a sophisticated lunar probe of brand-new design in 39 months? That is the 

main question that I will address. 

The Mission and Its Background 

SMART–1 is the first of ESA’s Small Missions for Advanced Research and Technology (SMART). Their purpose is to test new technologies that will eventually be 

used on bigger projects. The main mission objective of SMART–1 is the flight demonstration of electric propulsion for deep space missions. 

In early studies of SMART–1 a mission to an asteroid was considered. However, 

the piggyback launch opportunity selected put a strict upper limit on total mass and 

propellant mass. Also, a mission to an asteroid would require the use of busy and 

expensive ground tracking facilities because of the long distances involved. Therefore a flight to the Moon provided a solution to both these concerns. When the decision to fly to the Moon had been taken it was natural to include as much scientific 

instruments as possible. The tight mass limit provided an incentive for miniaturized 

instrument design—a bonus for later missions into the solar system. 

Thus the spacecraft uses a 68 mN stationary plasma thruster (PPS–1350 developed by the French company SNECMA and provided as a Customer-Furnished-Item 

by ESA) which consumes 82 kg of Xenon propellant to provide about 3.5 km/s of 

increased velocity that will bring SMART–1 from a geostationary transfer orbit to 

lunar orbit. The travel time will be in the order of 16 months. The final lunar orbit 

after capture is intended to be polar, between 300 km and 10000 km in altitude 

with the lowest point close to the lunar south pole. 

The Lunar observation phase will last for at least six months. In lunar orbit, the 

spacecraft will be pointed with one axis at the lunar surface for carrying out a complete programme of scientific observations from lunar orbit. 

The spacecraft carries a scientific payload weighing 19 kg which contains miniaturized instruments such as an imager for visible light and near-infrared light, an 

infrared spectrometer, an X-ray spectrometer and instruments to measure the effect 

of the electric thruster on the space plasma environment. Important science objectives of SMART–1 are to conduct lunar crust studies in order to test the current 

theories of the formation of the Moon, and to establish whether the large hydrogen 

deposits detected near the South Lunar Pole by the U.S. Probes Clementine and 

Lunar Prospector, is indeed water. During the cruise phase to the Moon, experiments related to autonomous spacecraft navigation will be carried out using images 

from the star trackers and the miniature imager. 

ESA’s official cost figure for the SMART–1 project is 100 million euros at 2001 

economic conditions (including spacecraft, launch, operations and part of the payload). 

5 

The Spacecraft 

The spacecraft is designed with regard to the power needed for the electric propulsion, the severe radiation environment that is a consequence of the slow earth escape trajectory and the need for on-board autonomy. The design life of the spacecraft is two years. The spacecraft looks like a one cubic meter (35 cu ft) cube 

equipped with solar panels with a 14-meter (45 ft) span. 

Power is provided by a large solar array with almost 2 kW of initial power using 

highly efficient triple-junction cells and a 220 Ah Li-ion battery. The spacecraft’s attitude control uses reaction wheels and hydrazine thrusters for steering based on 

inputs from very compact star trackers and gyros. The spacecraft platform contains 

several new technology elements in addition to the electric propulsion. These elements are both part of the mission objectives and part of the answer to the question 

how a small company in a small country can build such a capable spacecraft. 

Autonomy was a major design driver for the spacecraft so that the long cruise to 

the Moon would not tie up expensive ground station time and operations staff. 

Therefore the avionics was entirely new and its architecture was designed so that 

on-board software could autonomously manage fault detection isolation and recovery. 

The Development Task 

The project to develop the spacecraft lasted 61⁄2 years from the first contact in 

March 1997 between ESA and the Swedish Space Corporation until launch. After 

initial assessment, feasibility and definition studies the development contract was 

signed in December 1999 and the spacecraft was formally delivered to the customer 

after 39 months. The spacecraft was stored for a few months awaiting the Ariane5 piggyback launch opportunity. 

The prime contractor team that managed and carried out the development of the 

spacecraft and several of its subsystems expended 280000 working hours to complete the spacecraft. In addition the team procured other subsystems and equipment 

under fixed price contracts with vendors. The prime contractor staff reached a maximum size of about 75 persons, including on-site outside consultants for specific development tasks 

Previous Experience of SSC as A Prime Contractor 

The Swedish Space Corporation designs, launches and operates space systems. We 

design and build small satellites, sounding rockets and subsystems for space vehicles. At our launch site in the far north of Sweden we launch sounding rockets and 

balloons and provide communications services to satellites with our extensive antenna facilities. The latest such support task was to NASA’s Gravity Probe B 

launched last week. The company was formed in 1972, has 300 employees, is owned 

by the government, and operates as a commercial corporation. 

The Swedish Space Corporation, at the time of its selection to develop SMART– 

1, had built and launched three successful spin-stabilized space physics satellites 

and was finishing the development of a small radio astronomy/aeronomy satellite 

with extremely accurate pointing capability (5 arc-seconds stability). This satellite, 

Odin, was launched in February 2001 and has performed brilliantly since then. The 

level of complexity of Odin is comparable to SMART–1. This made it possible for 

our company to at all contemplate taking on the development of SMART–1 when 

this task was offered to Sweden by ESA as part of a package for compensating our 

country for insufficient ‘‘industrial return’’ on its investment in Europe’s future in 

space. 

All our previous projects have been essentially multilateral projects under Swedish leadership. To develop these spacecraft SSC used a ‘‘skunk-works’’ approach in 

which a highly skilled small group of people is put to work with little outside daily 

monitoring and using only the documentation needed to build the product. ‘‘Peer’’ 

reviews of the technical work were used instead of formal reviews. 

Such an approach is often confused with the Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) paradigm. ‘‘Skunk-works’’ methods can be part of the FBC paradigm, but there is nothing in the ‘‘skunk-works’’ methodology that inherently assumes that higher risks 

will be accepted. For example; although we used military or commercial parts, tests 

and other measures were taken to convince us these parts would work, even if the 

analysis and test methods were unconventional. Sometimes rigorous computer analysis was replaced by simpler ‘‘back-of-the envelope’’ analysis, but extensive testing 

on all levels was never cut back—rather the opposite. The first small satellite we 

developed actually was tested, almost fully integrated, daily for almost a year. 

In these projects low cost was emphasized as the driving parameter. In the FBC 

paradigm, as I understand it, higher risk is explicitly accepted. This was not so in 

our earlier projects. Instead schedule or performance could be used as ’’free’’ paramVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
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eters. For example, the Freja magnetospheric research satellite launched in 1992 

from China had a very flexible requirements specification which permitted costs and 

schedule goals to be met. For Odin, the sophisticated radio telescope-carrying satellite, schedule was not critical, but performance and cost was. By using a relatively 

small team (12 persons), the long development time did not cause excessive cost increases. 

Thus, our experience tends to confirm that you cannot get all the letters of FBC 

if you want to limit risk and have the assurance of low risk—you only get two out 

of the three—unless you add a new ingredient! The new ingredient to possibly resolve the FBC dilemma is smart technology and smart industrial methods. This is 

what we proposed to ESA for the SMART–1 project and which was in line with the 

Agency’s ambitions for the project. Thus, when ESA presented the spacecraft to the 

press in April 2003, Dr David Southwood, ESA’s director of science described the 

development paradigm for SMART–1 as ‘‘faster, better, smarter’’. 

The Outline of A Truly Industrial Approach to Spacecraft Development 

Thus, SMART–1 was not developed within the ‘‘skunk works’’ paradigm but rather a ‘‘light’’ version of traditional system management methodology pioneered in the 

development of ICBM’s in the United States. Tight customer oversight of the supplier was used to provide a measure of assurance of low risk. However, ESA kept 

a comparatively (to other space science projects within ESA) lean staff of approximately 8 persons for day-to-day monitoring of us as the supplier. The monitoring 

staff consisted mainly of highly skilled technical specialists but also experts on management, project control and contractual aspects. For major project reviews the Customer used its normal level of resources with about 40 specialists spending 4–6 

weeks examining every technical aspect of the project. 

The contract type, cost-plus-incentive-fee (even with a negative fee!), was a way 

of keeping cost low (the risk to the supplier of developing a brand-new spacecraft 

with much new technology was not slapped on the price), but it also required much 

more detailed reporting of man-hours and other expenditures than for a fixed price 

contract. 

The organization within the Swedish Space Corporation that developed SMART– 

1 was the Space Systems Division based at the company’s engineering center in 

Solna, a suburb of the capitol Stockholm. This division has a total staff of 75 persons so the development of SMART–1 was a major task and indeed a difficult one 

especially in the early parts of the project when our previous working style had to 

be changed. 

However, some choices of technology and methods were worked out with the Customer early in the project that helped considerably in meeting the schedule without 

losing the assurance of limited risk. 

1. Without trying to flatter ESA, a superbly competent customer helps any supplier, and it certainly helped a small company like the Swedish Space Corporation. 

2. Commercial-off-the-shelf items from non-aerospace industry were modified for 

space use or used as-is, i.e., the CAN data bus developed in the automotive industry and a commercial real-time operating system. These items have been 

developed for commercial use by injecting massive amounts of human resources 

that is hard to match in the space industry. 

3. Since a very large fraction of the spacecraft cost, perhaps 25 percent, can be 

related to software development, the most efficient developments methods 

available had to be used. These can be found in such fields as the mobile 

telecom industry where the requirements for short ‘‘time-to-market’’ for new 

products are extreme due to the cut-throat competition. Although so-called 

automatic code generation is not entirely new to the space business, it had not 

been used systematically in ESA programs. In SMART–1 we used this in the 

development of the attitude control software, the fault detection isolation and 

recovery software, and high-fidelity simulators of the spacecraft. 

4. Standard software building blocks for spacecraft basic functions that were developed previously under ESA leadership were used and removed the need not 

re-invent them. In this way and by using commercial software building blocks 

(such as operating system) software development could be concentrated on the 

tasks specific to the SMART–1 mission. 

5. Standardized logic circuit designs for implementing the international telemetry 

and telecommand standard is available through the efforts of ESA, both as 

ready-made circuits and as code for programming so-called gate arrays—chips 

that can be programmed to a certain task, for example to be a microprocessor. 

7 

6. The modern IT and telecom industry has created an extremely competent cadre 

of free-lance software engineers used to working in an environment where 

‘‘time-to-market’’ and an industrial working style are primary values. This talent pool was tapped for SMART–1. 

In five of the examples above one can see the outline of a truly industrial approach to spacecraft development, i.e., the widespread use of standard, well-tested 

building blocks permitting the developer to concentrate on product-specific work. 

ESA’s role in providing standard building blocks is reminiscent of the role of NACA 

in early U.S. aeronautics when this organization provided basic design standards 

such as airfoil profiles to the budding aeronautical industry. 

This is no revolutionary thought, but it needs to be applied systematically. In 

SMART–1 we tried to do this and we intend to continue along this approach. For 

a small company that cannot re-invent everything, this is the only way forward. 

One might say that space technology needs to ‘‘spin on’’ terrestrial and non-aerospace technology in order to be able to provide more ‘‘spin off’’, i.e., technology that 

is spurred to perfection by the forbidding design environment that a space mission 

provides. 

Concluding Remarks 

We are indeed proud of our product, excited about working with ESA in advancing 

the state-of-the-art of astronautics and very flattered by the opportunity to share 

our experience with this distinguished deliberating body. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you. I look forward to talking with 

you more, because what you are describing is something that a 

number of you have talked about of a different architecture for our 

space program and I want to pursue that with you. 

Dr. Logsdon, thank you very much for joining us today. I want 

to advise you too, we’ve got a vote that was just recently called, 

and in a little under 5 minutes, I will put the Committee in recess 

and so the next two, I’ll come back as quick as I can and we’ll continue with the testimony at that time, but I think we can get your 

testimony in. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN M. LOGSDON, DIRECTOR, SPACE POLICY 

INSTITUTE, ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, 

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Dr. LOGSDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for providing the opportunity to reflect on the character of space exploration programs 

around the world. I will focus in my testimony on the explorations 

plans of Japan and India. However, I was in Europe less than 2 

weeks ago, and if time permits, I have some remarks to make 

about what I found in talking to space leaders there. 

As you said in your opening statement, our initial forays in 

human exploration beyond Earth orbit were a product of the cold 

war. Forty years later, the Cold War is thankfully behind us. We 

have no need as a nation to demonstrate our technological and organizational might through dramatic space achievements carried 

out unilaterally. In the three decades since Apollo, the solar system 

has become open for exploration to other countries around the 

world. Among these countries are Japan and India. 

Almost a decade ago, Japan set out a long range vision for space 

development. That vision anticipated that some time after 2010 

there would be an international lunar base with Japan as a key 

participant. In pursuit of this vision, Japan has launched several 

exploratory spacecraft to Mars and to a comet, and is preparing 

several more for launch. Awaiting launch is a Lunar-A mission, 

which will send two small penetrators into the lunar surface for 

8 

seismological research, and SELENE, which will be the heaviest 

spacecraft to orbit the moon since the days of Apollo. The SELENE 

mission will focus on the origins and evolution of the Earth’s nearest neighbor. Projected launch date for Lunar A is later this year 

or early in 2005, SELENE, the following 12 months. But in reality, 

both missions have been delayed several times in the past and additional delays are probable. 

Japan has on the planning boards a mission to Venus and is a 

major partner with the European Space Agency in a mission to 

Mercury called Beppi-Colombo. So indeed, Japan has ambitious 

plans for solar system exploration. But the reality is that Japan’s 

space program right now is pretty much on hold following several 

major spacecraft failures and then a major launch failure last November. This came just as Japan was reorganizing its space efforts 

into a new Japanese aerospace exploration agency called JAXA. 

Until the short-term problems of assuring mission success are 

addressed and again the confidence of the Japanese Government, 

I think Japan will not be able to move forward with its exploration 

plans. 

Last year on Indian independence day, which is August 15, Indian Prime Minister Vajpayeeon announced that India in 2007 

would send its first mission to the moon, to be named 

Chandrayaan–1. This spacecraft is going to spend 2 years orbiting 

the moon 60 miles above its surface. India has had an active space 

program for over 30 years, developed its own launch vehicles to access both low-Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit. Its space program to date has been focused on contributions to Indian development and economic growth. 

But now India appears poised to go beyond an Earth-oriented 

space program to join other nations in exploring the solar system. 

Visiting the Indian launch site last October, Indian President 

Abdul Kalam, himself a former space engineer, told the assembled 

workers, ‘‘the exploration of the moon through Chandrayaan will 

electrify the whole country, particularly young scientists and children. I am sure the moon mission is just a start toward further 

planetary explorations.’’ 

It’s worth noting that India has invited the international scientific community to participate in the mission. India has received 

some 25 proposals from such participation from scientists in the 

United States, Canada, Israel, and Europe. Clearly investigators 

from other countries want to ride aboard India’s first exploration 

mission. 

With your permission, I will take a couple of minutes to talk 

about Europe. Europe, first of all, is a very active player already 

in solar system explorations. SMART–1 is just one of several European missions going to the planets and a very ambitious mission 

called Rosetta is going on a 10-year journey to a comet. Europe for 

the past couple of years has been studying through a program 

called Aurora a human mission to Mars in the 2030 timeframe; 

this however is only a study program. The plan was to begin to 

prepare in 2005 and make major investments after 2010. 

These exploratory missions have been taking second priority 

within Europe and within the European Space Agency to an emerging focus on how space capabilities can contribute to the developVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
9 

ment of Europe as an economic, political, and cultural entity with 

a focus on Earth-oriented space missions like Earth observation, 

and navigation and timing. 

President Bush’s proposed U.S. Vision for Space Exploration 

poses a Direct Challenge to stated European space ambitions. Europe is going to be faced with a choice with limited resources of 

whether to proceed on its current path or become a major partner 

in U.S.-led exploration of the moon. The director general of ESA 

was quoted after President Bush’s speech as saying, I dreamed of 

the day when the President of Europe would come to ESA headquarters and make a similar policy declaration. In response, a new 

team at ESA is developing over the coming months, a new approach to space exploration, so there is an action/reaction phenomenon here. 

Space exploration is no longer an arena for unilateral display of 

national power. Exploring the solar system has really become a 

truly global enterprise. I hope today’s testimony has underlined the 

reality that if the United States public through its elected representatives chooses not to accept some version of the President’s 

vision and make it a national vision for space exploration—which 

I believe would be a poor choice, by the way—other countries in 

coming decades will assume exploratory leadership. Writing to the 

White House in late 1971 to make the case that the U.S. then 

should not choose to end its program of human space flight, NASA 

Administrator James Fletcher argued, ‘‘man has learned to fly in 

space and man will continue to fly in space. The United States cannot forego its responsibility to have a part in manned space flight. 

For the United States not to be in space while others do have men 

in space is unthinkable and a position which America cannot accept.’’ 

I would change one word in Dr. Fletcher’s argument. Rather 

than ‘‘cannot,’’ I would say, ‘‘should not.’’ We can indeed make as 

a society the decision that the benefits of human space flight are 

outweighed by its costs and risks and choose not to explore. To me, 

that would be a sad choice. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Logsdon follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN M. LOGSDON, DIRECTOR, SPACE POLICY INSTITUTE, ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON

UNIVERSITY

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for providing an opportunity to reflect on the character 

of space exploration programs around the world. I will focus in my testimony on the 

exploration plans of Japan and India. However, less than two weeks ago I was in 

Europe discussing European exploration plans with space leaders there, and so I 

will also add a few words on my perceptions of what I heard there. 

Between July 1969 and December 1972, twelve American astronauts walked on 

the surface of the moon. The Apollo program will in historical terms be remembered 

as the beginning of human exploration of the solar system, and the plaque attached 

to the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle says ‘‘we came in peace for all mankind.’’ The 

reality was rather different, as you well know. Sending Americans to the moon was 

‘‘part of the battle along the fluid front of the Cold War,’’ to quote the recommendation that President John F. Kennedy approved in May 1961 to initiate the lunar 

landing program. 

