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NASA'S STUDY OF SPACE SOLAR POWER
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1997
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in room 2325, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Good morning. This hearing is called to order. First, I'd like to apologize for keeping everyone waiting for me. I was visiting a friend who has cancer—and is ill. I was spending some time—perhaps the last visit with an old friend, so I missed the first vote here on the Floor as well. So, I'm sorry, but it just took me a little while to be with someone. Those priorities get in the way sometimes.
Good morning. I've been looking forward to this hearing for quite some time. Today we're going to talk about an initiative, which in my opinion is precisely what NASA as an Agency should be all about. While scientific exploration of the space frontier is and should remain a vital part of NASA's mission, what has all too often been missing is the development of those opportunities in space which science and which our missions have uncovered.
For example, everyone knows that we spent billions of dollars to send astronauts to the Moon, but how many people know that the rocks that they brought back were full of oxygen, and aluminum, and other essential raw materials, which could make it cheaper and perhaps even profitable someday to establish permanent human settlements on the Moon, and in free space inside—or that area in free space between the Earth and Moon. And more to the point, how much work has NASA done to develop the technologies that might make that vision that I just described possible?
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America is a Nation of explorers, but we also are a Nation of developers and settlers, and enterprisers. President Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark into the Louisiana territory, not only to study the plants, animals, and native people; but also to map the rivers and mountains, and bring back information about natural resources and such that could be used by settlers and by enterprising Americans.
In today's testimony about NASA's Fresh Look Study of the concept of solar space power; that is using space technology to collect the unfiltered, 24-hour a day solar energy in space, and then beam it down to Earth, we will hear that NASA is not preparing to follow up on a concept which I believe cries out for further research, and is just the type of exciting project that could muster more support for NASA and its overall program.
We would also hear that this default may be because some of NASA want to focus—and when I mean default, I mean this lack of ability to move forward on projects like this—could be because NASA wants to focus every available science technology and human space flight dollar on their goal of sending an astronaut to Mars, perhaps in an attempt to recapture the glory days of Apollo. And it just seems to me that what we're talking about here in things like space solar power is something that could be just as exciting and perhaps even more exciting to the American people.
Well, it's not NASA's mission to subsidize many things. Some people suggest that it's not NASA's mission to subsidize things like this solar project, but at the same time we're told that NASA has many other missions.
Well, for example, is it NASA's mission to subsidize foreign countries so that they will abide by the missile technology control regime, and that's exactly what we're doing with our Russian project with Mir, spending $472 million for something that supposedly is not NASA's mission. I believe it's closer to NASA's mission for solar power research brought to us from space than it would be that.
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Well, it's not NASA's job to be building computers for the private sector, but their budget helps fund the next generation of the Internet. Again, that may not be NASA's job, but we're funding it, and certainly exploring things like solar power in space seems to be more consistent with NASA's mission.
The FAA is supposed to be overseeing our Nation's aviation system, but NASA is planning to cut its own aeronautics research to help fund airplane safety and airport operations research. Again, isn't solar energy from space more consistent with NASA's mission? And as much as I applaud the goal, I couldn't help but notice that Dan Goldin was up here at the Capitol on Wednesday, telling Congress about how much NASA has done to help breast cancer research. And again, I'm happy that that's going on, but isn't solar power from space more consistent with NASA's goals, or shouldn't it be?
The ultimate counter-example, of course, which I see going on is that this Administration, in pursuit of its environmental goals, has directed NASA to be spending $1.4 billion a year on Mission to Planet Earth, a study of global climate change. And the President apparently has decided that we already know enough about global climate change to sign a treaty that will have drastic impact on the people of the United States, but somehow we're not even supposed to invest a cent of our money in NASA trying to develop a clean source of technology, of electricity from space in the NASA budget. All of this just doesn't make any sense to me.
I hope as a result of the discussion today that NASA will come up and ask to take the next measured step in researching this potential space solar power, that I believe could be a benefit to mankind. It is certainly the kind of visionary, but immensely beneficial idea, that could bring huge public support for the space Agency.
What NASA does in space with space solar power, in my opinion, will be a solid indication of whether or not the Agency deserves the continued aggressive support of this Subcommittee and of the taxpayers.
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Let me very clear on this. We're not investing this money in space for a big show. I mean it's not important for us to provide bread and circuses for the people of the world, to prove the United States is so great, and then pounding our chest. Planting a flag on Mars, and returning, and showing—saying—how great we are is not a good investment when we have other alternatives for our money like the potential of generating clean electricity from space, rather than just putting on a big show that lasts as long as until the show is over.
So I would hope that this Subcommittee, which has in the past been pretty much dedicated to the exploration of space, in the years ahead will find ourselves engaged in many activities involved in the utilization and commercialization of space.
One of the great benefits—side benefits—of the Space Station, will be to generate expertise in construction in outer space. A lot of times that's been played down. People have said, don't refer to the Space Station—how many times have we heard that—don't refer to the Space Station as an engineering project; refer to it as a space or science project.
Well it's going to be a tremendous—a magnificent engineering project, and if we can do engineering projects like the Space Station, we will be able to do engineering projects like the one we will be discussing today that will generate a benefit, a direct benefit, to the people on Earth.
These are the type of things that I think in the future will provide NASA and America's space effort with the type of broad-based support that will propel us into the future.
So with that, I'm looking forward to the testimony today, and I'd like—Mr. Cramer, if you would have an opening statement as well. But before I recognize the Ranking Member, I would like to thank Mr. Cramer and the Minority staff, for allowing us to schedule this hearing on such short notice. We appreciate that cooperation, and I will just say in public, if they have an idea that they need to have scheduled on short notice, this Chairman stands ready to be just as hospitable to that idea.
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Mr. CRAMER. We'll remember that.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And I know that this topic is of interest to Mr. Brown and others of you on your side, as well as to myself and Mr. Weldon, and many of the Republican members of this Subcommittee. So Bud, please go right ahead with any opening statement that you might want to make.
Mr. CRAMER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to be brief. Though after your remarks I also want to get a point or two in, but rather than engage in that, I'll hopefully enable us to get on with this fine testimony that I know we will hear today about the space solar power and the potential there.
This hearing, of course, is a bit more long-term in its focus than some of our other hearings, but this is not a new issue for this Committee, or for NASA, or for the scientific community as well.
What we're talking about is a concept that received public attention somewhat 30 years ago, and the concept of beaming power from space to meet terrestrial power needs is intriguing, and would appear to offer enormous, enormous promise, if some daunting technological and economical obstacles can be overcome.
I know some years ago we put a plan—or a plan was put on the table—that was an incredibly broad, far-reaching plan, and a very expensive plan for achieving some of the things that we wanted to achieve. And I think you all can comment on some of where we were then versus what we can try to do now that's more realistic and achievable as well.
I am interested in the solar power satellite systems; how you think they can address some of the concerns, and what's happening now that wasn't happening some 20 and 30 years ago.
All of the assessments of the solar power satellite concept have highlighted the need for radical reductions in the cost of delivering payloads to orbit if we're to make those power systems feasible. And that's something this Committee, the Chairman and I, and many members of the Committee have been very interested in. Simply put, for solar power satellites, as for other areas of space activity, we need to invest in advanced space transportation if we're to realize the full potential of space. So maybe we've made advances there that will enable you to interpret what we might be able to do in terms of budget issues in a lot different way than we were able to do some 20 and 30 years ago.
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So I welcome the witnesses here. I might add that I'm extremely proud of everything NASA has accomplished. My NASA employees there at the Marshall Space Center have given part of that, but as I visit the other space centers, and do see the remarkable spin-offs, the medical research issues that have spun off, I just don't want us to get competitive and say, no, we don't need to be doing that; we need to be doing this over here. Let's talk positively about what we can do, and what priorities we can set together, and what we can accomplish that's good for this country and good for the world as well. Welcome.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Cramer. I thought you were going to give me a few little jabs there.
Mr. CRAMER. Oh, no.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. You know, I jab people, but I don't mind being jabbed back. No, that's fine. That's what democracy is all about.
Mr. Cook from Utah—if that's okay with you folks—would like to make a brief opening statement.
