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U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION IN HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT, PART I: MIR SAFETY
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1997
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Committee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair will be granted permission to recess the Committee at any point, and without objection, and all members will have the opportunity to submit opening statements for the record before the testimony of the witnesses is inserted.
Good morning, and welcome to our first hearing on Mir safety and our general relationship with Russians in space. I hope that in the future we will be able to have hearings with the astronauts who have stayed on Mir and with General Stafford, who chairs a bilateral commission on U.S.-Russian space cooperation.
This hearing is prompted by the series of mistakes, accidents, systems failures, and two life-threatening incidents that we all have witnessed over the last few months. Perhaps from now on we should call these problems ''Mir-haps'' instead of mishaps. These events have caused increasing concern about Mir's safety and the scientific and technical value of placing American astronauts aboard Mir. So, it is appropriate that we hold an oversight hearing to get these issues on the public record for Congress and the American people to consider.
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In July, Mr. Brown and I requested NASA's Inspector General to look into the issues surrounding Mir safety and the future scientific content of the program. Her interim response and the mountain of documents and materials she has provided to this Committee detail a litany of mishaps, excuses, inconsistencies, and tolerance for failure that I never expected to be confronted with in a NASA program. Yet, NASA continues to assure us all is well and intends to send another astronaut to Mir next week for a long-term stay.
Knowledgeable reporters, working through the Freedom of Information Act, have confirmed that we have a major problem on our hands. NASA seems to have stonewalled those problems and I don't think that that's proper.
I have four major concerns. First, public assurances by NASA about Mir safety have been contradicted by the facts, again and again. Second, it appears that existing safety procedures are not being completely followed. Third, Russia is not committing adequate resources to ensure Mir's safety and is not committing adequate resources to pay for its part of the International Space Station. Finally, I can't conclude, from what I've seen so far, that the benefits of visiting Mir in the future are still commensurate with increasing risks.
What will it take for Russia to decide that Mir has passed its prime or the United States to determine that it's not safe? Does someone have to get killed before NASA and the Russian Space Agency wake up? We all know that space is risky, and we accept that risk. But, we learned from the Challenger tragedy that we can't accept repeated systems failures as a normal part of taking risks. NASA and its contractors had problems with the Shuttle O-Rings years before their failure destroyed Challenger and killed brave astronauts; and yet, each failure was tolerated as an anecdotal incident. No one looked at the pattern. A member of the Rogers Commission, Dr. Richard Feynman, observed that the decision process was, ''A kind of Russian roulette. [The Shuttle] flies [with O-ring erosion] and nothing happens. Then it is suggested, therefore, that the risk is no longer so high for the next flights. We can lower our standards a little bit because we got away with it last time. You got away with it, but it shouldn't be done over and over again like that.''
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I wonder what the late Dr. Feynman would think about Mir now. I think he'd see a pattern of warning signals telling us almost daily that Mir has reached the end of safe operations. I don't think he'd accept the descriptions of fires, collisions, depressurization, tumbling in space, repeated computer failures, declining science content, or breathing ethylene glycol and carbon dioxide while living in a sauna as mere anomalies or off-nominal performance.
This Committee and I have supported the International Space Station and cooperation with the Russians for years. We have consistently moved authorization bills that fully fund the President's request for the ISS and the Shuttle/Mir program and have defended both programs in the appropriations process. This year we went so far as to authorize budget levels higher than the President's request. You won't find people in Congress who care more about the space program, science, or technology than the members of this Committee on a bipartisan basis.
But that support is not unconditional. We have a responsibility to be skeptical and to force NASA to make a convincing case for its decisions. We are obligated to challenge those decisions when they don't pass the commonsense test. I have tried to do that fairly in regards to the Space Station, and that means sometimes being tough on the Agency. Being tough doesn't mean we oppose a program; it means we care about it too much to be less than honest with one another.
That's one thing that has been lacking in our relationship with the Russians in space. I will not repeat the litany of broken Russian promises to provide enough resources to the Russian Space Agency to build the Space Station. Sadly, when the Inspector General noted the communication problems between NASA and the Russian Space Agency, I wasn't surprised.
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With that in mind, I want to challenge the Russian government to do the things it promised by providing all the resources needed to build Russia's part of the Space Station. I want to challenge the Russian government to face the financial shortfalls in its space programs, instead of making its cosmonauts the scapegoats for the problems on the Mir by fining them and by disgracing them. I want to challenge the Russian government to make the tough choice of either holding onto the past that Mir represents, or seizing the future of international cooperation that the Space Station represents. Clearly, Russia cannot do both.