More than forty years later, the Cold War is thankfully well behind us. We have 

no need as a nation to demonstrate our technological and organizational might 

through dramatic space achievements carried out unilaterally. In the three decades 

since Apollo, the solar system has become open for exploration not only to the 

United States and its superpower rival the Soviet Union, but to other countries 

10 

1The Planetary Society of Japan, April 14, 2004. 

around the globe. Either in cooperation with one of those space superpowers or on 

missions of their own, many countries around the world have made robotic exploration of the solar system a high priority in their space efforts. 

Among those nations are Japan and India. Almost a decade ago, in its ‘‘Long 

Term Vision for Space Development,’’ the Japanese government set out as a basic 

goal a philosophy that might well be adopted by all space faring countries: to ‘‘enable access to the vastness of space and use the infinite potential of space as the 

common property of mankind, thereby making a full and effective contribution to 

the enduring prosperity of all inhabitants on earth.’’ That Vision anticipated sometime after 2010 there would be an international lunar base, with Japan as a key 

participant. 

In pursuit of its Vision, Japan has launched several exploratory spacecraft and 

is preparing several more for launch to the moon. Japan’s Nozomi spacecraft was 

launched toward Mars in July 1998, and arrived there at the end of 2003, after a 

journey fraught with technical difficulties. A final spacecraft malfunction kept 

Nozomi from entering Mars orbit. In May of last year Japan launched the 

Hayabusha (MUSES–C) mission, which will rendezvous with an earth-crossing asteroid in 2005 and return a sample of that body to Earth in 2007. 

Awaiting launch are the Lunar-A mission, which will send two small penetrators 

into the lunar surface for seismological research, and SELENE, which will be the 

heaviest spacecraft to orbit the moon since the days of Apollo. The SELENE mission 

will focus on the origins and evolution of the Earth’s nearest neighbor. Projected 

launch date for Lunar A is this year or early in 2005; SELENE, the following twelve 

months. Both missions have been delayed several times in the past, and additional 

delays are probable. 

In addition, Japan is planning for a mission to Venus in the future and is a major 

partner in the European Space Agency Beppi-Colombo mission to Mercury. 

So Japan indeed has ambitious plans for solar system exploration. But this discussion would not be complete without noting that Japan’s space program is currently pretty much on hold, following several major spacecraft failures in 2002 and 

2003 and then the launch failure of the sixth mission of Japan’s H–IIA rocket in 

November 2003. These failures came at the time that Japan was reorganizing its 

space efforts into the new Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The combination of investigating the causes of these recent failures and putting into place 

measures to assure future mission success, together with the bureaucratic and cultural challenges of merging various previously separate Japanese space agencies 

into an integrated structure, are consuming the energies of Japanese space leaders. 

It is no exaggeration to say that Japan is undergoing a crisis of confidence in its 

space efforts. Until short-term problems are addressed, Japan will not be able to 

move forward with its exploration plans. 

However, even given this rather gloomy situation, a standing-room only crowd attended a January 23 symposium on lunar exploration. And, as one of the leaders 

of Japanese space exploration, Yasunori Matogawa, recently wrote: ‘‘I feel my mind 

is getting stronger and stronger day by day that what could finally relieve ourselves 

would not come from anywhere but from our own vigorous willpower to carry on 

‘Exploration.’ Its keyword is moon. I cannot help but believe these days that moon 

is the best-chosen target containing every possibility as to science, global ecology, 

resources development, safety and security.’’ 1

Last year, on Indian Independence Day, August 15, Indian Prime Minister Atal 

Bihari Vajpayeeon announced that India in 2007 would send its first mission to the 

moon, to be named Chandrayaan-1. The spacecraft will spend two years in orbit 60 

miles above the lunar surface. India has had an active space program for over thirty 

years, and has developed its own launch vehicles to access both low Earth orbit and 

geosynchronous orbit. Its space program to date has been focused on contributions 

to Indian development and economic growth. For example, India operates a multisatellite constellation of remote sensing satellites that provide world-class imagery 

of the subcontinent. 

Now India appears poised to go beyond an Earth-oriented space program to join 

other nations in exploring the solar system. Visiting the Indian SHAR launch site 

on the eastern coast of the country last October, Indian President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul 

Kalam, himself a former space engineer, told the assembled workers that ‘‘The exploration of the moon through Chandrayaan will electrify the entire country, particularly young scientists and children. I am sure the moon mission is just a start 

towards further planetary explorations.’’ He added that he could ‘‘visualise a scene, 

in the year 2021, when I will be 90 years old and visiting SHAR Space Port for 

boarding the space plane, so that I can reach another planet and return safely as 

11 

one of the passengers. I foresee the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, to grow 

into an international spaceport with a capability of enabling launches and landings 

of the reusable launch vehicles.’’ 

India has invited international scientific participation in the Chandrayaan-1 mission. It has received some twenty-five proposals for such participation from scientists in the United States, Canada, Israel, and Europe. Clearly, investigators from 

many other countries want a ride aboard India’s first exploration mission. 

Let me add a few works on my views on Europe’s plans for solar system exploration, based on conversations during a recent trip to Paris. First of all, Europe is 

already an active player in robotic exploration in the solar system, with its Mars 

Express mission in orbit around Mars, the Huygens spacecraft carried to Saturn 

along with the U.S. Cassini craft scheduled to land on Saturn’s moon Titan early 

next year, Smart-1 on the way to the moon, and the Rosetta spacecraft started on 

its ten-year journey to rendezvous with a comet. More robotic missions are planned. 

For the past several year, the European Space Agency (ESA) has been studying, 

through a program called Aurora, a human mission to Mars in the 2030 time frame. 

This was only a study program; the plan was to begin a preparatory phase only in 

2005, with any major investments in human exploration well after 2010. Within 

ESA, a second study group last year proposed setting as a European goal establishing a base on the moon. That was a slightly faster paced program, with a goal 

of a permanent European presence on the moon by 2025. This second plan did not 

receive the support of the ESA leadership. 

However, these exploratory missions and studies in recent years have been taking 

second priority to an emerging focus on how space capabilities can contribute to the 

development of Europe as an economic, political, and cultural entity, with a focus 

on Earth-oriented space missions in Earth observation, navigation and timing, and 

perhaps broadband communications and military uses. 

President Bush’s proposed U.S. Vision for Space Exploration, with its stated intention of inviting other countries to join ‘‘a journey, not a race,’’ poses a direct challenge to stated European space ambitions. If the Congress gives the go ahead to the 

initial steps in achieving this vision—and I believe that it should—Europe will be 

faced with the choice, with limited resources available for space programs, of whether to proceed on its current path or become a major partner in U.S.-led exploration 

of the solar system. I understand that the Director General of ESA, Jean-Jacques 

Dordain, was invited to be here today but rather is in Russia awaiting the return 

of ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers from his brief stay on the International Space Station. Referring to President Bush’s January 14 speech on space exploration, Dr. 

Dordain has been quoted recently as saying that ‘‘dreamed of the day when the 

President of Europe would come to ESA headquarters and make a similar policy 

declaration.’’ A new ESA team is just beginning to plan how best to respond to the 

anticipated NASA invitation to participate. 

Space exploration is no longer—indeed has not been for more than thirty years— 

an arena for unilateral display of national power. As my testimony and that of the 

others appearing before you today has shown, exploring the solar system has become a truly global enterprise. 

Last year I had the privilege of serving as a member of the Columbia Accident 

Investigation Board. The Board’s August 2003 report was explicit in laying out the 

negative consequences of the lack of a compelling vision for human spaceflight, and 

characterized that lack as ‘‘a failure of national leadership.’’ To its credit, the Bush 

administration has responded to that criticism with what must be characterized in 

its essence as a ‘‘compelling vision’’ of a human-robotic partnership for the exploration of our solar system. There is an understandable focus in the Congress on the 

short-term implications of the proposed vision. I hope that the basic principle put 

forth by the President—that it is in the Nation’s interest, now and for future generations, to take the leading role in extending human activity and presence into the 

solar system, is not lost in this shorter term focus. 

I also hope that today’s testimony has helped underline the reality that if the 

United States public through its elected representatives chooses not to accept the 

President’s vision and make it a ‘‘National Vision for Space Exploration,’’ other 

countries in coming decades will assume that exploratory leadership. Writing to the 

White House in late 1971 to make the case that the United States should not choose 

to end its program of human space flight, NASA Administrator James Fletcher argued ‘‘Man has learned to fly in space, and man will continue to fly in space. . . . 

The United States cannot forgo its responsibility—to itself and to the free world— 

to have a part in manned space flight. . .. For the U.S. not to be in space, while 

others do have men in space, is unthinkable, and a position which America cannot 

accept.’’ 

12 

I would change one word in Dr. Fletcher’s argument. Rather than ‘‘cannot’’ I 

would say ‘‘should not.’’ We can indeed make as a society the decision that the benefits of human spaceflight are outweighed by its costs and risks. To me, that would 

be a sad choice. 

John M. Logsdon is Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington 

University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he is also Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. He holds a B.S. in Physics from Xavier University (1960) and a Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University (1970). Dr. 

Logsdon’s research interests focus on the policy and historical aspects of U.S. and 

international space activities. 

Dr. Logsdon is the author of The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and 

the National Interest and is general editor of the eight-volume series Exploring the 

Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. He 

has written numerous articles and reports on space policy and history. He is frequently consulted by the electronic and print media for his views on space issues. 

Dr. Logsdon recently served as a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation 

Board. He is a former member of the NASA Advisory Council and a current member 

of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee of the Department of 

Transportation. He is a recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service and 

Public Service Medals and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Senator BROWNBACK. I’m going to put us in recess. It’s probably 

going to be about 10–15 minutes and I’ll be right back and we’ll 

finish the panel. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. We’re going to be reconvened. Thank you 

very much for getting back together and staying here with us. 

Ms. Smith is a resident scholar, historian on space programs. It’s 

always good to see you here in front of the Committee. 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator BROWNBACK. We look forward to your presentation. 

STATEMENT OF MARCIA S. SMITH, SPECIALIST IN AEROSPACE 

AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL 

RESEARCH SERVICE 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you very much for inviting me to be here 

today. You asked that I set the broad international stage to talk 

about who is working in space these days, to talk about Europe, 

Russia, and India and how they could participate in the exploration 

initiative, and to identify issues in which the Committee might be 

interested. 

The new initiative involves both human and robotic space flights 

to the moon, Mars, and other solar system destinations, as well as 

space-based observatories and other spacecraft to answer the question of whether there is life elsewhere in the universe. This broadly 

scoped program opens a wide range of opportunities for international participation. The number of countries involved in space 

is probably larger than most people realize. The list of launching 

countries includes the United States, Russia, Europe, China, 

Japan, India, and Israel. Like the United States, Russia, Europe, 

and Japan have sent spacecraft to the moon and beyond. Although 

the United States, Russia, and China are the only countries capable of launching people into space, astronauts and cosmonauts from 

29 other countries have journeyed into space on American or Russian spacecraft. Many countries have their own communications or 

remote-sensing satellites, and virtually every country in the world 

uses satellites. 

13 

Dr. Logsdon has already discussed India and Europe, so I would 

like to take my time to talk about the Russian space program and 

then to talk about some of the issues that I’ve identified in my 

written statement. The Soviet Union, of course, has a very long and 

well-established space program dating back to the very earliest 

days. The Soviet Union accomplished many space firsts, including 

launching the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, launching the first 

man into space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961, launching the world’s first 

space station, Salyut 1 in 1971, and many other space firsts. 

But during the 1960s, the era of the moon race, they were not 

about to develop a Saturn V-class launch vehicle and were not able 

to send cosmonauts to the moon. Instead, they focused their attention on Earth orbit, and over the next several decades, launched 

seven successful space stations, the best known of which is Mir. 

Mir has now been deorbited, but it did host cosmonaut crews for 

many years, including 10 years in which the Space Station was 

permanently occupied. 

In the 1980s, the Soviets finally did build that Saturn V-class 

launch vehicle that they had wanted, and it’s called Energia, and 

they also developed their own version of a reusable space shuttle, 

which they called Buran. However, after the collapse of the Soviet 

Union, the Russian Government decided to discontinue both of 

those programs and the budget for space activities was sharply curtailed. Yuri Koptev, who headed the Russian Space Agency from 

1992 when it was created until last month, often said that the Russian space budget was about one-tenth of what it had been under 

the Soviet Government. 

The Russian space program today is sharply constrained by its 

funding, but it is still very interested in the types of objectives laid 

out in President Bush’s exploration initiative. They often speak 

about their own plans to send people to the moon. 

In terms of their potential participation in a U.S.-led exploration 

initiative, they have much to offer. They have extensive experience 

in human space flight. They had one cosmonaut who stayed in 

space continuously for 141⁄2 months. They have extensive launch 

vehicle capabilities. They are the only country that has operated 

nuclear reactors in space. The United States has launched only one 

nuclear reactor in 1965, it was a test reactor, but the Soviets used 

them in a program called Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellites. 

They do have operational experience, both the pros and the cons. 

They ended up discontinuing that program because of three instances in which radioactive material either returned to Earth or 

almost returned to Earth. They also launched a series of biosatellite missions called Bion, in which NASA might be interested, 

although NASA’s participation in Bion missions was controversial 

after one of the monkey subjects on the flight died after a postflight examination. 

But Russia is, of course, a very strong partner with the United 

States today and the International Space Station program, and I’ll 

be talking about that a little bit later during the issues, but they 

clearly have a very mature space program, and except for their 

funding constraints, could play a very prominent role in such an 

exploration initiative. 

14 

The exploration initiative is still in its earliest definition stages 

and is likely to take decades to complete. It is difficult to predict 

at this early stage what issues will arise as it is carried out. Three 

broad issues, however, may be of interest to the Committee at this 

early date. What countries do we want to include and will they 

want to join? Where to draw the line between cooperation and dependence? And whether it is timely to review relevant U.N. space 

treaties and principles. 

Several factors weigh in decisions about whom to invite to join 

international projects. These will include not only who can offer 

needed capabilities and funding, but political relationships. In a 

program such as this likely to span several decades, the latter can 

be particularly complicated. One question that many people are 

asking is whether China should be invited, and I know that Mr. 

Oberg is going to speak about that in a moment. This Committee 

may wish to consider the advantages and disadvantages of having 

China as a partner or as a competitor. 

Many factors will also play in who will accept the invitation. For 

all of the successes of U.S.-led international space cooperation over 

the past 46 years, there have been strains as well. In any international space endeavor, compromises and adjustments must be 

made. The United States has demonstrated flexibility when partners have not been able to fulfill their promises and others have 

had to adjust to changes in U.S. plans. 

The International Space Station is a prime example of both. Only 

our partners themselves can say whether they view ISS as a positive or a negative experience, but it necessarily will factor into 

their judgments about the current offer. 

Another factor is what role they would play in setting the goals 

and objectives of the exploration initiative. So far, the message is 

that they are being invited only to help, quote, achieve this set of 

American U.S. objectives, unquote, as NASA Administrator O’Keefe 

has said. Whether they will want to participate under that condition or choose other international arrangements instead is not 

clear. With a wider variety of international cooperative opportunities available today, potential partners might want a stronger voice 

in deciding what is to be done and how to have a shared vision, 

not just a U.S. vision. 

A second issue is the extent to which U.S. space activities are becoming dependent on other countries, notably Russia. Historically, 

NASA established cooperative programs in a manner such that 

other countries were not in the critical path, that is, the program 

could be accomplished even if the foreign partner did not fulfill its 

obligations. 

The new plan laid out by the President and NASA takes the opposite approach, intentionally deciding to make U.S. human access 

to space dependent on Russia during a 4-year period between the 

anticipated retirement of the Shuttle in 2010 and the availability 

of the crew exploration vehicle in 2014. 

There is a difference between the emergency situation today, 

where Russia is providing access to the Space Station because of 

the Columbia tragedy, and an intentional decision to suspend 

NASA’s ability to launch astronauts into space with the hope that 

the political relationship with Russia remains stable and an agreeVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
15 

1 Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, 

Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Poland, 

Continued 

ment can be negotiated to enable U.S. astronauts to continue working aboard ISS. 

In this sense, the President’s decision could be interpreted as forgoing assured human access to space. To the extent that decision 

could create a condition where U.S. astronauts might not be able 

to work aboard ISS, Congress may choose to explore its implications. 

Finally, the United States is a party to four U.N. treaties that 

regulate space activities. It is not a party to a fifth, the Moon 

Agreement, which focuses on exploitation of the moon. Issues 

raised by these treaties may become more prominent as prospects 

for activities such as mining on the moon come closer to reality. A 

review of the space treaties and associated U.N. principles that 

could affect the exploration initiative may be in order. 

The exploration initiative offers the United States an opportunity 

to affirm its historical and fostering international cooperation in 

space. The key will be whether we can adapt to the changed landscape of cooperative possibilities and continue to lead the world in 

the peaceful exploration of space. 

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

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARCIA S. SMITH, SPECIALIST IN AEROSPACE AND

TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

‘‘Potential International Cooperation in NASA’s New Exploration 

Initiative’’ 

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today 

to testify about potential international cooperation in President Bush’s exploration 

initiative. You asked that I provide an overview of the international space setting, 

to provide information about the roles that Europe, Russia, and India might play, 

and to raise related issues that might be of interest to the Committee. 

The New Exploration Initiative 

On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush made a major space policy address in which he directed NASA to focus its activities on returning humans to the 

Moon by 2020 and someday sending them to Mars and ‘‘worlds beyond.’’ The President invited other countries to participate, saying— 

We’ll invite other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of this new 

era of discovery. The vision I outline here is a journey, not a race. And I call 

on other nations to join us on this journey, in the spirit of cooperation and 

friendship. 

The International Space Setting 

The President’s exploration initiative involves both human and robotic space 

flights to the Moon, Mars, and ‘‘worlds beyond,’’ as well as space-based observatories 

and other spacecraft to answer the question of whether there is life elsewhere in 

the universe. This broadly scoped exploration program opens a wide range of opportunities for international participation. 

The number of countries involved in space activities is probably larger than most 

people realize. The list of ‘‘launching countries’’—those that have their own launch 

vehicles and launch sites—includes the United States, Russia, Europe, China, 

Japan, India, and Israel. Like the United States, Russia, Europe, and Japan have 

sent spacecraft to the Moon and beyond (see Appendix 1). 