Mr. COOK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing. Back in the 1970's, I had an opportunity to work for 3 or 4 years with Arthur D. Little Co., and got to know Dr. Peter Glaser quite well, and, through some of the seminars there at ADL, listened to many of his visions for this solar power satellite concept, beaming literally an electric source—electricity source—to Earth. And over the years I have been wondering why there has been little—at least publicity—in terms of the R&D efforts with NASA in relation to this, because he used to say—he used to say that he felt that NASA would be one of the primary R&D sources for these concepts and these ideas.
I know he's still alive. He works part-time with ADL still, who's in Cambridge. And I would hope that if there has been any R&D over the last 20 years, that some of that will be included in some of your opening comments, and I look forward to hearing why this wouldn't be a very important research and development focus for NASA in the future. Thank you.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. The House is in session this morning, and we'll probably have to break for a vote. So with no objection, the Chair asks unanimous consent to declare recess at any time. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
With us today, we have three distinguished witnesses to address the topic of NASA's Fresh Look study at space solar power, and before I introduce them I would like to ask them all to rise so that I can swear them in.
And I have to stand up myself. So, raise your right hand.
And do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you will give before this Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. MANKINS. I do.
Mr. MARYNIAK. I do.
Mr. GREY. I do.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you all for coming today. Without objection, your written statements will be included in the record, and we would ask each of you to summarize your key points. You have 5 minutes, and we will be taking at least one round of questioning, and maybe two rounds of questioning from the Committee today.
First we have with us, Dr. John Mankins, the Manager of Advanced Concepts Studies in the Office of Space Flight at NASA Headquarters.
Let's see. Well, I'll introduce the others later so, if you would like to proceed.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN MANKINS, MANAGER, ADVANCED CONCEPTS STUDIES, OFFICE OF SPACE FLIGHT, NASA HEADQUARTERS
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Mr. MANKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you today, concerning the topic of space solar power, and specifically the space solar power Fresh Look study that was conducted in 1995–1996, which I participated in.
I would like to begin, Mr. Chairman, by observing that NASA is not the lead in the Federal Government for Power Systems Technology Development for Earth Applications, and that commercial space solar power is not currently a priority within NASA's current strategic plan. With limited budgeted resources envisioned for NASA under the Balanced Budget Agreement, funding for any focused NASA effort in support of space solar power technology is neither included in NASA's existing budget, nor contemplated at this time for future NASA budgets.
Solar power satellites were invented by a Czech-American, Dr. Peter Glaser, of the Arthur D. Little Co., in 1968, and following several years of preliminary studies, and driven by the impetus of the oil crisis of that time, a major study of power from space was conducted by the then newly-created Department of Energy, with the assistance of NASA, during the late 1970's. However, instead of leading to a new program, as has been observed, the 1970's study led to the complete stoppage of all major government work in this area by the United States.
And the question is, why did this happen? The answer is predominantly an economic one. The DOE–NASA study created a thing called the 1979 Reference System Concept for Solar Power Satellites, which quickly became the focus for debate and for discussion. The 1979 Reference System involved placing a series of exceptionally large solar power satellites in geostationary Earth orbit, each of which would provide 5 gigawatts of power to major cities on the ground, using a microwave beam.
Figure 1, please. I need to focus just a little bit.
Sixty of these satellites were contemplated to deliver a total of 300 gigawatts of generating capacity. These systems were—it's just an array of 5 kilometers, by 10 kilometers, by half a kilometer deep, in space-manufactured system. The transmitting antenna was about a kilometer in diameter, as you can see.
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These systems were to be launched using extremely large, fully-reusable, two-stage heavy lift vehicles. Figure 2, please.
Just for comparison, the current Space Shuttle is about the size of one of the wings of the lower half of the two-stage system. It's an 11,000 metric ton launcher, in terms of its gross lift-off weight, and the SPS's were to be assembled in space by hundreds of astronauts that are working at equally large space factories in Earth orbit. This is Figure 3.
And if you'll forgive me, another ad hoc. If you watch the Star Trek television program, a Borg mothership would be dwarfed by this concept. The alien spacecraft in Voyager, Star Trek Voyager.
The bottom line was that, based on these system concepts, the 1979 Reference Concept for solar power satellites was projected to require more than $250 billion to build the first one in current year dollars, and would take 20 years to develop the technology, build infrastructure, and to deploy the first operational system.
It was clear to the Office of Technology Assessment, the National Research Council, the various policy communities, that no profitable business could be started in any normal sense on this basis, and that a government program of this magnitude was judged to be unnecessary, if not actually ridiculous in the absence of a major national threat.
Moreover, the 1970's study focused on the domestic U.S. energy market, not the developing world. And these concepts that I just showed you involved very significant technological risks; major advances—about 100 major technological advances—beyond the state-of-the-art of that time.
As a result of these factors and some others, government work stopped around 1981. However, times and technologies have changed since those studies were created. During the 1995–1996 NASA study, the Fresh Look study, we took a new look at the question of commercial generation of space power for terrestrial applications, the goal of which was to determine whether or not new concepts enabled by new technologies might make possible space power—space solar power—systems that were both technically and economically viable within the foreseeable future.
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The fundamental result of the study was that it determined that to be economically viable any space solar power system must fall within a range in an economic trade space.
If I could have Figure 4.
Basically, the goal would be at a high level that any such concept to be viable would have to cost something like $1 billion to $10 billion to start commercial operations, and would have to produce power at something like 1 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour in order to compete commercially.
A team spent the better part of a year organizing and examining 29 new and existing concepts, and developing some fundamental design strategies for how to go about tackling this problem. I'll just list a few of those.
Systems should serve global markets, not just the United States; systems have to be brilliant and capable of self-assembly, rather than relying on astronauts and in-space factories; systems have to be modular and comprised of many elements that can be mass-produced cheaply from the very beginning; systems have to be capable of being launched on space transports that are in common with other space markets, that are not unique to this application; and ultimately, we identified—the Fresh Look study team identified—two new systems concepts which might make possible space solar power systems that are fundamentally more feasible technically and economically than the 1979 Reference.
One of these, the SunTower—Figure 5, please—is a middle Earth orbit constellation concept that would provide global energy services quite quickly. This concept is modular and self-assembling, and its gravity-gradient stabilizes its alignment passively due to the forces of gravity rather than their needing to be actively-oriented; and involves a variety of many discrete solar array systems which are mass-produced. The belief is that with technology maturation this concept could be viable as soon as 10 to 20 years from now.
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The second concept—it's called the Solar Disk—is a large-scale geo-Stationary Earth orbit platform that would provide regional power; for example to a region such as India, or to the east coast of the United States, or other places. This system is also modular, but would be spin stabilized. The disk—that you can just barely see because of the quality of the transparency, I apologize—is a single, large, spinning, thin-film PV array, as opposed to being the massive, conventional, single-crystal PV array that would be supported on that half-kilometer-thick crust structure that you saw in the reference concept.
Now the belief is it would—that this is a much more aggressive technical concept, and would be one that would be viable in the longer term, probably no sooner than about 20 years from today, with aggressive technology maturation.
These concepts both address a global energy market, which means they would not have to begin by competing with well-established, fully-amortized, ground power systems. The concepts—particularly the SunTower—are comprised of many ''brilliant'' systems, and are largely self-assembling and self-managing. By using many thousands of identical elements, the belief is that the initial hardware costs can be drastically lower, as seen in the recent development of the LEO constellations—telecommunications satellite constellations.
Concepts would be launched effectively in relatively small packages, 10 or 20 metric tons as opposed to hundreds of metric tons, and could make use of today's transports that were common with other new space industries, such as public space travel.
And finally these new space solar power concepts appear to be—to involve—technologies which are applicable to diverse NASA and commercial space applications. For example, enabling low-cost, large-scale transports, using solar electric propulsion, as well as providing lower cost power for all telecommunication satellite applications.
So times and technologies have indeed changed. The RLV program and its associated Advanced Space Transportation Program are already starting us down a path to commercial launch services at prices of hundreds of dollars a pound rather than thousands. Low Earth to orbit constellations are setting a benchmark for modular brilliant systems. They point toward the Fresh Look study architectures and concepts. I should hasten to point out though this is not to say that the technologies that would be needed for space solar power are by any means easy, or that they are already at hand. However, the new system concepts do require fewer new system developments and fewer new technologies, than those of the 1979 reference system. And therefore the degree of technical risk in these concepts appears to be lower than was true in the concepts of the 1979 case.
