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FISCAL YEAR 1999 BUDGET REQUEST: THE SCIENCES AT NASA
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1998
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. The Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics is called to order. Thank you all for being here today. As is the usual case, the House is in session so if we have to break for a vote, I will ask that, without objection, the Chair is given unanimous consent to declare a recess at any time. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
Today we are going to review progress, problems and proposals for NASA's scientific enterprises. We'll cover Space Science, Earth Science, Life and Microgravity Sciences, and how the Office of Space Flight supports its scientific users.
But, I'd like to begin this morning by giving special recognition to two of our witnesses today. The first, Dr. Wes Huntress, who recently announced that he would resign as Associate Administrator for Space Science later this year. For 5 years, Dr. Huntress has managed NASA's Space Science program through budgetary, technical and programmatic and even public relations challenges that would have beaten down a lesser leader. So, inheriting an office that was addicted to budget increases, he made the tough decisions to streamline and rethink how to do Space Science. No other program has demonstrated the commitment to Dan Goldin's mandate of ''cheaper, better, faster,'' nor succeeded so superbly in its implementation. Dr. Huntress, it is a rare to find such a first-rate scientist who is also a skillful manager and a leader. It will—most people think of scientists as the guys who know what they pour—what is it—they scratch their pancakes and pour the syrup down their back or something in the morning. But, you have shown that scientists can also be managers as well as experts in their field and leaders of others. It will be difficult to replace you but we must strive to do so so we can build on the strong record of accomplishment that you and your team have achieved.
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Second, I'd like to recognize someone who is on Dr. Huntress's extended team but now has come to NASA Headquarters to lead that part of the civilian space program that we don't usually think of when we hear the phrase ''cheaper, better, faster.'' Joe Rothenberg left a revitalized Goddard Space Flight Center a month ago to become the new Associate Administrator for Human Space Flight. As his prepared testimony today demonstrates, Mr. Rothenberg thinks and talks differently about space flight than some who have been involved for as long as he has been involved. He joins us to talk about how the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs serve the scientific user and how he will seek to improve that.
Now I know that there are some members of this Subcommittee who might like to use this opportunity to ask Mr. Rothenberg about his two big programs outside the scientific context but let's not go into that today. We'll have plenty of time to talk about those in the future. Today, he is prepared to ask and answer—or answer other questions and I expect we'll have time to beat up on Mr. Rothenberg in the future about these programs.
And finally, I'd like to remind everyone that the person who hired and backed up Wes Huntress and who picked an independent thinker like Joe Rothenberg was a man whom we all occasionally liked to beat up, and I include myself when I say that sometimes we occasionally beat up on Dan Goldin. But, as we listen to the witnesses talk today about the progress in and the prospects for our scientific efforts in space, we should all remember that Dan Goldin deserves a lot of the credit for the things that we are talking about and the accomplishments that we praise today.
Now, let's get to the science. And this has been an amazing year since we last reviewed these programs. I don't know whether to talk about the Mars Pathfinder headlines or the quick reflight of the International Microgravity Lab Shuttle Mission or NASA finally taking the first steps to buy commercial Earth Science data, which I've been pushing for for a long time, or the entrepreneurial Lunar Prospector Mission that I hope we'll be getting the results of very soon and that's something we're all looking forward to.
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Or, we could talk about the future; a Mars sample return mission that proves the technology for using local resources to ''live off the land,'' restructured Earth Science effort that gets affordable data to scientists so we can understand El Nino and how El Nino works before it washes away my entire Congressional District——
[Laughter.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Or Space Station research that helps spinal cord injury victims recover from paralysis or other people who suffer maladies that have not been investigated—or remedies that have not been investigated—in zero gravity to see if there are solutions to some of these afflictions of mankind. And yes, a focused set of technology demonstrations that could enable both space development projects, like solar power, satellites, and future missions of human exploration, which points out a challenge and an opportunity for all of NASA's science programs.
I'm sure the witnesses know that, along with Chairman Sensenbrenner, I am an advocate of space commercialization. What we haven't talked much about it how science and commerce relate to one another and can be supportive in interrelation with one another as we move into the space frontier. It's useful to remember, as I pointed out last year, that President Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the Louisiana Purchase with two interrelated objectives: one was to map the land and chart the navigable rivers and collect other economically useful information, the other was to learn as much as possible about the plants, wildlife, geology, and other aspects of the natural environment.
While there may have been some historic squabbling between the Human Space Flight and unmanned science communities, commercial space development and publicly-funded Space Science broadly defined are not and must not be in conflict. In recent months, we have seen a private company announce its intention to send a commercially-developed probe—I guess it's a probe—to an asteroid which may also collect data for government-funded scientists. So, we see this already, this cooperation between the commercial sector and the public sector.
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This Committee has for several years been a strong supporter of the emerging commercial remote sensing industry which can and must play a much larger role in gathering information needed for Earth Science research. And, there is clearly a natural affinity between the life science researcher, the applied microgravity process developer, and the commercial infrastructure operator. But, it will take continued cultural change and many tough decisions by the witnesses here or their successors to achieve the kind of synergy that I believe is out there. It will also, in the case of the former Mission to Planet Earth program, require that the effort continue its transformation from a bloated and mismanaged project that's politically shielded from reality by people who have their own political motives into an honest and affordable effort to learn more about this home planet. And, I believe that transition is going on now.
I would like to recognize my new Ranking Member, Bart Gordon from Tennessee, not from Kentucky, to make his opening statement.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I knew I was from Tennessee.
[Laughter.]
Mr. GORDON. Good morning. I want to add my welcome to the witnesses today and I also want to join in thanking Dr. Huntress for his contribution to our country and wish him well in his endeavors.
By virtue of the number of witnesses we have and I think our Chairman has covered a lot of ground with his testimony, I'm going to make my testimony part of the record and just say that I hope that we can discuss some today taking some of the good science that NASA has learned over the years and talking about how we can adapt that to everyday life and how we can explain that to our constituents and citizens around this country so that they think that they're getting a dollar's worth of science for the dollar of taxes they're investing in you. So, we'll talk about that some more later. Thank you for being here.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Boy, that was great.
[Laughter.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And I promise that if I'm ever the Ranking Member again and you're the Chairman that I'll do the same.
[Laughter.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Alright. Without objection, the other written statements will be part of the written record, and, hearing no objections, so ordered.
We have now a different policy than we had, you know, 3 or 4 years ago. We swear in all the witnesses, as you're aware, so what I'd like to do, I'd like you all to stand so I can administer your oath.
Okay. Raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. HUNTRESS. I do.
Mr. ASRAR. I do.
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. I do.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I do.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, you're sworn in. And the reporter will note that each witness responded in the affirmative.
Since we have four witnesses and we want to get on with as many questions as possible, again, if you could summarize your testimony, get to the hottest 5 minutes that you've got in that—in your report, that's terrific and I'd appreciate that. However, your full testimony will, of course, be made part of the record.
And, first up is Dr. Huntress who we've said so many kind words about today. But, I want you to know that I've personally meant them and I give a lot of guff to—you know, I give a lot of guff to people who come up and are trying to do the best job they can and I know that most of the time. But you know, it's our job to really make sure the people who are doing a good job do even a better job. But, I want you to know that our compliments today were meant from the heart and we admire the good job that you've done.
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So, you may proceed with your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF WES HUNTRESS, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, SPACE SCIENCE, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. HUNTRESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate very much your comments this morning and also Mr. Gordon. And I would like to thank the Committee for the unwavering support this Committee has given to Space Science during my tenure here, and it's really largely because of that support that Space Science has been able to perform the way we have and to bring to you and the American public all of the exciting discoveries, some of which I will try to show you today.
I'll be providing you with a status on 1997, a preview of what we plan for this year, and an overview of the 1999 budget request that we brought to you.
Mr. Chairman, just a few short months ago NASA Space Science Enterprise released its new strategic plan and this plan is a culmination of about 2 years' worth of effort involving hundreds of members of the Space Science mission engineering, education, and public information communities and the plan sets forth a long-term 25-year view of the Space Science program. And, with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to submit the strategic plan for the record.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. So ordered, without objection.
Mr. HUNTRESS. Thank you. I'd like now to brief you on just a very few of the accomplishments of 1997. We had a lot of successes this year, Mr. Chairman, but none was more exciting than—or dramatic—than that Mars Pathfinder landing in—on July 4. Our Pathfinder and that small Sojourner Rover just simply captured the world's attention with spectacular pictures, and the scientists and the general public alike were really thrilled by this mission. And we can attest to that by the almost 1 billion hits that we have had on the Mars Pathfinder website since that time. And all are anxious for our next lander mission on Mars which we are going to launch in less than 1 year from now.