Some are speculating that the Committee is out to embarrass NASA in general, and Mr. Culbertson, in particular. Let me say, for the record, that this is not the case. Mr. Culbertson and his team have accomplished a lot in implementing decisions imposed from above. What benefits the Shuttle/Mir program has brought the United States are attributable to Mr. Culbertson, the astronauts, and the people in America and Russia, working at that level of cooperation. That doesn't mean we'll not ask him some tough questions, but I would like to remind everybody in the room that Mr. Culbertson is not responsible for the grand strategic decisions made about the future of human spaceflight or NASA's relationship with Russia. Those calls get made well above his pay grade.
The Committee has not gotten involved in operational decisions that are best left to technical experts at NASA. But, the information we have received from the Inspector General and the media reports that we have seen in the American and foreign media suggest that the problems on Mir are going to get worse, not better.
And I would like to draw everybody's attention in the room to the top right chart over against that wall that shows the increasing level of Mir hardware failures in 1994, 1995, and 1996. The 1997 hardware failures would go well off the top of the chart. There is a limit to how long we can watch this problem grow without taking some action. I expect to find out just how close we are to that limit at today's hearing.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. And now, I would like to recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Brown, for his opening statement.
Mr. BROWN of California. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I welcome the witnesses and the audience here this morning. I also wish to state that, while I am not in total agreement with the Chairman, I am in very substantial agreement with him and I have the highest respect for the diligence he's—he has demonstrated in pursuing the oversight of the Mir Space Station and the matters related thereto. However, I do feel compelled to note my disappointment that this hearing will not hear testimony from General Thomas Stafford, the head of the independent review team charged with assessing the safety of the Shuttle/Mir program. I do appreciate the fact that the Chairman has indicated that this may occur at a later date.
Let me now turn to the subject of today's hearing: Mir safety. We have all become aware of the problems experienced on the Mir Space Station over the past few months. The interim report submitted by the NASA Inspector General describes a number of these problems and presents some compelling anecdotes. It does not, however, draw any conclusions regarding the safety or viability of Mir.
At the same time, NASA has been following a three-pronged safety review process in its ongoing evaluation of the safety and operational viability of the program. As I understand it, the review process involves the NASA Shuttle/Mir program office, NASA's independent safety office, and an independent external safety evaluation by the Stafford Task Force that is conducted with input from the Russian side. I look forward to hearing more about the existing review process and whether there are any improvements that need to be made in it.
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That being said, I do not believe that it is appropriate for us, as Members of Congress, to insert ourselves into the conduct of that review process. Members of this Committee are not in a position to credibly evaluate astronaut debriefings, fragments of engineering analyses, and so forth—as press-worthy as some of the anecdotes that have surfaced may appear to be. We cannot be NASA's safety engineers, and we should not pretend otherwise. I recognize, in saying this, that there is a very delicate balance between our role here, being rigorous in oversight, and our obligation not to be involved in operational details or to intervene in the established procedures that have been set up.
Instead, I believe that we need to step back and take a broader perspective. In 1993, the United States and Russia announced a significant expansion of their cooperative activities in human spaceflight, with the announced goal of involving Russia in the International Space Station program. At that time, it was recognized that the two nations would need much more experience working together if the Space Station collaboration was to be carried out successfully. Hence, the Shuttle/Mir program was created as an essential and prudent interim step.
In my opinion, the program has been enormously successful in achieving its objectives so far. These objectives included: Gaining valuable experience in joint Space Station operations—including dealing with the unexpected; conducting long-duration research on Mir that is not possible on the Shuttle, and developing the close working relationships between Russian and American space personnel that will be required if we are to successfully develop and operate the International Space Station.
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The magnitude of what is being attempted should not be minimized. We are talking about no less than the peaceful merger of the human spaceflight programs of the world's two leading spacefaring nations—nations who were adversaries for most of the Space Age. Thus, it does not surprise me, in the least, that over the course of the Shuttle/Mir program, NASA and the Russian Space Agency have had to deal with communications issues, conflicting approaches to operations and maintenance, training issues, and so forth. These are precisely the types of issues that will have to be confronted and resolved if we are to have a viable International Space Station. Moreover, it must be recognized that even under the best of circumstances, human spaceflight will always entail risks. The Shuttle/Mir program will be no exception.