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The Department of Energy—U.S. Department of Energy—has projected that during the coming 25 years world demand for energy will double, as illustrated in this figure, and that using current technologies, this will lead to increases in greenhouse gases. No insignificant concern—and at this time there are a number of scientists who are concerned that the increasing emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could lead to global warming. So there's a clear need to pursue technologies to meet this demand, which are renewable energy technologies.
And more importantly, space commerce has come of age. This year for the first time the commercial space industry will have revenues which exceed government-funded industry revenues, and billions of dollars are now raised regularly for commercial space ventures. And the global markets for energy are real. If the high risk technologies involved in space solar power are matured, then private sector capitalization of such ventures should be far more viable than could have been dreamed in the 1970's.
Of course, the development of such technologies would involve a concerted effort by the Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce, and Transportation, as well as NASA and other organizations. Industry would have to be involved from the very beginning; not just aerospace industry, but global industry companies, power plant builders, and power utility organizations.
This venture would be global from its initiation. For example, space solar power would involve the allocation of radio spectrum, which would have to be approved by world bodies before any serious development could take place. And finally, environmental and health issues would have to be considered carefully.
No new power technology is risk free. Appropriate assessments would have to be done to assure that the costs and the risks of space solar power systems were lower than those of competing technologies, such as coal-burning plants or nuclear reactors.
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In closing, I'd like to reiterate that the recently completed Fresh Look study was a preliminary assessment, and additional studies are needed. If the commercially viable space solar power systems concepts considered here are to be realized, aggressive technology development would also be required. It is nevertheless the conclusion of the Fresh Look study that the time has come for a reconsideration of power from space as a potential global energy option. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Mankins follow:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. I appreciate your testimony. We will recess for probably 10 minutes, and get back here in 10, 12 minutes. So we're in recess.
[Brief Recess.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I'll call the hearing back to order again. Although we can—maybe we can have the next witness be the witness after next. I mean Dr. Grey could—we could move forward with Dr. Grey.
With no objection, maybe we would have Dr. Grey as the next witness, instead of——
All right. Second we have Mr. Greg Maryniak. He is President of the Sunset Energy Council, a group founded by SPS inventor Dr. Peter Glaser, of course, who we are familiar with; and a senior scientist at the—is it——
Mr. MARYNIAK. Futron.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Futron—okay, I didn't want to think it was a mattress or something—Futron Corporation, who worked as a consultant to Dr. Mankins. Why do I want to put extra R's in everything—has anything to do with Rohrabacher or something?
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I also understand that you're a reformed lawyer—that's terrific.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Thank you, sir.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I want you to know that my most effective campaign slogan when I first ran for office was, ''Vote for Dana, at least he's not a lawyer.''
An achievement—and that's an achievement, as I say.
Okay. You may proceed. And again, if you could summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. When all the witnesses are over, we'll come back and have an extensive questioning. So far the testimony has been very intriguing, and we've had a lot of discussion about it in the elevators, walking back and forth.
Please go right ahead.
TESTIMONY OF GREG MARYNIAK, PRESIDENT, SUNSET ENERGY COUNCIL, AND SENIOR SCIENTIST, FUTRON CORPORATION
Mr. MARYNIAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd ask that we drop the lights for purposes of the overhead projector.
The fundamental fact that faces all decisionmakers around the world today is that there'll be 10 billion people in the next century: 10 billion people that need to be fed, housed; 10 billion people that require energy. And most of these 10 billion people will not live in the kind of energy comfort—the energy abundance—that we enjoy. Most will live in a condition closer to the woman depicted in this slide, who spends 70 percent of her day in sub-Saharan Africa, collecting energy to feed her family.
In the 1970's it was popular to talk about the Earth as a zero sum game. If I had something, by definition other people can't have the same thing. The Club of Rome did its famous Limits to Growth study, and in that study it considered the Earth to be essentially a closed system; a trapped system. But fortunately the 1970's also had visionaries like Dr. Peter Glaser, like Gerard O'Neill of Princeton, who saw that the Earth has never been a closed system. Indeed we exist on the energy that comes from our Sun, and that if we get a bit more efficient in collecting some of the energy which streams past us, we can solve some of the most urgent environmental issues that face our planet.
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Terrestrial solar power is critically important. It will be used all around the world, especially in residential areas and other places where the energy use density is fairly small. But for places like cities or any kinds of industry we need to have an energy density that exceeds what you can collect in the local area, and space solar power solves that problem by collecting the energy in space and transmitting it to the Earth.
Every square meter in space at the distance that the Earth is from the Sun—the table top in a small two-person table at a restaurant—sees enough raw power to light 13 100-watt light bulbs, 1.3 kilowatts.
A square meter at the distance of the Earth from the Sun sees, has fall on it, 1.3 thousand watts of power—1.3 kilowatts of power—all the time. It's a constant energy flux. And the nice thing about space is that it sees it all the time, as opposed to the surface of the Earth.
When Dr. Glaser proposed solar power satellites in the late 1960's, he did so after spending a good part of his career developing terrestrial solar power. And he realized that the Earth itself gets in the way of the Sun for most of the time, over most of the world.
The impact of working on space solar power and space solar power technologies, which has been proposed as the result of the Fresh Look study, doesn't only apply to large scale space solar power for Earth. There are immediate near-term benefits. For example, our colleagues in Canada had studies, using the wireless power technology that lets you bring the power from space to Earth to put telecommunications platforms at the top of the Earth's atmosphere, so you can provide coverage for an entire city, and reuse the frequencies over the next city, and the city after that.
Power companies around the world are now being deregulated. This means that they're able to sell their power, and in fact they must sell their power, outside of their old traditional monopoly markets. So some of the largest power utilities in the world are now interested in using wireless power technologies, perhaps even before solar power satellites, as power relay satellites. So that, for example, Hydro Quebec could sell its power to the continent of Europe, or that utilities in Alaska might sell energy to Japan, and across the Pacific Rim.
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The same technologies might allow powering the Space Station or space industrial parks with Stations which are not located on—at the same site as—the the Space Station. A the Space Station has to have huge enormous wings which create drag and problems for the microgravity component of the Space Station mission. But if instead it had small antennas, and received its power from a co-orbiting platform you could solve that problem.
And finally, if you work on space power technologies, what you're really doing is what you need to do to make space exploration and space transportation cheap and robust; and what you're really doing is enabling easy space—easy solar system activity.
Now the message of the benefits of space solar power is by no means limited to the United States. I'd briefly like to summarize some of the work in other countries, other nations. I'd like to acknowledge the presence here of some guests from the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian Embassy.
Canada built the first wireless-powered airplane for telecommunications purposes. Hydro Quebec, as I mentioned, is involved in a study on solar power relay satellites. And just about 2 months ago, the world solar power community met in Montreal, and about 26 percent of the delegates were from utility companies, in Sweden, Germany, Indonesia, Canada, and the United States.
Europe and Russia also possess interest in skills or space solar power. ESA has just concluded a study on high altitude relay platforms powered by wireless power transmission. MBB in Germany has been studying space power for the last 5 years or so.
France has been extremely active. Electricite de France, the French national electrical utility, has led the coordination of the international space power experts and people interested in solar power satellites for about the last decade. And with the help of CNES, the French equivalent of NASA, a project is underway on Reunion Island, which is the French equivalent of Hawaii—it's in the Indian Ocean—to transmit power to a small remote village, which is separated by a gorge from the power plant as a demonstration project of wireless power transmission.
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The country with the strongest interest today outside the United States in space power and space power technologies is Japan. Japan flew its own wireless radio-powered airplane in 1992. Two years ago it demonstrated the flight of an airship, about the size of the room that we're in, under radio power. The second largest utility company in Japan, Kansai Electric, set up its own ground-to-ground space power test about 2 years ago.
Japan has flown two space experiments on wireless power transmission: the first called MINIX, which looked at the interaction between radio frequency beams and the ionosphere; and the second one, METS, which stands for Microwave Energy Transport in Space, which beamed power from a mother ship to a daughter ship. So for the first time power was sent from one spacecraft to another, using these technologies.
