SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS Tables
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DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 1999
Thursday, March 12, 1998.
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
WITNESSES
DANIEL S. GOLDIN, ADMINISTRATOR
MALCOLM I. PETERSON, COMPTROLLER
JOSEPH ROTHENBERG, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, SPACE FLIGHT
GRETCHEN McCLAIN, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS MANAGER
DR. ARNAULD E. NICOGOSSIAN, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, LIFE AND MICROGRAVITY SCIENCES AND APPLICATIONS
JOHN D. SCHUMACHER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, EXTERNAL RELATIONS
ARNOLD G. HOLZ, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
GEORGE E. REESE, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY PROGRAMS
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SPENCE M. ARMSTRONG, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND EDUCATION
JUNE EDWARDS, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL, COMMERCIAL
JEFFREY E. SUTTON, ACTING ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND FACILITIES
RALPH C. THOMAS III, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SMALL DISADVANTAGED BUSINESS UTILIZATION
EDWARD HEFFERNAN, ACTING ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS
FREDERICK D. GREGORY, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SAFETY AND MISSION ASSURANCE
RICHARD S. CHRISTIANSEN, ACTING ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR AERONAUTICS & SPACE TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY
DR. WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE SCIENCE
ROBERTA GROSS, INSPECTOR GENERAL
DR. GHASSEM ASRAR, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR EARTH SCIENCE
Introductory of NASA Staff
Mr. LEWIS. The meeting will come to order.
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Welcome, Mr. Goldin. For the record, you might want to introduce some of your friends, and then I will have opening remarks. I just want to make sure they are comfortable.
Mr. GOLDIN. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I would like to introduce Joe Rothenberg, who recently was appointed the head of the Office of Space Flight. The Space Station and Shuttle programs report to him. He is a man of impeccable performance in his career, and I am looking forward to his presence on the program. On my right is Malcolm Peterson, our reliable Comptroller; Dr. Arnauld Nicogossian, who is the head of our Life and Microgravity Sciences program; and John Schumacher, who is in charge of International Affairs.
Chairman's Opening Remarks
Mr. LEWIS. It is always a pleasure to work with the fine staff of NASA.
This morning, the Committee would like to welcome you all. We begin our hearings in the budget request for the International Space Station.
The fiscal year 1999 budget request for the Station is $2.27 billion. In addition, we have recently received a supplemental budget request, which would transfer $200 million of fiscal year 1998 funding from other NASA programs under the Space Station account.
The International Space Station is a collaborative effort of nations committed to exploring the benefits of space-based research. The investment being made by each of those nations is significant when compared to each nation's overall financial resources.
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It is incumbent upon each of the participants to fulfill their individual commitments in connection with that, working together. If any of the partners were to fail to fulfill their responsibilities, the responsibilities which I believe were agreed to without duress, the entire program suffers.
I am disconcerted to find that at least one of the major partners in this program has made commitments which serves as the basis for the actions of other partners and has failed to deliver on those commitments in a timely fashion.
I have said it before, and I will say it again. I have suggested to my staff that of all of my friends, you would understand this, Mr. Goldin. A deal is a deal. If some of our partners are not ready to live by the commitments they have made, why should any of the partners be bound by their commitments? I cannot continue to take funding measures to the floor of the House if the basis of that funding, namely commitments by other international partners, is increasingly viewed by the Members of the House as idle and without substance. The proof of commitment is delivery of the product, and, thus far, we have not seen the proof from Russia.
I would like to continue to deliver the support of the House of Representatives and for whatever role I can play in that, but we are living under very tight budget constraints in this country, and if all of our partners are not prepared to deliver what has been promised, how are we able to convince or conceivably convince our colleagues that their support is justified?
I look forward to hearing your testimony today, and, particularly, I would like to know what new commitments are being made by our partners, as we approach the firm launch dates of June 30 and July 8, 1998, for the first two elements of the International Space Station.
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Before I call on you to make your remarks, Mr. Goldin, let me call on my friend, Lou Stokes.
Congressman Stokes' Opening Remarks
Mr. STOKES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I do not have a formal statement of any sort this morning. I do want to take this opportunity to welcome Mr. Goldin and his colleagues before our subcommittee, once again. it is always a pleasure to have you appear here.
Mr. Chairman, I quite concur with you in your statement this morning. This is a very important hearing, and it has some very important relevance to matters of concern to the Congress. This an agency which we spend some very probing time as we get into some of the issues related particularly to international relations. I, too, look forward to Mr. Goldin's testimony on these issues, and I will have some questions to pose relative to specific concerns that I have.
With that, I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Goldin, you can read your testimony or summarize it. It will be included in its entirety in the record.
Administrator Goldin's Opening Remarks
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Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to elect to put my written testimony in the record, and just to make a few brief statements. I was going to have a 10-minute opening statement. I think I could——
Mr. LEWIS. Well, I might hear your statement. [Laughter.]
Mr. GOLDIN. This has been a very, very incredible year. I am very, very proud of the NASA teams that have done incredible work under very difficult conditions, and I would like to particularly single out Randy Brinkley, our program manager in Houston, and Gretchen McClain, who is here, our program manager in Washington, along with Tommy Holloway, who is our program manager of the Shuttle which is intimately related to this, and Doug Stone of Boeing, who has really begun to turn the corner, and then the heads of our international partners.
They have produced 368,000 pounds of hardware to date, quality hardware, and, in fact, as we speak now, the first two elements are being readied to launch in June and July of this year. The FGB built by Khrunitchev is getting ready for flight at Baikonur, and Node 1, built by Boeing, is getting ready for flight in July. The FGB is in June, and the Node is in July.
They have overcome incredible challenges. We have even begun to overcome some of the challenges we have had with our laboratory, and we pulled up the schedule within 6 weeks of where we plan to be with the lab.
Our Russian partners and Russian Space Agency are to be commended also for doing outstanding work under more difficult conditions. Their problem is not lack of expertise because they demonstrated when they had the money they could do the job. Their problem is a consistent funding flow from the Russian bureaucracy to them.
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We have had frank and candid discussions with the Russian team led by Prime Minister Chernomyrdin at the Gore-Chernomyrdin conference, and, in fact, the conference has not concluded. So, today, I could give you a progress report on where we are.
We had a number of very significant milestones which I have outlined in my written testimony on which we are going to track the Russians to see if the funding is flowing and if they are performing to schedule. This will be concluded sometime about mid-May when we will have a meeting in Moscow or at Cape Kennedy that is to be decided, along with our international partners with the heads of agency meeting to make a final decision to which we can come back to the Congress and tell them exactly what we are going to do.
Mr. LEWIS. I thought that meeting was going to be in Moscow, isn't it? In May, you might as well go to Florida.
Mr. GOLDIN. The weather is still okay in Florida.
In any case, we have a plan. I will be prepared to testify to the details of that plan today.
We have a general design interview in Moscow. I think that is what you mean.
Mr. LEWIS. Oh, is that what it is? Okay.
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Mr. GOLDIN. It is at the end of April.
Mr. LEWIS. Okay.
Mr. GOLDIN. But as of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, we have opened up another layer of management oversight where I will personally be involved in a meeting with the Russian leadership to validate the funding.
We have made a budget recommendation, and with the exception of $100 million that this committee gave to us, additional, in the 1998 budget, all the cost growth of the Space Station is being handled within the NASA budget without impacting the American taxpayer and asking for more funds. I think this is a very important point I want to make to you, Mr. Chairman, and to you, Mr. Stokes, and to you, Mr. Mollohan.
NASA is a responsible agency, and because we have been achieving even greater efficiencies, we have been able to absorb the issues and problems we have.
One last point I would like to make with regards to the Space Station, in terms of overrun, the overrun is on the order of $900 million, and that is about a 5-percent overrun. For a program of this magnitude, it is not desirable, but it is within the ground rules we have for all other programs at NASA.
We have added monies because we thought it was the responsible thing to do. Based on our experience on the Shuttle/Mir program, we made a decision to build a U.S. crew return vehicle capable of taking seven astronauts back. This will make the Space Station much safer. That was a new start we put into this year's budget, and we also have an additional $250 million, which was approved last year for assurance against a Russian further schedule slip.
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So, even though the program has grown, the overrun itself is on the order of $900 million, or about 5 percent of the program, and I want to come back to my second point.
This is not where NASA is coming back and saying we are asking the American people for more money. We have taken all the growth, overrun and additional growth, for the CRV and the Russian program out of efficiencies and priorities in the NASA program.
With that, I would want to close by saying we are committed to deliver to this Nation and the world a Space Station that will revolutionalize research in the 21st century.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
COST OF RUSSIAN DELAY
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Goldin, let's dwell just for a moment, and perhaps we can have an exchange here relative to the costs that you cite.
I remember—we all remember very, very clearly that session, more than a couple of Congresses ago, in which Democrats and Republicans came together relative to the Station, and we committed ourselves to a specific dollar amount per year to the Station. $2.1 billion per year was going to be the figure that we try to keep ourselves within, and we were dealing with the reality that there was a lot of pressure from the House in general, and this growing problem was before us of budget restraint across the board and competing programs.
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At that point, as I am remembering, we were anticipating a total cost for Station of somewhere just beyond $17 billion, and within that package, I believe there was a $3 billion reserve. So the actual program cost was close to $14 billion.
I now understand that we are anticipating a total of cumulative costs of close to, if not just beyond, $20 billion upon completion, if you add all of those figures together, and that somewhat would suggest that the $800 million figure is less than we might measure as we look at those dollar figures.