However, NASA and the Russian Space Agency have the responsibility to ensure that these risks are prudently managed and that proper safety procedures are followed. As part of that process, both space agencies must continue to believe that they always have both the right and the obligation to stand down temporarily whenever safety or operational necessities mandate it. I have no reason to doubt that that is the case at present, but we must remain vigilant in that regard.
Finally, we need to be assured that the benefits to be obtained from each remaining planned Shuttle/Mir flight continue to outweigh the costs. As I stated earlier, there can be no question that the Shuttle/Mir program has been enormously productive to date. But that cost-benefit issue needs to be addressed on a continuing basis even if the safety reviews indicate that it's safe to fly. In weighing the costs and benefits of any individual mission, we need to remember that our collaboration with Russia is intended to be long-term in nature. The durability of the collaborative relationship should not be dependent on meeting short-term launch timetables.
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With these brief comments, I would like to again thank the witnesses for their participation. And I would also like to note the fact that we have in the audience two astronauts who are not on the witness list, but have visited the Mir station: Charlie Precort and Shannon Lucid, and I want to welcome them also to this hearing.
[The following statements are submitted into the record.]
Offset folios 001 to 011 insert here
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired and I thank the gentleman from California for his statements. Would each of the witnesses please stand to be sworn in?
Please raise your right hand. Do you, and each of you, solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Ms. GROSS. I do.
Mr. CULBERTSON. I do.
Mr. OBERG. I do.
Ms. SMITH. I do.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you.
The first witness will be Roberta Gross, Inspector General of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who, at the request of Mr. Brown and me, has conducted an investigation into the safety questions and has sent a preliminary report, dated August 29th.
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I would like to ask each of the witnesses to summarize their statements in 5 to 8 minutes' time. Without objection, the complete text of all of the statements will be inserted into the record at the proper place in the witnesses' testimony, and Ms. Gross, you may proceed as you'd like.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERTA L. GROSS, INSPECTOR GENERAL, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Ms. GROSS. Thank you, very much.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Brown, and members of the Committee, I'm pleased to be here today to discuss——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Please pull the microphone a little bit closer so the court reporter can hear what you're saying.
Ms. GROSS. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss issues related to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's participation in the Russian Mir space program. In my testimony today, I'm not questioning whether astronaut participation aboard the Mir Space Station is risky—of course it is. Space exploration is inherently risky. The issue I'm addressing in my testimony is whether NASA has adequate processes and procedures to assess the risks versus the benefits of participating in this program. I previously discussed some of my concerns with the Administrator, Dan Goldin. And at his direction, the Agency will be making some responsive changes. More needs to be done.
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My testimony should not be seen as minimizing important scientific or technical gains that the United States has achieved through participation on Phase I on the Mir Space Station. There have been some critical lessons learned from working with Russians that will impact on the operation of the International Space Station; that was, after all, a goal that they did set. These gains include insight into engineering, scientific, and human factor issues which NASA and its partners are applying to Phases II and III of the ISS, the International Space Station. However, the American public has a right to expect important and meaningful results. NASA is investing sizeable resources directly through its 4-year, $471 million dollar contract and through other resources applied to Russian-U.S. space programs; that is, the Shuttle transport of supplies, equipment, crew to and from the Mir, training, travel, all sorts of support that's not in that—some of that is in the contract and some of it's not in the contract.
Nevertheless, the recent cluster of accidents, mishaps, and serious problems on the Mir raise an obvious question: Has NASA implemented appropriate oversight mechanisms, procedures, and controls to objectively and adequately assess the risks of continued astronaut flights aboard the Mir? Clearly, there are other important questions for the agency to answer about the program. These include most importantly: The cause of the fire on the Mir in February 1997. The Russians still have not tested their theories, recreating the event, so that adequate steps can be taken for the Mir and the ISS; it's a major, major safety problem.
In addition, there are still questions about the Progress collision in June 1997; the risk of future ethylene glycol leaks and their effect on astronaut health; the proper training for the astronauts, including some basic training in the operation of the Soyuz which is the escape vehicle. I recently addressed these issues in my letter to the Chair and Representative Brown of this Committee, and I'd like to have that letter incorporated into the record.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Ms. GROSS. Thank you.