Japan also possesses a device called the Space Free Flyer Unit. It's a large reusable space platform, which is launched on the Japanese H–2 heavylift rocket, and it's recovered by the Space Shuttle; and it's ideally suited for space power experiments. In fact, that's one of the rationales for its creation. And they made their first successful flight about 2 years ago, and it was recovered by the Space Shuttle.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry, MITI, believes that the Fresh Look study that NASA has just concluded is so important that it has created a special committee to examine the study, and to advise the Japanese government about using or including space solar power as part of the official Japanese policy on energy and the environment. And in fact, I'm leaving tomorrow morning to testify before that group on Monday.
What should NASA do with space solar power? First, it should do what it has done to a limited extent over the past 20 years. This is a picture from 1975. This is the Goldstone Deep Space tracking facility. The big dish there is called the Venus site; it was used to beam 30 kilowatts of power to that bank of floodlights just below the crest of the hill.
NASA should do technology development in this area. Why? Not because NASA should own solar power satellites, but because NASA's mission should be in this area what it has been in aviation—to improve the technologies and reduce the risk for commercial players.
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But NASA has been traditionally reluctant to do this in this area, and my own belief is that it is because NASA has a different dream, and that dream is based on the outmoded dream proffered in the 1950's, when people thought Mars had an active biosphere; that the ultimate mission of human space activity should be—to go to—climb through evil, bad, ugly space, and go to nice other Earths like Mars. And this dream is imprinted on the cortexes of our colleagues in the manned space flight community; just like when a little baby duck hatches and sees a collie instead of his mother duck, he'll follow the collie around, quacking, Mars.
I believe this is a fundamental and serious problem; not because doing things at Mars is intrinsically bad, but because we need balance and perspective, and we should spend a reasonable amount of money on opportunities such as space solar power.
Congressman George Brown gave a terrific speech in 1989 that has come to be known as the Greater Earth Speech. He suggested that we should use the resources available in the Earth's metropolitan area—for example, lunar resources to build solar power satellites—to solve some of our most pressing problems. And he commented that NASA seems fixated on—when it thinks about the solar system, only recognizing the Moon sometimes and Mars most of the time, as the only place that's in the solar system.
So I urge the Committee to think about the fact that we have a unique opportunity to use what we have learned in the past 30 years, and particularly what NASA has learned in its Fresh Look study, to explode the myth of the Earth as a closed system, as a zero-sum game. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Maryniak follow:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you for that testimony. Next we have Dr. Jerry Grey, Director of Science Policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
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Dr. Grey, I understood that you interrupted a birthday vacation to come here to testify. So congratulations for being over 50, and we want to wish you a happy birthday. And again, if you could summarize your testimony in about 5 minutes, and I'm sure our panel has many questions to ask.
TESTIMONY OF JERRY GREY, DIRECTOR OF AEROSPACE AND SCIENCE POLICY, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS
Mr. GREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually I'm 39, but I'll let that go; it's not a problem. But I appreciate being your witness, and frankly on this subject I would not have missed this hearing, even if it had been the day of my birthday—which happens to be tomorrow—because this is a subject that I have been involved with personally, almost as long as Peter Glaser. And it's an area which I feel has been underrepresented, not only in NASA, as Mr. Maryniak has said, but also the general public, and the Congress, and other areas of the Administration, including the Department of Energy, with certain exceptions, have really not devoted adequate attention to what I think is one of the most important subject areas that this world can see for the next few decades.
Dr. Mankins has outlined for you the background of the Fresh Look solar power, space solar power concept. And he summarized the result of the study. He's made a strong case for reconsidering the space solar power option, because new approaches make it affordable for the first time, and because major changes have occurred in technology, in the economic environment, and also in our perception of the global climatic effects of power generation and use.
These concerns were with us 20 years ago, but they are much stronger today, and the growth and technology and the change in economic conditions has now brought the level of practicality of this system to a much greater level than it has been before.
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But as Dr. Mankins has correctly pointed out, NASA does not have the federal responsibility for terrestrial power generation, and we therefore need to see what role NASA should assume in pursuing this space solar power option.
NASA devotes the bulk of its resources in people to something called the Human Exploration and Development of Space. The HEDS budget this year consists almost solely of the $5.3 billion devoted to the near-term objectives of completing the International the Space Station and sustaining its access mode, the Shuttle.
The main goal of the Station and the Shuttle, which supports it, is to develop and demonstrate our ability to conduct human operations in space; that is to demonstrate in the space environment the technologies, the operational skills, and the systems needed to extend humankind's reach beyond the Earth and beyond its orbital neighborhood.
But in creating HEDS, NASA chose to lump two often very different goals into the same enterprise; exploration and development. As Mr. Maryniak has pointed out, the Agency's main interest in HEDS, as reflected in the Agency's public statements by senior NASA officials and the Agency's strategic plan, and in the number and extent of precursor robotic missions, appears to be exploration, and in particular, sending people to Mars.
Now, sending people to Mars is certainly a worthy and fascinating goal, but the mission-oriented hardware and systems it requires are generally not consistent with the equally important developmental goals that we can achieve through the use of space technologies. These include for example, space solar power—which we're talking about today—but also other important economic development areas, such as advances in communications, in Earth remote sensing, commercial microgravity applications, the entertainment industry, and eventually perhaps space tourism.
All of these could offer significant potential returns to the economy of the Nation and to the public at large. However, these two very different aspects of the HEDS enterprise, exploration and development, can really be reconciled.
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The mission-oriented systems are different, but many of the key technologies needed to support human space development are also essential to an effective effort in human space exploration. There are a bunch of obvious examples of this.
For example—and everyone seems to cite this in general—reliable, low-cost transportation, both Earth-to-orbit and orbit-to-orbit; protecting human crews from the debilitating space environmental effects, such as hard radiation and long periods of microgravity; closed- or nearly-closed life support systems; reliable long life power supplies; efficient low mass communications and data processing technologies; high data rate, high resolution sensors; and in particular, automated systems that can be used for routine operations, and also for non-terrestrial manufacturing and assembly, a point that Mr. Mankins raised as being one of the key elements in some of the Fresh Look concepts that he discussed. But which is also necessary, if we do go to Mars, for manufacturing the indigenous resources that we're going to need for any responsible sustained effort in exploring and settling Mars. So these technologies are common to both exploration and development.
NASA has recognized the value of some of these technologies, and has initiated several programs to pursue them. But the Agency must recognize that the development of space by humans for economic return and public access is at least as important as going to Mars.
The technology advancement programs that NASA has pursued must be conceived, selected and pursued in a manner that capitalizes on the commonality to both exploration and development. The problem is that NASA's technology projects are widely dispersed among the Agency's various enterprises, each of which understandably adapts the implementation of promising, emerging technologies to its own specific needs and own provincial interest.
Because the HEDS budget in particular is so heavily-weighted towards the Station and the Shuttle, whose primary rationale is the support of space exploration, the current emphasis in HEDS-related technology advancement is heavily skewed towards the goal of exploration rather than development.
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Now, to correct that imbalance, NASA's technology advancement programs need to be coordinated, although not necessarily managed, by a single office whose responsibility is very specific: planning for, and through technology advancement, building the capability for; both exploration and development of space by humans. And one of those development items of great concern to us all today is the space solar power system.
So there is an important role for NASA in pursuing space solar power. Because of its legislative charter, as well as the unique capabilities the Agency has developed through the years, NASA is the only Agency that's able to oversee the advancement and development of many of the technologies that Mr. Mankins has identified in the Fresh Look study. The most exciting aspect of this role however, is that it doesn't have to compromise NASA's avowed interest in space exploration, in particular sending people to Mars.
Because of the commonality of most of the technologies needed for both objectives, including the potential applications to space development, along with exploration, in NASA's technology advancement programs—implies only minimal incremental budget requirements during the coming decade. What is needed is not more money—although more money always helps—but upfront recognition by NASA of the applicability of new space technologies to developmental goals, such as space solar power, as well as to space exploration.
So again, in closing, to implement that doctrine, NASA should create the single office I have suggested, to coordinate all the Agency's technology advancement programs, and ensure that they are pursued with the commonality in mind between development and exploration. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Grey follow:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. This is being described as dual use, dual use.
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Mr. GREY. Dual use is a good word, but I hated to use it because it's kind of a buzz word.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Dual use, dual use. It's not just dual use, but it's dual use, dual use.
Mr. GREY. Dual use, dual use. Okay. Double dual use.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. There it is. Because you're getting dual use in the private—or not private sector, but in the non-military sector, and dual use for the military as well. Anyway, that's very interesting.