Now, I may be wrong somewhere, but, to me, $17 billion guestimated completion cost with a $3 billion reserve means that we have eaten up the reserve, which we had hoped that we would not. You took the $14 billion figure, and you went to $20 billion. You are talking about, really, an increment of $6 billion upon a completion, and that is a considerable jump, not quite 50 percent, but I am extrapolating those figures. One might measure them to be extreme, but I think it is a fair line of questioning that we might be faced with on the floor. So I think maybe we need some help with that.
Mr. GOLDIN. I would be pleased to answer.
I want to say that the reserve is there because we did not know a lot of things. You know, this is a very, very difficult development. We felt it was crucial to replenish the reserves, and that was one of the reasons that we replenished that $900 million of overrun. We still retain $1.5 billion in reserves today. So, in effect, after reserves are gone, that is the first point I want to make, but I also want to make another few points.
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Let me come back and say $17.4 billion is the number we stated. We have had about $900 million worth of growth. We have chosen to add two items, one beyond our control. When we signed up to the program, we assumed that our partners would pay their share of the bills. There is one way that we can control in the broadest sense an independent Nation that does not pay their bills.
The Russians have not paid their bills, and we suffered an 8-month slip on the service module, but an even bigger schedule impact subsequent to that. This has caused a significant schedule delay and disruption.
Based on the experience with Mir, we have made a decision to put in the crew return vehicle. In our parlance, it has grown, but I do not consider that to be a bad thing because safety is very, very important, and 10 years from now, we could have a serious collision.
Let me explain to you the basis for that because I think it is very important to understand, and I will just use this bottle of water and this cup to make an explanation. Let's assume we have the Space Station in this space between here, and this is a Soyuz vehicle and that is a Soyuz vehicle. If we have a problem, a fire, which we experienced on Mir, all we have is depressurization, and we have six astronauts on board and all of them are on this side of the Station. If this could only carry three astronauts, only three could come back.
This came home very clear to us after the two situations we had on Mir, and we had not had long-term operation in space. And when we designed the Space Station, we truly believed that a three-person crew return vehicle would be acceptable.
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We had long talks in debriefing our astronauts when they came back, and based on those debriefings, we said we must have a crew return vehicle capable of carrying six people.
Then, when we took a look at the research needs with Dr. Nicogossian, the Station is capable of handling seven people. We wanted to increase the research productivity. So, we designed the crew return vehicle capable of taking seven people. So, with seven people on board and a crew return vehicle with seven here and seven here, no matter—if we have a problem anywhere in the Station and we have the distribution with seven astronauts being in one place, we could bring them back.
We view this as a constructive change to the basis of the program, and as I said, the money for that, which is about $670 million in the 1999-to-2003 timeframe, it was taken out of efficiencies in the NASA budget. We felt this was the responsible thing to do.
Sometimes in history, one could play the budget game and meet a specific level, and then I could come by as administrator and, 10 years later, a problem could happen. I personally felt—and I want you to understand—I was the driving force behind this decision. So that is another $670 million.
The second area relates to the Russians delaying the service module by 8 months. We were very, very concerned, and although the Russians started paying their bills, we wanted to set out on a contingency program that began to give us every increase in flexibility in case the Russians would have further problems.
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So we added openly another $250 million to the program to build the interim control module and handles some design changes to the Station.
So those are two things that in my mind had to be done. I do not view it as overrun, and I view it as just prudent business decisions. That is about $1.8 billion. So that is $17.4 billion plus $1.8 billion.
The remaining $2 billion that gets you to this $21.3 billion that you are referring to is not added money to the program, and that is the impression that I want to clear up. If I take a line and I draw that line in June of 2002, where we said delivery was going to be complete with the U.S. habitation module coming up, that gives you the $17.4 billion.
Our new schedule has the last item being delivered in December of 2003, and that is the U.S. habitation module. However, we have added some equipment to the Space Station, and we do not have to wait until delivery of the U.S. habitation module to get a crew of six onboard. It happens much earlier in 2002 because we have a third node.
So, in effect, we will be doing about 80 percent of the research. During all of that time—and it is just a question of how one takes a look at the bookkeeping of the situation.
My only point is, it is not additional money being added to the program. It is just picking a point in time to determine when we declare development complete.
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Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Goldin, I am not sure that your formal statement has that clear outline. If it does, that is helpful. If not, I would like to have it supplemented.
Mr. GOLDIN. I will tell you, I would be happy to submit for the record the description I just gave you, and, in fact, I will put in the actual dates and the——
Mr. LEWIS. It would be helpful.
[The information follows:]
Mr. GOLDIN. Let me explain why I am probing this, this way. I can easily in discussing with my colleagues, whether in small groups or one to one or on the floor, explain the CRV and the need to be assured that we can remove our entire crew. It is a line of discussion that leads to reasonably, easily testifying where we may have gone.
Time delays is another question, and they eventually take us to the point of saying the actual cost of Russian lack of commitment and time delays has been X. ''And when you are dealing with a bill like yours, Mr. Lewis,'' they would say to me, ''where we are talking about significant reductions in desired programming for X and Y housing program''—or some would suggest VA medical care, although that is not really a problem with our bill, but, nonetheless, you can see in the line that one is suddenly faced with.
I think it is important that you help us develop the answers to that discussion. I think it is also very important that our Russian partners understand just how serious this is.
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Mr. GOLDIN. It has been a major disruption.
Let me explain to you part of the problems that we had, and that is, the service module got delayed 8 months, but we added a few extra logistic flights to protect the schedule in case the Russians did not have money for progress vehicles.
Mr. LEWIS. Excuse me just a moment. Have you met Mr. Frelinghuysen?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. Would you come down here and say hello? This is Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I would be happy to. You do not like the separation?
Mr. LEWIS. I do not like this separation. Thank you.
He is very shy. He kind of tends to stand aside with those members who do not show up. So I cannot have that happen.
Go ahead.
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Mr. GOLDIN. In any case, we had two logistics flights up for the Space Station to protect the schedule in case the Russians did not deliver propellent to the Space Station.
In fact, yesterday, we had Mr. Koptev and his Russian counterparts out to the Naval Research Laboratory to see what the interim control module looked like, to have an understanding that it really was there to protect the schedule.
Then, because the Russian slipped 8 months, the Europeans said, ''We want to hold the delivery date for our Columbus orbital facility.'' So, being a good partner, we moved out some of our deliveries a little further, and then we added the center fusion accommodation module. So, when you make a slip in the schedule of 8 months, it has a much bigger impact than an 8-month slip.
The point I want to make is, if you add up all the numbers and say I am going to draw a line in the center of 2003, you know, the $21.3 billion—but, again, I want to emphasize that $2 billion from the schedule delivery date or when we think operations is going to begin until the center of 2003, it is not additional money to the program, and that gives a misconception to those who think we are going to take more money out of the Federal Treasury and pay for it. That is the distinction point I want to make now.
One gets into accounting practices, and I do not want to say that people are wrong. I just want to make the point, there is no additional money beyond the $1.8 billion that I outlined for you, and we will be very happy to show you our research plan so that you will see that with the third node we are putting up, we get six crew members up there much earlier than——
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Mr. LEWIS. That is a very important item.
Mr. GOLDIN. By the way, we said completion would occur when we got those six crew members up there.
Mr. LEWIS. Right.
Mr. GOLDIN. So, we will now be ready for research with six crew members a lot earlier.
I will outline it in a thorough written document that I will submit to this committee.
[The information follows:]
PERMANENT CREW CAPABILITY ABOARD ISS
The space station redesign activity in 1993, and the subsequent transition team activity to accommodate $2.1 billion annual funding levels, resulted in the ''Alpha'' space station design, presented to the President on September 7, 1993. First element launch was planned in September 1998, with establishment of permanent habitation by a four-person crew in September 2003. The projected cost for development was $19.4 billion. The plan also indicated that negotiations were ongoing regarding the participation of Russia in the program.
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In November 1993, the Russians were included in the program. NASA revised the design, enhancing the capability with the establishment of six-crew capability versus the four-person capability of the Alpha design, and reflecting a projected completion of development in June 2002. The accelerated development schedule and the provision of station components by the Russians resulted in a revised development estimate of $17.4 billion-a net savings of $2 billion.
Despite many changes that have occurred since then, including the loss of some of the accelerated development schedule, the current plan provides six-person crew capability in November 2002, just five months later than the revised sequence, but still ten months earlier than originally planned in the Alpha design.
Six-crew capability is established following the delivery of Node 3 and the completion of its outfitting. The cumulative cost for development at that point in time will be $19.7 billion, a $2.3 billion increase over the initial commitment of $17.4 billion, but only $300 million above the $19.4 billion Alpha estimate for a later, four-person capability.
Remaining development work beyond that point primarily represents station capabilities and research facilities beyond those envisioned in both the Alpha configuration and the revised 1993 configuration after the Russians were added.
After FY 1998, the emphasis in ISS funding begins to turn from expenditures for hardware production to a greater level of expenditures for assembly and test, research and operations. This reflects the beginning of the transition to an operational program.
Mr. LEWIS. It will be helpful to us.
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I have gotten us off track a bit, Mr. Stokes, but please go ahead.
ABSORPTION OF COST OVERRUNS
Mr. STOKES. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Just one question. Just prior to the Chairman's question, you talked about the cost overruns and the absorption of those costs within NASA through efficiencies and so forth.
Mr. GOLDIN. And prioritization.
Mr. STOKES. Right. But it would seem to me that in this absorption, the cost within NASA, that they also come at the expense of other NASA programs. I would think mostly your Space Science programs.