These are not issues unknown to NASA, the ones that I just raised, and issues of concern have been expressed by NASA. Indeed, I would refer the Committee to a letter, dated August 11, from Mr. Culbertson to Mr. Ryumin, in which he both talked about having more information about the fire, more information about the collision, as being very key. And he also said, ''A plan''—that they were asking the Russians for a ''plan—for including the United States in the review and approval process for undertaking significant activities on the Mir over the next year. We need to participate in these activities to ensure the safety and productivity of our crew, as well as to address the concerns of our leadership,'' and he (Culbertson) went on to say, ''The message I'm seeking to convey is that it's necessary for us to become more active participants in the planning, review, and execution of operations that affect our program on the Mir.''
All that's good; that's good and they have become more involved. But the date of that is August 11, 1997; we've been in the program since 1995.
NASA has three mechanisms for assessing its participation on the Mir flights: The NASA Shuttle/Mir Program Manager, Mr. Culbertson, who conducts internal safety reviews; the NASA Associate Administrator for Safety and Mission Assurance also conducts safety reviews, and an external team led by Lieutenant General Stafford, a former astronaut, who reviews safety and operational readiness.
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Because of time constraints, we have not evaluated the effectiveness of these mechanisms. We've been in this inquiry for less than 2 months; there is a lot to learn, there's a lot still to learn; and so what we are doing is raising concerns.
However, some former NASA employees, as well as current employees, question the adequacy of these assessment processes. Their concerns fall into three main categories: One, the chilling impact of free discussion and criticism caused by the pivotal role of the Johnson Space Center for Human Space program; two, the perceived lack of independence of the Stafford team, due to perceived ties to the JSC Center director; and three, the reduced level of risk assessment performed because of the overriding goals to continue participation in the U.S.-Russian partnership which prevents, they say, NASA from using proper criteria, consistently applied.
To be balanced, this is just some. There are people that are very supportive of the process and feel that the process—given the constraints of working on and being guests in many ways as well as participants on another nation's space vehicle—given those kind of constraints, they are doing the job that they could do. So, I want to put that in balance. But, I nevertheless, want to put the criticisms forward, because the process can be better.
Some of these employees have also said that they feel it would jeopardize their careers to be frank in their opinions, observations, and assessments of the Mir program. These remarks were even made by employees who support the mission and characterize it as being safe. In a human space program, free and open communication is an essential component.
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NASA began the Shuttle/Mir program without the benefit of a rigorous safety analysis or risk assessment of the program. This decision was based on several factors: There's a lack of documentation by the Russians—they just don't do business the way we do; there is considerable cost and time needed if we were going to even recreate the baseline information—it would cost a lot of money; we wouldn't have probably been able to do it even after all that expenditure of money, and if we had to take all that time to do it, we would not be able to get any kind of benefits from Phase I to apply to Phase II; also, there was the reluctance of the Russians to share proprietary information.
The Agency had to make a decision whether it wanted to begin long duration flight missions so that it could apply these lessons. So, based on the historically safe performance of Mir operations, NASA agreed to participate in the program. The Phase I baseline safety concept was that each partner would be responsible for the safety and flight readiness certification of its own vehicles—in other words, NASA for the Shuttle and the Russians for the Mir.
We believe that because of the different risk assumptions in the ISS program, particularly the Mir Phase I program, the Agency should seriously concentrate—should seriously consider—whether concentration of program responsibility at JSC provides sufficient checks and balances to ensure adequate program assessment. Now this concentration reflects NASA's implementation of its strategic plan.
We've had a downsizing of headquarters and it only has general oversight and there's now centers of excellence. In some instances, this is very effective. However, the question I'm asking, and I don't have the answer, but it's only in light of the comments that we had from employees about their ability to freely communicate. The question is: Are there proper checks and balances, when JSC has the major implementation responsibilities for the Phase I program, has a major voice in the selection of astronauts for the limited flight opportunities, and oversees both the astronaut medical program and the local safety, reliability, and quality assurance offices? Will astronauts be candid about their assessments, opinions, and observations if they perceive that the price of candor is to risk their participation in flight opportunities? Will medical and safety risk assessments be properly considered and presented when those official report to the center director, who is responsible for operations of the program? Instead of the current arrangements, should the astronaut medical office and the safety reliability and quality assurance officials, as well as the astronauts, still remain located at JSC, but report to headquarters officials? This arrangement would better assure their independence, serve as a check and balance to the program implementation focus of JSC. In other words, should the Associate Administrators for Space Flight, for Safety and Mission Assurance, and the Chief Medical Officer, be given greater oversight responsibilities for the program?