COST ISSUES
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I would like to move forward now with some questions, and so far I've found the panel very intriguing, and I want to thank you very much for attending.
First of all I'd like to get to part of this report, in terms of—when I was a reporter I found out there were only two questions you really had to ask to look like you were really smart, so I just asked these two questions repeatedly in different forms, and everybody thought I was brilliant, at least I thought people thought I was brilliant.
And it was just, how much is it going to cost, and who's going to pay for it. Those are the two questions that will plague mankind forever, and maybe you could—Dr. Mankins, you can tell us how much is this? With current technologies and the technologies that you are projecting that can be developed if we commit ourselves to this project, how much would a project cost to produce—well, how much energy?
Mr. MANKINS. The answer of course has to get caveated by——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Sure.
Mr. MANKINS (continuing). —Further results of our preliminary studies, and then couched in terms of three major pieces. First——
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. I'm asking for an educated guess.
Mr. MANKINS. Right. I'm going to give you one.
Probably for an initial middle Earth orbit type system like the SunTower, with platforms that produced something like 400 megawatts on the ground.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And how much is 400 megawatts? Tell us how much——
Mr. MANKINS. Four hundred megawatts is like a small town, small city.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Arlington.
Mr. MANKINS. Hmm, on that order. Typically—in the old days a whole power plant—a big power plant was on the order of a few hundred megawatts. And of course these days power plants are on the order of a gigawatt or more. But enough for many thousands of homes or quite a few businesses.
And the cost to build the first one of such a platform, we estimate it to be something like—this is after technology has been successfully matured——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Right.
Mr. MANKINS (continuing). —And has been demonstrated, and so on and so forth. To be something on the order of $5 billion to $7 billion. So on the order of $10 a watt. A little bit more than $10 a watt for the first one, and then as you deploy additional satellites, still about $10 a watt.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And what is the cost today for producing them?
Mr. MANKINS. When you look at the cost of terrestrial power plants, typically you have to take into account, not just the capital cost, but also the cost of fuels and ancillary costs associated with the infrastructure.
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What you might see in a normal—a major power system as a capital cost on the order of $3 or $4 a watt, and then you'll have fuel costs and other—life cycle costs, that will bring the cost of the power that comes out of those plants to something like, 3 or 4 or 5 cents a kilowatt hour. And the costs that we found for the comparable median orbit SunTower case, because you have the advantage of being fuel-less, over a 40-year life cycle was on the order of 4 cents a kilowatt hour.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. So we've finally gotten to the area of competitive pricing.
Mr. MANKINS. Certainly to the first part——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Competitive costs anyway.
Mr. MANKINS. It looks like—the cost of the power looks competitive.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. Is there any detrimental impact in the microwave concept—I guess it's microwaving that you're going to be sending the energy down. We heard from this testimony already. Maybe I should ask Mr. Maryniak that—is microwaving detrimental to the Earth's—are we going to destroy more of the ozone or something like this?
Mr. MARYNIAK. No, we use radio beams everyday, microwaves specifically for telecommunications. The question is the density, the energy density of the beam.
The energy density of the beam at the center of the beam is actually less than the energy density of Sunlight. So it is possible to transmit large amounts of energy without having a detrimental environmental effect. In fact in Japan, as we speak, there's a project that's called Microwave Garden.
The problem with microwaves and their safety is, people are rightfully concerned about things they cannot see.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Right.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Folks are especially concerned about hazards that they can't——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. But in terms of the overall—not directly if somebody gets in the way of the microwave, but overall, there's nothing that's going to burn up part of our Earth's environment.
Mr. MARYNIAK. No, the answer is no. And in fact the Japanese space experiments show that the coupling of the microwave beam with the atmosphere is not——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Is there anyone in the scientific world challenging that notion that we ought to know about, or is this pretty well accepted?
Mr. MARYNIAK. I believe in terms of hurting the atmosphere that no one has challenged that proposition.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right, because we were talking about how they're already discussing transmitting hydroelectric power via this, this approach.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Yes, two ways, up and then down.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Right. Well, that's fascinating. Rather than having to go through the—building lines across the tundra, or whatever it is, across the forest.
Mr. GREY. Mr. Chairman, there were also a number of environmental studies done during the 1979–1980 study, and this was probably I would say the most useful outcome of that study. Nothing was found that indicated any effect of any type that would be a deleterious effect. Again, there is always a perception, as Mr. Maryniak pointed out, but in terms of any real effects—they did studies on birds and on bees, and a whole bunch of other environmental considerations. None of them indicated any long-lasting or any negative effect.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, of course—and this would prevent us from having to build this huge infrastructure across territory that people would like to keep in an environmentally pure situation. We don't want to build pipelines. They don't want to build electric power plants or lines across this. And actually those power transformers, or whatever they are, cost a lot of money to build those as well, and to maintain those. So if you can generate this from space, and—now, we're also talking about—and this report indicates that we can actually—we could sell this power to undeveloped countries as well.
Mr. MANKINS. In fact that was the principal market target of the Fresh Look study; was to go into areas where there are not existing power plants to compete with, and they don't have large-scale utility grids, which are also expensive. But instead you can go in and pick a particular city or locality, and sell power directly into a new market, and help them industrialize.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. My time is up for now, and there will be time for a second round of questioning.
Mr. Lampson.
WHY TAKE A FRESH LOOK?
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When the subject was last reviewed in the 1980's, the National Academy of Sciences and the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), identified a series of significant technological transportation and economic obstacles to the commercial viability of solar power satellites.
Has anything happened to alter their concerns, their findings in the last 15 years? Can you tell us about that?
Mr. MANKINS. I think that the basic approach of the Fresh Look study was in fact to go in and try to resolve those financial barriers. And the approach that we took to try to modularize the system so that you could begin with smaller systems, so that you could eliminate the in-space infrastructure, so that you could launch the system in smaller packages and didn't require a large unique space transportation system; all of those things led us to find drastically reduced costs, perhaps well below $10 billion for our first power plant, as opposed to $250 billion for our first power plant, in this study concept that the OTA and the National Academy reviewed in the past.
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And in terms of the basic technologies, of course at the time we had not yet even flown an operational Space Shuttle, whereas today we have a mature Space Shuttle system, and we are pursuing aggressively technologies for next generation launchers that are going to drive that cost down on a commercial basis by at least an order of magnitude—you've got to go lower than that by at least another factor of 5 for space power to be viable. But we've made a great deal of progress since 1980 in those technologies and others.
A trivial example, but a very nice one, the Teledesic telecommunications concept—324 satellites are being procured if the project goes forward. Each one is 6 kilowatts of power. It'll be almost 2 megawatts of space power procured to be the distributed single system which will be Teledesic, unthinkable in 1979. And using phased arrays and onboard processing, through a low-cost launch—not as good as we need for space power, but definitely down that same track.
Mr. MARYNIAK. In addition to the technology development, which is profound, things like laptop computers were wild science fiction when Glaser developed the first SPS notion.
The big telling criticism in the oversight reports about space solar power were about the transportation costs. It seems unthinkable to do these kind of systems if transportation costs are tens of thousands of dollars a pound, and it is unthinkable it it's tens of thousands of dollars a pound. But the problem with space flight—the economic problem—is that there's just not enough of it. If you fly 12 times a year it's going to cost you half a billion dollars a flight perhaps.
So the goal of reusable space transportation is greatly served by this kind of project. In fact, you can argue that unless some kind of commercial mission model evolves so that NASA can ride the commercial wave, instead of trying to be the wave, that we'll never see the attainment of the kinds of low cost to orbit that we need for industry to flourish in space.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Dr. Mankins, what's NASA doing, and what does it have to be doing, to really accomplish things to support what we've talked about; make it happen? Dr. Mankins?
Mr. MANKINS. Sorry.
NASA has conducted over the last couple of years the Fresh Look study to develop analytical tools to study such systems, and has defined preliminary concepts. There are a number of elements of NASA's ongoing research and technology programs which are directly germane, as I think Jerry Grey alluded to, both in the Office of Space Science, as well as the Office of Space Flight and elsewhere.
To a large extent—that's pretty much it. Some preliminary studies which have been conducted, and relevant technologies, and a number of the ongoing programs.
SPACE STATION APPLICATIONS
Mr. LAMPSON. Let me go back to something, Greg, that you had mentioned. You had in your presentation mentioned drag and antennas on a the Space Station.