Mr. GOLDIN. I am glad you asked that question. We have added $700 million in the 5-year period of the Space Science program. The Space Science program is richer today than any time in the prior decade.
We are starting two new programs in the sun-earth connection to understand the relationship that the sun and the earth do, better weather predictions, and understand how to build more predictive weather models. We have added new programs in astrophysics.
So, rather than taking away, we have added to the Space Science program. In the Earth Science program, we have added two new spacecraft, what is called a QuikScat, which is a scatterometer which helped us determine the El Niño conditions 6 months in advance. It failed. The Japanese satellite was unfailed. So, within one year, we are going to launch a stand-alone satellite. We put that in the budget.
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We started the LightSAR program in Earth Science, and you know why we were able to do it? The Earth Science program proved a faster, better, cheaper philosophy. It cut its cost at half-a-billion dollars in the 5-year plan, and on top of that, we added over $150 million of research money into the Earth Science account.
Mr. STOKES. So you have not cut any programs, then.
Mr. GOLDIN. No, we have added programs. That is why I am so proud of this NASA team.
COST OF RUSSIAN DELAY
Mr. LEWIS. Connected directly with what Mr. Stokes is asking are two points. We are going to have people suggest that the Russians, because of lack of commitment and otherwise, have cost us x. You need to help us really get to that, both in terms of time delay, et cetera, because we have got to be able to respond, but beyond that, the point that you just made, the 8-month service module delay, it had an effect beyond the 8 months.
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, it did.
Mr. LEWIS. It seems to me valid, if you accept that, not to delay launches any further.
What would be the cost of further delay in the service module, and is it acceptable?
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BENEFITS FROM RUSSIANS
Mr. STOKES. Could we add to that, Mr. Chairman, just the fact that—I can see us on the floor being questioned about how we can understand what the Russians are getting from this, but what are we getting from it?
Mr. LEWIS. We have gotten on track here.
Mr. GOLDIN. What are we getting from the Russians? I just want to write these down.
Mr. LEWIS. You are suggesting what they are getting, but what are we getting?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, right. And then there is the service module slip.
Let me deal with the service module. We believe that the service module is 2 to 3 months late today. The Russian Space Agency believes that they have a work-around plan that can hold the schedule for the service module. We are skeptical, and we have told them so.
We have set up a series of milestones to track the service module. They have the flight article which is being assembled and should be done, if my memory is correct, by May 10th. We will track that.
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They have 420 of 1,500 pieces of hardware. So they have made a lot of progress, and they have specific delivery dates for the rest of the hardware. We are tracking that.
I think the remaining pieces of hardware are due by the end of March, and a complete assembly is due on May 10th.
They have what they call a complex test facility which is a facility where they check out the individual boxes and make sure the whole system works before they do the final test on the system. That complex test facility testing should be done by June 10th.
They plan on shipping the flight assembly to RSN Energia on May 10th and do about a month worth of system testing, and then, if that is successful, they say they will ship it down to Baikonur where they will do final system testing and preparations for flight. They feel they could pick up 2 months. They said they did that on the Priroda module, but we have set these milestones along the way, and for the record, I will submit details of what those dates are and the specific pieces of hardware so the committee could track it along with us.
[The information follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Mr. GOLDIN. Now, we have an ability because we put some flexibility in our schedule, anticipated problems, that we could absorb up to 4 months delay in the service module and still hold subsequent deliveries.
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If the service module is 6 months late, which have been some of the worst case estimates, it will cost us about 2 months. I am not prepared to give you a specific answer, but, certainly, for the record, we can answer that question.
Mr. LEWIS. As you know, these questions are going to be extending themselves through the legislative year.
Mr. GOLDIN. I think they are very fair questions, and we will be able to answer it, but our sense is, right now, we are about 3 months behind. We could absorb four, but we cannot absorb any more than that.
Now, if we have a 4-month delay, there will be a minor cost. If there is a 6-month delay—and we have no reason to believe that, but I want to answer your question in full to look at the contingency planning—we will give you an answer to that.
Mr. LEWIS. As you know, Director Goldin, Mr. Stokes and Mr. Mollohan, colleagues on both sides of the aisle, have played a major role in keeping this process alive over several years, and this is the year that I expect to have some very serious probing. So we are looking for some of these answers to be prepared for that discussion ahead of us.
Mr. GOLDIN. I have to say it has been a very frustrating experience for our people. It is very hard when you have a complex program to have to make changes to it, and just a small change when you have 10,000 people working on a program, it rattles through every element. However, we are stepping up to it.
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MIR LESSONS LEARNED
Let me then address Mr. Stokes' question. Mr. Stokes, we have had experience mainly in short flights on the Shuttle. The ability to work with the Russians on the Mir Space Station has caused a significant change in how the designing, how we are planning to operate, and how we are planning to do research on the International Space Station.
We have changed the design with regards to safety. One major finding was that crew return vehicle. Secondly, we are changing how we deal with fire safety.
We found that the Russians had an approach where in case a fire broke out, there was a master switch to shut off all ventilation to prevent propagation of the fire through the vehicle. We are now putting in such master switches on our system.
When the Russians had the depressurization problem, they had many cables going in between modules, and our astronaut, Michael Fall, had to literally cut those cables, and it took time to disconnect and cut cables. We are changing the way we route cables on the Space Station from a safety standpoint.
We are looking at putting an additional EVA port air lock on the system because that is another experience that we gained with the Russians. They had multiple air locks. They have different levels of redundancy that was much more robust than we had.
In an operational sense, we were spending much too much money on detailed planning because, on a 2-week flight, we found that the astronauts had to have every minute planned because you only had 2 weeks up in space. The Russians have a much more flexible system where the crew is much more in command of how they decide what to test and to be done during the day. It is more effective and much less expensive. We are able to validate our docking mechanisms.
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For the record, I will submit a full list of all the activities, but I wanted to give you a sense of this, and just in a science area, we were able to establish how to be much more productive in building protein crystals. So, when we have the International Space Station, a structured drug design is going to be more effective.
[The information follows:]
MIR LESSONS LEARNED
The Shuttle/Mir Phase I program is scheduled for completion with the return of Astronaut Andy Thomas at the conclusion of STS–91, currently scheduled for early June 1998. To date, the experience with long-duration missions on Mir has taught us a multitude of lessons relating to the reality of living and working in space aboard a permanent laboratory station. These lessons have all been entered into a database.
The lessons that NASA has learned during the Phase I Program range from such special design considerations as the arrangement of lines and cables, which on Mir were draped freely through open hatchways between modules, to the Russians' use of multiple airlocks for EVAs. The operational lessons we learned when the accidental depressurization of Spektr required immediate closure of the hatches caused us to take another look at the current design of the ISS. NASA learned another lesson during that experience relating to the design aspect of location and accessibility of emergency equipment like fire extinguishers and breathing masks.
Experience with emergency situations aboard Mir is unique. Because such occurrences cannot be simulated with any acceptable fidelity on the ground, NASA gained valuable experience with the crew's psychological reaction to emergency situations. Dealing with the loss of cabin pressure in Spektr and reestablishing safe onboard conditions in short order was an invaluable object lesson for NASA. At other times, our astronauts repeatedly got hands-on experience with Mir losing attitude control and going through the appropriate recovery procedures, dealing with free drift periods, momentum wheel management, attitude optimization, and power generation management. One recent EVA, on April 6, 1998, when Mir's roll control jets on the boom jet assembly ran out of fuel during the spacewalk, while not hazardous for the crew, provided another such experience applicable to future ISS operations. In nearly two decades of experience operating the Space Shuttle, NASA has a set of established procedures for reaction control venting under reduced proximity contamination with jet effluents, and the usage of external telerobotics for viewing and inspection that is quite different from those utilized on Mir.
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Space Station operational procedures which are difficult to approximate and verify convincingly in ground simulators proved highly enlightening and instructive on board Mir. NASA was exposed to real application of the various redundancies the Russians employ for critical subsystems on board, such as life support, which demonstrated an impressive level of robustness and safety.
Finally, unique lessons applicable on ISS were learned in real time during joint international ground operations. This entailed development, often from scratch, of common flight procedures and procedural terminology, as well as the processes to adequately scope preflight science planning and definition for research activities on board a long-duration space laboratory. NASA received first-hand experience with realistic approaches to crew training for long-duration flights, as opposed to the short-duration Shuttle missions. This allowed NASA to develop a process for setting up effective central management of all aspects of crew training, operations, and multilateral integration.
New to NASA were such complex tasks as resupplying a space station for long duration missions which is not a requirement with shorter duration Shuttle missions. As a result of our experience with the Phase I Program, NASA has developed a joint consolidated cargo shipping and logistics process featuring single-path manifesting and inventory control as well as the joint management of equipment configurations, transfers and on-board stowage. This included the all-important payload safety certification which had to be uniform and integrated across the partnership between the two originally dissimilar space programs. Flying NASA astronauts on Mir, thus, provided not only unique real experience and expertise for planning and scheduling long-duration missions that will be commonplace on ISS, but also realistic mission operations for long-duration flights controlled at more than one mission control center.
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Mr. GOLDIN. On the Mir Space Station, in the bioreactor, we built cartilage, parts of kidneys. We are building breast cancer tumors right now. So we are able to develop techniques there.
Mr. LEWIS. I am concerned that we may get a little bit too far off track here.
Mr. GOLDIN. With regards to the International Space Station, because the Russians are present, we have a much bigger crew. We have much more power. We have much more volume, and we will have much greater research capability.