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Following Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor arrived at Mars orbit in September. It's now undergoing a long-term aerobraking process to lower the spacecraft orbit, but, in the meantime, we are taking some occasional science data and I'd like to show at least one result to you today.
[Slide.]
Mr. Goldin showed you this during a previous hearing. It's going to be a little hard to see without the lights down but——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Try to get these lights down here.
Mr. HUNTRESS. This is just a taste of what you can expect when we get it into final mapping orbit. This is one of very many—what look like rivers—across the surface of Mars. We weren't sure what they were but it's become clear after this picture that, in fact, this has been cut by water. You can see in the upper righthand corner of the canyon the remnants of the river channel that actually cut this. First time we've had this kind of evidence. You can see layering in that structure, you can see where this river has meandered across the surface, just as some of our rivers do in the Midwest. And so, clearly, this channel was cut by flowing water over a time span of about a million years or so. And it's our first evidence that water was flowing on the surface of Mars in its early history over a long period of time.
[Slide.]
Beyond Mars, the Galileo spacecraft continues to orbit Jupiter and some of the key findings from the spacecraft include data on Europa showing ice flows and clear evidence of melting of the service in the past and rafting of ice—big huge ice chunks out into this liquid and then refreezing, giving us evidence that perhaps Europa may even now have a liquid ocean underneath its icy surface and all that might potentially imply about this icy moon of Jupiter.
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[Slide.]
The Hubble space telescope continued its headline-making performance in 1997. The second servicing mission last year enabled Hubble to deliver more scientifically dazzling discoveries than ever; among them Hubble showed us this pair of colliding galaxies, blazing with about a thousand brand new star clusters. This discovery is going to help us put together a chronological sequence of how galaxies collide and give us a preview, actually, of the collision that will occur between our own Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Andromeda galaxy some 500 or more billion years from now. I will have left office by then.
[Laughter.]
Mr. HUNTRESS. Closer to home, the NASA European Space Agency Solar Heliospheric Observatory, which we call SOHO, produced the first detailed view of the interior of the Sun, showing us this inner radiative core and a thick, outer convective skin. The inner zone rotates as a rigid body while the outer convective zone acts like an atmosphere, rotating differentially, just like our own atmosphere above our solid body of the Earth, and it's the source of sun spots and solar flares and most other activity.
Nineteen ninety-eight promises to be an even busier year for Space Science and we are off to a good start. In January, we launched the Lunar Prospector, which is our first return to the Moon in 25 years and the Lunar Prospector should also tell us among many other things whether water ice exists in any abundance at the south poles of the Moon, as suggested by the Clementine mission. We are scheduling a press briefing on this subject. I believe it's next week.
And the Explorer program—we will launch 5 Explorer missions; 2 University Explorers, 2 small Explorers, and the first of our medium Explorers. And we're particularly excited about these UNEX missions because they are built entirely by university students acting as a team to learn new skills for their future and for ours and, in fact, the first of these will be launched early tomorrow morning from the West Coast.
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[Slide.]
Mars Surveyor in December, 1998 will launch the Mars 1998 Climate Orbiter, followed by the Mars Polar Lander in January of 1999. These two missions will also carry two new millennium technology articles—well, it should be called Deep Space-2—each of which is a perspective hard lander. This is a full-size model of one of these little small passive Mars landers. It's actually a penetrator; it hits the surface and this penetrator penetrates down about several meters and contains a very small science instrument to look for soil moisture and measure other properties of the soil. So, there's many exciting thing coming up in the next year. So the first of the new millennium programs, Deep Space-1, we'll launch in July to test 12 new technologies—including solar electric propulsion—on a test flight that will take it by an asteroid, a comet, and Mars.
And the only Space Science mission that's really currently experiencing any significant problems at the moment is the AXAF mission. Here, the prime contractor has experienced difficulty in the electrical functional checkout of the observatory and we expect the launch to be delayed from August to December of this year.
The President's 1999 budget request supports a strong and well-balanced science program. It maintains support for the Origins initiative approved by Congress in the Fiscal Year 1998 budget. It also adds funding to fulfill much of the promise of the new Space Science Strategic Plan—this plan I just showed you this morning—with new programs in the Evolutionary and Destiny themes. New in Evolution this year is support for continuing the international Solar Terrestrial Probe missions through solar maximum. It concludes continuing support for our new line of Solar Terrestrial Probes after the time diminution.
In the Destiny science theme, the President's budget supports three new efforts; first, GLAST and advanced technology for a future X-Ray mission to follow AXAF. First is the European Space Agency's Far-Infrared and Submillimetre Space Telescope. Our contributions to this will be mirror, cooler, and detector technologies to significantly enhance the capabilities of FIRST. GLAST, or Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, is a follow-on to the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Department of Energy is our partner in this Enterprise and they'll be supplying a Gamma-ray detector technology for the mission.
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So, in conclusion, the 1999 budget request allows us to continue building on the momentum in Space Science that we have gained in recent years. It provides for a balanced program that is needed to deliver the very best science results to the Space Science community and the American public.
[Slide.]
And I wanted to show you this chart, Mr. Chairman. This shows a 5-year history of budget requests since Space Science, beginning with Fiscal Year 1995. And, as you can see, we have turned a very dismal situation in the 1995 Space Science request into a healthy and supportive budget for Fiscal Year 1999. And, Mr. Chairman, you and your Committee have had a direct role in this turnaround and we thank you for that and your unwavering support here. I hope that you all take pride in what the Space Science Enterprise has done for the American public with this support and it's our intent to continue to provide exciting missions and discoveries and to continue our high level of performance in the future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Huntress follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Dr. Huntress. And, Dr. Asrar, Associate Administrator for Earth Science.
TESTIMONY OF GHASEM ASRAR, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, EARTH SCIENCE ENTERPRISE, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. ASRAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Subcommittee. It is my distinct pleasure to be here with you this morning in one of my first significant public appearances as the new NASA Associate Administrator for Earth Science. I'm honored to be selected by Mr. Goldin for this challenging job at this important period in the history of the Enterprise.
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The key drivers for the Earth Science Enterprise are the development of a comprehensive understanding of the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, and continents and how they interact with each other in what is known as ''Earth system science.''
The NASA Earth system—the Earth Science Enterprise is organized around six major functions. First, a team of scientists who will translate the data that we gather, based on the space-based or suborbital capabilities that we develop, into information to address key scientific questions about Earth and Earth Science. Second, a series of small-and medium-size satellites that we developed specifically to help us address those scientific questions or objectives. Third, a comprehensive information system. This is a departure from the traditional way of doing business in NASA—that we worried about the space-based segment and we didn't pay attention to taking good advantage of those investments and turning the data into information that could really benefit the customers and the end-users beyond the scientific community. It was with that understanding that we started, embarked on developing a comprehensive information system not only to capture the data from these space-based assets, but to turn them into useful information and, more importantly, making them available to the customers in a reasonable amount of time. We have just established a technology development program to enable advanced space-based observational capabilities.
The fifth element is an application research and commercial partnership program that will extend the scientific benefit of our investments to solve practical societal problems through partnership with the value-added and the commercial sector. The sixth element, which we believe is equally important, is an education program to invest in training the next generation of Earth scientists who will lead this Enterprise into the decades to follow.
[Slide.]
Let me turn into sharing with you some of our recent accomplishments from 1997. The first image to your left—to my left, to your right, the black and white is a recent map of Antarctica that was acquired with a U.S.-Canadian radar satellite. Until this past fall, Antarctica, a region the size of Canada and Alaska combined, had never been fully mapped from space at such a high resolution. The results are really hot-off-the-press so you see the orbital tracks that are not quite smoothed out. But, by the time that we finish processing this data, we would be able to unravel some of the mysteries of Antarctica in terms of some of the varied lakes and there are about several kilometers of ice that have been separated from the atmosphere for more than several million years. The data resulting from this analysis would help us shed some light on the past history of the Earth's climate.
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[Slide.]
The next image to the left of the Antarctica map is a—shows a set of observations that we gathered from a satellite in joint cooperation with France that captures the evolution of El Nino in the Pacific. The data from this satellite helped U.S. scientists to develop a predictive capability for El Nino this year 6 months in advance. Our goal is to be able to predict events like—such as El Nino up to about 1 year in advance.
[Slide.]
The image to the left of that which is basically the measurements of ocean surface windvector, this wind speed and direction, obtained by joint partnership with U.S.-Japanese satellite. Later from this satellite captured the storms in the Pacific for the first time and has helped improve our weather—short-term weather predictive capabilities on a near-real-time basis.
[Slide.]
The last—the next image basically captures the activity of phytoplanktons in the ocean. These are the microorganisms that sequester the carbon dioxide from atmosphere and serve as a basis for fish population in the ocean. Data is procured from a commercial vendor and the same data is being marketed to fishing, oil, and shipping industry in near-real time and for NASA applications in 2 to 4 weeks after that.