Would you repeat that and elaborate just a little bit on it. Obviously there's technology that needs to be changed to accomplish that. Tell me what's involved with it.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Yes, sir. The notion is that instead of putting the system—the solar panels, which convert the solar energy into electricity—on the Station themselves, you might put them on a utility farm in the neighborhood of the Space Station, and send the power by a radio beam to antennas on the Station.
Now, instead of the solar panels—and if you look at a model of the Space Station—and I guess we have pictures. But we have a picture of the whole Station. It's dominated by these huge wings, and every time an air molecule impinges on the wings it's the same as a retro rocket being fired; it brings the Station into a slightly lower orbit.
On the other hand, the antennas that receive the microwave power are very much like chain-link fence, literally. I mean that's about what they look like. So they have much less drag. Probably my guess would be about 20 or 30 times less drag for the same area. So the idea is a company—call it Orbital Power and Light—is in the neighborhood of the Space Station, and sells the power to the Station, which then is not being dragged down constantly, and doesn't have to keep firing its little thrusters. Each time it does that it messes up the experiments on board the Station.
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Mr. LAMPSON. That's fascinating. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Yes, it is. That's why we're having this hearing.
Dr. Weldon.
ENERGY DEMAND
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really do want to thank you for calling this hearing. I think this is a fascinating subject, and I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
Clearly, I think this needs to be debated more in terms of mainstream policy; get it out of the fringes and get it into open debate. And one of the obvious reasons is there's a lot of discussion these days about greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide loads in the atmosphere. And I think we have a real opportunity to put forward a proposal for the solution to some of these problems for all of mankind that does not involve draconian changes in lifestyles, particularly people who live in the west.
Also, I'd like to point out there was an op-ed in The Washington Post recently, written by a University of Toledo geologist, talking about how it's being universally agreed by most people in the geology community that the amount of petroleum in the world is limited, and that we may be in a situation early in the next decade where there may actually be global declining reserves. So we do need to seriously start taking a look at alternative power sources.
LEO COMSATS AS DEMONSTRATORS
Mr. WELDON of Florida. One of the things I've been interested in, and I don't know if you've alluded to this or not, and I've been in and out of the room somewhat—Dr. Mankins, we've been talking about these telecommunications constellations that are going up that will be collecting a lot of power, using microwaves to transmit telecommunications data.
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As I understand it, you can transmit power with the telecommunications data; that that's technically been demonstrated as being feasible; you can couple it into the same beam. And therefore there are some studies—I've actually seen studies by Martin Hoffert and Seth Potter, that proposed using these telecommunication satellites as a technology demonstrator, and coupling with a space power generation, and transmitting it to Earth.
I'd like your comment on that, Dr. Mankins first, and if any of the other witnesses want to comment on it, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.
Mr. MANKINS. I'm very familiar with the work of Drs. Hoffert and Potter—Marty and Seth—they're both very good friends. The systems do provide a very good opportunity, because they do use reasonably large amounts of power, as I mentioned, for Teledesic. It would be a 6 kilowatt power system per satellite. And they do phased arrays. They do substantial on-board processing, and active pointing of the beam, and so on and so forth. So you might utilize those satellites in a cooperative way for some in-space demonstrations.
I do have my own difference with them with regard to whether or not they represent a good systems-level stepping stone towards an operational space solar power system. And the reason for that is that at 6 kilowatts, and a transmitting phased array, which is smaller than this table top, those systems are several orders of magnitude smaller than a relatively small solar power satellite. And so I think the idea—the technologies are extremely similar. The mass production is all directly—it's right on the course. But whether or not those systems, per se, could operationally make that kind of jump so that one generation is this big, and the next generation is drastically larger, I think is somewhat problematic.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Well, I was talking about it more in terms of a technology demonstrator.
Mr. MANKINS. Oh, it's a perfect fit, right.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. That, you know, without investing billions of dollars, we could join forces with somebody in private industry who's producing one of these constellations, and piggyback some NASA equipment on their bird at their ground Stations, and perhaps simply seeing if we can just operate their ground Station, using the power that's coming down.
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Mr. MANKINS. On the ground it would be hard. The energy densities on the ground are exceptionally small. The space to space would be much more feasible. But the transmitting array is sufficiently small, that even at those frequencies the beam is going to spread, and so—and we've looked at various demonstrations you might try, and you typically want to get up to a larger transmitter, say on the order of 5 to 10 meters in size, and with somewhat more power than they would have a priori on their satellite.
Certainly something could be explored along those lines, and certainly the technology is relevant. I don't know if you could directly use one of their satellites.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Thank you very much.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Cook.
WHAT'S THE NEXT STEP?
Mr. COOK. Well, thank you.
I think one of the questions I had has been answered, in terms of why things—at least from the research and development mode—didn't get really underway during the 1970's. And I think it was because—basically if I understood the testimony—just transportation costs alone, no matter how far the technology of the solar collection, or generation, of transmission, the idea of getting this kind of thing into orbit—22,000 mile orbit, or whatever orbit—was just uneconomic.
So my question really is, even if there was a strong commitment on the part of the Congress or NASA to get space solar power as a real reality, in terms of terrestrial use from space, is the time line—and this is kind of a modification of the question the Chairman was asking—how much is it going to cost? How long is it going to take? Is the time line a lot more related to continuing to get the cost of launch down, the cost of a pound into space down, or is it technical matters that relate specifically to solar power, whether it's generation or collection or transmission?
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In other words, is one of the reasons why there's not an R&D effort really active is it's—everybody knows there's not just much of a chance in terms of the transportation cost problems associated with it, I guess.
Mr. GREY. Mr. Cook, I think we have a very good parallel in history that tends to answer your question, and that is what we did in the satellite communications industry.
If you look back into the 1960's, 1965, we had a demand for communications on Earth, but the technology for satellite communications was really in its infancy. NASA spent about 10 years, and at that time about a billion dollars total, in developing a wholly new technology. And what happened was, there was a demand. Even though the launch costs are still very high, we find we have a very viable communications industry today, because NASA reduced the risk for private industry to make the investment that it needed to make, the large investments.
Teledesic is investing $10 billion. Iridium has already invested, or has already raised capital totalling about $4 billion. We're not talking small things. But they did it because the technology risk was minimal, and the market was there; you need both of those things.
Today, I think in satellite power systems we have exactly a parallel situation. We are very early in the technology game. We need to spend a fair amount of time reducing the risk, and certainly transportation is one of those, but the market is certainly there, especially when we begin to look at some of the environmental controls we're going to have to impose over the next couple of decades. Without some mechanism to provide essentially pollution-free energy, we're going to be in serious trouble. And the market then is available for the private industry to say, if the technology has been reduced to the point at which it was done say in the satellite communication field, we will invest the $5- or $-10 or $15 billion necessary. And I think that's the scenario that I think we're in today.
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Mr. COOK. So I take it there's still just a whole lot of research that really needs to be done in the basics of this whole solar—well, let me just make this point to try to get the question I'm trying to get at.
I suppose if the R&D on solar generation even, were as advanced as it ought to be we would have those systems on this Cassini project instead of plutonium generation. I mean, I'm jumping to a conclusion here. I'm just saying, I take it that we're still in the infancy though, in terms of—well, of the whole research——
Well, anyway, what I'm trying to find out—the thing I'm interested in is—where are those research dollars best spent if we want to get to space solar power, which I think would be a wonderful thing, obviously, and directly related to the mission of NASA.
Mr. MANKINS. If I may, I think your perception is exactly right; namely that it is the normal view, i.e, the mainstream view of the aerospace engineering community, that huge projects—and the conception of space solar from the 1970's; it's a huge project, and it's got a hundred different major technologies, and it's got dozens of major systems—that this thing is off in the unimaginably distant future, like building large scale colonies on the Moon.
But I think the fundamental result of the Fresh Look study was—and therefore it's 40 or 50 years away, and it's always going to be 40 or 50 years away, and therefore don't worry about it.
I think the fundamental result of the Fresh Look study was to identify these systems strategies, which could be based on technologies which are identifiable—we're not at the point where we want to be or have to be in cost, or in mass, or other key parameters to make it cost effective. There's no magic. There's no fundamental physics; no anti-gravity required. And therefore you can identify strategic lines of attack on this problem, which are tractable in, we think, on the order of a decade, and that includes low cost—ultra low cost launch.