On top of that, the Russian research community has been at this long-term research a long time, and we have learned a lot from them.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Stokes has a follow-up question, but for our other members, we got sidetracked talking about the cost of the Russian delay. If you have questions about that, it would be fine now, but in the meantime, I do want us to get back on schedule here if we can.
Mr. Stokes.
SPACE SCIENCE BUDGET
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Chairman, I will be glad for us to get right back on track.
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I guess that I am still a little confused over Mr. Goldin's statement relative to space science.
Right now you have before us a proposal that will take an additional $128 million from Space Science this year. That is in addition to—in the past 2 years, you have taken about roughly another $300 million out of Space Science. I do not reconcile your statement here this morning with these facts.
Mr. GOLDIN. Let me say that in our budget submittal this year, we assume that $50 million would come out of Space Science as part of the transfer authority we requested. That was in our base science proposal.
There was a significant amount of uncosted carry-over in our Earth Science and Space Science program, and when we took a look at the needs that they had, we were able to take out that $50 million, but if you take a look at all of the program funding—do not look at dollars. Take a look at all the program funding. We have funded every single program we put in the 1998 budget and added three new programs to space science. It has everything they asked for, plus those programs, and if you look at the run-out for the 5-year period, we have added $700 million to the Space Science program.
Maybe Mal could answer. I did not quite understand the $128 million.
Mr. PETERSON. The numbers you reference are for the appropriation as a whole and not just for the Space Science. The discrepancy is that in the—for instance, in 1998, we are proposing a transfer of $128 million from the appropriation, $50 million from Space Science, $50 million from Earth Science, and a residual $28 million from other accounts.
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In the long term, what the Administrator is saying is correct. If you look at the appropriation and the accounts within it, Space Science is up significantly over last year's plan.
Other accounts within the appropriation, particularly mission communications, are down, and there are savings, for instance, in Earth Science that Mr. Goldin referred to for the technology insertion that we have had, which have enabled those budget numbers to come down.
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Chairman, do you want to get back to——
TRANSFER AUTHORITY
Mr. LEWIS. I do, but I had mentioned, Mr. Goldin, that the reason for my colleague's probing here involves, among other things, questions being raised by very good friends of these programs and the authorizing committee.
I have within my account here a letter from George Brown, for example, that would request that we consider limiting the amount of transfer authority that we would provide or consider in the months ahead, and it is with concern about science programs that those kinds of expressions are being made, and we need to be able in full good faith and partnership to have these discussions so that they are comfortable as well as our being comfortable.
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Mr. GOLDIN. I want to come back and say this is a different NASA.
Mr. LEWIS. Frankly, I understand your point.
Mr. GOLDIN. Again, I want to say, we have started major new Space Science programs. We are starting the technology work for the next-generation space telescope. This is going to be 8.3 meters in diameter, three and a half times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope.
We have a whole variety of new programs, and we also have in this budget a discovery probe that is going to go to Europa to see if there is a water ice ocean.
So I will be happy to list for you all the programs we committed to in 1998, plus listing all the new ones we started, plus showing our research account, to establish that this science budget is giving more science.
[The information follows:]
SPACE SCIENCE PROGRAMS
Attached is a listing of Space Science programs for FY 1998. Charts regarding new FY 1999 programs and a breakout of our Research and Analysis and Data Analysis accounts to establish a true picture of our science budget.
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Mr. LEWIS. We may very well want to have an informal discussion about that.
Mr. GOLDIN. I would be pleased to do it, and I also want to come back to Earth Science. Earth Science reduced their budget $500 million because we have much lower-cost space craft because we are using new technology, and we had three recommendations made to us in the Earth Science account.
First, they said the research and analysis money was not enough, and we have added about $200 million in research analysis over the 5 years now.
Mr. PETERSON. Yes, 180 to be exact.
Mr. LEWIS. But the heart of this discussion centered around delays and living with commitments on the part of one of our major partners, where those delays cost us, and getting specific about that, and then that leads us to questions about transfer authority that is necessary because of X and Y. So it is that area that we are probing.
In that connection, Mr. Mollohan or others, do you have questions you want to follow through on there? You have been kind enough to be here on time.
RUSSIAN COST FLOW
Mr. MOLLOHAN. With regard to?
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Mr. LEWIS. The Russian cost flow and the add-on costs because of the delay, et cetera. Frankly, I am just trying to get us back on track. You have been very generous with your patience.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. What overruns are you projecting?
Mr. GOLDIN. About $900 million. Approximately $800 million, or $817 million to be exact, is what we project for Boeing. Now, Boeing said——
Mr. MOLLOHAN. $800 million for Boeing?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Boeing has contended that they are going to keep their overruns to about $600 million, and we have been——
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Just on that, how are they going to do that?
Mr. GOLDIN. They——
Mr. MOLLOHAN. As I understand, they are experiencing a degrading rate of $20 million a month.
Mr. GOLDIN. Not anymore. For the last 6 months, they had been managing right to plan.
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. Which is what?
Mr. GOLDIN. Dollars per month?
Mr. MOLLOHAN. It would have to get down to 3 to 4 million, wouldn't it, to meet this?
Mr. GOLDIN. The $20-million figure you saw is the problem we had when we had a runaway condition about 6 months ago.
Since that time, their management—and if you will recollect, at that time, they got zero award fee.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Right.
Mr. GOLDIN. The management at Boeing took major steps to restructure their program. They changed their management theme, and for the last 6 months, they have been managing for the plans.
However, NASA felt that we wanted to be able to have a number that we had confidence in. So we added about $200 million, just in case Boeing had further problems.
COST-PLUS CONTRACT
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. I am sure you have done this for the Committee, but in the context of this hearing, I would like a short version. Why are we into a cost-plus contract here? I am sure there is a good reason for it.
Mr. GOLDIN. Oh, sure.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Philosophically, why are we doing a cost-plus?
Mr. GOLDIN. The Space Station is a very complex system, and——
Mr. MOLLOHAN. No other model——
Mr. GOLDIN. It is not a production contract where the design is done and you could go in and introduce hardware. It is one-of-a-kind hardware with constantly changing interfaces.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. All right. I accept that.
Mr. LEWIS. Plus, it is a good question.
BOEING'S PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION PROBLEM
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Certainly.
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How much of this overrun is Boeing's performance and production problem? How much of it is slippage?
Mr. GOLDIN. Of the $900 million overrun, we believe Boeing is going to have $800 million of which they say they think they have—they are saying they think they will have $600 million, but we put $200 million on top of that because we expect other problems to occur.
About $100 million is a problem on the NASA side. That is what we consider overrun.
Now, what is the cause of the schedule slippage? In the limit, one could say $2 billion, but when we started, I was saying that that is not added money, and we have changed the way we deliver systems up to the Space Station. So that, we are actually doing research during that period of time.
Do you know of another way to answer the question, Malcolm?
Mr. PETERSON. Well, yes. I guess there is one point. We will have six-person research capability up there at the end of 2002. We will be delivering some hardware, a habitation module in 2003, but if you look at the budget makeup that has been submitted originally, the research program and operations of the research program and operations of the Station has about $1.3 billion in FY 2003, $1.3 billion in FY 2004.
What is coming down tremendously is the development content. Unfortunately, because we are moving the final piece of the Station's assembly hardware to the next year (2003) we are getting tagged with adding into the development cost the cost of operations for the period of the schedule slip. Even though we are doing up to 80 percent, of the total budget in 2003 and even more than that, up to 90 percent in FY 2004 for the research and operations program we had already built in.
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Mr. LEWIS. But please remember—I think Mr. Goldin understands, but, remember, our challenge is we are going to have people who are concerned about other programming within the whole budget saying, ''Look, this thing is getting out of hand in terms of cost. The Russians are the reason. They have delayed. Give us the precise items of what this delay costs, why you have requested this transfer, what have you done to science programs,'' and they are going to be asking us to be very specific, and they will have their own challenges. So that foundation is very important.
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Lewis, again, I would like to come back to a very, very basic point. A, the science program is stronger in 1999 than it was in 1998.
Mr. LEWIS. Well, that is an important point.
Mr. GOLDIN. It is stronger. There is more science in 1999 than there is in 1998, A.
B, with the exception of $100 million, which was appropriated in 1998, all of the cost has been handled within the NASA budget. We are not asking for more money.
In fact, NASA is one of the few agencies in going for fiscal 1998 to fiscal 1999 whose budget is actually going down. If you go into the development agencies, there has been the biggest increase in history for R&D agencies, and NASA's budget went down, not up. Yet, we have absorbed this. This is a very major statement to the American people about how we manage at NASA.
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Mr. LEWIS. My colleagues, do you want to follow on here at all?
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. I have questions, but I think I could probably conclude those in the normal sequence of things. You are trying to tie up, Mr. Chairman, this particular——
Mr. LEWIS. Actually, we are not going to complete this by any matter of means, but I wanted to have it out. It came from the initial comments of Mr. Goldin. It is an area that is of major importance to us. I would hope that we will have formal and informal discussions of this in detail long before we find ourselves on the floor with these questions.
RUSSIAN FUNDING COMMITMENTS
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I just had one question. The Russian funding commitments must be set, referring to your formal comments on page 10, and I quote, ''The positive accomplishments I have outlined and budget projections I have discussed could be threatened by any further performance difficulties on the part of our Russian partners.'' Then you go on to say, ''The concern is not one of quality. Our confidence in Russian technical capability remains unshaken.''
While I do not have last year's testimony, this is not much different than last year's testimony, is it?