[Slide.]
This last image that I will share with you basically captures for the first time measurements of precipitation over the tropical regions through a joint U.S.-Japanese mission, and the significance of these observations is their impact on the global water cycle which, in turn, impacts the agricultural and food production around the globe. The data from this mission will undoubtedly enhance our capability in weather prediction. We have been approached by Air Force and several international operational weather forecast organizations to have access to this data in near-real time for improvement of those weather forecasts.
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Nineteen ninety-eight is equally an exciting year for Earth Science Enterprise. This is the year that we launch the first series of Earth-observing system satellites, notably EOS AM-1, the Landsat-7, and the QuikScat.
As I stated earlier, we are redefining future Earth Science missions to fully embrace the faster, better, cheaper approach. For example, the next series of EOS satellites will invest in new technologies up front to shorten mission development time to 3 to 4 years from 6 to 7 years at the moment. The upcoming QuikScat mission that I highlighted earlier will be a key test in our ability to reduce the development cycle. We plan to reduce the total cost of the next series of EOS satellites such that the average cost per mission will be down by a factor of 3. Towards this goal, we are developing a technology demonstration mission to obtain future Landsat class measurement by an instrument that is one-fourth the mass of the current Landsat satellite, ETM-Plus, uses only 20 percent of its power and costs about 25 percent of Landsat-7 mission.
On the domestic and international partnership, we intend to further expand our domestic and international partnerships. Today, combined international investment equals our contribution. We also intend to make data buys a normal way of doing business for this Enterprise.
In summary, we will establish the scientific and technological foundation to understand the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, and continents, and the interactions among them, towards developing a predictive capability for the entire Earth system. We will push the technological envelope to enable our future missions to cost less and deliver more in less time. We are determined, Mr. Chairman, to extend the benefits of our science and technology beyond scientific discoveries to solving practical societal problems such as agricultural food production, water resources, and fisheries to just name a few, through our applications and commercial partnership programs.
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Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Asrar follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
We now have with us the Associate Administrator for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, Dr. Nicogossian.
TESTIMONY OF ARNAULD NICOGOSSIAN, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR LIFE AND MICROGRAVITY SCIENCES AND APPLICATIONS, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am glad to be here today and have this opportunity to discuss the President's Fiscal Year 1999 budget request for the NASA Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications.
As stated in Mr. Goldin's testimony on February 5, my office uses the space environment to expand fundamental knowledge in biology and physics while contributing to improved industrial processes and health care. We develop knowledge and technologies to support safe and productive human presence in space while encouraging commercial entities that seek to use space and promote educational opportunities in biology, physics, and chemistry.
In 1997, we completed two very successful international missions in microgravity sciences. As you stated before, Mr. Chairman, once again NASA demonstrated its strong commitment to research by re-flying the entire Microgravity Science Laboratory mission just 5 months after the initial flight was cut short, thus achieving all of the original science objectives and more. This was also an important test of the flexibility of the Shuttle for supporting future Space Station utilization missions. We continued operations on Mir extending U.S. presence to about 870 days while obtaining invaluable research results.
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Nineteen ninety-seven was also a very rewarding year for many discoveries and technological activities for us. As an example, I am pleased to report that researchers at the University of California-Irvine have discovered the first-ever genetic connection between gravity and organism development. Investigators have identified what they generally refer to as a ''gravity gene.'' This gene is turned on and off in response to a gravitational load experienced by the organism that's affecting muscle development. Knowledge of this relationship between gravitational loading, the gravity gene, and muscle development will help researchers understand and treat muscles deterioration caused by space flight, inactivity, and perhaps in the future can be applied to treat certain muscular dystrophic disorders.
[Poster.]
We have on display here to your left a poster which depicts this important finding and we hope that after the meeting you can have a chance to look at this presentation—you can have a chance to look at it.
We rely upon an ever-expanding network of partnerships within the scientific and engineering communities of the United States. We have a long-standing relationship in sharing common research interest with the international partners and the National Institutes of Health. As of October, 1997, NASA has signed 23 agreements with National Institutes of Health and these agreements have led to joint projects in areas such as biotechnology, infectious disorders, and other biomedical research in general and specifically to the forthcoming Neurolab mission to study brain function as part of the decay of the brain. Our most recent cooperative research initiative relates to aging with NIH.
In 1997, we established a strong partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation initiating research in non-invasive glucose and other blood components measurement technologies and more effective means of therapy for diabetes.
With the requested budget, we intend to continue to expand our community of outstanding peer-reviewed, investigating-initiated research and add to the pool of scientists involved in cutting-edge research in the areas such as ceramics, polymers, glasses and biologically inspired ''smart'' materials contributing to the human space flight while benefiting our national technological competitiveness in the 21st Century.
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So far, through Spacelab and the Shuttle we have demonstrated the importance of laboratory research in space. In the process, we have delivered important research findings and added to medical knowledge base to support a safe human presence in space. We are very excited about the future with our major research capabilities on the International Space Station. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you again for this opportunity and I request that the full text of my testimony which contains a lot of the achievements from last year and what we intend to do next year is introduced for the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nicogossian follows:]
Insert offset folios 29-47
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Without objection, so ordered.
And with that, we now have the newest Associate Administrator, Joe Rothenberg, who I mentioned earlier, of the Office of Space Flight. And Joe, please proceed——
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH ROTHENBERG, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF SPACE FLIGHT, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. First, I'd like to thank you for your kind acknowledgement earlier and I only hope I can live up to the expectations of Mr. Goldin, the Committee, and my colleagues in developing a different approach for the Human Exploration and Development of Space—one that is truly an enabling function for both the scientific research committee, commercial development, and exploration of space simultaneously, while at the same time recognizing there is a strong customer base out there in these communities.
I am pleased to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss the vision of the role that the Human Exploration and Development of Space Strategic Enterprise will have in the future. I am eager to share with you the activities that we are pursuing to increase the research capabilities on the Space Station.
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As Mr. Goldin testified on February 5, the International Space Station is moving forward with confidence towards the launch of the Station's initial Control Module, formerly the Functional Cargo Block—known as the Functional Cargo Block, and the first node later this year. During 1999, we will begin performing research on the International Space Station. I am confident that we will find that this facility will provide us with unprecedented opportunities to conduct long-duration, on-orbit research.
While on-orbit research capabilities are very constrained during the early Station assembly period, research capability performance for the completed Station continues to meet or exceed specifications. The Space Station program and the research offices represented today in this panel have made significant progress this year in the strategic and tactical research planning process. Dr. Nicogossian led the activities to develop the ISS Research Plan which was submitted by Mr. Goldin on the fifth of February and the first 5-year strategic level utilization plan.
Beginning in the Year 2000, utilization flights will provide opportunities to initiate the outfitting of facility-class payloads that will support research in the areas which fit within the on-orbit resource constraints. To further support the NASA research program during the assembly process, NASA is evaluating additional Shuttle flights as a transition from Spacelab and Shuttle/Mir programs to the International Space Stations' research program.
[Chart.]
I'd like to draw your attention now to the chart off to the left which is titled, ''A Strategy for the Exploration and Development of Space.'' This is an unveiling of something that I'm working on and I think I would like to share it with you at this time.
As we begin to look forward toward the future, the HEDS Strategic Enterprise is beginning to formulate a vision for both HEDS and the International Space Station which involves the entire science community. Within this HEDS strategy, Space Station should be viewed as a center or a facility for conducting scientific, industrial and technology research on on-orbit research facility. The research activity should be focussed on the scientific and commercial benefits of the human development in space. The knowledge gained from this broad-based life science and microgravity research program, the Space Science Robotic missions, and the HEDS technology will—the technology and development aboard Space Station will increase our capability to expand the human frontier. As the technology matures, it will enhance the capability to expand the human frontier. As the technology makes human exploration and the development of space more affordable and the scientific or commercial rationale for human presence being on Earth orbit becomes apparent, we will be positioned as a Nation to take advantage of the opportunity.
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And what that strategy depicts is investments in increasing the sustainability of humans by opening the frontier through research on the Station. When the opportunity is presented by the—either the rationale for scientific research—for human involvement in scientific research, that is—beyond the Earth's low-Earth orbit or commercial opportunities with high return on investment are identified, I think at that point we will have the technology in place at an affordable cost to proceed on and take advantage of those opportunities. That's the underlying strategy that we're beginning to work on.
In my previous position as Center Director at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, I was committed to enabling the Earth and Space Science communities to also use Space Station and take advantage of it. In my current position, I am continuing to pursue this commitment with several spacecraft study activities in support of a scientific community needs. As an example, we are evaluating the development of a free-flyer pallet based on the current Spartan spacecraft design that will be capable of an extended on-orbit life. Co-flying with Space Station, this free-flyer could be utilized for Earth and Space Science missions as well as technology demonstrations, potentially with a design that supports payload change-out on-orbit from Station.