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And so we've gone from something which might be thinkable some day maybe 40 or 50 years away, based on our preliminary studies, to something which with an aggressive technology maturation effort might be tractable within the decade.
Mr. COOK. That's very nice to hear.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. And now from—I understand; I was just going to give Roscoe a laudatory introduction here—the scientist that keeps us all honest on this Committee; the guy who actually knows what you're all talking about, and rather than being educated every day with all these great new things, Roscoe has already been educated to these things, and actually is able to calculate further calculations, and expand upon the knowledge that he gains here. In other words, we depend a lot on Roscoe, when we're rocking back and forth between our votes, to tell us what we're hearing is good or bad, or crazy.
So, Roscoe, would you like to ask a few questions?
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. But if your technology training is more than a few months old in this rapidly expanding world of knowledge, well, you're pretty obsolete. But in another life that was one of the things I did.
I just had a kind of a technical question relative to the sister satellite and the intraspace power transmission, and the efficacy of doing that. I can think of only two reasons that you're better off by having a sister satellite. One of them is that you don't have the problem of firing rockets intermittently to maintain your orbit, and so that—but that would be only very occasionally, and I would gather you could program that into your experiments, and wouldn't be terribly disruptive.
The only other advantage I can see is, that if you're able to put the power satellite at a very much higher altitude so that it didn't have the drag problems. Otherwise, I can see no utility to having the sister satellites, because you're still going to have to launch something; you're still going to have to expend the same—the same rockets to fire intermittently to keep it in orbit.
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Is there something that I'm missing on the benefit of having a sister satellite?
Mr. MARYNIAK. There is I think an economic benefit if you're doing enough of it. We don't all have a power plant in our house, or in each factory, typically because it's more economical to have a large central efficient plant.
Mr. BARTLETT. But what you're saying is, that if this sister satellite really served a number.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Yes.
Mr. BARTLETT. Okay, okay. So you have some economies of scale there that you hope will benefit you.
Mr. MARYNIAK. Yes. I mean, hopefully, the Space Station serves as sort of the nucleus of the downtown, and a lot of things happening.
TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES
Mr. BARTLETT. Okay. The next question relates to the kinds of technology leaps that you're presuming if we can get the space power at $10 a watt now; if you're buying it retail here it's about $6 watt; a 60-watt panel would cost you roughly $360 retail. This may be a high off to a third of that at the end of the production line. But even if the cost of the PV module were zero, the cost of launching it today drives the cost up enormously.
What kinds of technology leaps are you anticipating? Are they in the development of PV, or in the development of launch, or in both? And how soon are we likely to get the technology that's needed to realize those $10 per watt in space?
Mr. MANKINS. We identify it on the order of—let's say on the order of 8 or 10 major areas of technology that would need to be advanced aggressively, and we did a variety of sensitivity analyses to determine by how much.
By way of analog, I'll just cite the fusion example, where we've invested for 30 years. And they've gotten now to the point where they're, after 30 years, or 40 years and $30 billion globally, they're within a factor of 2 feasibility—in virtually all the cases that we're looking at, the major technologies are within a factor of 2 to 5.
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So, in some cases you need a factor of 5 improvement compared to what you can do today; in some cases it's as little as a factor of 2 or less.
Mr. BARTLETT. Now, how long does it take us to get there, and at what cost?
Mr. MANKINS. What we projected was that these were—these technical problems did not involve fundamental physics, and that they should be tractable on a time scale; on the order of a decade they're hard, but they're not nearly so intractable as say fusion research was when it was initiated in the late 1950's. And in terms of what would it really cost to do it, obviously there has to be a serious technology planning activity, and really lay those out with the right technical communities.
But our judgment was that it was substantially below $10 billion.
Mr. BARTLETT. Below $10 billion.
Mr. MANKINS. For the technology maturation.
ENERGY DEMAND
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes. Let me ask you another question. One of you mentioned that there is a growing recognition that there is not an infinite supply of fossil fuels on the Earth, particularly the high quality ones, gas and oil, which now fuel much of our energy needs.
How much of an incentive do you think this recognition will provide to develop alternative energy sources? And I will say that I am one of the Members of Congress who have been stoutly promoting and defending alternative energy sources. I've recognized for a great many years that there just cannot be an infinite supply, and we're not producing fossil fuels at any meaningful rate today. Ions of time in the past have produced what we now are exploiting at a ferocious rate.
As a matter of fact, until the Carter years, each decade we used as much energy as was used in all previous history of the Earth. That slowed down a little bit after Carter, but it's still—it still is proceeding at a ferocious rate of devouring the—what I consider to be the relatively small amounts of high quality fossil fuels remaining in the world.
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And we have an enormous petrochemical industry that is based on gas and oils. As a matter of fact, it's my understanding we have essentially no nitrogen fertilizer if we have no gas. And immediately our crop production drops to a fraction of what it is now.
So I think that we have enormous incentives to explore alternative energy sources. And my question is, to what extent does this reality increase the incentives to explore this alternative energy option?
Mr. GREY. Mr. Bartlett, there's no question that we are using up resources at a fantastic speed, but if we look at the frame of reference of most people who are concerned, they say, well, we've got enough for the next 100 years or the next 500 years, or whatever number they come up with.
Mr. BARTLETT. Sir, we do not. If you'll excuse me, we do not.
Mr. GREY. I didn't say this to say we do, I said——
Mr. BARTLETT. Our coal is—we do not. And that's just a fallacy that needs to be dispelled. Oil and gas, our order of magnitude is 30 to 50 years, that's what you're hearing. Okay, that's not forever.
Mr. GREY. That's my number.
Mr. BARTLETT. Coal is several times longer than that at present use rate. As we run out of gas and oil, we will gasify and liquefy coal; and as we grow from the roughly 6 billion people now to the 10 billion that one of your slides projected, and as the Third World industrializes, the use of energy is going to increase exponentially, and so you're looking at not very many years in terms of a lifetime or a generation or so, until we face real problems.
And how do we make this become a reality in planning so that the resources necessary for this kind of development are made more readily available, I guess is my question, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. GREY. That was the original motivation for the satellite power system consideration when Dr. Glaser first proposed it; the fact that we have a definite shortage of fossil fuels. But in the even nearer term we have this real concern about the environmental effects of continuing to consume and develop carbon-based fuels and generate greenhouse gases. We are already in the process of trying to decide what to do about that.
And I think you're right. If people do not recognize the long-term concerns, that we are going to run out of fossil fuels in 30 years, or even maybe sooner if energy continues to be generated at the accelerating rate that we are doing it, we're going to be in serious trouble.
But I think the near-term concerns about the environment may be even more effective in terms of early development of alternative power supplies. Because the environmental concerns are closer, if anything, than even the very important ones of the amount of fossil fuels we have remaining.
So I think what you're saying, if we can get that to the public, get to the people who make decisions, would be a very important thing.
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, just one comment in closing. Even for those of us who may have some questions about the environmental effects of greenhouse gases, since over the last 50 or so years most of the tiny increase in the temperature of the Earth has occurred before we were producing any meaningful amounts of greenhouse gases. And furthermore, when you produce greenhouse gases you also produce a lot of pollutants. And I noticed that the dinosaurs disappeared, not because of global warming after this large impact, but because of pollutants that produced global cooling.
So as we produce greenhouse gases, we also produce a lot of pollutants. And we may be moving with more industrial use, and more greenhouse gases, and more trash that we throw up, we may just as certainly be moving toward an ice age, as well as toward more global warming, and we need to decide that. But whichever way it goes, if there is a major concern about this, well, I'm willing to ride that horse to get more money for this kind of activity.
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Mr. GREY. That is the answer.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Very gentle. You were very gentle with that, Roscoe.
I will refrain from a joke that I was going to think about. Dinosaur—anyway, what the dinosaurs did to create global warming.
And this is interesting in the sense that those of us who believe that global warming is liberal clap trap, and those of us believe—who are seriously concerned about global warming, actually are together in this particular instance. And I will note that the reason this is, is because whether you're Roscoe Bartlett, or whether you're Dr. Jerry Grey, you realize that the energy resources we have are finite, and this particular energy potential will be a tremendous benefit to mankind.
As Roscoe said, if we don't have nitrogen for our fertilizer—if we're using it up to burn it up for heat, what will that do to our production of food in this country and around the world.