NATIONAL PRESTIGE VS PERSONAL SAFETY
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Mr. GOLDIN. That is correct.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. But to the casual observer, their view of performance difficulties may be a little different than yours. It seems almost like the Russians are more concerned about national prestige than they are with personal safety. That is what I get from my constituents, and I just wondered. You are saying there is absolutely no problem with the Russian technical capability. What do you mean, though, by performance difficulties? If they are not technical, what are they?
Mr. GOLDIN. Let me come back and say the Russians have taught us much more than we knew about safety. There is this perception on the part of the American public that the Russians do not treat space as a place for safety with their cosmonauts. The Russians have an incredibly designed Space Station with a much higher level of redundancy than we have, and, in fact, we are modifying the International Space Station to bring it up to some of the safety standards that the Russians taught us.
ASTRONAUT SAFETY
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You have told us that, and that message seems to be somewhat lost. Often, we have a higher degree of concern about the personal safety of our astronauts. You are saying that is not——
Mr. GOLDIN. I would be pleased to have our astronauts tell you. David Wolf, I talked to him before he went up, and he said he had more of a concern about the Shuttle flight up than he did on being on the Mir Station, not that he said it was unacceptably unsafe, but the Russians have had 10 years or 11 years of continuous operations on the Mir Station without one fatality, and they have had very minor——
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Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. The reports to the average citizen, you know——
Mr. GOLDIN. I cannot control the press. I could tell you the facts as they are, and we have had significant experience and are very impressed by the Russians and their safety standards.
They have had fires and collisions. They have lost systems. Their logistics and maintenance procedures are outstanding, and we have learned a lot. It is difficult for me to say because I take tremendous pride in what we do in America, but I have to look you in the face and say, from a safety standpoint, the Russians have done a terrific job.
The problem that they have is there is an incredible bureaucracy in Russia, and this is the only problem we have; that their bureaucracy does not fund things when they are supposed to, and I have tremendous regard for——
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNDING/SAFETY ISSUES
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. But there has to be some relationship between their funding and these safety issues, or is there no relation?
Mr. GOLDIN. We have not seen any relationship between funding and safety. Funding impacts schedule, and because the Russians are not willing to compromise safety, they have slipped the schedule. When they slip the schedule, it costs us money, and when it costs us money, we get very unhappy. We have transmitted that to our Russian partners at the highest levels of their government.
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They did fund it last year, and what I said was they have the 1,500 pieces they need for the service module. They have 1,420 with a delivery schedule over the next month or so to get it, but the impact is not on safety.
Mr. LEWIS. I am afraid we really do have to move on. Joe, I know you have——
RUSSIA PAYING CONTRACTORS
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Just very quickly. I know that one of the things that could be causing this delay problem is the fact that I have heard—and I know this has been true in other aspects of Russian involvement with the U.S.—is that they are not paying their contractors. You may have talked about that. That is ongoing, isn't it?
Mr. GOLDIN. That is ongoing. That is an ongoing struggle, and the Vice President is meeting with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin today. We had discussions over the last 2 days with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet of Russia about this. We have set up a very specific schedule.
Now, to keep it going, what the contractors are doing is they are borrowing money against the promise of future payments by the Russian government, both the Khrunitchev Company and the RSC Energia Company. So that is where it stands.
Now, we have a series of very specific milestones which I am going to submit for the record that will track what we expect from the Russians between now and mid-May when we are going to have a meeting with our international partners to review the schedule and have a position for the Congress by the end of May.
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Mr. LEWIS. Let me repeat one more time, I am afraid we will not get through that which we need to do today if we continue much longer here, and while I apologize to my colleagues for this diversion, it is centered to what our discussion is going to be this year.
We recognize that we have got to not just gather information, but understand it as well. So we may ask you to come and have informal discussions with us in some depth.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
SERVICE MODULE
Mr. MOLLOHAN. May I ask a question? What happens if the Vice President is not successful in getting money for the service module? Where would that money come from?
Mr. GOLDIN. I could answer it, if you want me. Do you want me to answer it now?
Mr. LEWIS. He just asked it. So you might as well get it out of the way.
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Mr. MOLLOHAN. No, no. Go ahead.
Mr. GOLDIN. No, no. Please, it is important.
We have set up a contingency plan. We took the first step last year with building the interim control module.
If we become convinced that the service module is not going to be delivered—it will be a year late, instead of a few months late—we will have to launch what we call the interim control module which the Naval Research Lab is building right now and suffer further schedule erosion waiting for the service module to come up a year from now. That would be the first line of defense.
The next line of defense begins to spend even more money where we would build a second interim control module and initiate the full-scale propulsion module work to replace the functions of the service module, and to build the environmental control equipment which we have scarred our system to handle. And then we would have to go independent of the Russians. That would be the next series of steps.
Mr. LEWIS. We are going to be getting into that as we go forward.
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Lewis, could I say something? I think that the questions that are being asked are very important questions.
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Mr. LEWIS. I do, too.
Mr. GOLDIN. They are ones that we have pondered, and we are prepared to spend whatever time it takes to make sure you have the information to form your own decisions.
FUNCTIONAL CARGO BAY
Mr. LEWIS. I appreciate that, and it will be very important as we go forward here.
If my colleagues will be patient, let me go forward. I would like to discuss several of these programs in order. The first element of the Space Station is the functional cargo block, which has been delivered to the Russian launch site, and it is expected to be launched in June of this year.
Last year when concern about the service module construction was being addressed, the FGB was modified. What were the exact modifications of the FGB's original configuration?
Mr. GOLDIN. Joe, do you want to handle that?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I do not know the answer. Maybe Gretchen can.
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Mr. GOLDIN. Gretchen, do you know the exact modifications that were made to the FGB?
Ms. MCCLAIN. Yes.
Mr. LEWIS. Could you identify yourself?
Ms. MCCLAIN. Gretchen McClain. I am Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Station.
The mods that were made to the FGBs will allow people to refuel the FGBs with the progress resupply vehicle. We also changed some of the controls, so it would give us the control that we need to be able to continue to build the Space Station through the laboratory development.
Mr. LEWIS. What was the direct cost of those modifications?
Ms. MCCLAIN. The mod as well as the ICMs together, it was $250 million. I can give you the exact data, if you would like me to check it.
Mr. LEWIS. Why don't you give it to us in just a moment.
Ms. MCCLAIN. Okay.
Mr. LEWIS. In the meantime, what is the certified service life of the FGB, the modified FGB, and how does that differ from the service life prior to the modification?
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Ms. MCCLAIN. The FGB service life?
Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
Ms. MCCLAIN. What you got now——
Mr. LEWIS. The modified.
Ms. MCCLAIN. The modified—your lifetime is still the same——
Mr. LEWIS. Okay.
Ms. MCCLAIN [continuing]. The limitation or your avionics. It is almost just on a 500 base for your avionics limitation. That is where it is Q/A'd for.
We probably could extend that, but our testing is just under 500 days.
Mr. GOLDIN. The answer is $36.9 million.
Mr. LEWIS. Okay, thank you.
Is there an effort underway or plan to certify the FGB for a longer service life?
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Ms. MCCLAIN. Not at this point.
Mr. LEWIS. One of the modifications makes it possible to refuel the FGB. Will the United States have the capability to refuel the FGB, or can it only be refueled by Russian vehicles?
Ms. MCCLAIN. Only Russian vehicles.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Mollohan.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. No questions.
Mr. KNOLLENBERG. No questions.
STATUS OF SERVICE MODULE
Mr. LEWIS. In January, the Committee staff was briefed on the status of the service module. At that time, it was being reported that the service module was 2 months behind schedule, but Russian officials with a program were still assessing or assuring NASA that the module would be ready for the December 1998 launch. What information did NASA receive on January 15, 1998, the 1998 general designers review regarding the likelihood of service module being ready for launch in December, and were critical subcontractors expressing optimism on keeping that delivery date?
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Mr. ROTHENBERG. Well, when we were there, what we realized in January is that the funding for the subcontractors was still behind schedule, behind receiving funding. At that time, there were several pieces of equipment specifically for subcontracts who were saying they were not going to provide the hardware until they received payment for it because they had been promised that.
Shortly after that, Mr. Goldin received that message. He contacted the people over there, and at that point, Mr. Koptev came and visited us. I guess that was at the end of January, January 28th.
The contractors who were not delivering hardware at that point had finally agreed to go get the hardware to the manufacturing site, pending—not pending—based on the fact that they were going to receive payment sometime in mid-February.
At that time, they did not receive payment in mid-February, and that then raised a concern once again about the Russian payment schedule.
We do know at this point that, for all practical purposes, the Russians have continued assembling the service modules, hanging all the pieces together, and we are told, although we have no way to absolutely verify this, that they can proceed down this path until the end of March before they run out of pieces to put on because of lack of funding.
TRANSFER OF FUNDS TO RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY
Mr. LEWIS. Approximately the U.S. equivalent of $20 million from the previously unfunded $79.5 million in 1997 funds for Russian contributions to the ISS partnership is being transferred to the Russian Space Agency this week, theoretically prior to the commencement of these discussions. How will we know that that has been transferred?
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Mr. GOLDIN. We have people in Moscow that go to the hardware floor, validate what is being said to see that it is being done, and I believe once a month, they review the books for the Russians to validate the numbers that are being told that are actually being transferred.
Mr. LEWIS. I am presuming that alarm bells will go off if you have some serious questions there.
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. LEWIS. But then there is a similar transfer in April and the same question applies. I presumed you will give us the same answer.
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes. In fact, do you have that list?
Mr. Lewis, here are the items that we put on our list to check before we have our meeting in mid-May. The general designers review is April 27th. At the general designers review, they have all the subtier suppliers. So we get a chance to see if the subtier suppliers got their money, and if the hardware was delivered. We sit through their general designers review observing.