Although the United States, Russia, and China are the only countries capable of 

launching people into space, astronauts and cosmonauts from 29 other countries 

have journeyed into space on American or Russian spacecraft.1 Many countries have 

16 

Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Ukraine, United 

Kingdom, and Vietnam. 2 A comprehensive list is outside the scope of this testimony, but, in addition to the launching 

countries, includes Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. 3 Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are signatories to the ISS Intergovernmental Agreement. The 

United Kingdom does not provide funding for the ISS program, however, so in some case the 

number of participants is cited as 10. 4The EU members are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 

Ten more countries will join the EU in May 2004: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, 

Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Additional countries have applications 

pending. 

their own communications or remote sensing satellites.2 Virtually every country in 

the world uses satellites, primarily for communications, weather, navigation, and remote sensing. 

NASA’s authority to conduct international space activities is codified in Section 

205 of the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA. Since 

that time, the agency has engaged in thousands of cooperative arrangements ranging from the exchange of data, to training scientists how to interpret remote sensing 

imagery, to foreign experiments on U.S. satellites and U.S. experiments on foreign 

satellites, to joint development of spacecraft, to construction of the International 

Space Station (ISS). Cooperation has been undertaken not only with U.S. allies, but 

with our rivals as well. Even at the height of U.S.-Soviet space competition in the 

early days of the Space Age, the two countries also worked together—at the United 

Nations through the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and through bilateral cooperative agreements as early as 1962. 

While the number of potential partners for the new exploration initiative is large, 

it is likely that attention will focus first on countries with whom the United States 

has traditionally cooperated in large space endeavors such as ISS (which involves 

Canada, Europe, Russia, and Japan), and those with the ability to launch spacecraft. You asked that I focus my remarks on the potential roles that Europe, Russia, 

and India could play. 

Europe 

Brief Overview. European countries conduct space activities in a number of ways. 

Some countries, such as France, Germany, and Italy have substantial national space 

programs, and may invite international cooperation in those activities on a bi-or 

multi-lateral basis. Other European space activities are conducted under the aegis 

of the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA currently has 15 members: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Some of 

ESA’s programs are mandatory (all members must contribute to them) and others 

are optional (countries can choose whether or not to participate). Europe’s participation in the ISS program is primarily through ESA, where it is an optional program. 

Eleven ESA members participate.3 (The United States and Italy also have a separate bilateral agreement covering certain hardware provided by Italy.) ESA and the 

European Union (EU) 4 are working closely together today, and in January 2004, the 

European Parliament adopted a ‘‘Resolution on the Action Plan for Implementing 

the European Space Policy.’’ ESA and the EU are jointly sponsoring the development of the Galileo navigation satellite system, and are encouraging other countries 

to join them in that program. 

ESA developed the Ariane launch vehicle; its first launch was in 1979. Ariane 

launches are conducted by the French company, Arianespace, from Kourou, French 

Guiana, on the northern coast of South America. ESA also is developing a smaller 

launch vehicle, Vega, and has a cooperative agreement with Russia to launch Russia’s Soyuz launch vehicle from Kourou. Arianespace is often cited as being the dominant provider of commercial space launch services in the world, but the downturn 

in the commercial space market has affected Arianespace along with other commercial launch services companies. Consequently, ESA adopted a European Guaranteed 

Access to Space (EGAS) program that will provide 960 million euros to Arianespace 

through 2009. 

Astronauts from several European countries have flown into space as representatives of ESA or their own countries on Russian or American spacecraft. In the late 

1980s, ESA announced a plan to develop its own human space flight vehicle, Hermes, but the program was terminated because of cost considerations. 

17 

5See ESA’s Aurora website: www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/ESA9LZPV16Dl0.html. 6 Europe’s United Response to U.S. Space Plans. European Commission press release, February 18, 2004. 7 Russian Aerospace Agency to Have $632 Million for 2004 Air, Space Craft Programs. Moscow 

Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey WWW-Text in English, 1252 GMT, 29 Jan 04 (via Foreign 

Broadcast Information Service, hereafter FBIS). 

ESA and individual European countries have built and launched a large number 

of spacecraft including space-based observatories and other scientific satellites (including some to destinations beyond the Moon, see Appendix 1), as well as satellites 

for communications, weather, and remote sensing. They are primarily for civilian 

purposes, but some of the non-ESA satellites are military. 

ESA’s 2003 budget was 2.7 billion euros ($3.1 billion using today’s exchange rate). 

Current Interest in Space Exploration. ESA initiated the Aurora program in 2001 

to formulate and implement ‘‘a European long-term plan for the robotic and human 

exploration of solar system bodies holding promise for traces of life.’’ 5 The Aurora 

program envisions an international human mission to Mars by 2025. ESA’s Mars 

Express spacecraft is now in orbit around Mars, and SMART–1 is currently en route 

to the Moon. 

The European reaction to President Bush’s speech was generally supportive, 

though cautionary about obtaining the required resources to conduct such a program. In a joint ESA–EU statement, ESA’s Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain, 

stated that ‘‘The important point in looking at the American vision is that space is 

an international field. A coherent European Space Policy does not make any sense 

if not grounded in the larger global context.’’ He added that ‘‘Unlike in the days of 

the Cold War, getting to the moon and Mars is not about proving one’s superiority 

over a political enemy. It is about all of us, around the world, working together for 

the common benefit.’’6

Potential Role in the Exploration Initiative. European countries individually and 

through ESA could participate in the exploration initiative at many levels, including 

providing launch capacity, building and operating robotic and human spacecraft, 

providing scientific instruments, and providing astronauts. The United States has 

a long history of cooperation with ESA and individual European countries on scientific and human space flight programs, including the space shuttle and the International Space Station. 

Russia 

Brief Overview. The Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space (Sputnik, 

1957), the first person into space (Yuri Gagarin, 1961), the first space station (Salyut 1, in 1971) and achieved many other space ‘‘firsts.’’ The Soviets conducted a 

broad space program similar to that of the United States, with spacecraft orbiting 

the Earth for scientific or applications purposes (military and civilian), probes sent 

to the Moon and Mars, and a robust human space flight program. Since 1967, Soyuz 

spacecraft have been used to take cosmonauts into space. The Soyuz has been upgraded several times, and is currently designated Soyuz TMA. The Soviets were not 

able to develop a Saturn V-class launch vehicle capable of sending cosmonauts to 

the Moon during the 1960s, and concentrated instead on activities in Earth orbit, 

operating seven space stations from 1971–2001. The best known of these is the Mir 

space station complex (1986–2001). It was permanently occupied by cosmonauts 

from 1989–1999, and intermittently occupied in other years. Mir was deorbited in 

2001. Crews sometimes included individuals from other countries, including the 

United States. 

Russia developed a space shuttle similar (but not identical) to the U.S. shuttle. 

Called Buran, it was launched only once, in 1988, without a crew. By this time, the 

Soviets had succeeded in developing a Saturn V-class launch vehicle, called Energia. 

Energia was launched only twice, however (including the Buran flight). 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia sharply reduced funding for space activities. The Energia and Buran programs were discontinued. Yuri 

Koptev, who headed the Russian space agency from its founding in 1992 until 

March 2004, often said that the Russian space budget was approximately one-tenth 

of its level under the Soviet government. According to Mr. Koptev, the 2004 budget 

for Russian civilian space activities is $526 million.7

Russia restructured its space program in March 2004. The Russian Aviation and 

Space Agency, which Mr. Koptev headed, was split into two, with aviation programs 

transferred to one agency, and space programs placed in a new Federal Space Agency subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Energy. Mr. Koptev was replaced by 

Col. Gen. Anatoly Perminov, who previously headed Russia’s military space proVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
18 

8Morring, Frank. Big Plans. Aviation Week & Space Technology, Oct. 13, 2003, p. 29. 

9 Russian Space Chief Calls U.S. Space Plans an [sic] Campaign ‘Tool’ for Bush. Moscow 

Agentstvo Voyennykh Novostey WWW-Test in English, 1052 GMT, 29 Jan 04 (via FBIS). 10Moscow ITAR–TASS in English, 1028 GMT, 17 Feb 04 (via FBIS). 11Pieson, Dmitry. Perminov Supports Moon/Mars Plans, International Cooperation. Aerospace 

Daily, 5 April 2004, p. 5. 12 Russia: Putin Acknowledges Budget Problems in Space Exploration. Moscow, ITAR–TASS 

in English, 1730 GMT, 12 Apr 04 (via FBIS). 13 NASA’s participation in the last two Bion flights, Bion 11 and 12, in 1996–1997, was controversial, especially after a rhesus money used for the experiments on Bion 11 died during a 

post-flight examination. After an independent review, NASA suspended its participation in primate research on Bion 12. 

gram. What impact, if any, these changes will have on U.S.-Russian space cooperation is not known at this time. 

The United States and the Soviet Union/Russia have cooperated in space activities since the early 1960s in space science and human space flight activities. The 

two countries conducted the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 where a U.S. Apollo 

spacecraft docked with a Russia Soyuz spacecraft for two days of joint experiments. 

From 1995–1998, seven U.S. astronauts remained on Russia’s space station Mir for 

long duration (several month) missions, Russian cosmonauts flew on the U.S. space 

shuttle seven times, and nine space shuttle missions docked with Mir to exchange 

crews and deliver supplies. Russia joined the U.S.-led International Space Station 

program in 1993 and Russians and Americans now routinely fly on each other’s 

space vehicles and share duties on space station crews. Russia is currently providing 

the only access to the space station for crews and cargo while the U.S. space shuttle 

is grounded. 

Current Interest in Space Exploration. Although the Soviets were never able to 

send cosmonauts to the Moon, and funding for space activities declined dramatically 

after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian government and industry space officials continue to express strong interest in human exploration missions. At an international space conference in the fall of 2003, then-director of the Russian space 

agency, Yuri Koptev, outlined long-term Russian plans, including permanent human 

bases on the Moon and Mars. He added that ‘‘we believe that an organization similar to the one for the ISS should be the basis for implementation of such ambitious 

projects.’’8

Following President Bush’s speech, however, Mr. Koptev expressed skepticism, 

saying that he thought it was ‘‘a tool in the current election campaign’’ 9 and said 

‘‘It is necessary to drop emotions in order to see what real benefit people can derive 

from visiting these planets.’’ 10 Mr. Koptev’s successor, Gen. Perminov, expressed a 

more favorable view, saying that he supports President Bush’s initiative, and wants 

more international cooperation in Russian space activities overall.11 On April 12, 

2004, in celebration of Cosmonautics Day, Russian President Putin stopped short of 

embracing such plans, but said that space ‘‘was and remains an object of our national pride’’ and only by developing its space industry can ‘‘Russia claim leadership 

in the world.’’ He added that the economic situation in Russia constrains the 

amount of funding available for space activities, but ‘‘I want you to know that everyone in the leadership of the country understands that space activities fall into the 

category of the most important things.’’ 12

Potential Role in the Exploration Initiative. The Russians could cooperate in the 

exploration initiative at many levels. They have a range of launch vehicles that are 

launched from three sites (Plesetsk, near the Arctic Circle; Svobodny, in eastern Siberia; and the Baikonur Cosmodrome, near the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan). As noted, the heavy-lift Energia launch vehicle was 

discontinued, but possibly could be resurrected if sufficient funding were provided. 

If development of a new launch vehicle is required, Russian rocket engines could 

be used. Russia already builds the engines (RD–180s) for one of the U.S. launch vehicle families (Atlas). 

Russia has extensive experience in long-duration human space flight. Three Russian cosmonauts have stayed in space continuously for one year or more; the longest 

mission was 141⁄2 months. (The longest any American has remained in orbit continuously is 61⁄2 months.) The Russians also launched a series of Bion biosatellite 

missions that carried animals for life sciences experiments. NASA cooperated with 

Russia on some of these missions,13 and may be interested in using such free-flying 

spacecraft to augment research on the International Space Station. 

Russia also has considerable experience with the use of nuclear reactors in space, 

an area in which NASA is interested. Russia is the only country to have used nuclear reactors operationally in space (the United States has launched only one test 

reactor into space, in 1965). They were developed to power Radar Ocean ReconnaisVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
19 

14 Rohde, David. India’s Lofty Ambitions in Space Meet Earthly Realities. New York Times, 

January 24, 2004, p. A3. 15 NASA astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who perished aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, 

was born and raised in India, but had become a U.S. citizen. 

sance satellites (RORSATs) beginning in 1967, but the Soviets terminated their use 

after three incidents (in 1978, 1983, and 1988) in which spacecraft malfunctions 

caused, or nearly caused, radioactive material to return to Earth. Russia has less 

experience than NASA with radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs), another type 

of nuclear power source for spacecraft, but today provides the plutonium used in 

U.S. RTGs. 

Russia has launched many probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars (see Appendix 

1), and two to Halley’s Comet. The most recent Russian Mars probes (Phobos 1 and 

2, and Mars ‘96) involved extensive international cooperation 

India 

Brief Overview. India conducted its first launch in 1979, and typically launches 

once or twice a year. India has three launch vehicles: the ASLV for low-Earth orbits, 

the PSLV for polar orbits, and the new GSLV for launches to geostationary orbit. 

Launches are conducted from Sriharikota, an island off the southeast coast of India. 

India hopes to enter the commercial launch services market using the GSLV. 

Most of India’s satellites are test satellites related to the development of new or 

improved launch vehicles, or are for remote sensing. India also has purchased or 

built communications/weather satellites that are launched for India by foreign commercial space launch service providers. India’s annual space budget is approximately $450 million.14

One Indian, Rakesh Sharma, has flown in space, on a Russian spacecraft in 

1984.15

Current Interest in Exploration. In 2003, India announced plans to launch a 

robotic spacecraft to the Moon in 2007 and is inviting other countries to participate. 

India is offering to fly 10 kilogram payloads from interested countries for free. Canada, Germany, Russia, Israel, Europe, and the United States reportedly have expressed interest. The United States and India renewed cooperation in scientific 

areas, including space exploration, after the United States lifted sanctions imposed 

in 1998 following India’s nuclear weapons tests. 

The head of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), G. Madhavan Nair, 

has stated that the robotic lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, is only the first step in India’s space exploration plans. India’s President Kalam and Prime Minister Vajpayee 

also have made supportive statements not only about robotic missions, but about 

eventual human space flights to Mars. 

Potential Role in the Exploration Initiative. India could offer launch services, and 

if its lunar probe is successful, that could open possibilities for other robotic missions. 

Issues 

The exploration initiative is still in its earliest definition stages and is likely to 

take decades to complete. It is difficult to predict at this early stage what issues 

will arise as it is carried out. Among those likely to require early attention are specific questions concerning how to prevent unwanted technology transfer while not 

impeding cooperation, and how to protect the U.S. industrial base while encouraging 

international participation. Today, however, I would like to focus on three broader 

issues: who will join us, the line between cooperation and dependence, and whether 

a review of the U.N. space treaties is needed. 

Who Will Join Us? Many countries have aspirations to send human and robotic 

spacecraft to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. In virtually every discussion, the assumption is that these will be international undertakings because of their cost. 

While international projects are more difficult to manage, which may increase their 

total cost, the cost to each participant may be less than if the program were conducted by one nation alone. The President has invited international participation in 

a U.S.-led exploration initiative. The questions are what countries do we want to 

include, and will they want to join? 

Several factors weigh in decisions about who to invite to join international 

projects. These include not only who can offer needed capabilities and funding, but 

political relationships. In a program such as this, likely to span several decades, the 

latter can be particularly complicated. Few would have expected in the 1980s that 

Russia would be a partner in ISS a decade later, and the only country capable of 

sending people and cargo to it today. Not surprisingly, in conjunction with the President’s speech, NASA’s first outreach was to its partners in the International Space 

20 

16 H. Rept. 103–273, to accompany H.R. 2491, the FY1994 VA–HUD–IA appropriations bill 

(P.L. 103–124). 

Station program, but the question on many minds is whether China will be included 

in the new initiative. At a press conference after President Bush’s speech, NASA 

Administrator O’Keefe was asked that question. He responded that there is an opportunity to open that debate, but did not want to speculate on its outcome Congress may wish to consider the advantages and disadvantages of having China as 

a partner, or as a competitor, in the exploration initiative. 

After we identify whom we want to invite, the question will be whether they will 

agree to join us. The United States has a rich history of international cooperation, 

and many countries have benefitted from it. We also have, by far, the most financial 

resources. NASA’s budget is five times that of ESA and 30 times that of the Russian 

space agency. But for all of the successes of U.S.-led international cooperation, there 

have been strains as well. In any international space endeavor, compromises and 

adjustments must be made. The United States has demonstrated flexibility when 

partners have not been able to fulfill their promises, and others have had to adjust 

to changes in U.S. plans. The International Space Station is a prime example of 

both. As the leader of that project, though, there is a greater impact when the 

United States changes its plans, and there have been many throughout the past two 

decades. Now, the President’s exploration initiative involves another major change, 

with termination of the space shuttle program as soon as space station construction 

is completed, and ending NASA’s use of ISS by FY 2017. The President assured the 

ISS partners that the United States would fulfill its obligations, but it is not clear 

how that will be accomplished without the shuttle. 

Only the partners themselves can answer the question of whether they view ISS 

as a positive or negative experience, but it necessarily will factor into their judgments about the current offer. Another factor is what role they would play in setting 

the goals and objectives of the exploration initiative. So far, the message is that they 

are being invited only to help ‘‘achieve this set of American, U.S. objectives,’’ as 

NASA Administrator O’Keefe stated after the President’s speech. 

Whether they will want to participate under that condition, or look for other opportunities where they might be able to develop a shared vision, is not clear. With 

the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of more countries with launch capabilities, the United States can no longer assume that traditional partners like Europe, 

Japan, and Canada would necessarily choose to join with the United States, instead 

of Russia or China, for example. 

How Dependent Should the U.S. Be on International Partners? Traditionally, 

NASA has established cooperative programs in a manner such that other countries 

were not in the ‘‘critical path’’—that is the program could be accomplished even if 

the foreign partner did not fulfill its obligations. This policy began to change when 

Russia joined the space station program in 1993. Although Congress directed that 

Russian participation should ‘‘enhance and not enable’’ the space station,16 the revised design was clearly dependent on Russia for life support, emergency crew return, attitude control, reboost, and other functions, especially in the early phases 

of space station construction. Today, because of the space shuttle Columbia accident, 

NASA is completely dependent on Russia for taking astronauts to and from the 

space station, and delivering cargo. 

