[Senate Hearing 108-950]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-950
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
__________
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SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South
CONRAD BURNS, Montana Carolina, Ranking
TRENT LOTT, Mississippi DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine Virginia
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana
PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada RON WYDEN, Oregon
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire 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 JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana, Ranking
CONRAD BURNS, Montana JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
TRENT LOTT, Mississippi Virginia
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia RON WYDEN, Oregon
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire BILL NELSON, Florida
FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
C O N T E N T S
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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
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 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 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 6\1/
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.
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 spin-off 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).
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 6\1/2\ 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 Ariane-
5 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'' parameters. 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.
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 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
development 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 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\
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\1\ The Planetary Society of Japan, April 14, 2004.
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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 multi-satellite 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 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.''
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.
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 14\1/2\ 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 post-flight 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.
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 agreement 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 their own
communications or remote sensing satellites.\2\ Virtually every country
in the world uses satellites, primarily for communications, weather,
navigation, and remote sensing.
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\1\ Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba,
Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan,
Kazakhstan, Mexico, Mongolia, the Netherlands, Poland, 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.
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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.
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\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.
\4\ The 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.
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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.
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.
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\5\ See ESA's Aurora website: www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/
ESA9LZPV16D_0.html.
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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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Europe's United Response to U.S. Space Plans. European
Commission press release, February 18, 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\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).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 program. 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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Morring, Frank. Big Plans. Aviation Week & Space Technology,
Oct. 13, 2003, p. 29.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\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).
\10\ Moscow ITAR-TASS in English, 1028 GMT, 17 Feb 04 (via FBIS).
\11\ Pieson, 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).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 14\1/2\ months. (The longest
any American has remained in orbit continuously is 6\1/2\ 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Reconnaissance 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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Rohde, David. India's Lofty Ambitions in Space Meet Earthly
Realities. New York Times, January 24, 2004, p. A3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One Indian, Rakesh Sharma, has flown in space, on a Russian
spacecraft in 1984.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 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.
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\16\ H. Rept. 103-273, to accompany H.R. 2491, the FY1994 VA-HUD-IA
appropriations bill (P.L. 103-124).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ The 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 & 1995 ESA spacecraft, launched by NASA,
Heliospheric at Sun-Earth L-1 Lagrange point
Observatory (SOHO) for solar-terrestrial studies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 2003 ESA spacecraft, launched by
2 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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 non-governmental
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' 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 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,
lengthening 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 Shenzhou-type 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 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,
Shenzhou-5, 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.
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 maneuvering 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.
``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.''
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, 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.
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 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 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.
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 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-by-building-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 materials 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 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?
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 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
Shenzhou-type 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 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, 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?
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?
[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
decision-making, 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.
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 low-Earth 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 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 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 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 spiral-development 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 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.]