So we realize—today we live in a world that has a glut of energy, and I remember the Global 2000 report, which indicated by now it would be just the opposite. We would be living in terrible scarcity, and people came on very ferociously about this, and how it demanded so much of emergency measures by the government, which would have been terribly contradictory to our economic well being in these last few decades. However, with that said, there is no doubt that the energy resources are finite, and I have seen Roscoe's tape, which shows how the doublings happen every 7 years, etc.
So what is interesting is, what we're doing now, if we move forward with it, will come on line, from what I can see, about the time that the energy crisis will be increasing, and making this a tremendously, economically viable package 10 years or 15 years down the road, when we're about to deploy it.
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Would that be about right, Roscoe? Is that in agreement there?
WILL NASA PURSUE THIS?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Another thing that I could mention to those of us getting together in this, I have spoken to Newt Gingrich and to Chairman Archer, of the Ways and Means Committee, about a proposal that we've been working on to make the manufacture and economic activity in space a tax-free endeavor. And you put that into the equation of this project, and I can see that we could perhaps raise many of the resources from this project, not just from government investment, but from the private sector, who can also calculate what's going to happen 10 years down the road. And with the tax incentives, and a calculation of long-term effects, and perhaps a fear of what short-term problems we are facing or we're not facing.
We could actually get this project underway. My question to you is, is there a possibility that we could get NASA to start focusing on this as a long-term project that might be the next major product after the Space Station, rather than as we said, focusing on going to Mars, which will get us a 1 day's vision of a man planting a flag on Mars.
Have any of you spoken to anybody in NASA about this, in terms of trying to get a commitment and where do we stand? Is it going to be up to us politicians to apply that type of pressure, or what? Anyone can answer, go right ahead, or all three.
Mr. MANKINS. Let me answer as the NASA representative at the table; that there certainly have been a number of discussions about this activity. But at this time, and in particular, in the context of the struggles, the real struggle that NASA's going through to try to make the books work out, and work through the detailed ramifications of the Balanced Budget Agreement, this is simply not a priority within the Agency's planning at this time.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Anyone else have any comments on this?
Mr. MARYNIAK. I would just like to say that in some brief conversations with the Administrator of NASA Mr. Goldin seems to be personally very interested in this. So that there's some hope from the top-most part of NASA that such encouragement on the part of Congress might not fall on deaf ears.
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Mr. GREY. It seems to me that if someone like your Committee, might discuss with NASA why they are not doing this activity, they have a comfortable fallback position, in saying well, sure, we can do a dual use technology development. We'll accommodate you, Mr. Chairman, by developing technologies that we want to go to Mars, but will also adapt them to developmental things such as the satellite power system. That might be a way out for NASA in the event that they really don't want to pursue space solar power.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I think that was well said, and as we say, there is overlap between people who want to invest a lot of money in going to Mars, and there is some dual use areas here.
I would say, for example, we were just talking here about the Space Station. Providing the Space Station with electricity, based on this concept would help prove some of the technology for example. So that might be worth the investment in that just to prove that this works in that way. And Mr. Lampson will have time for a couple more questions. I'll hurry through this.
Let me end my portion of this by just saying that, we have—this is a visionary project, but it's not a visionary project that is by people that are outside—looking outside the realm of possibility. This is a visionary project that is within our grasp if we use the resources that we have wisely. And I would say that Mission to Planet Earth—which I know that we disagree on—you're spending a lot of money to study the potential of global warming, and instead of studying the potential of global warming, we can use some of those dollars to develop a system like this that will help us get away from some of the problems that may or may not exist there.
DUAL USE: SPS AND MARS
Chairman ROHRABACHER. This is something we should all agree on, and the dual use concept of money that may go for a Mars—and by the way, eventually we may go to Mars. I think we will. I have no doubt that we will, but let's do the first things first, and bring down the costs of getting into orbit.
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Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you. This really has been great. It's been a fascinating discussion.
Dr. Grey, you'd made the comment a while ago, you said that even though we'd like to have money in it, that that's really not the most critical factor. You're saying we can accomplish a great deal of this right now by not having a tremendous additional amount of money. Will you clarify that some?
Mr. GREY. Yes, I think there is a fair—I don't know the exact budget, but I know that NASA is doing a lot of technology advancement work in many different areas, many of which are applicable toward these satellite power system development. For example, simply proceeding with the development of a low cost economical launch system would—at least 75 percent of the investment necessary in the system is going to go into transportation.
Now the only difference that NASA would have, say, is if we're sending up payloads with a system of this type, how would I have to modify my system in order to accommodate the kind of payloads we would send for satellite power systems, instead of those that we would use to go to Mars.
Mr. LAMPSON. And is it going to require us to push NASA in that direction, or is it going to be the questions, in your own discussion from the inside, to accomplish that? Both of you all, please?
Mr. MANKINS. Certainly with regard to this strategic objective of radically reducing the cost of access to space, that is an established part of NASA's program; it's the administrator's number three goal. It is part of national space policy. It's embodied in the Reusable Launch Vehicle Program and the Advanced Space Transportation Program.
I think what would be more germane would not be pushing NASA in that direction, but rather assuring that the current aggressive objectives, which are hundreds of dollar a pound to low Earth orbit, are preserved, and that continues to be the direction. Because for some of the mature space industries like telecommunication satellites, they might in fact make money hand over fist at $1,500 a pound, but you don't get the new space industry started at those kinds of launch prices.
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GETTING INDUSTRY INVOLVED
Mr. LAMPSON. How quickly might we expect to see the electric utilities, or others starting to be willing to put money in to even supplement some of this along the way? Will they do it soon? Dr. Grey.
Mr. GREY. Mr. Mankins just said that it would take 10 years to bring the technology risks——
Mr. LAMPSON. Then we won't see anything from them until that time, until we get to the point where——
Mr. GREY. I think we could certainly see some support. Mr. Maryniak has indicated that the utilities are very interested in this, and how much money they'll be willing to put in will depend on how much money they have to put up at risk. They're not going to risk large sums of money on an unknown system. Once the technology advancement has proceeded to the point where the risk is less, I think you'll see the utilities companies. And just as the communications company jumped into satellite communications when the time was right.
Mr. LAMPSON. Don't let up. We're interested, and I think we'll be supporting what you're doing.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Lampson, and I might add the utilities companies and others will advance if there's a—especially if there's a—tax incentive for people to invest.
Mr. LAMPSON. That's right.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Bring down the costs of getting into space; bring down the taxes so the government cost of doing business in space is brought down, and we might see some American enterprise at work and surprise everybody; solve some of these problems.
So thank you all very much. This has been a fascinating, fascinating hearing today. This Committee is adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
46–634CC
1997
NASA'S STUDY OF SPACE SOLAR POWER
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
OCTOBER 24, 1997
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[No. XX]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan**
DAVE WELDON, Florida
MATT SALMON, Arizona
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
MARK FOLEY, Florida
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
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KEVIN BRADY, Texas
MERRILL COOK, Utah
PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
TOM A. COBURN, Oklahoma
PETE SESSIONS, Texas
GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr., California RMM*
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
JAMES A. TRAFICANT, Jr., Ohio
TIM ROEMER, Indiana
ROBERT E. ''BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., Alabama
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
PAUL McHALE, Pennsylvania
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, California
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
WALTER H. CAPPS, California
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
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BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
TODD R. SCHULTZ, Chief of Staff
BARRY C. BERINGER, Chief Counsel
PATRICIA S. SCHWARTZ, Chief Clerk/Administrator
VIVIAN A. TESSIERI, Legislative Clerk
ROBERT E. PALMER, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DAVE WELDON, Florida
MATT SALMON, Arizona
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
MARK FOLEY, Florida
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
MERRILL COOK, Utah
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
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ROBERT E. ''BUD'' CRAMER, Jr., Alabama
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
JAMES A. TRAFICANT, Jr., Ohio
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
ZOE LOFGREN, California
WALTER H. CAPPS, California
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
*Ranking Minority Member
**Vice Chairman
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
October 24, 1997:
John Mankins, Manager, Advanced Concepts Studies, Office of Space Flight, NASA Headquarters
Greg Maryniak, President, Sunset Energy Council, and Senior Scientist, Futron Corporation
Jerry Grey, Director of Aerospace and Science Policy, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
(iii)