The situation today demonstrates the value of international cooperation, but also 

raises the question of whether the United States wants to put itself in the position 

of being dependent on other nations to execute its space activities. As noted, one 

of the two major U.S. launch vehicle families, Atlas, is dependent on engines designed and built in Russia. Under the President’s initiative, U.S. access to the space 

station between 2010 (when the shuttle is retired) and 2014 (when the new Crew 

Exploration Vehicle is available) also would be dependent on Russia. While some 

view that as similar to the situation today, it would, in fact, be quite different. The 

reasons are too complex to discuss fully in this statement (see CRS Issue Brief 

IB93017), but briefly, today, there is an agreement in place where Russia is launching U.S. crews and cargo to ISS at no cost to NASA. It expires in 2006, however, 

and no agreement has been negotiated for 2010–2014. Russia could charge whatever 

price it wanted for those services, and if the Iran Nonproliferation Act is still in effect, it is not clear if NASA could pay. There also is a difference between the emergency situation today, necessitated by the Columbia tragedy, and an intentional decision to terminate NASA’s ability to launch astronauts into space and hope that 

the political relationship with Russia remains stable and an agreement can be negotiated to enable U.S. astronauts to continue working aboard ISS. In this sense, the 

President’s decision may be interpreted as forgoing ‘‘assured human access to 

space.’’ To the extent the decision could create a condition where U.S. astronauts 

21 

17The 10 countries that are parties to the Moon Agreement (meaning they have both signed 

and ratified it) are Australia, Austria, Chile, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, The Netherlands, 

Pakistan, Philippines, and Uruguay. Five others have signed it (France, Guatemala, India, Peru, 

and Romania), but have not ratified it, so are not bound by its provisions. 

might not be able to work aboard ISS, a facility being built largely at U.S. taxpayer 

expense, Congress may choose to explore its implications. More broadly, where to 

draw the line between cooperation and dependence might be an issue of congressional interest. 

Are New International Treaties or Principles Needed? The United States is a party 

to four U.N. treaties that regulate space activities: the Outer Space Treaty, the Astronaut Rescue and Return Agreement, the Registration Convention, and the Liability Convention. None of the major space faring countries, including the United 

States, is a party to a fifth U.N. space treaty, the Moon Agreement, which focuses 

on exploitation of the Moon.17 A brief synopsis of the five space treaties is included 

in Appendix 2. The U.N. also developed several legal principles for space activities, 

including Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power Sources in Outer Space, 

that could impact exploration plans. 

Even before President Bush’s announcement, some observers were suggesting that 

it was time to review the space treaties to determine if any changes or new agreements are needed to reflect the growing role of the private sector in space. The treaties were negotiated in an era when space programs were conducted by governments, not private entities. There is growing debate about whether or not the treaties preclude private property rights in space, for example. These issues have not 

been the subject of intense interest in recent years because the likelihood of any nation or company setting up mining operations, for example, on the Moon or other 

celestial bodies has seemed remote. With President Bush’s announcement, however, 

that day may be drawing nearer, and a review of the space treaties may be in order. 

Conclusion 

As is often said, to be a leader, one must have followers. With the wider variety 

of international cooperative opportunities available today, potential partners might 

want a stronger voice in deciding what is to be done and how—to have a shared 

vision, not just a U.S. vision—and choose other international arrangements. 

The United States still has by far the largest budget for civilian space activities, 

however. That fact, coupled with the large number of successful U.S.-led cooperative 

space endeavors over the past 46 years, may convince other countries to join us 

rather than establish partnerships of their own without U.S. involvement. 

At the same time, questions may arise about whether the United States may be 

going too far in becoming dependent on other countries for human access to space. 

Choosing to make the U.S. human space flight program dependent on Russia for at 

least 4 years is a significant departure from past policy. While it may signal a 

broader attitude towards cooperation, the advantages and disadvantages of losing 

‘‘assured human access to space’’ may be a timely topic for discussion. 

The exploration initiative offers the United States an opportunity to affirm its historic role in fostering international cooperation in space. The key will be whether 

we can adapt to the changed landscape of cooperative possibilities, and continue to 

lead the world in the peaceful exploration of space. 

APPENDIX 1: EUROPEAN, RUSSIAN, AND JAPANESE SPACECRAFT LAUNCHED TO THE

MOON AND BEYOND

Spacecraft Launch Year Mission 

Europe 

Helios 1 and 2 1974, 1976 German spacecraft, launched by NASA, to study the Sun. 

Giotto 1985 ESA spacecraft, launched by ESA, that intercepted Halley’s 

Comet in 1986. 

Ulysses 1990 ESA spacecraft, launched by NASA, in polar orbit around the 

Sun. 

Solar & Heliospheric 

Observatory (SOHO) 

1995 ESA spacecraft, launched by NASA, at Sun-Earth L–1 Lagrange point for solar-terrestrial studies. 

22 

Spacecraft Launch Year Mission 

Huygens 1997 ESA probe that is attached to the U.S. Cassini spacecraft, 

which will reach Saturn in July 2004. The probe will detach 

from Cassini and descend through the atmosphere of Titan, 

one of Saturn’s moons. 

Mars Express/Beagle 2 2003 ESA spacecraft, launched by Russia, that is in orbit around 

Mars. Contact with Beagle 2, a lander, was lost after it separated from Mars Express. 

SMART–1 2003 ESA spacecraft, launched by ESA, that is enroute to the Moon. 

Due to reach lunar orbit in early 2005. 

Rosetta 2004 ESA spacecraft, launched by ESA, that is scheduled to reach 

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, enter orbit 

around it, and land a small spacecraft on its icy nucleus. 

Soviet Union/Russia 

Luna 1–24 1959–1976 Series of spacecraft to impact, orbit, or land on the Moon, including two rovers (Lunokhod 1 and 2), and three robotic 

sample return missions (Luna 16, 20, and 24). Luna 2, in 

1959 was first ‘‘landing’’ (impact) on Moon. Luna 3, also in 

1959, sent back first pictures of the far side of the Moon. 

Luna 10, in 1966, was first spacecraft to orbit the Moon. 

Luna 16, in1970, was the first robotic sample return mission. Lunokhod 1 (Luna 17), in 1970, was first robotic lunar 

rover. This series experienced a mixture of successes and 

failures. 

Zond 1–3 1962 Zond 1 went to Venus, but was not operating when it reached 

that planet. Zond 2 and 3 made fly-bys of Mars, but were 

not operating when they reached the planet. 

Zond 4–8 1968–1970 Automated precursors for human trips to the Moon. 

Mars 1–7 1960–1973 Contact with Mars 1 was lost before it reached the planet.. 

Mars 2 and 3 were orbiter/lander pairs. The orbiters were 

successful, the landers were not (both reached the surface, 

but only Mars 3 transmitted thereafter, and only for 20 seconds). Mars 4 and 5 were orbiters; Mars 6 and 7 were 

landers. Mars 5 was a success. Mars 4 and 7 missed the 

planet. Mars 6 transmitted during descent, but contact was 

lost before landing. Western analysts believe there were 

other Mars attempts that failed and were given generic 

Kosmos designations. 

Phobos 1 and 2 1988 Intended to study Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, and Mars 

itself. Contact with Phobos 1 was lost before it reached 

Mars. Phobos 2 successfully orbited Mars and returned data, 

but contact was lost when it maneuvered to study Phobos. 

Mars 96 1996 Failed attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars that had an orbiter, two small landers, and two surface penetrators. Spacecraft did not reach the correct orbit, and reentered Earth’s 

atmosphere. 

Zond 1, Venera 1–16 1961–1983 Series of probes to fly-by, orbit or land on Venus. Mixture of 

successes and failures. Venera 7, in 1970, made first successful landing on Venus. Venera 9, in 1975, was first spacecraft to transmit pictures from the surface of another planet. 

Venera 13 and 14, in 1982, used drills to obtain core sample 

for in situ chemical analysis. Venera 15 and 16, in 1983, carried side-looking radars to map Venus’ surface from a polar 

orbit. 

Vega 1 and 2 1984 Dropped off landers at Venus, then intercepted Halley’s Comet 

in March 1986. 

Japan 

Sakigake and Suisei 1985 Two spacecraft that studied Halley’s Comet. 

Muses A 1990 Engineering test for future lunar probes. 

Nozmoni 1998 Failed attempt to orbit Mars. 

23 

APPENDIX 2: SYNOPSIS OF THE U.N. SPACE TREATIES

The United States is a party to the first four of the following treaties, which were 

developed through the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer 

Space (UNCOPUOS). It is not a party to the fifth, the Moon Agreement, nor are 

any other of the major spacefaring countries. The numbers of ratifications and signatures to these treaties shown below are current as of January 2003 (the most recent data available). The texts of the treaties, and the lists of signatories, (‘‘States 

Parties’’) are available at http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/spacelaw.htm. 

Treaty on Principles Governing Activities of States in the Exploration and 

Use of Outer Space Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (the 

‘‘Outer Space Treaty’’) 

Entered into force 10 October 1967. 98 ratifications and 27 signatures. 

• Exploration and use of outer space* shall be for the benefit of, and in the interests of, all countries and shall be province of all mankind. 

• Outer space is free for exploration and use by all States and there shall be free 

access to all areas of celestial bodies. 

• There shall be freedom of scientific investigation in outer space and States shall 

facilitate international cooperation in such investigations. 

• Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by 

means of use or occupation, or by any other means; 

• Nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction shall not be placed in 

orbit or on celestial bodies or stationed in space in any other manner. 

• The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. 

• The establishment of military bases, installations or fortifications, the testing 

of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden; the use of military personnel for scientific research or 

other peaceful purposes is permitted. 

• Astronauts shall be regarded as envoys of all mankind. 

• States Parties are responsible for national space activities, whether undertaken 

by governmental or non-governmental (e.g., private sector) entities; the activities of non-governmental entities require authorization and continuing supervision of the appropriate State Party. 

• States Parties are internationally liable to other States Parties for damage 

caused by their space objects. 

• Studies and exploration of outer space are to be conducted so as to avoid harmful contamination and adverse changes to the environment of Earth resulting 

from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter. 

• All stations, installations, equipment and space vehicles on the Moon and other 

celestial bodies shall be open to representatives of other States Parties on a 

basis of reciprocity. 

*Where ‘‘outer space’’ appears in this synopsis, the full phrase is ‘‘outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies.’’ It was shortened here for brevity’s sake. 

Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, Return of Astronauts, and Return 

of Objects Launched into Space (the ‘‘Astronaut Rescue and Return 

Agreement’’) 

Entered into force 3 December 1968. 88 ratifications, 25 signatures, and 1 acceptance 

of rights and obligations. 

• States Parties are to render humanitarian assistance to astronauts in distress 

or who have made an emergency or unintended landing on their territory, and 

to return the astronauts to the launching authority. 

• States Parties are to return objects launched into outer space or their component parts to the launching authority if they land on their territory. 

24 

Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects 

(the ‘‘Liability Convention’’) 

Entered into force 1 September 1972. 82 ratification, 25 signatures, 2 acceptances of 

rights and obligations. 

• Procedures are created for presenting and resolving claims for damages caused 

by space objects on the Earth, to aircraft, or to other space objects. 

• The launching state is absolutely liable for damage caused on Earth’s surface 

or to aircraft in flight; if the damage is caused elsewhere (e.g., in space), the 

launching state is liable only if the damage is due to its fault or the fault of 

persons for whom it is responsible. 

Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (the 

‘‘Registration Convention’’) 

Entered into force 15 September 1976. 44 ratifications, 4 signatures, and 2 acceptances of rights and obligations. 

• States Parties are to maintain a national register of objects launched into space. 

• States Parties must report certain information about the launch and payload 

to the United Nations as soon as practicable, and notify the U.N. when an object no longer is in orbit. 

Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other 

Celestial Bodies (the ‘‘Moon Agreement’’) 

Entered into force 11 July 1984. 10 ratifications and 5 signatures. 

• Exploration and use of the Moon shall be carried out for the benefit and in the 

interest of all countries, and due regard shall be paid to the interests of present 

and future generations and to the need to promote higher standards of living 

and conditions of economic and social progress and development in accordance 

with the U.N. charter. 

• The Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind; neither the surface nor the subsurface nor any part thereof shall become property 

of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or nongovernmental entity or of any natural person. 

• States Parties shall undertake to establish an international regime to govern 

the exploitation of the Moon’s natural resources as such exploitation is about 

to become feasible. The regime’s purposes include the orderly and safe development of the Moon’s natural resources, the rational management of those resources, the expansion of opportunities to use those resources, and an equitable 

sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, 

whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to 

the exploration of the Moon, shall be given special consideration. 

• States Parties bear international responsibility for national activities on the 

Moon, whether by governmental or non-governmental entities. Activities of nongovernmental entities must take place only under the authority and continuing 

supervision of the appropriate State Party. 

• All space vehicles, equipment, facilities, etc. shall be open to other States Parties so all States Parties may assure themselves that activities of others are in 

conformance with this agreement. Procedures are established for resolving differences. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you. We sure appreciate that. 

Mr. Oberg. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES OBERG, AEROSPACE OPERATIONS 

CONSULTANT, SOARING HAWK PRODUCTIONS, INC. 

Mr. OBERG. Again, Senator, thank you for the opportunity to 

come here and share some of our insights and experiences through 

the years, both individually and with many of the people and others have talked about. As a professional rocket scientist, I’ve 

worked 22 years at the Johnson Space Center, I’ve had the opportunity to learn real space operations and to judge other countries’ 

25 

reports against the hard engineering. That’s been a good key to 

judge Russian reports back in the Soviet days when they had mysteries and they had things they left out, things that were partial 

truth, even things that were distortions. And it has been very useful in recent years to look at the Chinese program. 

We’re very close, as we know now, to the Chinese beginning what 

they call phase 3 of their space program. Phase 1 was the first artificial satellite, phase 2 the flight of Yang Liwei last October, and 

phase 3 in their explicit terms is the beginning of lunar exploration. They have a probe, they call it the Chang’e, and more specifically and recently, the Chang’e 1, which I think has some significance not being the only probe in the series, but perhaps just 

the first. That will go into lunar orbit as early as December 2006. 

They have also shown with their human space flight last October 

that they are willing to spend a lot of money. The number given 

was more than $2 billion between the decision to go ahead with 

manned space flight and the very first flight. It’s not $2 billion per 

flight, but it’s a total $2 billion in investment. That’s a lot of 

money, and even at Chinese wage levels, it shows a major commitment to that type of program. 

They’ve also been very forthright, much more so than the Soviets 

in the early days of the space race, about the technology of the program and about their intentions and about the people involved in 

it, and this vast amount of information which they are releasing is 

of great value to us to analyze what they’re doing, because we can 

see what they’re releasing far more than what they can control. We 

can see things in their pictures that show the identity of certain 

hardware, we can make deductions from comments they make that 

other things must be true because of space engineering. This helps 

us see a whole lot into their program and gives us a great deal of 

confidence that some of our guesses and some of our predictions are 

relatively close. 

They have said, and it looks like they are serious about being 

motivated to do space for a series of reasons. They intend to use 

the space challenge to create a high-tech capability, to create high 

technology, then to validate those capabilities in the ultimate testing ground of actual space flight, and having validated, to persuade 

the rest of the world that the technology is valid, that is, to enhance the credibility in the minds of Chinese and foreigners in 

their high technology across the board. It enhances their high technology commercially, it enhances their high technology weapons 

systems militarily, it provides multiple benefits, cash value to their 

country for having done space technology successfully and as successfully as they’ve carried it out, especially with the Shenzhou 

manned program. 

In looking at some of the strengths of their program, in the interviews they’ve given and the comments they’ve made, I think one 

clear and very impressive achievement they have is their strategy 

of learning from the whole rest of the world, learning from the 

world all the activities in space in every other nation of the past 

history. Now, there are a lot of issues that some of their spacecraft 

are copies. Some of them are superficially copies. Some systems, 

such as the space suit they wear inside the Shenzhou capsule are 

26 

obviously Chinese manufactured versions of the suit the Russians 

provided them with. 

Others look similar, have similar functions, but most have been 

developed and tested entirely with Chinese engineering. But the 

strategy to basically learn, to basically not to repeat anybody else’s 

mistakes in space—they made some of their own original mistakes, 

but only once or twice—but not to repeat things they’ve seen done 

wrong in other countries I think is a very powerful tool to let them 

do things they intend to do in the future. In fact, they are so good 

at learning from other people’s experience, I wish we could learn 

from that strategy and I wish that in our own country and at 

NASA and other programs, they would pay more attention to the 

experience of other people as well as their own experience in the 

past. I think that’s a drawback in our program. 

The second major power, the second major strength in the Chinese program is demographic. They have been staffing up their 

program in the past 10 years, and have, as we now believe, more 

than 200,000 people in their industry with an average age somewhere in the low 30s. This is a team of people that are going to 

work together, have already solved problems together, and will 

keep solving problems together for decades to come. 

Those were the major strengths in the Soviet program. They 

staffed up their program in a big rush at the beginning of the space 

age, they established communications, they established teams, they 

worked together, and it was the perfect way to build a space program as long as you assume that the workers live forever. They are 

now in the Soviet Union facing at least half of the workers that are 

left in the program will be replaced, they have to be replaced in 

coming years, because they’re now, the average age in many Soviet 

space engineering areas is beyond the average life expectancy of 

the Russian male, and this is a serious challenge they have. The 

Chinese are just the opposite, the U.S. is somewhere in between. 

There is a weakness that the Chinese have that may get in the 

way of some of their ambitions. They brag in their own policy papers of the—they use the most centralized control, top-down direction of all the research, all the solutions to their technology, and 

a very narrow focused approach toward some of these challenges. 

Now, in the real world of space engineering, as we know from our 

own experience, often the problems you run into, which are not 

forecast by the bosses, are solved by answers and technologies in 

the next office over or the next division over or some other entire 

organization, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, for enough 

problems to accurately be reported up the chain so that they can 

be solved at the top. 