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Ms. Gross, could you wrap it up?
Ms. GROSS. Yes.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. It's gone about 10 minutes now.
Ms. GROSS. Sorry.
I do want to put it in this context: That it was more than a decade ago, NASA went through a painful examination as to the cause of the crew's death in the Challenger accident. And they made two recommendations from the report in the Rogers' Commission Report, to which you referred, Mr. Chairman. The Rogers' Commission strongly endorsed the need for strong, central safety, reliability, and quality assurance function. And it also recommended that NASA needed to create a climate which would improve internal communications.
I want to underscore, in conclusion, that I'm only raising these issues as concerns. We have not conducted a systematic evaluation of NASA's risk assessment procedures. We've tried in the last few months to gain insight of NASA's assessment efforts, both here and in Russia. And in fact, as we speak, I have two individuals in Russia. As a result, we believe that in the context of a different paradigm of the ISS program, particularly Phase I, we should carefully assess, has NASA's implementation of its strategic plan hurt safety?
Thank you, I'd be glad to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Gross follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Ms. Gross.
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman?
Mr. HALL. I have a unanimous consent request.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. HALL. A moment ago, you asked for unanimous consent that this lady's entire letter be placed in the record, and though she reads well from a printed page, we disagree, many of us, with what she wants to place in the record until Tom Stafford, whose history of service she impugns has a chance to answer it.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman from Texas will yield, General Stafford is out of town, and was unable to come to this hearing. I have given Mr. Brown a commitment that General Stafford will have an opportunity to appear at a subsequent hearing that we will schedule at a time that is convenient to him. The record for the entire series of hearings on Mir safety and the relationship with the Russians will not close until we have had all of the hearings that are necessary to delve into this. I do think that the statement that Ms. Gross has made, together with her supporting material, will be placed into the record, together with whatever material any of the other witnesses want to have placed in the record, will be placed in the record as well. We've done so in the past, and I think that in order to make each witness' statements complete, we ought to allow what they want to put into the record to be placed there.
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Mr. HALL. Well, Mr. Chairman, inasmuch as in her own testimony she said they haven't properly evaluated the effectiveness of certain mechanisms, and she has no independent corroboration of it, I want to withdraw my vote to give unanimous consent, and the Chairman can overrule it or he can have a voice vote and go ahead and put it in the record, but I would respectfully request that Tom Stafford's statement be put in the record just after this lady's statement.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. When General Stafford appears, anything, as far as I'm concerned, anything that he would like to place into the record, will be placed into the record. That's the courtesy that we've given to every witness that has appeared before this Committee since I've been here. Now, should the—the Inspector General does raise some issues. General Stafford will be given an opportunity to give his side of the story.
Mr. HALL. Since he isn't, isn't here—and I understand that he couldn't be here, and if you had this hearing set, I respect that, but since his, I think, his reputation was tarnished by her letter, I ask that it be placed, his statement be, that a place be saved for his statement to go just after her statement.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I withdraw my motion.
[The prepared statement of Lt. Gen. Stafford follows:]
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GENERAL STAFFORD STATEMENT ON COMMENTS MADE BY THE NASA INSPECTOR GENERAL AT THE SEPTEMBER 18, 1997, HEARING OF THE HOUSE SCIENCE COMMITTEE
I would like to thank the Committee for giving me an opportunity to respond to the statements made by the NASA Inspector General at this hearing. As NASA is responsible for responding to any concerns or issues raised by the Inspector General, I will not comment directly on them. I will say, however, that my Task Force and I remain ready to provide objective and expert safety and technical assessments when called upon by NASA or the NASA Advisory Council to do so. And when called upon, we will continue to conduct our assessments in a manner that is fully compliant with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, just as we have always done. I am extremely proud of the performance and integrity of every single member of my team. The strong track record of the Task Force over the last four years is a reflection of the team's professionalism and commitment.
Ms. GROSS. I also would like to say the intention is not to impugn a man who's a very respected man, but to talk about a process. This is not a personal thing about the man; it's about whether that process is the best process for safety of the Mir.
Mr. HALL. You talk about the reputation of a man, you impugning the reputation of a man whose——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman will have 5 minutes to ask witnesses whatever questions he wants at the proper time.