Then we have verification of funding for the service module's subcontractors and vendors. The remaining 1997 funds will be transferred to RSA and flow to the subs by the end of March, and by 1998, the Russians are to have their budget plans completed for 1998.
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Flight article hardware deliveries are due on March 30th. The Energia software support final release is late April. The second phase complex stand integrated testing is complete mid-May. That schedule is to be complete, and the flight article assembly completion is to be done by mid-May.
So we have these check marks that we are going to check off to see if they are meeting the things they said they told us they would do.
Actually, I think the second phase complex test and integrated testing will be complete in mid-June, not mid-May.
FUNDING AND SCHEDULE CONCERNS
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN [presiding]. Mr. Goldin, on May 21st of last year, you wrote to Chairman Lewis explaining the schedule changes which had been approved by this Space Station Control Board. In that letter, it was noted that the situation would continue to be monitored by taking—and I quote—''advantage of opportunities such as the upcoming Russian general designers review this fall''. What indications did you receive at the fall GDR regarding funding and schedule concerns?
Mr. GOLDIN. Gretchen.
Ms. MCCLAIN. In the fall, that was a point in time when we had just gotten a decree of the $99.5 million that was signed by Yeltsin. At that point in time, $20 million had flown, and they had given that to the subcontractor. The remaining was yet a schedule of information that they were going to have money coming out in different months. They have not received that money at the end of this year. We just got confirmation that additional $20 million for 1997 has been given to RSA.
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FUNDING LEVEL FOR SERVICE MODULE COMPLETION
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Relative to Russian funding, what is the funding level required for calendar year 1998 to ensure completion of a service module?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. There are two pieces. One, we need the remainder of the FY calendar year 1997 funds, which at this point is $59 million. Plus, it is about $300 million fiscal year—calendar year—I am sorry—1998 funding, $100 million of which is already included in the budget, $200 million is in the supplemental.
CRITICAL ELEMENTS FOR SUCCESS FOR SPACE STATION
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. In his letter to you of March 26, 1997, Lieutenant General Stafford reported on the results of his trip to Russia and the assurances that he had that funding would be made available for the service module. In addition, General Stafford also obtained information with regard to the science power platform and the progress of the Soyuz vehicles.
Recent emphasis has been placed on the service module, but these other elements are also critical to success of the Space Station. Do you have any concerns at this time that any of these three elements will not be ready in time for their scheduled launches or usage in conjunction with assembly of the Station?
Mr. GOLDIN. The service module still gives us concern. To date, there seems to be progress on the solar power platform on the Soyuz use.
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Mr. ROTHENBERG. But they all require the same funding.
TECHNICAL RISKS
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. What is the schedule of technical risks associated with each of these three elements of the Station?
Mr. GOLDIN. Right now the biggest schedule of risk is on the service module, and they appear to be performing on the solar power platform on the Soyuz, but as Mr. Rothenberg said, they have to draw on the same account for all three, and we expect them to fully fund 1998 at $300 million.
Mr. LEWIS [presiding]. Mr. Mollohan.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Chairman, that is Russia's contribution; is that correct?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. What part does the assurance program play in this? Is there any money in the assurance program to be used for this purpose?
Mr. GOLDIN. No. By the end of 1998, to the best of my knowledge, there will not be any monies going from the United States to Russia.
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When we say Russian assurance, we are paying for assuring ourselves against problems occurring in Russia, not paying the Russians to do additional things. I think our terminology may be bad.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Would you please restate that?
Mr. GOLDIN. The $250 million for what we call Russian assurance is to protect the United States and our partners, at least a first step in it, to protect against further slippage by the Russians not paying their bills.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. In other words, to supplement their payment?
Mr. GOLDIN. Not to supplement their payment. We are building in the United States laboratories an interim control module. That is part of the Russian assurance program. We are making modifications to the Space Station to accommodate that interim control module. This is not giving the Russians more money for slipping.
Mr. MOLLOHAN. You say there is no money in your 1999 budget for the assurance program. Was $50 million reprogrammed in 1998 from the Space Shuttle account for this item?
Mr. PETERSON. That was done in the Appropriations Act last year, yes, sir.
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Mr. GOLDIN. In 1998.
Mr. PETERSON. The 1998 Appropriations Act.
And that is what Mr. Goldin was referring to. That is the last $50 million for the $250 million of Russian program assurance and action that we took with the help of Congress last year.
Mr. GOLDIN. But we did not put any money in that account. We programmed that into that account.
Mr. PETERSON. Well, actually, I believe in the appropriations bill itself, you added sufficient funds to allow us to allocate $50 million to that account.
Mr. GOLDIN. I want to correct what I said. Actually, 1999 is $7 million, payments to the Russians, and then, thereafter, it is about $1.3 million a year for the Star City Moscow Liaison. So it is a very minor amount of money.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you.
Mr. GOLDIN. This is another one of the misconceptions that comes through that we continue to fund the Russians when they are not performing, and I wanted to make it very clear that we are not funding to cover missteps in the Russian funding for their own activities. We are not covering it.
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SCIENCE POWER PLATFORM
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you.
The Russian Science Power Platform is scheduled for installation in July 2000 to provide additional power to Russian science elements and provides role control for the entire station. If there are delays for nonperformance in construction of the SPP, what option is available to perform the role control functions?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. One of the options would be to modify the ICM, the second ICM to put on a role control capability and then put some kind of thruster on——
Mr. LEWIS. Small thruster?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Right. That is the one option we are looking at right now.
Mr. LEWIS. You will tell us what the cost might be for that option, too?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Of course.
SOYUZ VEHICLE
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Mr. LEWIS. In addition to the Russian contribution in the form of the service module, the Space Station will have a heavy reliance on Soyuz and progress space vehicle. What is the current agreement with Russia regarding the modifications to Soyuz vehicle for cruise support?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I believe that is under control, but let Gretchen answer that.
Ms. MCCLAIN. They are currently modifying the Soyuz to be ready in late 1999. It will accommodate about 95 percent.
Mr. LEWIS. Is it on schedule?
Ms. MCCLAIN. It is on schedule.
Mr. LEWIS. What is the current status of the Russian modifications to the progress vehicle for resupply to the station?
Ms. MCCLAIN. What they are doing is they have got a progress mound vehicle today that is being modified to be a progress M–1. That has undergone to date. It will be available in 1999. Basically, it is changing out some of the tanks to be able to allow more fuel.
Mr. LEWIS. How many Soyuz and progress flights will be required through the end of 2003?
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Ms. MCCLAIN. Ten Soyuz flights and 33 progress flights.
Mr. LEWIS. Ten and 33?
Ms. MCCLAIN. That is right.
Mr. LEWIS. Do you have confidence that the Russians will be able to meet the commitment to this large number of flights, both from a financial as well as a manufacturing perspective?
Mr. GOLDIN. I want to jump in. We feel the Russians have to make a commitment to de-orbiting the Mir Space Station because——
Mr. LEWIS. To de-orbiting?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, because they are expending valuable resources and industrial capability and building Soyuz and progress vehicles to Mir when we need them to build them for the International Space Station.
Towards that end and the announcement, the joint announcement, and the agreement we made at the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission by July of this year, the Russians are to prepare a plan for how they are going to de-orbit the Mir Space Station.
It is our desire that the Mir Space Station be de-orbited in mid-1999, to provide flexibility in the production schedule, and to have the finances available to support the schedule.
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So it is very important and it will be a very positive signal that the Russians will send that they are going to de-orbit Mir and it will give us a much higher confidence in their ability to meet the progress and the Soyuz deliveries.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM RUSSIANS
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Goldin, I think I said this to you personally, but not for the record. I would like my colleagues at least to know how I feel about this.
We could not have designed the variety of mix of experience that we have gained from dealing with Mir. We certainly would never have designed it, per se, but in terms of safety questions, in terms of all kinds of questions, like the CRV, the expansion potential, a variety and mix of great lessons learned as a result of this, I think it would be a mistake not to recognize formally that that has been a value to us. On the other hand, we would certainly not wish it again on another element of this program to go forward.
SOYUZ VEHICLE
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I just wanted to ask a question. Is it being de-orbited because you would characterize it as obsolete?
Mr. GOLDIN. It needs to be de-orbited because from a resource standpoint, it is not possible to keep both of those going, A, and, B, the facilities on board the International Space Station will be much more advanced, much more capable, much higher power levels, and much more conducive to research in the 21st century.
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OBSOLESCENCE OF MIR
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. So you are actually speaking to obsolescence when you make that type of comment.
Mr. GOLDIN. But you have to keep in mind one specific issue. The Mir Space Station does not belong to America. It belongs to Russia.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. But I asked you whether it is being de-orbited, taken out of commission, because it is obsolete.
Mr. GOLDIN. Well, I will answer the question from the American standpoint. From our standpoint, when we bring home Andy Thomas in June of this year, as far as America is concerned, we have learned everything possible we could learn from the Mir Space Station.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. This gets back to my earlier contention, which is we will be breathing a sigh of relief when he comes back. This gets to the public perception that the Mir is somewhat obsolete.
You are suggesting——
Mr. GOLDIN. I am disagreeing with that.
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Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. You are. So it is being taken out of orbit not because it is obsolete, but because there is another package that is technologically far more advanced, and since I do not think we have arrived at any mutual agreement as to what is obsolete relative to the Mir, what is built into the new package that addresses the issue of obsolescence?