To enable the future understanding and exploration of the universe, NASA has planned already a robotic mission for—a robust program for robotic exploration of the solar system, as you've heard from Dr. Huntress. These missions will allow a virtual presence by humans, as well as providing for knowledge about the environment and potential for Human Exploration and Development of Space. One example of the integrated human and robotic exploration objectives is the Office of Space Science and the Office of Space Flight and the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications joint effort on the 2001 Mars Surveyor mission, a collaborative effort that will include radiation and soil/dust measurement devices, a Mars In-Situ Propellant production precursor flight demonstration, as well as aerocapture and precision landing.
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Pharmaceutical research using the microgravity environment on the Shuttle and Mir have already shown commercial promise in the growth of crystals and other materials. I believe the ISS Research Plan, along with the reality of the International Space Station, provides the opportunity to fully engage commercial interests in expanding Space Station's utilization. HEDS is committed to increasing the role of enabling both the service providers, such as Spacehab, and the industrial communities to take advantage of the potential economic return provided by the International Space Station.
In closing, the International Space Station is going to be a premiere research laboratory with a robust research program. I'm committed to make this happen. It will provide us with these opportunities for expanding scientific and commercial development beyond those currently envisioned. We're only limited by the imagination. The Space Station will provide us with the laboratory to learn to live in space and demonstrate the technology required to provide the capability to expand our frontier.
In my new role, I have just begun to look at how to guide the Enterprise from an infrastructure developing organization to a user-driven enabling—enabler of human exploration in the development of space. This will be accomplished in partnership with the scientific community, academia, and industry. I believe if we do this right, and demonstrate we can do it at an affordable cost, the Nation will have both a rationale and mandate for human exploration of the universe. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rothenberg follows:]
Insert offset folios 48-50
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
I'll ask a couple questions and I'd like to welcome a few other of our members who have joined us, but, especially Ralph Hall who is the distinguished former Chairman of this Subcommittee. And we always appreciate Ralph's institutional memory that he shares with us and makes sure that we keep on track and his guidance and I have personally appreciated that. And I think what I'm going to do now is move forward with a couple questions and then we will move on to our colleagues.
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And this is for—let me make sure—it's Dr. Asrar. Make sure that's—am I pronouncing that correctly?
Mr. ASRAR. Asrar. Asrar.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Asrar. Alright. Dr. Asrar, it's good again to see a scientist back in charge of your program. As you've probably read in Space News, I recently commented that it's sometimes hard for satellite builders, like the folks at Goddard and in industry, to remember that the goal is basically not building satellites, but instead it's collecting ''data'' or is it ''data?'' It's one of those——
Mr. ASRAR. Both of those.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay.
[Laughter.]
EARTH SCIENCE UNCOSTED CARRYOVER
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And—because that's what we're after. We're after information, we're after making sure that information can get to people and these people and the scientists will have a chance to work with that information and not just the job of building scientists. And, now that I've said that, and I think the Earth Science program is making progress in this area, but there are still some big problems, particularly in the finance of the program. For 2 years, NASA has been promising that it would improve the uncosted and unobligated carryover in this program, but at the end of Fiscal Year 1997, you had $697 million unspent. That's roughly half of your budget.
Worse yet, as of December, you still hadn't figured out how to spend $240 million. Now, isn't this the case of a program that's—well, it's not spending what we're allocating so maybe we're allocating too much money. So—or, is it that the money has just been poorly managed? Boy, those—that's—well, there must be some—a third alternative that I'm sure you'll enlighten us with. So, perhaps you could address that.
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Mr. ASRAR. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much again for the opportunity. We have recognized that problem and we are taking the necessary steps to address your concern.
First, in the area of end cost that—I think there are three categories of problems contributing to this total sum. One is in the area of uncommitted, basically we're—some of the programs were being examined or we were—for example, the data buy arrangement that we had, about $50 million. It took a while for us to develop an announcement, solicit the proposals, and start some of these projects, as you are quite well aware of that, and that's a large sum of money contributing to this and caused it.
Another major area has been the Data and Information System development. As you are, again, well aware, we were reexamining our approach to data handling, processing, and distribution. The baseline approach had some problems running behind schedule and we were challenged by the Academy and were directed to identify alternative approaches to data processing and handling. And we had another solicitation and another group of proposals that we had to evaluate and we were—we're keeping close to $15 million for that particular activity and we managed to select those projects late last year and put them on the contract.
The third area that contributes to this very large sum is our Research and Analysis program. It is the grant award procedure—these are the—we have more than 2,300 grants issued to universities, private sector, and other government laboratories. And, historically, we have had problem from the time that we initiate these—select these projects to the time that we actually put them under grant and contract them—it's a procedure—these are the three major contributors, the end-cost——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, let me just note that we expect that this isn't going to be a continuing situation and there's a lot of other people screaming for money and, you know, if we have this situation continue, it's hard for us to fence off money for America's space efforts and your endeavors——
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Mr. ASRAR. Right.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. If this type of situation continues. People are going to want to grab that money.
Mr. ASRAR. Mr. Chairman, you have my personal assurance that I am committed to fix this problem——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay.
Mr. ASRAR. And we have set a process in place that, over the next 12 to 18 months, reduces our end-cost at—for the operational systems to about 1 month reserve——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, let's put it this way——
Mr. ASRAR (continuing). —For the——
EARTH SCIENCE COMMERCIAL DATA PURCHASE
Chairman ROHRABACHER. It's taken about, what, 2 years since the President requested $50 million for this data buy, commercially——
Mr. ASRAR. Right.
Chairman ROHRABACHER (continuing). —Data buy and, after 2 years, it's about one-tenth of the money that has been spent and it just seems to me that what we're talking about here is a resistance, number one, in this particular area, to the idea that you were going to get this from the private sector. It's a resistance to working with other people and other organizations, and I would hope with your leadership—and it is going to require your personal leadership—that we can overcome this type of resistance. It's not good for the taxpayers and it's not good for the whole program.
Mr. ASRAR. Absolutely. You have my personal commitment and my personal assurance that I'll see to it that, again, the data buy becomes a routine part of our effort. Later this summer we will be in a position to select the final set of projects from the initial set of projects that we have selected for Phase 1 and we will be in a position to obligate and commit the funds in the data buy. But, that wouldn't be the end of the process.
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Once again, as I stated in my testimony, we have made the data buy a routine process in our way of procuring those observations that you were referring to earlier on. We are going to exhaust every possible avenue——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Um-hum.
Mr. ASRAR. For getting our data from private sector and through partnerships first before we embark on developing a unique mission to accomplish those objectives.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. One last note and please do not infer when I ask about money that's not being spent that in some way I'm pressuring you to spend money. Let's put it this way. When—if you were spending money unwisely, you know, I'd be—we'd be very upset and so we're happy that there's some thought been going into this and there's a delicate balance here that we're talking about and we have to be sensitive to that.
Mr. Gordon.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I represent 15 counties immediately surrounding Nashville and a little to the east. The counties that are—the suburb counties of Nashville are prosperous. One, Williamson, is the wealthiest county in Tennessee, but you go a little bit further out the ring and I have a county called Clay where it had the third highest unemployment in the Nation a couple of months ago. Now, the unemployment is down to 30 percent. But, every family is touched when you have 30 percent unemployment.
Another county is called Clay—I'm sorry, Cannon County, in the town of Woodberry. Last year, at the end of the school year, their education budget had run out of money and so they couldn't use the schoolbuses for the last month of the school.
SPACE STATION FUNDING JUSTIFICATIONS
Mr. GORDON. Now, I know that the catch word at NASA now is faster, cheaper, and better, but no one really in my part of the country is celebrating that the Space Station is down to $32 billion. In Williamson County, they will tell me, why are taxing me so much, you know, to send money out in space? If I'm in Cannon County, they say, why are we spending money in space when we can't even run our schoolbuses?
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You know, to tell them that we've got a deal that a new spacecraft is only going to cost $165 million—we got it down to $165 million—it's a little hard for them to appreciate. And I guess what I would like, if you might be able to help me to explain to the folks at home, why this is a good investment, you know, what this is doing for them, and why it's worth the schoolbuses not running the last year? So, Mister—would you start, Mr. Rothstein? [sic] Maybe you could start with us, since you're going to have to be accountable for awhile and explain how I might explain this to my constituents.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. It's a tough question but I will give you my best answer. Let me start with—I believe that if we go back to Lewis and Clark, the example we used earlier, that we didn't know what we were going to find at that point in time and I recognize that was probably, at that time, a not very popular decision with some factions within the government for some of the very same reasons. That money was being taken away from needs to deal with domestic and social problems.