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The next witness will be Captain Culbertson, and to introduce him, I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee.
As the Chairman and members know, I have the honor of representing the District in which the Johnson Space Center is located, home of the world-famous Mission Control, and so many of the skilled and talented and dedicated people who help make our dreams of space flight a reality. The Ninth District of Texas is also the home of the NASA astronaut corps, and many of the brave men and women who serve our Nation live in my area as well. I'm delighted to introduce one of them to you this morning: our lead witness for this hearing, Retired Navy Captain, Frank Culbertson, the Manager of the Phase I Shuttle/Mir Program. Frank lives in Nassau Bay, Texas, with his wife, Rebecca, and their five children.
And I'd also like to take the opportunity to recognize and welcome Mrs. Culbertson, who has joined us this morning as well. Captain Culbertson is a native of Charleston, South Carolina; graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served as a naval aviator and test pilot prior to joining NASA.
Frank joined the Astronaut Office in May of 1984. He flew as a pilot aboard Shuttle mission STS–38 in November of 1990, and more recently in September of 1993, he commanded STS–51 mission aboard the Shuttle Discovery. He currently serves as Manager of the Phase I Shuttle/Mir Program. I've watched Captain Culbertson in the performance of his duties as a program manager and I must say that he is competent, knowledgeable, and professional, and is as fine as any of the fine national managers I have met. I am confident that his expertise will become apparent through this hearing.
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Frank Culbertson knows this program; he knows its challenges; and he and his team meet them everyday. I know how strongly he believes in the Shuttle/Mir program, and he is here to help us understand the importance of this program.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lampson follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, and Mr. Culbertson, you're recognized for 5 to 8 minutes. Your complete text, unimpeached by members of the Committee, will be placed in the record after your oral testimony, and you may proceed as you want.
TESTIMONY OF FRANK CULBERTSON, MANAGER, PHASE I PROGRAM, LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
Mr. CULBERTSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, and Mr. Lampson, thank you very much for the kind introduction. I also thank you for this opportunity to have, at this occasion, to address the concerns of the Committee, to be able to explain to the American public more clearly what we are doing in space on the Mir, why we are there, and how we are dealing with the problems that have occurred in the recent past.
I want to tell you what the benefits of that program are now, and have been in the past, how we assess the risks to lives and property in implementing that program. The details of this are in my written statement which will be submitted for the record. I would like to summarize briefly, though.
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Dr. Shannon Lucid has already been recognized and Colonel Charlie Precort, here, is supporting me. In addition, we have Col. Fred Gregory, the head of NASA Safety at NASA headquarters, and in addition, my Deputy Director, James Van Laak, is here to help us with the technical details if it gets over my head.
As you are probably aware, this hearing is occurring during the period in which we are actively preparing for the launch of the next shuttle scheduled to dock with the Mir station, as well as finalizing the manifest to most accurately reflect the current needs of the science program and the station.
We're also working with Dr. Foale to help him pack up his equipment and his science experiments prior to returning to Earth after a very eventful 22 weeks in orbit. Dr. Foale took some time from his busy schedule to write a letter to Dave Leestma, the Director of Flight Crew Operations, in which he states, ''The current conditions of systems on Mir for life support are sufficient for NASA Six''—which is Dave Wolf—''to safely remain on Mir after STS–86 leaves.''
He also expresses concerns that we share about executing new operational scenarios or tests, such as manual progress dockings. We have already implemented procedures to ensure that such tests of this nature will not be initiated without review by all parties concerned and that agreement will be formalized at the upcoming Joint Management Team Meeting just prior to the launch at Kennedy Space Center. I would like to submit a copy of that letter, from Mike, into the record of these proceedings.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Thank you, sir.
At the Joint Management Team meeting, we will reassess our readiness to proceed with the countdown and following that, my counterpart, Dr. Ryumin, and myself, will report that to the Mission Management Team, or MMT, at Kennedy Space Center, 2 days prior to launch, which currently is scheduled for the 25th of September at 10:34 Eastern time, p.m. As always, any member of any team, participating in the mission or launch processing can bring forward safety issues which would be reviewed by the MMT immediately and the countdown would hold, if deemed necessary to resolve the issue. I mentioned the preceding to give you an idea of the level of review we still have ahead of us and the opportunities that remain for safety concerns to be addressed, if they surface.