Mr. LEWIS. If you will yield, let me intervene there. I think what Mr. Goldin was saying, but clarify it for the record, one of the reasons to be pushing for decommissioning is because otherwise we would have the Russians participant in a Space Station, and they also want to keep this functioning and use resources.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I understand there is a resource issue, but I am interested—what some might consider Mir to be obsolete at this point in history.
Mr. GOLDIN. Again, so it is clear for the record, I want to address it a different way. Mir was clearly not obsolete for our usage of it, and without our experience on Mir, we would not have learned and known what we know today. I do not consider it obsolete.
OBSOLESCENCE OF SPACE STATION
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Well, I think it is great and appropriate that we celebrate our relationship with the Russians, and if you do not want to describe the Mir as obsolete, maybe you can address the issue as to our Space Station, what steps are we building into its technological base that would keep it from obsolescence.
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Mr. GOLDIN. Well, we learned a lot from Mir. We learned about corrosion with dissimilar metals. We are making changes in our design.
We have learned that when you take real cold lines and put it next to electrical cabling, over years the electrical cabling degrades, and, in fact, this was the situation in our own laboratory until we discovered that.
We have learned about fire suppression. We have learned about safety relative to crew egress. We have learned about operations. We have learned about how we should maintain the system and the kind of spares we should have on orbit. Those are the type of things we have learned, absolutely crucial.
The reason I want to answer your question, I could say from the American standpoint, we consider we have learned everything we can. The Russians have some opportunity for revenue sources, where other countries want to fly on board Mir to learn from it. That is why I am being very careful from the Russian standpoint. They may not consider it obsolete.
From our standpoint, we feel we have learned as much as we could possibly learn to build the International Space Station, but our concern is a more pragmatic one. We are concerned that the Russian Control Center, which we are working with in Moscow and Houston, may get into overload operating the Mir and the International Space Station. We are concerned just about handling logistics and the flow of equipment through Baikonur will be an overload situation.
And in light of all the Russian funding problems, we have expressed a concern to them that it is important to give us confidence and themselves confidence that they could meet all the production schedules for the Soyuz and the progress, and, clearly, there is the added aspect that I hope the Russians will recognize that the International Space Station will have much more power, much more volume, much more advanced communications, much more stable conditions, lower vibration levels for doing microgravity research. So it will be a much more advanced system.
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The only reason I am reluctant is I feel reluctant to speak for a sovereign nation about decisions they will have to make themselves, and that is the only reason I have not answered precisely the question.
RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I do not think any of us view the Russian space program in a vacuum. I mean, some of us traveled to that part of the world, and we see how aggressive the Russians are in terms of oil supplies and technology, their national oil company. The fact that they have to decommission at some point in time a lot of nuclear reactors—I mean, if one were to judge public attitudes as to how those problems developed and perhaps swing that over to the space program, it would indeed be worrisome.
So I am glad you have given us the higher level of reassurance that you have.
Mr. GOLDIN. 1999 is the year that we believe the Mir should come down. We hope the Russians agree with us.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Thank you.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Knollenberg, did you want to comment?
RUSSIANS FOCUS ON SAFETY
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Mr. KNOLLENBERG. Just very quickly, and I will be leaving shortly. So do not look upon that as being disinterested. I have another hearing.
I am encouraged by what you said about the safety. In fact, the focus of the Russian—their technology and their redundancy and what have you, that surprises me a little bit, only because on another front in the nuclear field, they have anything but redundancy of the kind and quality that we have built into that system.
So I am just curious as to why they have put such a focus and such interest into the safety side in this situation. Where does that come from?
Mr. LEWIS. They certainly are presenting that question in a very interesting way.
Mr. GOLDIN. It is a very interesting question. I will give you but one example of where I have been impressed. If you take a look at their oxygen-generating system, they have two complete oxygen-generating units; then they have spare parts in case something goes wrong. If they have a problem with that, they use a technique they developed for nuclear submarines using oxygen-generating candles and they have a few months' worth of supply of those.
And then they have this logistics system that could take parts up and down if they don't have it. And then they have gasses of air, bottles of gas, of air, that they can breathe from. And, if all else fails, they come back in the Soyuz module.
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When we conceived our Space Station, we did not do that. We put redundancy in number but not function. And that is what really impressed us about the Russians.
And, you know, I am going to pursue an answer to that question. It is a very good question and I am going to have some discussion with Russian experts and try to understand that.
Mr. LEWIS. Well, Mr. Goldin, as you do that, Mr. Knollenberg has essentially crystallized for me at least one of the items to wonder about, a thing called international prestige. If you take the number of people who were contaminated in the nuclear circumstance and then you take a look at this, it is just an item worth contemplating.
Mr. GOLDIN. I will be happy to have open discussions with the Russians on the subject, with American Russian experts. But we entered, and this may be part of the problem, we entered with the same level of feeling as your constituents that boy, we in America know everything about safety.
And when our astronauts started coming back and telling us about their experience on the Mir and the level that the Russians go to with safety, our eyes began to be opened. And I guess it is a process that we will all have to go through.
Now, there still could be some problems that we don't know about but from everything we have seen, the Russians take an extra measure to try and be safe.
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SPACE STATION PRIORITY
Mr. LEWIS. Which leads me to one more question before I turn to my colleague, Mr. Stokes. In this country we have made a national commitment to building the International Space Station. The same commitment has been made by Japan, Canada and numerous countries in Europe through individual actions as well as the European Space Agency.
When Russia was brought into the partnership in 1993, I believe we expected them to make a similar commitment to Station, but there has been a noticeable lack of consistency in that commitment. We have touched on that in several ways already.
The question is very simple. Where does the Space Station fall in the priorities of both the Russian Space Agency and the Russian national government? You talked about the delivery of funds already being delayed but a certain level of delivery by way of the legislature is a very sizable additional chunk that must be asked of the legislature here shortly. So where are they in terms of that commitment?
Mr. GOLDIN. Russia is having significant problems across the board. People in the military don't get paid. People routinely in industries don't get paid, as they are transitioning to an open market. I think we talked about this last year but I think it is important to realize this again.
The Russians have set an incredible goal. Not only are they opening up their market to become an open market; they have transitioned from a controlled society to an open society. And I believe for the first time in 10 years their economy is actually now beginning to show some growth because they have been in decline.
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This is a problem that has plagued the entire Russian economy. It is not as though the space industry is different. So it has been across the board, including defense, which is very important to Russia.
Seeing that there is some improvement in the economy, hopefully that will reflect on how they go at it. On a priority standpoint I am assured, and these are their words, not mine, that this has a high priority and that they are going to go get it funded. But deeds are more important than words and we are going to look very carefully over the months ahead to see that it happens.
Now, we brought a tremendous amount of pressure to bear and they have put a significant amount of money in. Last year, after we brought those pressures to bear, they have slipped up on those $59 million. We are going to work on that. But we need to see deeds, not talk.
I want to provide a little discussion here. If you take the U.S. contribution to the International Space Station plus our partners' commitments, we are talking about a $40 billion program. And for the lack of $359 million or $259 million, we could be putting the program in jeopardy. This message was presented very clearly and very focussed to the leadership and they responded. Yesterday Prime Minister Chernomyrdin in the open press made a major commitment to the Space Station.
Mr. LEWIS. As you look up that paper relative to the cost of the delays, that paragraph, that summary, would be welcome.
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Mr. GOLDIN. The same that I just made?
Mr. LEWIS. Yes, what you just said.
Mr. GOLDIN. Okay.
Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Stokes.
Mr. STOKES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you for your patience.
TRANSFERS BETWEEN ACCOUNTS
Mr. STOKES. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldin, my information was, and you correct me if I am wrong, that NASA has already transferred $462 million from the Space, Aeronautics and Technology Account to the Space Station in 1996, 1997, 1998. In addition, it appears likely that there could be further transfers from the space science of $50 million in 1999 and $35 million each in 2000 and 2001.
This would appear to be counter to NASA's stated intention of paying back space science funds beginning in 2001.
The question is do you agree or disagree with these figures?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Let me add in the broadest sense that science that will be performed on board the International Space Station is going to have not just every facility we had in the redesign in '93 but there will be significantly added capabilities in the broadest sense.
And the details of the numbers I would like to have Mal respond.
Mr. PETERSON. Indeed we have made adjustments between the various accounts to make sure that the principal focus, which is getting the Space Station constructed in order to have a place to accommodate these facilities, was maintained. So what we have done within the total availability for Space Station is to adjust the mix so that we kept the delivery dates for the research facilities phased appropriately with the availability for the Space Station to do that research. So what we actually did was rephase some of this hardware.
The second thing that we did of significance, and it seemed a fair amount of money, was to insert new technologies into the facilities that we are building.
The third major thing is that we were able to secure the agreement of our international partners to actually contribute major elements of research hardware to the Space Station in return for offsetting their launch support costs to us to avoid transfer of payments between the two countries.
So there has been a significant change from early days of what was going to be done by the United States with taxpayer money and what was going to be done by our international partners with their money. So all those things come together.
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Now, I believe when you look out far enough you are going to see that the research program runs $500 million a year. Starting in 2000 it goes to $500 million a year and stays at that high rate for the foreseeable future. As opposed to where it is now with some couple of hundred million dollar level, it is going to take a tremendous increase. And that is tied to its timing, the readiness for research on the Space Station.
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Stokes, I would like to add one element and then I would like Joe to comment. We made a commitment to have 900 principal investigators brought on board by the year 2000 and we are marching to that plan. So in terms of researchers, we are bringing them on board as planned.
And then not only are we going to have the research we promised in 1993 but I would like to have Joe just summarize all the additional research capability and we would like to submit for the record, Mr. Lewis, the enhancements we have made to the research on the Station and make it much more productive.