My belief is there's a couple of things about Space Station. One, learning to live in space is one thing, but we're using it for a research facility and that's really what we're here about today. It does offer the possibility—and I guess Dr. Nicogossian can direct the answers—for improvements in life on Earth; drug research.
There's some belief and some challenges also—I must admit, not without controversy—that the fact that we can grow three-dimensional tissues using a bioreactor—one of the facilities we're putting on Space Station offers the opportunity for medical researchers to understand the impact of drugs on treating disease in a way that they can't do on Earth. And, on Earth, you can only deal with the two-dimensional development of tissue and it restricts our ability to do medical research—the delicate—things that combat viruses—drugs that combat viruses, one example.
A second is that my belief is that as we learn to develop and—what we might the capability to mine space—whether it's this commercial endeavor for the asteroid, whether through the robotic missions we make a discovery of a mineral, or a finding with one of our return samples that has a high return on investment on industrial development for commercial return and benefit on Earth that can be an economic return to Earth in the form of, again, taxes on this but in the form of investment and jobs that create the capabilities to go out and mine an asteroid or mine a planet.
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Finally, I believe that there is a human experience part of this that a lot of people in the country do look for. And that is the ability to one day possibly have the average citizens—the ability to not only be virtually present in space through virtual reality and robotics but actually one day be able to go up in space and actually take a voyage. Now, I realize that will not relate to somebody who today doesn't have a schoolbus and has to walk 5 miles to work. But I believe there's a lot to learn out there that we don't know and I can't do anything but chase that promise and hopefully produce a research program that exploits it and produces not only a better life on Earth, but some potential for a future return on our investment that we don't imagine today.
Mr. GORDON. Well, that's a $32 billion bet of what you hope will happen. Maybe Mr. Huntress can—we can look back on experience, rather than tell folks what we're going to get them. Maybe you could might tell us what we've given them.
Mr. HUNTRESS. Well, I think one of the things that it's important to let someone like that know is that 97 percent of the federal budget, you know, is really spent on individuals and less than 3 percent of the federal budget is spent on investing in the future, and in the R&D enterprise of this country. NASA is just one of those R&D enterprises. And what R&D is, is an investment in the future. The country ought to be solving its problems now, but spending a small fraction of that total budget on the future so at the same time we try to balance the budget; that we try to, at the same time, fix our problems that are right here today. A small fraction ought to be invested in the future. Just like an individual puts aside some small fraction of their income for savings.
And in NASA's case, those dollars are not spent in space; they are spent right here on planet Earth, and provide employment for people on this planet as well. And what we produce—our product—is intangible but important; and that's discovery and knowledge. And that knowledge and discovery is going to be important for their children, to provide a better planet for their children, and to provide, also, a competitive economy for this country in the future.
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Mr. GORDON. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Roemer?
TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH FUNDING LEVELS
Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to follow up on your presentation a little bit and on the gentleman from Tennessee's questions by saying that I really appreciate especially, Mr. Huntress, your presentation of what is successful in NASA—so much of the faster, cheaper, better. Many of my constituents, when they look at the space program and they see Clementine or they see the Hubble, and they see so many of the wonderful pictures that have come back from the Pathfinder are excited and downright supportive of the kind of things going on in NASA. That's the faster, cheaper, better; and that's what we're doing, hopefully, more and more of.
And then on the other hand, you have the slower, bloated, not even mediocre Space Station which is taking up more and more of NASA's budget—cost over-runs, inefficiencies, rescheduling. And the scenario is going on and on and on, where we're seeing now, $50 million coming out of Earth Sciences, $50 million coming out of Space Sciences—as is requested by the Administration—for $100 million Supplemental Request. That deeply concerns me. I think we've got a lot of very, very good things going on in NASA, and some very, very troubling one thing going on in NASA—the Space Station.
I guess my question would be to you, first of all, Mr. Huntress. Again, thank you for all your hard work for the country. I mean that sincerely, and I know you're in a difficult position.
Yesterday in the New York Times science section there was an article about a study—a committee report by the National Research Council—saying that they don't believe that NASA is putting enough into the cutting edge technologies. I would argue that the Space Station is eating up some of that seed corn money that we need for basic research. They talk about anywhere from $20 million to $25 million is needed to keep this cutting edge going in a host of—they outline five or six different areas. Are you supportive of this report, and are you supportive of coming up, somehow, with this need $20 million to $25 million?
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Mr. HUNTRESS. Mr. Roemer, thank you once again for your accolades, and again for your support, along with the rest of the members of this Committee for Space Science. That's one of the reasons why we've been able to do so well.
The area of technology—I haven't had a chance to actually look at this report in its detail—but in the case of Space Science, we have only just recently, in the past year, acquired from the dissolution of the technology code in NASA, acquired the technology programs from that code and begun to integrate them into our science program.
Now one of the reasons why we are able to make better, faster, cheaper work is because of investments in technologies up front, before we do the missions, so that by the time we get ready to do them, we know what technologies we're going to use and what they're going to cost. And we can take advantage of the technologies to bring the cost down. And, in fact, our technology budget is up this year in Space Science and we actually have stewardship of a technology program for the rest of the agency in developing spacecraft technologies. And so our total technology budget is on the order of $400 million. And we have just finished a complete restructuring of that program in order to provide the appropriate structure to move forward from what was a fairly diversely scattered program. And we have just finished aligning it with our strategic plan here so that we can provide the technologies required for the future.
I think the budget that we have in Fiscal Year 1999 is adequate for doing what we need to do to realize what's in this strategic plan and for developing new spacecraft technologies for these gentlemen here.
Mr. ROEMER. Let me just stop you because I only have 5 minutes and I want to ask you a follow-up on that. They say in this report that certainly we've been able to develop off-the-shelf technology to do some of these things at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but those days are numbered. We need to get back to original research and cutting-edge technologies which, they claim, are not in the budget. Are you supportive of $20 million to $25 million that would invest in NASA the things that they're doing so well and helping us keep this edge—this competitive edge and this cutting technology—to be out there in the future?
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Mr. HUNTRESS. I think in the area of the long-term advanced technologies we're probably not spending as much of—the fraction of our technology budget that we're spending is not as much as it ought to be. I don't know whether it's $25 million or what it is, but we could certainly make good use of an increased fraction of spending there.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Chairman, could I ask one final question?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Certainly.
Mr. ROEMER. Okay, thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. As long as it's not about the Space Station.
Mr. ROEMER. What? Are you telling me what I can and cannot ask now, Mr. Chairman? You are powerful.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. No, go right ahead; anything you want. Anything you want.
MISSION OPERATIONS AND DATA ANALYSIS FUNDING
Mr. ROEMER. In terms of—and I'm not sure who is the appropriate person on the panel to ask this to—in terms of some of the cuts that I'm most concerned about as I look through the report here, it says that: the Mission Operation and Data Analysis is actually declining. And this could raise serious concerns to me that while we're doing more faster, cheaper, better, and we're doing more missions out there, we have actually less money going to employ people to process and analyze the data. Why is this?
Mr. HUNTRESS. I'll try that one too, Mr. Roemer. Our Mission Operations and Data Analysis budget in total has been declining in the past several years. And the main reason for that is because we are reducing the cost of the MO part—the Mission Operations part. Because we're using new technologies—new computer technologies—taking advantage of these so that we require fewer people actually to operate a single spacecraft. We can operate more spacecraft with less resources. We want to get into a situation in 3 or 4 years from now where we can operate spacecraft with our PC's instead of mainframe computers and hundreds of people.
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The DA part—the Data Analysis part—which produces the science from the missions; I mean we have been very careful at protecting that part of the budget.
Mr. ROEMER. I just hope we're not leaving data that is not analyzed and not utilized. And we've heard from some scientists that worry about that.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your patience.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. That was a very good line of questioning. And again, you know, the purpose of these programs are not just to build the technology or not to perform extravaganzas for entertainment purposes, it's for gathering scientific information that can be put to useful purposes to help improve the quality of life of all humankind.
And with that, Ralph Hall?
SPACE STATION SCIENCE FUNDING TRANSFERS
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
As a strong supporter of NASA, historically, always, and almost 100 percent, I must tell you that I'm leaning more and more toward listening to Mr. Roemer than I ever have before with about $460 million transferred from the Space Station's Life and Microgravity Science Payload since 1996, and you're doing it slowly. I think you took $50 million out in 1996; $177 million out in 1997; $235 million out for 1998. I just think that's a sorry situation. And I don't understand, Mr. Rothenberg, you're the one that's getting the money. Mr. Nicogossian, you're losing the money. Are you sitting there supporting these transfers? Mr. Nicogossian, are you supporting these transfers?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Sure. I think I can respond to that, Congressman Hall, first, and then let Dr. Nicogossian follow up.