It’s possible, and the experience with Shenzhou suggests that the 

people doing the program were doing a lot of their own problem 

solving, and that the Chinese official pronouncement that it will be 

the director from the top that is responsible for their success is for 

show, is just a way of having the central regime gain the credit 

from the success of their program. Whatever they have done 

though, their program has been successful. It’s been successful in 

a lot of very good, prudent, slow, methodical, perhaps cautious or 

even overcautious small steps, building, taking a launch vehicle 

family, for example, expanding on those launch vehicles, lengthVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
27 

ening the tanks, putting higher pressure engines, putting more 

strap-on, extra booster stages. 

But they’ve now reached the point where they can no longer expand their launch capabilities by small increments. They have a 

big step in front of them now, and it’s a big step that will determine the future of their program. Can they go to a larger booster 

system? Tell call it the Long March 5 or the Chang Zheng 5 family, 

with an entirely new set of fuels, a larger diameter central stage 

that can’t be transported by rail to the launch site they now have, 

a vehicle that can go from their current maximum about 10 tons 

in lower-Earth orbit to 25 tons. The new vehicle would give them 

the opportunity to do heavy commercial communication satellites, 

which they put as their number one priority, the ability to put 

large payloads in interplanetary transfer to the moon and elsewhere to launch a near-class space station, which they’ve said is 

a goal in the mid term, and the capability to launch a Shenzhoutype vehicle with astronauts on lunar flights. 

Now, between now and getting there, they have many steps they 

have to make, and we’re going to watch with great interest. Using 

the talents and skills they already have shown and perhaps their 

management problems that could be in the way, we’re going to 

watch them build this booster and we’re going to clearly have insight into the program. If in 5 or 6 years they’ve built a launch 

pad, test flown this Long March 5, it’s called Long March 5–500 series of booster, if it’s flying before the end of this decade, it can do 

many things including opening the path for Chinese astronauts to 

the moon. 

At the point they can make the decision or need to make the decision, they’ll look at our own schedule and probably go back to 

their reasons for doing space flight, which is to enhance the credibility of their own technology. A manned lunar program or manned 

lunar fly-by ahead of NASA, ahead of anyone else, would be the 

kind of thing that they clearly already are paying for in other programs and would like to buy again. Well, we may see them do that. 

In terms of whether we can take part in cooperation with them, 

clearly they like cooperation. It’s one of the ways they obtain technology and know-how. Our own cooperative programs can teach us 

a lot, one of which is that, like with the International Space Station, the biggest international space cooperation project ever, we 

now realize that the promises that were made about bringing the 

Russians into the program, that it would make it cheaper, faster, 

safer, better, promises that NASA came here and told Congress 

about, were none of them fulfilled, and they’re not fulfilled for reasons that in some cases had been forewarned. 

Parts of ISS that have worked best tend to be not the modules 

that are all built together with components from each different 

partner, but components side by side, the Russian module and the 

U.S. module with supplemental capabilities for atmospheric revitalization, for example, or most critically, for transportation, and the 

saving grace of the ISS design is that we have two independent access transportation methods to the station. When Soyuz and 

Progress were not adequate, the Shuttle took up the slack and we 

kept a record of how much the Russians owed us for that. Now 

28 

with the Shuttle down, the Russians have taken up the slack and 

they’re doing the bookkeeping to see who owes what. 

Perhaps with the Chinese access, a Shenzhou-type vehicle with 

humans beyond low-Earth orbit, we may see a time 10 years from 

now when more than one country are in the process of developing 

independent access to get people into lunar orbit and beyond and 

we’re not considering it a bad thing at all or wasteful, far from it. 

ISS has shown us that often stand-alone capabilities by two different teams of partners can often work in parallel and create 

something far more reliable and useful than either alone. 

But for the most part, the Chinese have not expressed interest 

either in ISS or other seriously integrating their programs. They’re 

putting their space station and their spacecraft into an orbit that 

is incompatible with the International Space Station. They are 

building ground tracking sites for things like return to Earth that 

would not be in the right location for spacecraft coming back to 

Earth, to China, from the International Space Station, so their 

building these facilities is a clue that they are not looking for any 

near-term cooperation with ISS. 

They have their own reasons. As I said before, and we’ll go into 

at your interest, the reasons are satisfied by them pushing on alone 

or taking part or being rivals of other groups, other countries, other 

partners, and it is a cash value to them that they are seen as 

among the top with space powers on Earth. They clearly show they 

want to do that and they can spend the money to get there and 

that they have the talent, they have the people in place now ready 

for any task the Government decides. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oberg follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES OBERG, AEROSPACE OPERATIONS CONSULTANT, 

SOARING HAWK PRODUCTION, INC. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee on the question 

of Chinese intentions regarding lunar exploration. Both in competition and cooperation, China and the United States will be mutually interacting in this arena for decades to come. 

This statement will examine the recent Chinese manned space flight, Shenzhou5, to examine what it can reveal about Chinese approaches to selecting space goals 

and developing space technology, particularly its practices regarding acquisition of 

foreign space technology and its exploitation of usable lessons from foreign space experience. The Chinese plan for evolution of the Shenzhou program and development 

of an independent orbital laboratory is becoming clear. Following this, the question 

of Chinese national goals in space, and expected benefits from space activities, will 

be addressed. 

Then the issue of lunar activities can be considered in the context of known Chinese practices and official policies. A broad and aggressive program for unmanned 

lunar exploration can be discerned. In the context of high-spirited and enthusiastic 

press accounts of future Chinese space triumphs, the potential for even more ambitious lunar goals involving Chinese astronauts can also be balanced against predictable Chinese technical capabilities and national policy requirements. 

The Flight of Shenzhou-5 

On October 15, 2003, at the Jiuquan Space Center near the edge of the Gobi 

Desert in northern China, the spaceship Shenzhou 5 blasted off at a date and time 

that had leaked to the world in advance. The spacecraft—its name means ‘‘divine 

vessel’’ in Chinese—was nearly nine meters long and weighs almost eight metric 

tons, substantially bigger than the Russian Soyuz space vehicle still in use, and 

similar in size to NASA’s planned Constellation spacecraft whose final design has 

not yet even been selected. 

29 

The first manned flight of the Shenzhou has already had profound political, social, 

and diplomatic echoes. In addition to garnering international prestige, China hopes 

that its human spaceflight program will stimulate advances in the country’s aerospace, computer and electronics industries. Space successes will raise the 

attractiveness of exports and enhance the credibility of military power. 

China’s near-term space plans are quite clear: It will establish its own space station in Earth orbit. Within a decade, China’s space activities may well surpass those 

of Russia and the European Space Agency. And if China becomes the most important space power after the U.S., an entirely new ‘‘space race’’ may begin. 

China’s Use of Foreign Space Technology 

A significant factor in China’s success, and a major influence on its future space 

achievements, is the degree to which its program depends on foreign information. 

The manned Chinese spaceship used the same general architecture of both the Russian Soyuz and the American Apollo vehicles from the 1960s. The cabin for the astronauts, called a Command Module, lies between the section containing rockets, 

electrical power, and other supporting equipment (the Service Module) and a second 

inhabitable module, in front, to support the spacecraft’s main function (for the Soviets, the Orbital Module, and for Apollo, the Lunar Module). So despite superficial 

resemblances and widespread news media allegations, the Shenzhou is in no way 

merely a copy of the Russian Soyuz—nor is it entirely independent of Russia’s experience or American experience. 

Its Service Module, for example, has four main engines, whereas Apollo’s service 

module had only one, and Soyuz has one main and one backup engine. Also, 

Shenzhou’s large solar arrays generate several times more electrical power than the 

Russian system. And unlike Soyuz, the Chinese orbital module carries its own solar 

panels and independent flight control system, allowing it to continue as a free-flying 

unmanned mini-laboratory long after the reentry module has brought the crew back 

to Earth. 

On the other hand, one clear example of outright Chinese copying is in the cabin 

pressure suits, used to protect the astronauts in case of an air leak during flight 

(A much more sophisticated suit is used for spacewalks.) The Chinese needed a suit 

with similar functions, so after obtaining samples of Russia’s Sokol design they copied it exactly, right down to the stitching and color scheme. Other hardware systems 

that are derived from foreign designs include the ship-to-ship docking mechanism 

and the escape system that can pull a spacecraft away from a malfunctioning booster during launching. 

Chinese officials have made no secret of such technology transfers. A lengthy article on Chinese space plans appeared in the Xinhua News Agency’s magazine 

Liaowang in 2002: ‘‘After China and Russia signed a space cooperation agreement 

in 1996, the two countries carried out very fruitful cooperation in docking system 

installations, model spaceships, flight control, and means of life support and other 

areas of manned space flight. Russia’s experience in space technology development 

was and is of momentous significance as enlightenment to China.’’ 

The mention of docking systems is especially illuminating. Although Russia and 

the U.S. have used different types of docking mechanisms over the years to link 

spacecraft in orbit, photographs of Shenzhou indicate that the Chinese have chosen 

a Russian variant called the APAS–89. The device consists of a pressurized tunnel 

80 centimeters in diameter surrounded by sloping metal petals that allow any two 

units of the same design to latch together. Originally developed by a U.S.-Soviet 

team in 1973–1975 for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and perfected for use by Buran 

space shuttles visiting the Russian Mir space station [which never happened, although one visiting Soyuz vehicle was equipped with the system], the APAS–89 is 

now used to dock NASA’s space shuttles to the International Space Station (ISS). 

Although China is primarily interested in docking its spacecraft with its own small 

space stations, the decision to employ the APAS–89 mechanism would allow 

Shenzhou to link with both the space shuttles and the ISS. 

Regarding the ‘‘escape system’’ [a ‘‘tractor rocket’’ design developed by NASA and 

adopted by the Russians], launch vehicle manager Huang Chunping told a newspaper reporter about one particular difficulty in the design, the aerodynamic stabilization flaps. ‘‘This is the most difficult part,’’ he explained. ‘‘We once wanted to 

inquire about it from Russian experts, but they set the price at $10 million. Finally 

we solved the problem on our own.’’ This pattern (of studying previous work but 

then designing the actual flight hardware independently) was followed on most 

other Shenzhou systems, and it has already paid off. 

What is more, China has launched four ocean-going ships to track its missiles and 

spacecraft. These Yuan Wang (‘‘Long View’’) ships have been deployed in the Pacific 

Ocean to monitor military missile tests and in the Indian Ocean to control the maVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
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neuvering of satellites into geosynchronous orbit. The ships are sent into the South 

Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific Oceans to support the Shenzhou flights. The Russians used to have a similar fleet but scrapped it in the 1990s because of budget 

constraints. Rather than purchase the Russian ships, China built its own. 

Because some of the critical ground-control functions for the Shenzhou’s return to 

Earth must be performed while the craft is over the South Atlantic, China signed 

an agreement with the African nation of Namibia in 2000 to build a tracking station 

near the town of Swakopmund. Construction started in early 2001 and was completed by year’s end. Five permanent residents occupy the facility, and the staff expands to 20 during missions. The site lies under the reentry path of the Shenzhou, 

and because the craft’s orbit has a different inclination than the International Space 

Station’s, the Namibian base could not be used to track flights returning from there. 

This suggests that despite the Shenzhou’s compatible docking gear, the Chinese 

seem to have no near-term interest in visiting the ISS. 

Long-Range Strategies and Goals 

China’s long-range strategy was laid out in a White Paper issued in 2000 by the 

Information Office of the State Council. It stated that the space industry is ‘‘an integral part of the state’s comprehensive development strategy.’’ And instead of developing a wide variety of aerospace technologies, China will focus on specific areas 

where it can match and then out-do the accomplishments of other nations. 

Further, China would develop all the different classes of applications satellites 

that have proven so profitable and useful in other countries: weather satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, recoverable research satellites, and 

earth resources observation satellites. It also will launch small scientific research 

satellites. A unique and highly significant feature of the Chinese space plan is its 

tight control from the top. As described by space official Xu Fuxiang in February 

2001, ‘‘China’s various types of artificial satellites, in their research and manufacture, are all under unified national leadership . . .’’ that will ‘‘correctly select technological paths, strengthen advanced research, and constantly initiate technical advances. We must constantly select development paths where the technological leaps 

are the greatest.’’ Strict funding constraints require selecting ‘‘limited goals and 

focus[ing] on developing the . . . satellites urgently required by our country,’’ and 

on determining which satellites ‘‘are most crucial to national development.’’ 

The Maoist-style ‘‘ideological idiom’’ for this is: ‘‘Concentrating superior forces to 

fight the tough battle and persisting in accomplishing something while putting some 

other things aside.’’ 

The value of tackling difficult space technology challenges was explicitly described 

in Xiandai Bingqi magazine (June 2000): ‘‘From a science & technology perspective, 

the experience of developing and testing a manned spacecraft will be more important to China’s space effort than anything that their astronauts can actually accomplish on the new spacecraft. This is because it will raise levels in areas such as computers, space materials, manufacturing technology, electronic equipment, systems 

integration, and testing as well as being beneficial in the acquisition of experience 

in developing navigational, attitude control, propulsion, life support, and other important subsystems, all of which are vitally necessary to dual-use military/civilian 

projects.’’ 

The Next Steps 

In 2002, Liaowang magazine described the development plan for the manned 

space program: ‘‘After it succeeds in manned space flight, China will very soon 

launch a cosmic experimental capsule capable of catering to astronauts short stays.’’ 

This capsule is elsewhere described as ‘‘a laboratory with short-term human presence,’’ to be followed later on by a space station designed for long-term stays. In 

January 2003, unnamed officials provided further background to Xinhua News 

Agency reporters: ‘‘As the next step, China will endeavor to achieve breakthroughs 

in docking technology for manned spacecraft and space vehicles, and will launch a 

[space station]. After that it will build a long-term manned space station to resolve 

problems related to large-scale space science experiments and applied technology 

and to make contributions to mankind’s peaceful development of outer space.’’ 

In February 2004, Wang Yongzhi, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and identified as chief designer of the Chinese manned space program, told 

the Zhongguo Xinwen She news agency in Beijing that the Shenzhou-6 mission 

would carry two astronauts for a week-long mission. ‘‘Astronauts will have more opportunities for hands-on operation on board the Shenzhou-6,’’ he stated. ‘‘The astronauts will directly operate relevant spaceship-borne instruments and equipment to 

carry out a series of in-space scientific experimental work.’’ No date was given, but 

most Chinese sources indicate that early 2005 is most likely. 

31 

‘‘When conducting space rendezvous and docking experiments in the past,’’ he explained, ‘‘both the former USSR and the United States had to successively launch 

two spaceships in one experiment. At the time of devising a plan for China’s space 

rendezvous and docking experiments in the future, we improved on the past 

achievements and considered making the Shenzhou spaceship’s orbital capsule, left 

to continue moving in orbit, the target vehicle in space rendezvous and docking. 

When conducting a space rendezvous and docking experiment in the future, therefore, China will need to launch only one spaceship.’’ 

‘‘This plan is feasible, economical, and faster’’ in its design, and he expects it to 

take four or five years to be implemented. Foreign experts consider this plan feasible and reasonable and give it excellent chances of success. On Chinese television, 

Wang added that following flights by Shenzhou-7 and Shenzhou-8 (perhaps in 2006– 

2007), China would launch ‘‘a space station of larger scale with greater experimental capacity.’’ A photograph of what appears to be a mockup of this module has 

been released. It resembles the Soviet Salyut-6 space station (1977–1980), but with 

a more modern ship-to-ship docking mechanism modeled on Soviet designs now used 

by the ISS. 

Chinese Interest in Lunar Exploration 

In the enthusiasm surrounding the Shenzhou program, many Chinese scientists 

made bold promises to domestic journalists about ambitious future projects, especially the Moon. Many press comments are difficult to understand, and the problem 

of translation of unfamiliar technical nomenclature compels outside observers to be 

very cautious in interpreting them. For example, when Dr. Ouyang Ziyuan, identified as ‘‘chief scientist of the moon program’’, is quoted as saying ‘‘China is expected 

to complete its first exploration of the moon in 2010 and will establish a base on 

the moon as we did in the South Pole and the North Pole,’’ great care must be taken 

in determining what—if anything—this really means for future space missions. 

Still, even Western observers also expected major new Chinese space missions. 

‘‘China intends to conduct a mission to circumnavigate the Moon in a similar manner as was carried out by Apollo-8 in 1968,’’ noted the American engineering and 

analysis consulting company, the FUTRON Corporation, in its report, China and the 

Second Space Age, released the day of Yang’s space launch. ‘‘This mission will apparently involve a modified Shenzhou spacecraft and will be launched around 2006,’’ 

the report continued. And at a trade fair in Germany, spectacular dioramas showed 

Chinese astronauts driving lunar rovers on the Moon. But those exhibits seem to 

only be copies of U.S. Apollo hardware with flags added. There is little if any credible evidence that such hardware is even being designed in China for actual human 

missions to the Moon. 

According to Luan Enjie, chief of the China National Space Administration 

(CNSA), China’s first lunar mission will be a small orbiting probe called ‘‘Chang’e’’ 

(the name of a moon fairy in an ancient Chinese fable). Pictures of the probe suggest it is to be based on the design of the Dong Feng Hong-3 communications satellite, which has already been launched into a 24-hour orbit facing China (the Cox 

Commission provided persuasive documentation that the original DFH–3 was heavily based on European space technology). This lunar probe is expected to reach the 

moon in 2007, on a recently-accelerated launch schedule. 

Chinese press reports also describe widespread university research on lunar roving robots, and especially on the robot manipulators (the arm and hand) to be installed on them. According to an April 7, 2004 report in China’s People’s Daily, Luan 

said the lunar rover would carry the names of those institutions that take part in 

the vehicle’s development. 

The report continued that the lunar rover work was being ‘‘carried out under China’s High Tech Research and Development Program involving nearly a dozen scientific research institutions.’’ This work was initiated by Tsinghua University in 

1999. The rover is to be able to handle a range of driving conditions and use sensors 

for automated driving around obstacles. Luan is quoted as saying he is ‘‘on the lookout for innovation and creativity in building the lunar rover.’’ 