Mr. LEWIS. That would be helpful.
Mr. STOKES. Joe, I would be happy to hear from you.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Let's see. A number of things we did. One of the things, not specific to the Station, but we added actually payloads for the assembly flights. We were able to add some science payloads to the assembly flights. We added, for example, we upped the number of mid-deck lockers assigned to science on the Shuttle from four to 17 per flight.
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ESA added four external positions on board to accommodate external pallets with payloads on them. We have added telescience, increased the bandwidth or the amount of data we can put up and down for telescience. We would like the investigators to operate from their remote facilities as if they were on board Station.
We have added wiring. We call it scars but we have added wiring capability to allow upgraded communications with the Japanese research module.
The window that was in the Space Station, when we looked at it, its size and its transmissivity or the kind of glass they used in it was not conducive to earth science so we improved the window capability so we can get better spectral transmission and a larger aperture.
Mr. LEWIS. Transmissivity?
Mr. GOLDIN. That is how much light gets through without getting fuzzy.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. And what wavelength, how much of the ultraviolet and how much of the infrared. We think that is very important for earth science.
We have added advanced isolation, vibration isolation for microgravity work, for microgravity experiments which, as you know, are very important.
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Communications outage recorder so that there is no data loss if we have an outage of signal communication or loss of it during the exclusion.
There are a number of things we did in training. We added some training for the crews and people, but that is, I think, the highlights of the capabilities.
Mr. GOLDIN. We will, for the record, expand on that but it is a significantly more capable system, much more automated, requiring less crew attention. And then we have added the seventh astronaut that will make the science much more productive.
But I think the key thing that we have done is increase telescience, which allows individual investigators not to have to cut through NASA bureaucracy but from their own laboratories at the university will be able to directly uplink and access the Station. That will make it much more productive.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. More importantly, industrial researcher, who are not as accustomed to going to remote sites—they do research in their own facilities—will be able to do it the same way, using the Station.
[The information follows:]
ENHANCEMENTS TO THE RESEARCH CAPABILITY
NASA has implemented several enhancements which greatly improve the ISS research capability. Some of these enhancements include:
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Addition of a Communications Outage Recorder (COR) to ensure that no payload data is lost during communications dropouts;
Addition of an Environment Monitoring Package (EMP) to characterize the external environment for attached payloads;
Consolidation of U.S. payload crew training;
Development of a generic payload to verify payload interface consistency;
Addition of flight-like payload to the Multi-Element Integrated Test program;
Initiation of a Pre-Planned Product Improvement (PPPI) process which includes enhancement of ISS research capabilities as a high priority;
Manifesting of science payloads on Assembly Flights;
Increasing Shuttle middeck locker capability from 4 to 17 starting at UF–3;
Development of a comprehensive set of ISS telescience enhancements to be phased in by assembly plus one year; increase Ku downlink bandwidth, enhance Ku uplink capability, increase video and audio capability;
Addition of wiring scars in Lab to support enhanced communications requirements; 1553 Payload Bus extended to JEM Exposed Facility; addition of Ethernet to COF;
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Upgrading of Lab nadir window with research quality glass; a low cost simple window rack structure to support early research; upgraded rack will be available at completion of assembly;
Completion of 1st Active Rack Isolation System (ARIS) Risk Mitigation Experiment (RME); ARIS RME planned for UF–1 to demonstrate modification; and
Implementation of hardware commonality across payloads (e.g., laptop computers, subrack interfaces).
ESA has also added 4 external payload adapter sites on the ESA Columbus Orbiting Facility (COF) to accommodate external payloads and pallets.
Technology infusion
In addition to the ISS platform enhancements, NASA is working hard to decrease hardware development times while taking advantage of advanced technology in all its research programs. By incorporating the latest technology into ISS research accommodations and facilities, we increase the efficiency and scope of ISS research efforts, as well as overall ISS operational efficiency and safety. Examples of advanced technology infusions include:
Web-based Internet commanding and data management;
Improved imaging sensors;
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Graphics workstation/virtual environment generator;
Crew worn sensors vs. rack-mounted medical monitoring equipment;
Digital video technology;
Specialized aluminum structures;
Solid state switching capability;
Improved radiation hardening;
High-efficiency DC–DC converters;
Real-time balancing and re-balancing of spinning motors;
Passive vibration isolation techniques and mechanisms;
Monolithic LED arrays;
Photocatalytic ethylene scrubbers for removal of contaminants; and
Multi-channel, wide-band telemetry equipment.
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NASA is also exploring and adopting new approaches to enhance the productivity of the human-machine interface, improve environmental control and life support systems, and medical monitoring. Examples of new systems NASA is investigating for the future include:
''Electronic Nose'' to provide real-time continuous monitoring of toxicological measurements;
Miniature Mass Spectrometer to replace the standard laboratory model;
On-orbit noninvasive medical monitoring techniques to enable collection of blood chemistry and physiological parameters without collecting samples from astronauts;
''Wireless Augmented Reality Prototype'' to provide hands-free, voice-controlled, audio-video information to and from the astronaut; and
Upgrading ISS life support system to include biological water recycling systems.
TRANSFER AUTHORITY
Mr. STOKES. Mr. Goldin, how much cushion is built into the additional $200 million in transfer authority which reflects the 1998 part of the different estimates of NASA and Boeing regarding the cost variance at completion?
Mr. GOLDIN. Well, not in the $200 million but Boeing made an estimate of what their overrun would be and they estimated that to be $600 million. We, NASA, have put in $817 million as an estimate of what their overrun might be. But in that $200 million I don't think——
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Mr. STOKES. Let me get to the 1998 estimates. Let me ask specifically how is Boeing managing against a $600 million estimate for cost variance at completion so far this year?
Mr. PETERSON. It is doing quite well against its plan. It is actually slightly under its plan through the last report we have, which is the end of February. And the projections for the year to go indicate that they will have some additional funding requirements as we proceed through the year to meet technical challenges that are arising. Much of that is changes that are made and some of it is indeed overrun that the government is estimating will be incurred.
I believe, however, that the real thing that needs to be said about the additional funding, sir, is that we constructed the '99 budget number predicated on the assumption that that money was available. So the long-run analysis of reserve requirements for the program to offset threats that may emerge assumes the availability of those funds.
Mr. STOKES. Let me ask you, the chart I have here indicates that it looks as though the '99 portion is going to be about $100 million. Is that accurate?
Mr. PETERSON. Sir, what we require to meet obligational requirements during this year, assuming that there are no actions turned on that we do not currently have in our contract planning, such as anything having to do with the Russian situation, we have sufficient obligational authority to handle the problem without using the entire $200 million.
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However, what I am saying is that the funds need to be available to carry over into fiscal '99 to complement the fiscal '99 budget request.
COST OVERRUN
Mr. STOKES. I am trying to focus in on the cost overrun portion for this year. What amount are we talking about?
Mr. PETERSON. Let me get you the actual figure.
Mr. STOKES. For Boeing.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. For Boeing? That is right. We are focussing on Boeing. Do you have that number?
Mr. PETERSON. I have it. The Boeing, we refer to the performance shortfall, which is also known as overrun.
Mr. GOLDIN. It is overrun.
Mr. PETERSON. Is $206 million by our estimate. Boeing's estimate is less than that, but this is our estimate. Our estimate is probably $50 or $60 million higher right now than Boeing would project.
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Mr. STOKES. Is that for the '98 portion?
Mr. PETERSON. That is for the '98 portion, sir.
RESERVES NEEDED
Mr. STOKES. Now, does that mean less flexibility reserves will be needed this year?
Mr. PETERSON. It does. If you take the current performance and you project it forward without any introduction of any unknowns that might occur, we would not require the $200 million of additional funds this year. In terms of our 1999 request, then, it is short by the commensurate amount.
The other thing that is very important is what I said about what we know today and where we are going for the rest of this year. Actions that may need to be turned on by the program in response to problems that arise are not calculated in what I just said.
So we are dealing with the coverage for unknown problems, and that is, I think, a key issue for the program manager.
Mr. GOLDIN. Now in direct answer to Mr. Stokes' question, we might end up the year without expending all that $200 million if Boeing continues on that performance curve.
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Mr. PETERSON. I think it is highly likely, yes.
Mr. GOLDIN. However, we will need the money, we believe, in '99 and may have to commit the money in '98 to be spent in '99, and that is the point.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I would like to add one thing. One piece of evidence that we already have is the uncertainty of the Russian schedule. If we have to commit to the second ICM, there would be, and we will know that in mid-May, there would be an immediate lien starting on that money.
So we already know about threats against the rest of that money. We just can't close on them yet until we finalize the decision and get the final information.
AWARD FEE
Mr. STOKES. That leads me to my next question. After giving Boeing a zero rating on a zero to 100 scale for the October '96/March '97 performance period, NASA gave Boeing a 70 for the April through September '97 period. Is that correct?
Mr. GOLDIN. Let me explain how that works. They got a score of 61 but a score of 61 gives them a zero award fee.
Mr. LEWIS. Award fee?
Mr. GOLDIN. Award fee.
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Mr. STOKES. You are talking about now for the period '96 to '97? There are two different periods here and two different ratings, right? All I am trying to do is get it on the record.
Mr. GOLDIN. Is that correct?
Ms. MCCLAIN. The first was a 61. The second was a 70.
Mr. LEWIS. And that 61 gave them a zero award fee.
Ms. MCCLAIN. And the second one gave them 70 percent of what was available.
Mr. GOLDIN. I think if you get a score below 65 you get zero fee.<