Let's see, the fact is that it's true, we moved about—a total of about—$462 million out of the 1996 to 1998 budget and added back in a lesser number of $350 million in 2001 and 2002. Part of the reason of moving it is we clearly were not ready to spend that money in those years. There was no question about that. The obvious question then is why didn't we move $460 million back in—the total number.
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Two things have happened since then that allowed us to take advantage of some of the savings between the 462 and the 350—inflation notwithstanding—and that is: No. 1, we increased the participation by our partners, by our European and Russian partners. The glove box, the centrifuge, the research facility—Earth viewing facility for the window—are now being provided by our international partners.
The second thing that we were able to take advantage of is the capability of the cost of technology coming down. Some of the same technology savings with Mission Operations are also similar in the equipment we need to provide the facilities for research. And so the costs are actually coming down so that I chose a cost savings in putting in some of the same facilities.
As far as the content of the research program, I think Dr. Nicogossian would be better suited to answer that particular piece of the question.
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. Mr. Hall, we are watching Mr. Rothenberg and his predecessors and his successors very carefully—both the community and us. What we did as the research—the decision flight—moved to the right, obviously, there was no reason, like I testified last year, to rush and to deploy some facilities—or build some facilities—which might become technologically obsolete by the time you deployed them and to have them on the ground.
Some of the things that I talked in my testimony were actually things that we are doing to improve our posture on the Space Station by having time to introduce new technology. And we have been working very careful, very closely, with the Space Station people to make sure that technology is infused into the facilities. As a matter of fact, we have been all the time in touch with our science community, with our advisory structures on every single step that was taken. And we have also requested the NRC, for example, to conduct a study looking at the furnace facilities. And there you commented that we do something a little bit different with the furnace facility than what was planned originally, and we are in the process of implementing it.
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Mr. Rothenberg is correct saying that we have negotiated or bartered certain portions of our activities with our international partners. The financial partners are going to deliver like the refrigerator-freezers, and the centrifuge, hopefully, on time.
We do not—our community and us—we can stand today and tell you that we have not de-scoped the research capability on the Space Station. And we are going to continue to work with the Space Station to make sure that we increase the op-mass, that we increase the crew time, and that we start as early as possible to the utilization on the Space Station. As a matter of fact, we are looking at flying some of the hardware that we have today early on during the build-up of the Space Station to test the environment and to understand how to do better research on that Space Station. Our major facilities are going to be deployed starting the utilization flight one in the Year 2000—January 2000—and I think those facilities are on track. And as far as I know, we have not de-scoped any.
We have also established a set of methods by which we can gauge the progress made by the Space Station in deploying those research capabilities. And those were established with our research community. And those methods will be used to help with assessing in real numbers—if you wish, in quantitatively—some of the very few of the qualitatively assessing the progress made toward the utilization of the Space Station. But so far, no science was de-scoped, sir.
Mr. HALL. Well, the truth is somebody has overrun their budget and you've taken the budget out of the bioreactor budget that we set there. No one forced you to overrun that budget and there are people wasting away in cancer wards and young children and young girls have to hit themselves in the leg with a needle for diabetes every morning before they go to school that are waiting for something to come out of that Space Station—a product to come out of that Space Station—something other than vast expenditures of money and ticker-tape parades. I think the American people expect something for people who have put their hard-earned tax dollars into there and then for me to see that you took $50 million out in 1996, $177 million in 1997, and you're going for $235 million in 1988, makes me think that you have low regard for those people that I've just talked about. And I think your actions show that. Please tell me what your actions show otherwise.
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Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. The bioreactor—let me tend to disagree with you, sir. The bioreactor facility for the Space Station is being developed. We are taking steps at the Johnson Space Center to expand the bioreactor capability and the bioreactor office so we can really accelerate that type of research that you are talking about. We have entered into agreements with the National Institutes of Health and we have established a laboratory which is offering research on bioreactors for other government agencies. And they are doing more diverse research in the area of cancer and infectious diseases and others that we can imagine. And some of the members of this Committee have visited, actually, that laboratory in the National Institutes of Health. They have seen what we are doing.
We have an agreement with Trevarex, with the company who is producing those bioreactors commercially available, to extend that research in different universities, and we fund some of that research. We also have entered into juvenile diabetes into joint partnership, not only to extend the bioreactors, sir, but also to develop that technology that we were just starting to talk about that we are developing now where we have successfully demonstrated that you cannot—you can—measure your blood glucose without taking blood, and because we need that technology also for space flight and we are pushing ahead with the juvenile diabetes to have that technology jointly funded and developed.
As a physician, I have a high regard for the patient's life, and I, you know, I know that the Space Station has been using for development some of the money which we have not spent and accrued as part of the science and technology facilities. And, like I told you before, so far, we have not de-scoped with any research requirements. The deployment of the facility is consistent with the Space Station deployment and sequence. And if we build those facilities and keep them on the ground, that will not do too much good for us. But with our budget that I testified today, we are charging ahead with whatever budget we have to go on to make sure that we contribute to health care.
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Mr. HALL. And you have a projection, I think, in one of the graphs here, or part of the NASA backup for your presentation today, showing that in Fiscal Year 1998, and then through 1999, and 100, and 2001 and 2002 that you are going to dramatically increase the amount of money that you've transferred out of there. What all has to happen before you're able to increase that money? It looks to me like it's just a promise. I can't see anything other than that. I've seen some definite action on transferring money out of a fund that we had proposed for use to seek the cures to the dreaded diseases that you are moving away from.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Well, Congressman, what has to happen and what we're pushing very hard to do is: we have to complete the development of the Station and get it on orbit and provide the research facilities up there.
Mr. HALL. Well, you must have known that in 1996 when you took $50 million out. And what did you do with that?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I'll have to get you that answer since I wasn't here in 1996.
Mr. HALL. And obviously, you miscalculated because then you reached in and got $177 million the next budgetary period. And now you are doubling that. Is there going to be anything left there to study, to operate the reactor, to give hope to those people that are betting absolute life on finding a cure in space—in the weightless environment of space—that they've been unable to find here?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Truly, that's what we have to do with the Station. I believe with the budgets I've seen—and we will have a budget hearing in 2 weeks and answer these much more definitively—that there is a robust research program still out there. I think you've heard Dr. Nicogossian say that the content of that program is consistent with what we plan to do. And the fact that we took the money out and put it back in in the out-years is consistent with what the facilities on orbit would be capable of doing; not the fact that we totally spent all the money in the in-years without leaving the money in the out-years to conduct the research program. I really would ask, if possible, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Hall, that we defer that for the Space Station hearings which are coming up in, I think, in the end of March or beginning of March.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. I think you just got a little taste of what is going to be coming.
Mr. HALL. I yield back my time.
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. May I add one fact.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Yes, sir.
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. Congressman Hall, currently actually, the bioreactor is flying on MIR. And one of the things that we are trying to do in space, as you recall, we find that the bioreactor on Earth cannot produce the tissue larger than the size of on centimeter on the ground. It falls unless you go to weightlessness and you can produce larger samples of tissue like we did on the previous MIR mission when we produced cartilage—bone cartilage—in space. And what we are trying to do, we are trying, actually, to address how our tumors do create—do get—blood supplies. And we have that experiment going to better understand. Like, for example, we are growing base cancer cells with vessels to understand how the vessels feed, actually, blood to the tumors. That's what the experiment that is ongoing currently. We intend to build the next generation of bioreactors.
Mr. HALL. If I could have just an additional 30 seconds?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. With unanimous consent, certainly.
I hear no objection.
Mr. HALL. You, the Administrator for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, and that's the study of human research, basically, and that's your prerogative, is it not?
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. Yes, sir. We are the office which is involved in it.
Mr. HALL. The money has come out of that thrust and gone into another thrust of the Shuttle and Station programs—astronauts. How much money—what percent of the money that we expected to go in to under your jurisdiction has been—what percent has been—transferred out? If you know it. If you don't know you can write it to me.
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Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. I told you, from the request that we are making for the Research and Analysis which is the $240 million for Fiscal Year 1999, none of that is going to the Space Station or the Shuttle. It's going to the principal investigators, and to the research—cooperative research—and to support flight investigations. But it's not going to support the development of the Space Station.
Mr. HALL. I thank you. I yield back my time.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. But the last couple of years, I mean, his question: what percentage of money has been taken for other purposes.
Mr. NICOGOSSIAN. We can go and provide that for you later on. But no money was taken from the investigator pool money, for the peer review research.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And again, Congressman Hall's questions go right to the heart of the matter again. And it goes right back to the data collection and all the other things that we're talking about. We are—the purpose of the program is not to build a Space Station. The purpose of the program is to build a Space Station which will then provide us with information and a useful tool for mankind. And to the degree that we are taking away from that purpose, it's the degree that we are betraying the people who are paying for the Space Station. And so, thank you very much for that line of questioning.