Two years earlier, the Xinhua news agency (Jan. 16, 2002) had stated that China’s first space robotics institute has been set up in Beijing. Its Deputy Director, 

Liang Bin, said: ‘‘Breakthroughs have been made in many key technologies of space 

robots. If it is required by China’s space plan, the space robot will be sent to space 

very soon.’’ 

That same year, Liu Hong, a professor at Harbin Polytechnical University, 

showed a four-fingered hand for use in space. Each finger had four joints, 96 pressure sensors, and 12 motors. ‘‘The robot may replace an astronaut to conduct some 

difficult and dangerous operations outside the space capsule.’’ 

32 

Dr. Sun Zengqi, identified as Qinghua University’s leading expert, is using virtual 

reality technology to overcome control problems caused by long time delays. Also, 

he is working on manipulators to handle equipment aboard China’s first small space 

laboratories that will not be continuously manned. ‘‘The gap between China and 

[other] countries in space robot technology has been greatly narrowed,’’ Sun said. 

Tsinghua University is designing what they call ‘‘LunarNet’’. It would consists of 

a polar orbiter equipped with sixteen 28 kg hard-landers, to be released in equally 

spaced areas on two mutually perpendicular orbital planes. The landing system, 

probably using airbags, would ensure surviving a landing at speeds between 12 and 

22 m/s. Each lander will carry a camera, temperature sensors, cosmic ray detectors, 

a penetrometer, an instrument for the measurement of soil magnetic properties and 

other instruments. The stations would use a relay satellite for earth comm. 

There is also the ‘‘Lunar Rabbit’’ soft-lander. It would be a 330 kg probe costing as little as $30 million and would be launched on a geostationary transfer orbit from 

the Xichang space center. Insertion into a lunar transfer orbit will be carried out 

on the following day using the on board bipropellant engine. At the time of the third 

apogee the probe will be inserted in a 100 to 200 km high lunar orbit where it will 

split into two components. The first, apparently based on the Double Star scientific 

satellites, will carry out an orbital mission, using a CCD camera, an infrared camera, a radar altimeter and a radiometer. The second will head for a lunar landing. 

This lander, braked by a solid propellant engine, will carry only a camera and will 

test optimal control algorithms discussed in some length in Chinese literature. Once 

on the surface the lander will release a 60 sq. meters Chinese flag. 

While it is plausible that many of these programs are merely engineering exercises to train students, the doctrine from the 2000 White Paper makes it clear that 

China cannot and will not waste any efforts in its space program. All activities are 

to be funded only if they contribute to an existing—if officially undisclosed—unified 

program. This suggests that these projects are not idle make-work, but are at least 

candidates for eventual official selection to actually fly. 

These probes, and a long-range plan for an automated sample return mission by 

2020, will not be direct copies of previous missions by Soviet and American spacecraft. Wu Ji, the Deputy Director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Center for 

Space Science and Applied Research, recently declared that Chinese Moon probes 

will aim at questions not addressed by previous missions. He stressed the importance of doing ‘‘something unique.’’ 

The Looming ‘‘Great Leap’’ In Spacelift Capability 

The key to more ambitious Chinese moon plans—to the rover mission, for example, or even a fly-by of the moon by a manned spacecraft—is the development of 

a new and more powerful booster called the CZ–5. Comparable to the European 

Ariane-5 booster or the Russian Proton-M, it will not be a simple upgrade of previous vehicles in this series, where more power was obtained by adding side-mounted boosters, stretching the fuel tanks, and installing high-energy upper stages. 

Those incremental advances have reached their limits, and an entirely new design 

of large rocket sections and bigger engines must be developed over the next five 

years. 

China has stated that it intends to develop this mighty rocket for launching larger 

applications satellites into 24-hour orbits, and for launching its small space station. 

The components are too large to move by rail to the existing inland launching sites, 

so they will be shipped by sea to an entirely new launch facility on Hainan Island, 

on China’s southern flank. 

This new launch vehicle is a major quantum-jump in the Long March family and 

presents very formidable engineering challenges. It will take tremendous efforts, 

and significant funding, and some luck as well, to make it work on the schedule 

announced in Beijing. And until the booster is operational, ambitious moon plans 

cannot be attempted. 

Once the CZ–5 is man-rated—and we re talking about at least five years, probably 

more—a beefed-up Shenzhou vehicle could be launched to the Moon. Two different 

possible flight plans are available: a simple swing-by (as with Soviet Zond probes 

in 1967–1970) and a lunar orbital flight (as with Apollo-8 in 1968). The simpler variant could be carried out with a single CZ–5 launching; the orbital profile could require two launches. 

At the present time, however, there is no hard evidence that the Chinese government has officially sanctioned such missions—nor is there any need for them to do 

so at this point, since much of the technology to realize such options is already 

under development for more near-term goals. Nevertheless, Chinese capabilities for 

human lunar missions—at least to orbiting it—can quite reasonably expected to become available in a time-frame similar to NASA’s ‘‘Return to the Moon’’ strategy, 

33 

and the option to fly such missions as an equal participant may prove to be irresistible to the Chinese government. 

China vis-a`-vis the United States: Strengths and Weaknesses 

A comparison between the Shenzhou spacecraft and its direct descendants, versus 

the still-undefined and undersigned U.S. Constellation project (nee CTV, CERV, 

etc.) reveals a pattern of relative strengths and weaknesses of the two nations and 

their approaches to expanded lunar activity. 

Both vehicles can carry 3 or more crew, are launched on expendable boosters, 

have launch-escape-systems, can rendezvous and dock in orbit, and return on dry 

land. Both promise to outstrip capabilities of the Russian Soyuz vehicle, just as Russia itself wants to replace it with the Kliper design (the Russians see this project 

funded by Europe and the U.S., in their dreams). 

The United States spends $30 billion a year on space, the Chinese perhaps $2 billion. But the Chinese have made it clear they will not duplicate across-the-board 

all of the activities funded by the United States. 

A major problem for China is that their top-down and tightly-focused space management strategy is extremely brittle, and vulnerable to unpleasant surprises and 

unpredicted constraints. This is because space technology often cross-fertilizes, and 

difficulties in one area find solutions in seemingly unrelated disciplines, in a manner that top level management is usually incapable of foreseeing. Although methodical and incremental approaches to programs such as Shenzhou have been successful, more advanced projects—particularly the CZ–5 booster—will require longer 

strides and may reveal the shortcomings of narrowly aimed management. That in 

turn may encourage more aggressive efforts to find the required technologies overseas. 

Beyond mere technology acquisition, China has implemented an extremely effective policy of extracting all usable lessons from other countries space experiences. 

This is the fundamental issue of engineering judgment, the day-to-day decision-making that propels a program to success—or, if not done properly, to frustration and 

disaster. The Chinese have studied the Soviet, the American, the Japanese and European and other programs intently, with the explicit goal of learning from them. 

NASA’s culture in recent years, on the other hand, has looked overwhelmingly arrogant towards any outside expertise (even, or especially, from other U.S. agencies, 

and sometimes actually between different NASA centers). Worse, it has shown itself 

incapable of even remembering fundamental lessons (such as flight safety) that an 

earlier generation of NASA workers had paid a high price to learn—only to have 

it forgotten and eventually (hopefully) re-learned. 

The demographics of the space teams in both countries also demonstrates a major 

difference that goes beyond mere financial resources. While space workers are 

equally happy to be at their jobs, the workforce in the Chinese program reflects the 

major build-up of the past decade and is predominantly young, and has been involved in major program development activities. NASA, as a mature civil service 

branch, has had relatively stable—some might even say moribund—staffing for decades. While there has been a steady flow of new hires, they have in large part been 

involved in maintaining existing programs, without much opportunity to learn by 

doing . Outside observers such as Dr. Howard McCurdy have voiced serious doubts 

that the current NASA culture is capable of sustaining an ambitious and expansive 

new program (late last year he testified how that could be fixed), but there is little 

doubt that the Chinese space workforce is, because they’ve shown it. 

The rationale for China investing substantial sums into expanded human space 

flight—space stations and even lunar sorties—remains unclear, but to a large degree they may be the same motivations that have already funded the Shenzhou program. If Shenzhou continues to be successful, internally popular, and helpful to Chinese economic, diplomatic, and military relations with other nations, then more ambitious projects with similar effects may justify their budgets too. 

Weighing these factors, the future of lunar exploration—and China’s role in it— 

is likely to be extremely interesting. While the motivations that fueled the Space 

Race of the 1960s are largely absent—primarily the naked fear in the U.S. that a 

world that accepted Soviet dominance in space would have many other consequences 

undesirable from a U.S. point of view—there remain solid motives for international 

rivalry, for serious attempts at illicit technology transfer, and for activities that 

could diminish the world stature of U.S. aerospace technology. 

In metaphorical terms, China is now facing a steep road into the sky. It has 

shown it has the heart and the brains for this chosen path. Now the world must 

wait to see if it has the muscle and the stamina—and the wisdom. And the same 

question applies to the United States. 

34 

Senator BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. Oberg. Let’s run the clock 

at 10 minutes and Will and I will bounce back and forth here. Who, 

on currently announced schedules or plans that we are ascertaining 

where people are going if we don’t have clearly announced schedules, what country will be the first back to the moon with a human 

mission and by when, on currently announced or schedules that we 

are looking at and appraising what they are doing if they haven’t 

publicly made announcements. 

Mr. OBERG. I think the competition is not very large because the 

Chinese have said—the problem with Chinese information is that 

we’re still not certain how to translate a lot of the terms and 

there’s mistranslation and there are comments made from people 

over there whose authority to make the comments we’re not probably sure of, but the comments from Beijing and elsewhere that 

they have a program to put people on the moon I think are not 

credible. Nor do they need that program now. What they need now 

are laying the foundation for later deciding to do it. The only announcement of a schedule I’ve seen for anyone is NASA’s. 

Dr. LOGSDON. If the Congress gives the authorization and appropriations to NASA this year to get started on its programs, particularly the Crew Exploration Vehicle, it will be the U.S. first back to 

the moon. None of the other countries in Europe, Japan, India have 

human missions on their schedules at this point, and as Jim Oberg 

has said, the Chinese outlook is I think at best uncertain. 

Senator BROWNBACK. China will have the capacity to go with a 

human mission to the moon by when, given a successful set of developments in rockets that they’re into now? 

Mr. OBERG. I think we can reasonably expect them to repeat the 

schedule for the Shenzhou mission: approved in 1992, began construction of the launch facility at Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert in 

1993. It took 5 years to build the launch facility and the processing 

buildings. First unmanned test flight of Shenzhou, 1999, first 

manned flight, late 2003, so it’s about 11 years from approval to 

first manned flight. They could probably put more money and do 

that sooner because they’ve already done it once now, but I don’t 

think a lot sooner. I would say doing it in less than half that time 

is just not believable. Otherwise, we’re just guessing. But 6 to 12 

years would be a number I would put as a range from the time 

they decide, let’s send people to the moon. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well, maybe I then didn’t hear you quite 

right on this, Jim. I thought you said that if they successfully test 

this launch capacity by the end of this decade, they will then be 

able to make a determination whether or not they want to go to 

the moon and they will have a number of pieces in place to be able 

to do that. 

Mr. OBERG. They will have those pieces. They would then be able 

to begin testing spacecraft. Their approach to Shenzhou is much 

more methodical and slower than most of us outside observers, myself included, thought. It took them longer to get from the first test 

to the manned flight, but when they got there, they got there perfectly. The mission was, as far as we can tell, perfect. When it 

comes to lunar flight, if by the end of this decade the Chang Zheng 

5–500 rocket is operational and has been launched and they at that 

point want to use it for a manned lunar flight, it would only be a 

35 

matter I think of a couple years before they could carry that out. 

So in that case, we’re looking at 8 years, and I think 8 years is 

something that is plausible, but again, based on decisions I don’t 

think have been made yet. 

Senator BROWNBACK. You think from where they are today, they 

could be on the moon in 8 years if radical decisions are made? 

Mr. OBERG. They could be doing flights in lunar orbit. The step 

to get onto the moon requires that a whole new booster family beyond this new one would come along or they’d begin to go multiple 

launches—and they do not do multiple launches, have not in the 

past, although their launch rate is doubling and the budget’s doubling. They’re launching more vehicles this year than they ever 

launched. 

So getting people in lunar orbit like Apollo 8 is something that 

is conceivably within their reach in the time scale we’re looking at, 

8 years I’d say is a good guess. But to put people onto the lunar 

surface is a whole other project that is again a step beyond that. 

It’s a step for them and for us, because I’ve seen various estimates 

of when NASA thinks it could get people back on the lunar surface 

and we’re talking about—well, John, you’re more familiar with 

those than I am. 

Dr. LOGSDON. The official date in the President’s policy is between 2015 and 2020, so those time scales could converge if China 

has the appropriate developments with its new class of vehicles, 

that both the United States and China could be conceiving of 

human missions landing on the moon the second half of the next 

decade. 

Senator BROWNBACK. And roughly the same time? 

Dr. OBERG. Yes. 

Senator BROWNBACK. That they would be on track in development to be in a position to put a person back, a person on the moon 

in roughly the same time the U.S. would be under our current announced schedules? 

Dr. LOGSDON. That seems to be the case, yes. 

Senator BROWNBACK. OK. Let me talk budget, and nobody else 

has plans for manned missions to the moon? 

Dr. LOGSDON. Well, there was a group within ESA last year that 

went off by itself and developed a plan for a European lunar base 

by 2020 or 2025, but it was kind of orthogonal to the main line of 

ESA thinking and the people responsible for it are not going to be 

there in the future, so I think that was a dead initiative, although 

some people in Europe put a lot of work into it. 

Senator BROWNBACK. But nobody else has announced lunar— 

does anybody have announced human missions to other places than 

the moon? You mentioned Europe has planned missions to—well, 

Mars, Venus, Mercury, obviously they’re not—— 

Dr. LOGSDON. Europe had a study program built around the notion of human missions to Mars in the 2030 to 2035 time period 

called Aurora, but it was only a study. It was not, did not have political sanction, and is being revised to reflect the U.S. proposal and 

be more complementary to what the U.S. has put on the table. 

Mr. OBERG. We have some very explicit comments from Chinese 

officials about their philosophy for their future strategies. They will 

not be retreading past ground, they’ve said. They will be doing 

36 

things with the moon different than have been done in the past, 

doing things out in space different. If we are fixated on being on 

the moon to reprise Apollo, we may overlook, what other people 

have not overlooked. This has been mentioned before, there are 

other missions beyond low-Earth orbit that don’t involve lunar surface access. They are both either lunar orbit or the Lagrange points 

around the moon, which are of great interest for a number of reasons, for using it for staging eventually to a lunar surface. These 

missions that don’t require a lot more propulsion than getting to 

the moon, but only more life support to go beyond the moon: either 

just out into interplanetary space and back, or out at the times 

when there are asteroids passing within a few million miles of the 

Earth, to visit then and return. 

These near-Earth asteroid missions are attractive. And if I can 

intuitively say, what would be most attractive to the Chinese based 

on the strategy they’ve already developed and the rationales 

they’ve already discussed, to make a point to themselves and the 

rest of the world, I would not put the lunar surface as the target. 

I would put something that is much more spectacular that would 

be one heck of a demonstration of their abilities and would steal 

a march on all of NASA’s official plans. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Senator, if I could add just one more thing. I 

quoted in my oral testimony the President of India, Dr. Abdul 

Kalam, about the inspirational effect of the first Indian lunar 

robotic mission. He went on to say, he could ‘‘visualize a scene in 

the year 2021 when I will be 90 years old visiting the Indian space 

port for boarding a space plane so I can reach another planet and 

return safely as one of the passengers. I can foresee this center to 

grow into an international space port with a capability of enabling 

launches and landings of reusable launch vehicles.’’ 

So clearly in the broadest Indian thinking, human missions to 

other destinations are part of the future. Those aren’t approved 

missions and there’s no schedule, but it’s part of their thinking. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Let’s talk budget. Ms. Smith, you may be 

the best one to help me on this. Give me the respective general 

budgets for space exploration, announced and then also hidden 

budget, if other countries, China, for instance, has an announced 

project but it actually pulls from a number of different sources so 

that the total amount is more. Do we know the space budget for 

a number of these other countries, or if somebody could articulate 

that for me? 

Ms. SMITH. It’s difficult to get at a true total number from some 

of those sources that may not be publicized, so what we know is 

what government officials say about their budgets. So for the Russian Space Agency, for example, Yuri Koptev, who was head of the 

agency until recently, said that the 2004 budget for the Russian 

Space Agency is about $500 million when you convert it into dollars, but whether or not they’re also getting revenue from other 

Russian commercial space activities to augment their budget is not 

something that’s made public, so it’s very difficult to get an exact 

number, but it’s on that order of say $500 million. I think the Indian space budget is also around $450 million, John, something 

like that. 

37 

I think if you look at the total European spending on space, military and civilian, I’ve seen numbers around $7 billion, of which 

about $4–1/2 billion is for civilian space activities. The budget for 

the European Space Agency last year was about $3 billion U.S. I 

don’t know which other countries you would be interested in. The 

Chinese budget I think is around $2 billion. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Annual? 

Ms. SMITH. Annually. But in reference to what you were discussing earlier in terms of who has plans to go to Mars, for example, for example, I’m not sure anyone has, quote/unquote, ‘‘a plan 

to go.’’ Even we don’t. The President said that we were going to go 

the Moon and Mars and worlds beyond, but there was no schedule 

for that either. 

I think a lot of the countries have visions, and they have studies, 

and they have the desire, and they want to go, and they’re all waiting for some catalyzing event to make it happen, and they’re all 

looking for money, which is why, whenever these long-term visions 

are discussed, they’re almost always discussed in an international 

context, because people assume that you’re going to have to get a 

lot of countries together in order to afford it. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Jim, what’s happened in the Chinese budget over the last 5 years—space budget? 

Mr. OBERG. We’ve seen the budget—the official budget figures 

double. We’ve seen the launch rate—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. The last 5 years? 

Mr. OBERG.—the last 5 years. And we’ve seen the launch rate 

double, and may double again in the next year or two. 

The Chinese have not made a lot of launches. In their Long 

March series of rockets over the past 30 years, they total about 70– 

75 launches, and a few from other programs, as well. That’s what 

the Soviets would launch in a year and a half back in the space 

race. At the same time, there are more launches now coming down. 

And what we’ve seen, already, they’re ramping up. 

With Shenzhou, at first we thought, that after the first flight, 

they would begin a Gemini-like program of flying every several 

months, three, four, or every 6 months. They decided they’re not 

going to fly even this calendar year at all, and fly the next 

Shenzhou mission next year. 

But clearly they fly a mission once, learn from it, and don’t keep 

repeating it. The next mission is two people for a week in space. 

That’s pretty much now the official comment. The mission beyond 

that would involve a space walk with space suits to go outside, and 

some testing of rendezvous and docking, the technology they need 

for a space station. They’ve said that their approach is different 

than the West, than the U.S. and the Soviets did; they will launch 

into orbit, detach the forward nose section of their spacecraft, back 

away and re-dock with it several times. So they only have to 

launch one vehicle, instead of two, to practice this rendezvous and 

docking. That’s entirely plausible. It would leave them in a position, after only 4 or 5 flights over the next 3 or 4 years, to begin 

use of what they say is their next step, which are short-term space 

laboratories that would be visited by crews. After that comes the 

time to get their large vehicle up, their Mir-class vehicle. They said 

38 

that will take awhile before they’re ready for it. And, sure enough, 

it’s also going to be awhile before the launch vehicle is ready. 

So they’ve discussed in public what is converging on a description 

of a plan with Shenzhou that is going to put them into essentially 

a Russian-level capability within a couple of years, beyond anyone 

else’s. And is Shenzhou really Chinese—not for ‘‘Magic Vessel,’’ 

which is the word for it—it might be the Chinese for ‘‘Constellation.’’ There’s a spacecraft that NASA would like to build sometime 

in the next 10 years that will probably look a lot like the spacecraft 

the Chinese are now flying. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Astronaut Bill Nelson? 

STATEMENT OF HON. BILL NELSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM FLORIDA 

Senator NELSON. Is that spacecraft the crew-exploration vehicle? 

Mr. OBERG. I’m referring to the current—that’s the current acronym for it. I wouldn’t want to guarantee how long that will be the 

name. 

Senator NELSON. And does it look like that? 

Mr. OBERG. It looks a lot like—we don’t know there are three or 

four different drawings I’ve seen. The Shenzhou followed a procedure that the Chinese learned from their own experience and ours, 

you develop a spacecraft based upon the mission requirement. You 

don’t build a spacecraft to please aesthetics or Hollywood or different contractors, or even—pardon me—you know, different politicians. You build it based on the requirement. And the Shenzhou 

appears to do that. Whether we’re going to be smart enough to copy 

the Chinese philosophy or not, I’m not yet sure. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Well, but this time NASA, at least on paper, 

claims it’s doing it right, setting out the requirements for the 

spacecraft first and then designing to that requirement. Those requirements are not set, so what the spacecraft is going to look like 

at this point, in April 2004, is only speculation. 

Senator NELSON. Well, you all are the experts. I want to find out 

from you—Why back to the moon before we go to Mars? Now, Jim, 

Mr. Oberg, has just laid out a very practical building-block-bybuilding-block program that the Chinese have a reason—also with 

their politics, their world prestige, et cetera, et cetera. But for the 

rest of the world, and maybe for the Chinese also, what happens 

if the rovers that we send up there to Mars in 2007 and 2009 and 

2011, building on the discovery that has just been made by one of 

the rovers that there was a sea, and that we start to discover—let’s 

say we start to discover fossils. Isn’t that going to, first of all, ignite 

the curiosity and imagination of the American people? And is that 

not going to refocus as to whether or not we should go to the moon 

or go straight to Mars? That’s question one. And then, could not 

we have international participation in that? 

Ms. SMITH. It’s been a long-running debate as to whether to go 

back to the moon or just go directly to Mars. There are people who 

have strongly held views on both sides. Those who think that we 

should go back to the moon first usually cite the fact that it’s close 

to home, so if something goes wrong you can get people back very 

quickly; whereas, if you sent them to Mars, they’re pretty much 

committed. And they also point to the fact that you can use mateVerDate Nov 24 2008 07:38 May 20, 2013 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\80929.TXT JACKIE
39 

rials on the moon to launch future missions to Mars, and that’s 

what President Bush raised when he announced this initiative in 

January. 

There are folks—I’m sure that you know them as well as I do— 

who think that we’ve been there, done that, don’t need to go back 

to the moon; let’s choose a very challenging goal, realizing that 

there very probably be lives lost along the way, and just go directly 

to Mars and accept that risk. But, at the moment, the President 

has decided that we should take the slower approach and go to the 

moon first. 

Senator NELSON. The slower approach was announced before the 

little rover discovered that there was a sea on Mars, and so I’m just 

asking ‘‘What if?’’ What if, by 2007 and 2009 and 2011, we suddenly find that there were forms of life on Mars? Doesn’t it accelerate the whole quest to go to Mars and have a human dig around 

and try to find out what was there? 

Ms. SMITH. It may depend largely on how much risk everyone is 

willing to take, because you may not have the knowledge that you 

need at that point as to what the effects are on people when they 

journey that long in weightlessness and how they’re going to react 

when they’re on the surface of Mars, which is a third G. You may 

not have the radiation studies completed that you want to have 

completed. So it’ll probably boil down to risk and money. 

Mr. OBERG. But this is also what ISS has been teaching us in 

this past experience, and proving its value in that ISS has taught 

us that we’re not smart enough to build a spacecraft yet that can 

spend 3 years without resupply and without fresh spare parts 

showing up. The experience of ISS is that we need to practice better in low-Earth orbit and potentially also in the area around the 

moon—or maybe not—but at least to practice before we commit to 

the long flights to Mars. We’re going to expect losses—is not something you can do with high-level losses, because the support will be 

gone. So that when you leave for Mars, you’re going to have to be, 

like what the Chinese launched, Shenzhou 5. They methodically 

did intermediate steps, checked them out thoroughly, took longer 

than other people thought, but may have been just cautious enough 

to make the flight of Shenzhou 5 successful. 

On Station, as you’ve been aware, there have been a number of 

problems. Equipment’s broken down faster than it was expected to. 

Also, without being repaired with Shuttle missions, there are a 

number of other systems which are right now teetering on the 

brink. There are backups, because of the multinational nature of 

it. Some systems that we have that won’t work, the Russians will 

step in, and vice versa. 

There, I think we do see the strength of an international partnership, where there are complementary capabilities that each country 

contributes, as opposed to one vehicle built of pieces from all the 

different countries. 

So if we go international, I think one thing to enhance the reliability of an interplanetary flight is having at least two different 

teams—perhaps a U.S., with its partners’ teams, the Chinese with 

their partners’ teams—being able to send crewed human vehicles. 

Perhaps a fleet, perhaps two vehicles going together, standing by 

to help each other out, might greatly enhance the chance of the 

40 

crew getting back. And it wouldn’t take a whole lot longer or cost 

a lot more, because with international cooperation, we’ve found out 

that it never saves you money. 

Dr. LOGSDON. If I could add just a slightly different angle to the 

discussion. First of all, I don’t think we’re finished with the moon. 

There are potentially resources there that could enable, for long periods of time, space exploration beyond the moon. We need to go 

and see whether they’re really there or not. Maybe we can do that 

robotically and don’t have to send crews back, maybe not. This is 

mainly the water frozen as ice in the deep craters at the poles. 

I use the word advisedly, the ‘‘genius’’ of the President’s plan, because there are lots of problems with it, is its flexibility. It really 

doesn’t commit to particular destinations; it lays out an initial path 

that can be changed if discoveries along the way merit it. We’re not 

building, like we’ve built for Apollo, a system only good for going 

to the moon. 

One of the problems with the Apollo capsule and the lunar modules—they were great for getting people to the moon and back, and 

not very good for anything else, and so we retired then in 1972. 

One hopes that we will build a flexible system for interplanetary 

travel by humans that can be used to get back to the moon, if 

that’s the destination we choose, that can go on to Mars, that can 

go to Lagrangian points, that can go to near-Earth-orbit objects 

and give us the capability to really move out into the Solar System 

to whatever destination we choose along the way. 

Mr. GRAHN. May I add just a—— 

Senator NELSON. Please. 

Mr. GRAHN.—reflection? Well, it sounds interesting and good 

with a vehicle that can do a lot of things, but it reminds me of a 

Swiss Army knife—each blade can be used, but no blade is any 

good. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. OBERG. But because this vehicle, exploration vehicle, is apparently expendable, or at least fewer re- uses, as—we can do as 

the Soviets did, develop several different evolutionary paths with 

the same basic airframe, with major commonality between different 

vehicles, but more specialized toward the specific mission plan for 

that particular kind of a vehicle. So we’re not going to build a vehicle that can do everything. We’re going to have a design that, with 

modifications and additional equipment, can do one or the other, or 

a third option. 

I would like to have thought—and, Senator Nelson, I was feeling 

very much like you, a Martian for many years—that we should go 

to Mars quickly, take the bit in our teeth and go out there. Watch 

the experience on the Space Station and experience that the Russians have had. As good as they were with Mir, keeping it going, 

they kept it going only because of resupply from the ground. Parts 

would break that were not predicted to break. The Shuttle could 

bring things up that they couldn’t fit in their own cargo craft, and 

they kept Mir going, did a marvelous job. 

If Mir had been sent toward Mars, the crew would have died. Not 

because of a fire or a collision or the other accidents, but because 

things broke down and they ran out of spare parts. We’re running 

of spare parts on ISS now. What spare parts to pack? 

41 

There may be things that we can do and practice around the 

moon that won’t delay getting to Mars at all, that we’d have to 

practice somewhere. It’s like a testing ground, and it’s like the testing ground that the Chinese find in space for their high technology. 

Space is the ultimate judge. There’s no bluffing outer space. You 

can’t fool Mother Nature, as Dr. Feynman said. And testing the 

techniques, technologies, required for interplanetary flight—far 

harder than I know I thought 10 years ago, and many others—you 

need somewhere to try it out. The moon may be one area, other 

areas around the moon, the Lagrangian points that have been mentioned, and, as I mentioned, near-Earth asteroids, a very tempting 

target of high scientific value and intermediate challenge. Those 

are all out there as options, and NASA’s strategic planning is looking at these options, I think, in a very mature way. 

But the options that we’re looking at for our purposes are not the 

same as the Chinese are looking at, and they would want to—they 

may just look at what we’re doing, and pick and choose what they 

can do to make the most impressive point. Their intention is not 

to match us program by program by program. They’ve said that. 

Their intention is to find the project that we’re doing, find the one, 

the most spectacular one, that they can do first, perhaps, make the 

point, and perform that. And that is the kind of strategic thinking 

that can lead to, I think, very spectacular Chinese successes in the 

next five, ten, fifteen years. 

Senator NELSON. Well, I would just say, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, that one of the things that we have to worry about is whether 

or not we can get the money, and how do you translate the will of 

the people into votes. And right now that’s a very difficult thing to 

do. 

It may well be—and I’m sure the thought has occurred to you, 

Mr. Oberg—that because the Chinese are headed to the moon, 

there might be some of this old Cold War competition that comes 

back into the factor of the politics that allows us then to translate 

the concern of that into dollars that’s allocated to the space program, but it’s too early to know. But that certainly is a possibility. 

And when China orbited their astronaut, that was one of the 

first things that I thought of, it might be a help to us. 

Mr. OBERG. It’s not a zero-sum game that—the Chinese can succeed, can compete in a peaceful area. I think, looking historically 

at the space race, at the Soviet participation—and I’d be happy for 

other comments here—the Soviets found an area of competition in 

which they could make a contribution—they could impress the 

world and their own people in a beneficial kind of activity that 

judged how good they were, and rewarded them when they succeeded, and didn’t involve military or oppressive techniques. And 

as they earned more respect outside their own country, justified respect for their activities, in many ways this, I think, softened the 

xenophobia and the garrison mentality that they had from Stalinist 

days. They were happening anyway. 

Perhaps these are coincidental. But success in space strikes me— 

each country’s success is the success of the whole world, and they 

build on each other. 

We can look at a case in the future, when the Chinese are going 

to be building things in space. We’re going to realize we should be 

42 

matching them because it’s a new arena. Leaving it to them and 

other nations is not going to be good for practical terms or psychological terms for the United States. 

We’re never going to dominate entirely again, but—and we’re 

never going to have one unified world program, but a mix, a balance of different approaches, based on past experience and a good 

view of the history, I think, can benefit everyone. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Think of yourself as a politician in 2020. If China’s 

on the moon—India is headed in that direction, maybe Japan, 

maybe Europe as a partner with one or more of them—and the 

U.S. has chosen not to go, is that a politically acceptable position 

to leave to your successors? 

Senator NELSON. The answer to that is no. And at that point, if 

the route is through the moon, I hope we’re on the moon, getting 

ready to go to Mars. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Indeed. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Let me—Mr. Oberg—thanks, Bill, for being 

here—let me pursue this idea, because I had not thought about 

that, about China going to a near-Earth object, instead of back to 

the moon, and that’s a great—and they would land a craft on—— 

Mr. OBERG. A manned craft, and run some robots on it, get some 

samples. As we all realize, we have profound interest in the structure of Earth-crossing asteroids, because at some point, if not this 

year or even this century, we’re going to have to go and interfere 

in the course of some of these. And we’d need the preparation of 

what do they do when you—how do they respond to us pushing 

them? We can get that from unmanned vehicles, as well as manned 

vehicles. But often, because of the fast approach and that they’re 

only nearby for a little while, a manned vehicle could well be the 

most efficient scientific technique. 

Senator BROWNBACK. By what time would they have the capacity 

to be able to do that on the development approach that they’re in 

now? 

Mr. OBERG. If we’re looking at being able to send a Shenzhoutype spacecraft and a mission module of about the same mass that 

could keep them alive for several months, we’re talking about several launches of this CZ–5–500 new booster, which could be online 

and ready by the beginning of the next decade. If they wanted to 

make that dash, try some practices, even send a crew out a million 

miles and back as a sortie into interplanetary space, with the intention of, not being a stunt, but being pioneers on plans they 

would like to see done, I think that would be tremendously respected by, and impressive to, the rest of the world. 

And then later on, when there is an asteroid they might wan to 

visit, they would have to send an additional mission module, a 

housing module with equipment. That could come later. 

Dr. LOGSDON. You know, one question to which I do not have the 

answer is when a suitable body will be in the proximate vicinity 

of the Earth system that could be a target for landing. 

Mr. OBERG. They tend to be—we’re finding enough now, at least 

every year or two, if not more frequently. Some require longer voyages than others. Some are quite convenient; you can make a voyage out and back in a few months. Others require almost 12 

months in flight, which is much too long for initial flights. And the 

43 

initial flight might just be a flight out beyond the Earth-Moon system, test navigation in interplanetary space, and return to Earth, 

just as a sortie. 

The first sortie out beyond the Moon would almost pull the rug 

out for any value—well, it would make going back to the Moon look 

almost pedestrian in comparison, but it would be easier than going 

back to the Moon. And that strikes me as an attractive kind of 

strategy. Maybe we shouldn’t have published it. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. Mr. Grahn—— 

Mr. GRAHN. Yes? 

Senator BROWNBACK.—I want to talk about micro-satellites and 

those sorts of missions that are going on. Why do you—I’m kind of 

curious about ourselves, the United States, and you, maybe, as a 

space observer and person that understands—why haven’t countries like ours pursued investing in low-cost micro-satellite-type 

missions? Do you have any thoughts on why? 

Mr. GRAHN. Well, I’ll try to reverse the reasoning, because I don’t 

want to answer straight to the point. 

Sweden, for example, a very small country, very short of money, 

is—the only way for us to get into space—that’s the only option, to 

do a low-cost approach. And Europe only spends $3 billion a year 

on space. It’s—we’re just not affluent enough. In the United States, 

your resources are much bigger and—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. But if these are micro-—— 

Mr. GRAHN.—the pressure is not on—— 

Senator BROWNBACK.—if these are micro-satellites, you can get 

them up, your cost structure is much reduced, you still get valuable 

information out of them—perhaps disproportionately valuable, relative to the cost of doing it? 

Mr. GRAHN. Yes, but the—well, I don’t want to say something political, but it’s—you know, big organizations want to do big programs; small organizations can get along with smaller programs. 

So it’s a matter of the organizational context. And you don’t get to 

be a big boss in a big organization by running a small program. 

You run a big program. I mean, it has something to do with the 

organizational setup and the mindset of the organization running 

programs—unless you set up a little organization within a larger 

one. 

I remember when we started with space activities in Sweden. We 

read some paper from the AIAA called ‘‘How to Run a Small 

Project Within a Large Organization.’’ And it takes—you have to 

set aside a group of people and say, ‘‘OK, you guys are allowed to 

work in a different way, have your own mindset.’’ Because, otherwise, the—this may be construed as dangerous to the organization 

as a whole if you can do things in a different way. 

Senator BROWNBACK. There’s much discussion here about going 

to micro-satellite programs now, and even perhaps going to and 

having private sector doing micro-satellite-type programs. Do you— 

are you hearing a great deal of discussion about that, as well, going 

more along your model of what you’re doing? 

Mr. GRAHN. Yes, I think that certainly private entities can 

launch things to other planets if they can get the money to do it. 

Just because, as I said, there is certainly a standardized approach, 

44 

standardized industrial methods that can be used. So it’s not something that’s impossible to do. 

If you look at unmanned robotic spacecraft, they are entering 

into the area where they are, sort of, reaching the industrial stage. 

By that, I mean that there are interchangeable parts that can be 

used, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. 

There’s this old story about the coat factory, which was supposed 

to be the first company that pioneered replacement parts, but they 

found a bunch of files in their cellar when it went bankrupt. 

This is, I think, the key to spacecraft development, is the use of 

standard parts, standard methods. And it is—we were on the verge 

of reaching that situation with the Constellation missions, the telecommunications Constellations. 