Now, we're going to reward people who arrive with their time. Whoever arrives here first get a chance to ask questions first. I would like to note that Ms. Jackson Lee is here, and was here before Dr. Weldon, although we usually shift back and forth between Republicans. And we're very happy that you are not the last one to ask questions this time. Ms. Jackson Lee?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a miracle of sorts since Wednesday seems to be a day when they triple book us in hearings and mark-ups. But I appreciate this hearing and would like to ask the Chairman to allow me to submit a statement for the record.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Without objection. So ordered
NASA AND EARTH SCIENCE FUNDING LEVELS
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. And to associate myself with several of the points that were made. First let me thank Dr. Huntress for his years of service and commitment and wish you the very best as you proceed on to even greater and better endeavors, I'm sure.
I made the point when the Administrator was here, Dan Goldin, that even though it had been noted that there is an insignificant, as I have heard it described, budget cut or difference in the Fiscal Year 1999 budget for NASA, that I was displeased because I viewed NASA as having been one of the more efficient agencies in years past, even before we all moved into the balanced budget mode. So NASA's actually being cut more because it was cut previously, or had to work with such diminishing funds. So I was concerned that we were taking a backseat on this argument about more money. And I would appreciate, as I asked my question, why, in the internal mechanism of NASA, there was not an effort to either—to not have any cuts because you had shown yourself to be efficient in the past.
And the reason why I say that is to add to my concern about the cuts in Space Sciences particularly as it relates to transfer. I will add my support for the Space Station, I continue to support the Space Station. But again, because of what it portends to do, it stands on its own two feet, and that is the feet of the kind of science that will come out of that.
So my question goes to the Earth Science budget in particular, noting that there is a $45.3 million decrease and then the decrease does not take into consideration the transfers. Two questions that I would like to have all of you answer, even if you say that Dr. X or Y is better able to answer it, and that is: atmosphere, weather, Earth conditions have risen to the national agenda. From California to Florida, people are frightened in their homes and in their communities. More than sports and the latest murder, people are rising to find out what is going on with the weather. The tragedy of 37 deaths in California—excuse me, in Florida—the mud slide in California, and the constant rain has us all in a panic. I would imagine that the Earth Sciences effort is very much intertwined with that. You are now at the national forefront. Why then are we diminishing the resources and subjecting you to transfers? What does this do to your work?
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And then, I am from Texas and will say that I embrace the industry that has given us bread and water—that is the energy industry—so that all that may want to write about my comments, I am certainly one that recognizes the validity of that industry to our community. But at the same time, having constituents who suffer from asthma and other respiratory ailments, and myself experiencing the overlay—or blanket—feeling sometimes with respect to the atmosphere—the chemical smells, if you will—and knowing that many of that comes out of your research as to its ultimate impact and how we can better address the atmosphere, and might I say the words of global warming. How is that going to all be impacted no matter what small way you are involved, by this continuous diminishing of your resources and internal transfers? And I'll finish by saying: why didn't you in the mix argue for NASA's budget being stabilized so that your moneys can be stabilized as well.
And I thank the gentlemen for their time, and I thank the Chairman.
Mr. ASRAR. Thank you very much. I'm very sorry that you were not present when I made my general remarks and to show and highlight some of the exciting results of our missions in 1997. We are indeed making a great impact on our ability to understand the causes of some of these various phenomena that you were citing, both in terms of atmospheric phenomena that's initiated in the atmosphere as well as in the ocean. I demonstrated at least two or three examples of where our measurement capabilities that we are putting in place are having an impact on short-term weather prediction as well as our ability to be able to understand these phenomena and predict them 6 months or 1 year in advance. That's the goal of our program. It is beginning. The data from our missions is beginning to basically materialize. And we are making the necessary arrangements to transfer the—not only the information, but also the knowledge that we gain from these missions—to the operational agencies such as NOAA, USGS and Coast Guard.
And we are determined—I stated that we are determined to continue to push that aspect of our program to show relevance of the science and extend the scientific discoveries beyond the scientific curiosity domain into practical benefits to the society.
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And as far as the tropospheric pollution and understandings of the impact of some of the human induced activities, we are just beginning to put in place a scientific program to truly understand those processes.
And historically, NASA has been staying out of the political debates and policy debates. We take the position on providing the scientific facts and allowing the policy makers to really draw the conclusions from those facts. And we continue to do so.
We at NASA have not invested in the past in understanding the chemistry of the lower part of the atmosphere called troposphere—where we live. As part of our program over the next decade, we are investing a large sum of our scientific and technology development in understanding the nature of the troposphere, how these pollutants are transported from continent-to-continent because that is the key to our debate about the commitment of the nations to establishing sound international policy decisions.
Coming to your question——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Dr. Asrar——
Mr. ASRAR (continuing). —About how, what is——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me interrupt you for a second. I am being called to the Floor. And you would make a great opposition witness in not answering the question which is—and I appreciate your point about where you've been involved. My concern, basically, is the utilization of funds. Do you have the funds to be able to respond to your emerging prominence—with El Nino, with the issues of global warming? And I can just sort of simply get a yes or a no, and how you're using the moneys that you have and how that is being translated into the important work that you do. And I do appreciate the explanation, but I will look forward to reading the testimony that I might have missed.
Mr. ASRAR. Yes, indeed we are. And the reason for basically the efficiencies that we are realizing from the program and the reduction in our budget, or being able to accommodate the requirements that we have within sort of the fixed budget, is the fact that we are adopting a new way of doing business. We are relying more and more on satellites—small satellites. And we are investing in technologies up front, not in the context of the missions that we are developing. Therefore, the total development cycle of these missions are being reduced to 3 to 4 years instead of 6 to 7 years. We are working for ways and means of obtaining the data through commercial partnerships which basically does not require us investing up front in the space assets. These are a combination of different ways of doing business, or a new way of doing business, that we are adopting. As such, we are taking advantage of the efficiencies in getting our program implemented.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. You would like to see, however, your budget stabilized over a period of time.
Mr. ASRAR. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Does anyone else want to just comment very briefly? Mr. Chairman?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Time is gone?
Can anyone else say yes or no—the other gentlemen that are here?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Well, since I'm a recipient of some of the benefits of the ability to do things faster and cheaper and helping us through some of our Space Station problems, I believe it's important that we get the development behind us and start using it. Because it does provide an opportunity to test the Earth and Space Science instruments that are far cheaper—lower cost approach—than they have been doing previously. So, I think our contribution is to try to get the Space Station built as fast as we can and take advantage of the transfer of funds to do that on schedule.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you think, however, stabilizing Earth Science funds are still—stabilizing of Earth Science funding? Is that something that we need to look at?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Well, I really can't comment on stabilizing Earth Science funding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I might note, Ms. Jackson Lee, that before you arrived, when I questioned Mr. Asrar that we were noting that he did not spend a large chunk of the money that he was already allocated and that seemed to be more of a problem than not having enough money.
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With that, Dr. Weldon, who is concerned about the health——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER (continuing). —Implications that you brought up more than anybody else because Dr. Weldon is an actual medical doctor. And we certainly appreciate his many contributions to this Subcommittee.
Dr. Weldon?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, and I join him in that concern.
AXAF DELAYS
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a few questions for Mr. Huntress regarding AXAF. How far behind is AXAF? How much will the delays cost the taxpayers? How has the contractor been held responsible for its performance? What happens to AXAF if it cannot be launched in December? How did the problem develop and why was it allowed to develop to the point where the mission was delayed? Those are a lot of questions, I realize, and if you forget any of them, I'll remind you, okay?
Mr. HUNTRESS. I think I've got them all. We'll try them all.
The facility was scheduled for launch in August. We now have a letter from the Marshall Space Flight Center, which is responsible for the development of AXAF that they believe that they will be ready for a launch on December 3, with a fair amount of margin towards that launch date.
We don't expect that this will be a budget issue. We will be using contingency in the program to pay the additional costs. In all of our programs we do hold contingency funds against difficulties in the development. And we have sufficient funds available for a December 3rd launch by using those project contingency funds and some Mission Operations funds that we would not otherwise use because we won't have had it launched that early.
If we don't launch it in December, there's still an opportunity in December—I mean in January—to launch it. There's a launch slot in January. We're working with Code M and Joe Rothenberg's manifesting folks, and they have offered us either or a December of January launch. We think we can take advantage of the December date.
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The problem here was with the contractor, TRW in California. And it had to do with software development. The software that was developed for integration and test of the facility prior to launch was not done well enough. They did not have a real good simulator for the spacecraft so they could do parallel software development at the same time that they were putting the spacecraft together. They have rectified that problem. They've undergone some tests last month that show that they've reversed the trend and that they are back on track so that we can, in fact, be fairly confident about this December launch.