But I think recent events, as I described in my talk, in non-aerospace technology has helped spacecraft development, because software is such a huge part of a spacecraft. For example, the SMART– 

1 space probe, I think that 25 to 30 percent of the incurred cost 

is just coding, software development. Then if I also count designing 

electronics by programming, so-called ‘‘gateways,’’ it’s more—making electronic circuits is looking like software programming. So 

that’s a huge chunk. And now that the industrial methods have finally reached the software arena, this can greatly help the development of spacecrafts. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Let me ask about Chinese/Russian cooperation in future space exploration programs. One of you presented 

about the great legacy of the Russian programs—I think, Ms. 

Smith, that you did—talking about length of time, space stations, 

the number of firsts that the Soviet program had in the legacy of 

Russian, and that one of you had mentioned, as well, that the Chinese space suit looks a lot like the Russian space suit adopted here. 

What about the likelihood of a Russian/Chinese participation, 

joint venture, on an international space effort to a near-Earth object, Moon? Are any of these things being—do we know if these sort 

of things are being discussed? 

Mr. OBERG. There has been no explicit reference to a near-Earth 

object mission that I’ve seen in the Russian or Chinese literature. 

The Chinese literature on lunar flight looks to me to be extremely 

derivative of the Western reports on it, but they have talked very 

ambitiously about Chinese and Russian extended cooperation on 

other missions. So they clearly do like to cooperate. 

The Russians will sell China what it wants. The Chinese won’t 

always buy it, because they can’t afford it. But for future missions 

it’s certainly very plausible. 

In terms of—we’re speculating on things that the Chinese could 

find useful and attractive, I have not seen any explicit reference in 

their literature toward anything but lunar flight, and even lunar 

landing. But the lunar- landing discussions strike me to be entirely 

derived from reading Western reports, not any of their own native 

research. 

Senator BROWNBACK. What if there is a Chinese/Russian partnership on going to the Moon? Doesn’t that move forward the Chinese ability to do this quite a substantial amount, given the Russian knowledge? 

45 

Mr. OBERG. I think the prime Russian motivation for space cooperation has got to be cash-flow. And as Marcia Smith has said, 

they receive a substantial amount—I believe the figure is almost 

half of their budget—from Western sales. They probably will keep 

to the concept, ‘‘dance with the guy what brung ’em’’ when it comes 

to where their program is centered. The Chinese don’t have anywhere near that much money. And while the Russians still need 

that flow, they’ll probably stick with their current partners for that 

very reason. But there’s no—but other partners, other partnerships, can be formed. 

The Chinese clearly want to partner with other countries. They 

partner with Brazil on Earth resources, they partner with ESA on 

science satellites, including one that was launched a few days ago. 

They want to partner more with Japan, with South Africa on software. The only country they haven’t really discussed wanting to 

partner with much is the U.S., and they’re still feeling, I think, 

that the termination of their satellite launch services, commercial 

and satellite—they no longer launch satellites for money, and it’s 

primarily because of ITAR, primarily because of U.S. policy. 

Dr. LOGSDON. I would add that Russia’s potential primary partner for cooperation is Europe. There are lots of back and forth between Europe and Russia on future plans. After all, Europe is financing the creation of a Russian—of a launch site for the Soyuz 

vehicle at the European launch site in South America, which will 

give Europe, using Russian hardware, independent access for people to space sometime in the next four or 5 years. So there’s a lot 

of interaction there; I think much more than a Moscow/Beijing axis 

emerging. 

Mr. OBERG. And Russia has the hardware to do these missions. 

If they had the financing, they could be a third party to go beyond 

low-Earth orbit. They always wanted to. They have the—they could 

turn their hardware toward it, but it would take funding levels far 

beyond what they have available now. 

Ms. SMITH. I think the key is that international cooperation is 

pervasive, because here in the States we tend to think of it in 

terms of U.S.-led international cooperation. But all of the major 

space-faring countries have own cooperative outreaches to various 

partners. And so there’s Europe and Russian, and Europe and 

China, and China and Russia, and all of these different avenues for 

international cooperation are available these days. 

You know, back in the Cold War era it was American allies cooperating with America, and Russian allies cooperating with Russia. But now the gloves are off, so to speak, and so you can form 

whatever relationship is most advantageous to you. 

So that’s part of the whole changing paradigm of international 

cooperation that’s underway right now, which is why potential 

partners have more options than they had in the past. But, fundamentally, it usually boils down to money, and the United States, 

by far, has the most money. And I think that’s why a lot of countries look to us. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Ms. Smith, take me—in your role as a historian, you’ve been studying—the Congressional Research Service—how many years, U.S. space? 

Ms. SMITH. Do I have to say? 

46 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. SMITH. An eternity. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well, you’ve got—you’re a national treasure, but you’ve been at this a lot of years, and I always appreciate 

your thoughts. 

And I’m not quite sure how to ask this, other than, At what point 

in decisionmaking are we right now in U.S. space program relative 

to other times where we’ve made major decisions on space programs at this country? Are we at a point, do you think, of deciding 

to discontinue human flight, and this is analogous to a period when 

we were looking at it with Apollo? 

Give me a historical analogy of where we are, policy decisionmaking, right now for the United States, with all the factors that 

are existing here and around the world. And what’s the best outcome in looking at those historical analogies? 

Ms. SMITH. Well, of course, I imagine you’re talking mostly about 

human spaceflight choices, and—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. Yes. 

Ms. SMITH.—of course, the Apollo program was decided in the 

Cold War era, primarily as a competitive venture because we wanted to demonstrate our prowess, technologically, compared to the Soviets. 

At the end of the Apollo era, everything had changed. The interest in human spaceflight activity, it pretty much dropped off after 

we did, in fact, land people on the Moon. And so in the early 1970s, 

the focus was on developing something in the human spaceflight 

arena, but something that was very low cost, and that’s when the 

Shuttle decision was made. 

And after the Shuttle was approved and it was flying—NASA 

had always seen the Shuttle as a truck to go somewhere, which 

was to a space station—and so after a couple of flights, NASA declared the space Shuttle to be operational, and said, ‘‘OK, now it’s 

on to the next step.’’ And that was the step that President Reagan 

took, in terms of building the Space Station, which was basically 

the destination to which the Shuttle was going to go. 

The Station has taken much longer than anyone had anticipated, 

in terms of getting built. It was announced 20 years ago. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Space Station was? Wow. 

Ms. SMITH. It was in President Reagan’s 1984 State of the Union 

Address, and he called for NASA to complete it by—within a decade, by 1994. And here we are in 2004, and not only is it not done, 

but it’s really not clear how much more of it we’re going to build. 

At the moment, it seems as though the United States remains 

committed to launching the rest of the hardware that’s waiting 

down at Kennedy Space Center to be launched, and to launching 

the international partner modules. But the President’s decision is 

to terminate the Shuttle at that point, and it’s not clear how the 

Space Station is going to be operated thereafter without the Shuttle, on which everyone was going to rely, for taking these large 

cargo pieces that Mr. Oberg was speaking about, and for getting 

not just crews back and forth, but the results of scientific experiments, all of those things that the Shuttle was going to do. 

47 

So the President’s decision—although everyone is focusing on the 

Moon and Mars aspects of it, the long-term aspects—is actually 

much more interesting in its near- term implications. As I mentioned in my statement, the fact that we’re making a decision— 

we’re actually deciding to suspend our own ability to put people 

into space. We did have a period like this in the 1970s. After the 

end of the Apollo program in 1975, there were 6 years in which we 

didn’t launch anyone into space, waiting for the Shuttle to come 

along. The Shuttle was a couple of years late, but there was a decision at that point that we were going to have a hiatus in human 

space flights. And we’re making that same decision now. But the 

difference is that now there’s a Space Station up there, a Space 

Station that, under the President’s proposal, would be the site 

where we’re doing the research that needs to be done in order to 

enable the completion of the rest of his vision. 

So it is a very unique time, I think, in the development of U.S. 

human spaceflight policy where at the—on the one hand, we’re saying that America is so interested in human spaceflight that we’re 

going to spend $170 billion over the next 16 years to return people 

to the Moon, but, at the same time, we’re deciding that, for roughly 

4 years, we’re not going to be able to launch any Americans into 

space. 

Dr. LOGSDON. I can’t help but say, if Marcia’s been around a long 

time—her first job was working with me. 

[Laughter.] 

Dr. LOGSDON. I must have been around even longer, and got my 

start writing a book called ‘‘The Decision to Go to the Moon.’’ So 

I think I can speak with some authority to make the comment that 

we’re at a singular decision point in U.S. space policy equivalent, 

if not even more profound, than the time President Kennedy committed us to go to the Moon. 

We, as Marcia just said, have proposed a plan that burns some 

bridges, that says we’re going to give up our current means of 

human access to space, we’re going to stop doing things in lowEarth orbit as government programs, or at least civilian government programs, and we’re going to head out to the Moon, to Mars, 

and beyond. 

Again, run the null scenario. What happens if the Congress’ wisdom, representing the public will, says, ‘‘No, we don’t want to do 

that’’? We are left with no human spaceflight program in 2010. If 

we are committed to retiring the Shuttle, what else do we have left 

if we don’t go down this path? 

I’ve got a piece that should be in Space News next Monday, that 

asks, ‘‘What did we know 3 months after President Kennedy said 

we were going to the moon, in terms of details of the program?’’ 

The reality is, we knew very little. The plan that President Kennedy approved was using an immense launch vehicle bigger than 

the Saturn V, called Nova, and going directly to a landing on the 

Moon. We didn’t do any of that. By the end of 1961, we had invented a whole new program, called Gemini, and put it into the 

program. This piece is a little critical of the kind of detail that Congress is asking out of NASA for the plan, I must add. 

This is a key point in the history of U.S. in space. And there’s 

a proposition on the table that, if accepted, sends us one way 

48 

that—for centuries; not only years or decades, but centuries. If we 

don’t take this proposal, then I think it is the responsibility of all 

of us to say, ‘‘If not that, then what?’’ 

Ms. SMITH. And it’s historic not only in terms of the actual 

human spaceflight program that’s been laid out, but in terms of the 

attitude toward international cooperation, because historically the 

U.S. attitude has been that we want to cooperate with other people, 

but they’re not going to be in the critical path. And now we are deliberately choosing to put other countries in the critical path. It’s 

a profound change in how we’re—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. What do you by—— 

Mr. SMITH.—approaching international cooperation. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—‘‘critical path,’’ Marcia? 

Ms. SMITH. Well, when you put someone on the critical path, it 

means that if they don’t show up with whatever—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. Oh, OK. 

Ms. SMITH.—they promise to show up with—— 

Senator BROWNBACK. OK. 

Ms. SMITH.—then the program doesn’t happen. So if something 

happens in 2010—you know, we don’t have an agreement with 

Russia at this point for them to provide services to the United 

States from 2010 to 2014, assuming that those are the years in 

question. It could take a little bit longer for the Shuttle to complete 

the Station. Maybe the CEV is going to take a little longer to develop. But for the moment, we’ll just talk about this 4-year gap. 

Even if we have an agreement with them to provide these services, 

suppose something happens to the Soyuz? Accidents happen. The 

Soyuz has had a very reliable history. But something could happen 

with the Soyuz. Suppose our relationship with Russia changes? 

We’ve put all of our eggs in the Russian basket, basically, for that 

four-year period. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Now—— 

Ms. SMITH. It’s a very different manner of operating than we’re 

accustomed to. It may be a perfectly fine way of operating, but it 

is very different from what we’re—— 

Mr. OBERG. We have actually done that before. Even though 

Congress told NASA not to put Russia in the critical path of the 

Space Station, NASA disobeyed that willfully and put them in the 

critical path of the Space Station. And we paid the price for that 

in delays and extra costs, but we are to the point, and especially 

now, dependent on Russian goodwill. And it turns out we banked 

a lot of it by being good to them during Shuttle/Mir. And I think 

it’s more reliable now than—I’ll tell you, than I forecast that it 

would be. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Because we’ve had this dual relationship, 

these dual—— 

Mr. OBERG. We’ve had this dual back and forth. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—systems, that we’ve—— 

Mr. OBERG. Dual systems. 

Senator BROWNBACK.—been able to go up. 

Mr. OBERG. Each were there when the other wasn’t. 

Senator BROWNBACK. You know, I’ve got to say to all of you, you 

guys are great observers of this and have a historical perspective 

that I don’t, although I’ve been fascinated by this for years. But 

49 

many of my years, I was sitting on a tractor in Kansas being fascinated by it, so I didn’t get to have this perspective that you’re giving me here today. I just don’t pick up the enthusiasm in the Congress for continuing the Shuttle a whole lot longer, other than if 

you were a contractor state; then there’s enthusiasm that’s based 

upon something we all understand—jobs in the particular state. 

But outside of that, just as far as enthusiasm—this is the right 

way to go, this is the place for us to spend $5 billion a year—no. 

And it’s kind of—you know, it’s kind of, ‘‘Why? Why are we doing 

this?’’ But you do sense that, ‘‘Yes, we want to continue manned 

spaceflight. We’re not pulling out of this. This is something we 

should do.’’ 

It has enormous psychological value, if you can’t put a price on 

it. It has an enormous value to the atmosphere of the country. Either way, if you’re there or if you’re not there, it has enormous consequences of it. So the people are willing to invest $170 billion over 

6 years. 

Ms. SMITH. Sixteen. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Sixteen years, OK. Yes, I’m sorry. I wrote 

that—thank you. I want to correct my budget numbers on that, 

that’s for sure. 

That there is a willingness to do that, and—but it needs to be 

something that looks to be a worthy object. And, you know, if we 

can rely on other countries and we can work with other countries, 

I think people are going to be looking, you know, for that as 

being—you know, can we find good, reliable partners that we can 

work with? The Russian experience has been, overall, I think, a 

good one, in spite of the early years being some negative side of it. 

Without them, where would we be with the Space Station—International Space Station now, as you point out? 

So there has been—you can look at that as a high value, that 

that’s made the International Space Station continue to be able to 

operate right now. Without out it, it wouldn’t be operating. 

Ms. SMITH. That’s absolutely true, but there is an agreement already in place that obligates Russia to provide these services to 

NASA. It’s called the balance agreement that Mr. Oberg’s been 

talking about. You know, what do we give, what do they give? And 

so under this balance agreement, Russia is obligated to provide 

these services, and that pretty much ends, in terms of the human 

spaceflight component, in 2006. So there won’t be that kind of obligation on the part of Russia. 

So Dr. Logsdon has talked about, How is everyone going to feel 

if, in 2020, you know, China’s on the moon, or whatever, and the 

United States isn’t? And Senator Nelson said that was unacceptable. And I think the question that needs to be asked is, What happens if, in 2010, the United States no longer has the ability to get 

up to the Space Station, and it’s Russia and Europe and Japan and 

Canada that are using it, even though it was built primarily at 

U.S. taxpayer expense, and the United States is not able to send 

its own astronauts up there, we’ve turned the keys over to the 

other partners, and we’ve decided not to use it? 

It may be that Congress and the White House and the public 

thinks that that’s fine, that they feel that they’ve done enough 

Shuttle and they’ve done enough Space Station. But it is a question 

50 

that needs to be asked, and people need to understand that this is 

one of the choices that’s being made. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Understood. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Your colleague and counterpart on the other side 

of the Hill, Mr. Boehlert, last week, speaking to the AIAA, said 

something I think was very wise, which is that he’s going to work 

with you, the authorizing committee, to try to separate the details 

of the specific budget request of FY 2005, and the ability to give 

a green or—he said, a green or perhaps an amber light, in principle, to the notion of this space exploration as the appropriate goal 

for human spaceflight. And I do hope that that signal gets sent out 

of the Congress this year, that we are going to go down that path, 

with the details to be worked out. 

Senator BROWNBACK. No, I think it will. I hope it will come out. 

I don’t sense, really, much—anybody saying we should pull out of 

human space exploration. It’s just a real question about continuing 

with the Shuttle when you’ve got a stream of $5 billion annually. 

Dr. LOGSDON. Well, as I think you know, Senator, I served on the 

Columbia Accident Investigation Board last year, and so got more 

familiar with the Shuttle, I guess, than I wanted to be. And it is 

a remarkably capable technological vehicle. It is also an extremely 

risky vehicle. So our recommendation was, the sooner we got off of 

sending people to orbit on the Shuttle and on to another system, 

the better it is for the country. 

Senator BROWNBACK. That’s part of the feeling here, too, and 

that if you have another Shuttle accident, it’s just—— 

Dr. LOGSDON. We’re done. 

Senator BROWNBACK. That’s—— 

Ms. SMITH. Well, I think the key is that you can make a decision 

that you don’t want to have a break in the U.S. ability to put people into space, but that does not necessarily mean that you’re 

choosing to extend the life of the Shuttle. You can try and accelerate the crew exploration vehicle. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Absolutely. 

Ms. SMITH. The key is to not have the gap. Dr. Logsdon has 

talked about how the CEV right now is envisioned as a vehicle— 

a Swiss Army knife, so that it can do, you know, Earth orbit, the 

Moon, the Mars, whatever. And may turn out that that’s going to 

be a very expensive and lengthy process. It may be that in spiraldevelopment philosophy that NASA’s using for this program, that 

they can find something that’s simpler and easier to do, that it 

would at least give you Earth orbit by 2010. 

Senator BROWNBACK. Well, and plus—— 

Ms. SMITH. Something that was being discussed with the orbital 

space plane last year. 

Senator BROWNBACK. We want to bring a whole ’nother set of 

people into this discussion, other than countries. We want to bring 

the private sector into the architecture of this set, and leave some 

legacy through them, so it’s not just other countries; it’s that. And 

that’s going to be part of what we’re going to try to design in the 

legislative proposals here, is that we’re engaging that sector, U.S. 

and globally, for it. And that’s a challenge, too, you know, of how 

you do that. And maybe it’s that you pay the private sector for a 

certain set of services, and the effect of that payment is that they 

51 

can develop this service and they can sell it to others, or use it to 

other individuals, is how you leave that legacy in place, rather than 

a 5-year plan that’s strictly a government-run, government-done, 

and, when it’s over, government-shut-down operation. 

Thank you very much. We’ve had a wide ranging discussion here 

on important topics, and these are the building blocks of how we 

try to do these reauthorization bills for NASA, and try to figure out 

our funding approaches as we build the budgets together on this. 

It’s been quite insightful. 

Thank you for joining us and for your expertise. The hearing is 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