Mr. WELDON. Just to follow up, you say it was a software problem for testing it out before it was launched. Was that something that TRW was responsible for developing and they failed to develop it properly? Is that what you are saying?
Mr. HUNTRESS. This was—the software was to be developed by the contractor, by another division within the contractor. And as it began to be used in the test sequences, it was discovered that there were a fair number of bugs in the software, and they had to go back to get the bugs taken out. I think this was a, you know, failure in systems engineering, unfortunately. And that has been. The trend has changed, and those things are getting corrected.
Mr. WELDON. Is TRW being held accountable for that at all in the contract?
Mr. HUNTRESS. Yes. In fact, one of our sources of contingency funds here to complete this laboratory without any cost to the taxpayer is, in fact, by using contractor fees that TRW will not receive.
SOLAR POWER RESEARCH
Mr. WELDON. Very good.
I've got another question. Mr. Goldin testified to us back in the fall that there was $5 million in both the Fiscal Years 1999 and 2000 budgets for Solar Power research. And for some reason, which maybe you can elaborate on, that was moved from where it was residing—Solar Power research—into your area. Can you tell me what's going on with that? Any progress been made? And is the Office of Space Flight still involved at all?
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Mr. HUNTRESS. Yes, the money resides in what we call a Cross-Enterprise Technology Program. It's a technology development program that resides in Code S but we are stewards for that line, and in fact, need to support technology developments across the entire agency in that particular line, in fact. So that Code M is still responsible for the study itself, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in particular.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you for your line of questioning on both of those.
Mr. Roemer has a couple of follow-up questions that he would like to ask.
SPACE STATION FUNDING TRANSFERS AND CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE
Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to follow up on some of Mr. Hall's comments. The famous bank robber, Willy Sutton, was once asked: why do you rob banks. And his reply was: well, that's where the money is. And it seems to me with the witnesses that we have up there today, that we're kind of taking from some accounts because that's where the money is, to fund the Space Station which is about $4 billion over cost, and which will probably continue to run into very significant problems in the future.
My question would go right to the heart of what Mr. Hall was asking about in terms of some of the research in science that has been promised by the Space Station. And as we read more and more about the Life and Microgravity Sciences Applications Office, we see that many of the shuttle missions now are being re-manifested not to help us with research, but to do the construction on the Space Station. So they're being re-manifested, and re-categorized, and the research is not going to be done. It appears too, that due to budgetary considerations that the payload capacity and the research on some of the shuttle missions is going to be opened up more and more to paying-foreign customers rather than U.S. researchers.
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And I guess I would just say to both—my question would go to both Mr. Rothenberg and to Mr. Nicogossian—and let me gently remind you that you've been sworn in by the Chairman—what do you know of now—you're both very bright men, I'm sure you project these things way into the future—what do you know of now with respect to the Russian situation, with respect to already re-manifesting shuttle flights, with respect to more transfer authority that you already have through Congress that is going to further add to the cost of this Space Station?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. That was a pretty broad question, Mr. Roemer, could you be specific which one you want to answer first, then go. Because we've only got a few minutes left.
Mr. ROEMER. Sure. Mr. Rothenberg?
Mr. ROTHENBERG. Okay, let's see. One, obviously, we will be able to answer in more detail in a couple of weeks, but at the moment we do know that the Russians have not received the money they expected on the 15th of February. We do know that the Service Module which is due at the end of this year is at least a couple of months behind schedule. Mr. Koptev presented to both Mr. Goldin, myself, as well as the technical staff, a plan that recovers that schedule. We are very skeptical of it, to say the least. So——
All of these right now add up to—the first thing: the money is a serious problem. But presuming they do get the money, and I don't—that's a big presumption for the moment—but presuming they do get the money, we believe that on the outside the schedule may slip out to February or March. They're still not saying that. They believe, and they are pushing hard with their work-arounds to make December. Even if the schedule moves out to April, on the outside, we still believe within our reserves and within the budget flexibility we will be able to—we will not need additional funding.
I can't predict what happens if we run into an orbit problem with Node I or an assembly problem with Node I. We're not prepared for major setbacks in the program with funding. But we are prepared with some of the contingencies and looking at, for example, looking at flights of opportunity that will put research in the program back on the shuttle if the station starts to move—if the assembly flights start to move for any reason—because we find something doesn't go together exactly as we expected and we need to reschedule a flight.
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But at the moment, that's everything I know. And I'm sure in 2 weeks I'll be able to talk in more detail and answer your question in more detail.
Mr. ROEMER. But March or April is a best-case scenario given that the Russians get the money, which it's highly unlikely they are going to get.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. That would be my——
Mr. ROEMER. I thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Gordon?
SPACE STATION FUNDING PERSPECTIVES
Mr. GORDON. Time is running out, so I'm going to be very brief.
I told you about my constituents in Franklin and in Woodbury, and Selina a little earlier. Let me tell you one more quick story. When I first ran for Congress, as probably you know, it's an expensive venture. I had to mortgage my house. And I started seeing bills come in. And I noticed that some of the bills were for more than I thought they should be, or for things that I didn't think were necessary. And that's when I realized, that when you start having people spend money, they don't have to raise it, it's a lot easier. And so I sort of have a rule now in the campaign that nobody can spend any money if they didn't have to raise it. So that they understand a little bit more, you know, and decide: okay, is that worth a ticket, or is that worth the effort I have to make to do it. And often times it is. And they make those decisions.
We've got a situation here where it's really it's Congress that has to, I guess, if you want to say, make the tough decision of whether its raising taxes or spending limited resources for programs. Yet, you know, you have the ability or the benefit to be able to spend the money. If you want to be able to, I think, spend those resources, I think, it has to be on more than on a ''trust me'' basis. I think there needs to be a better education of, I would like to start with this Committee, and certainly myself, than on further of what has the Space Station—or what has NASA—done over these past 40 years. Not what you're going to do, you know, in the next 10, but what have you done to better, I think, shore me up and then in turn, help to shore up constituents across the country so that if tough times get here, if there's an occasion when you come back—I can't imagine you come back and saying: uh oh, we messed up, we might have to have more money. I'm sure that wouldn't happen. But if it did, there probably needs to be some goodwill, both in Congress and at home, to be able to substantiate that.
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So, I would just suggest that it would be a good idea to start. And I think there is a good story for you to tell. And I think you need to be telling that around the country and here to build up that goodwill so that folks will be able to have the ability to maybe get those additional resources for you.
Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. We have to go and vote. So, we're going to call this hearing to an end.
Let me just note, you can sort of—there's a little undercurrent going on here. And I think it has to do with cost over-runs in the station. And if we get more surprises, and I'm sure we're going to get a few more surprises before this project is over, that's the type of thing that is going to bubble to the surface. Listen, we're committed to this project. We want it to work. We want it to be successful. But we have got to watch out for the interest of the taxpayers.
And in terms of Earth Science, it is absolutely necessary that we get the financial house in order there because there's actually fewer excuses in this area than there is over in the Space Station side because there's some things—you know, we're putting people up there and there's certain things you've got to do in order to make sure this is successful. But with Earth Sciences, we're talking about management problems here. And again, I don't want to encourage you to spend money that you don't have. The last thing I want is for people to go out and spend their budget so that Rohrabacher won't say we don't need the money anymore.
So, I mean, we're counting on your good judgment and your honesty and your integrity and goodwill between both sides of the panel here—this side and that side. So, we're interested in working with you.
And I want to thank each and every one of you for giving us some good testimony today. And again, Dr. Huntress, congratulations. We've really enjoyed working with you. You've laid a foundation for some really wonderful things in the future, so thank you all very much.
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This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
48–206CC
1998
FISCAL YEAR 1999 BUDGET REQUEST: THE SCIENCES AT NASA
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
FEBRUARY 25, 1998
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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
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CHRIS CANNON, Utah
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
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
PAUL McHALE, Pennsylvania
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, California
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
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DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
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
BART GORDON, Tennessee
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RALPH M. HALL, Texas
JAMES A. TRAFICANT, Jr., Ohio
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
ZOE LOFGREN, California
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
*Ranking Minority Member
**Vice Chairman
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
February 25, 1998:
Wes Huntress, Associate Administrator, Space Science, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Ghasem Asrar, Associate Administrator, Earth Science Enterprise, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Arnauld Nicogossian, Associate Administrator for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Joseph Rothenberg, Associate Administrator, Office of Space Flight, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Topics Discussed:
Earth Science Uncosted Carryover
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Earth Science Commercial Data Purchase
Space Station Funding Justifications
Technology Research Funding Levels
Mission Operations and Data Analysis Funding
Space Station Science Funding Transfers
NASA and Earth Science Funding Levels
AXAF Delays
Solar Power Research
Space Station Funding Transfers and Construction Schedule
Space Station Funding Perspectives
(iii)