The details of the flight readiness review process began back in August with the science program review, has to be continued through the joint Phase I reviews, and culminated in the STS–86 flight readiness review in Florida, September the 12th. As I'm sure you've been informed, the result of every review that it is, was, that it is safe to proceed with both STS–86 and Dave Wolf's mission, that all elements of the programs are ready to proceed and support the missions, and that the plans are in order and expected to be very productive.
I do want to tell you that it is a tremendous challenge for me to stand up in front of the room of 200 engineers, operators, astronauts, and managers whose very lives and careers depend on every element of the program being conducted safely; to be able to answer their questions; and to demonstrate, in indisputable terms, that we have done our homework on any issue that they should raise, and this is more than any review that I could imagine.
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I know from hard experience that the Center Directors and others at the Center table, who collectively represent between 200 and 300 years of experience launching humans into space, also spare no one's feelings in asking hard questions and demanding answers of program and project managers, whether the issue is safety of life or mission success, as I am sure your staff members reported to you, after being a part of that review last Friday. These managers must be satisfied before we launch, and their conclusion on that day was unanimous to proceed.
In addition to this normal review process, we have also gladly supported independent reviews conducted by the NASA Inspector General, the Stafford/Utkin and Independent Review Commission, the Aerospace Advisory Council, the NASA Advisory Council, the HEDS Assurance Council, and the General Accounting Office. Some of these groups are ongoing reviews of the program; others have already concluded their work. Any issues raised by these groups have either been addressed in the normal course of operations, were addressed and resolved as soon as they were raised, or if any others are raised in future reports, they will be addressed immediately.
It is important to note that on the Mir many items are operated until failure. This is in part due to the Russian philosophy that it costs time and resources to change things out when they're on orbit and it's going to slow the program down. If a component does not affect safety, they will replace it when it fails, and they do a careful review of this. The reports that the Mir, when the computer fails, is spinning like a Frisbee or tumbling out of control, bear no resemblance to reality. Let me demonstrate what that event looks like on the Mir. The Mir is on orbit—and may I address the model?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Please.
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Mr. CULBERTSON. When the Mir is on orbit, if you can imagine for the next 5 seconds that you're seeing 5 minutes of life on, on the, on orbit, on the Mir, this is what it looks like in relation to the Earth to me. Extremely slow rotation rate, but it's not discernible. Let's now imagine that the computer fails on the Mir at this point in time. This is what it looks like. The Mir does not go into a tumble or a spin, or is not tumbling out of control. It is not being actively gyrodynes if the computer shuts down, but it does not go out of control. The solar arrays, which are not on this model, remain pointed at the Sun, and they take the proper action to recover from that. If a rotation were to develop, it could not be accurately described as it often is. The highest rate of rotation we have ever seen on the Mir during Phase I is approximately 1 degree per second shortly after the collision. The second hand on your clock up there is rotating 6 times faster than that. In short, it would take 6 minutes to complete one rotation, even if you had that happen. I don't think even the most timid rollercoaster rider would be bothered by that rotation rate. The Shuttle routinely maneuvers at 5 degrees per second or higher and is never referred to as spinning or tumbling.
I believe that if we could have afforded to build a test bed like the Mir to prepare for ISS, as we built Gemini to prepare for Apollo, we would have done it to reduce the risk to the more expensive program. And we would have flown as many flights as we could squeeze into the budget and time available before we had to launch the star of the show. We were doing rehearsals for a major, expensive, most complicated program in space ever, that is just on the horizon. We need to take advantage of every hour on orbit we can beg, borrow, or extend before we put $40 billion dollars worth of our, and our partners', hardware on orbit.
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Phase I is an opportunity to maximize our time in a very strenuous operation on an actual station. Yes, there are real risks in space flight whether it's on the Shuttle, the Mir, the future ISS, or Apollo. The magnitude of that risk is extremely high when you're riding 6 million pounds of thrust through the atmosphere to reach orbital speed. As one who's ridden the rocket twice, I can say there's no way anyone will convince me that the risk to the life of an astronaut is ever greater in any phase of flight than it is during ascent. People I respect greatly, such as John Young, the first to command the Shuttle, have reminded me of this many times.
In closing, let me just say that there is actually a group who watches what I do, with an even more critical eye than the senior managers, and that is the families of the people who fly these missions. Those who know me and my history have seen that I take the lives of my friends very seriously and would never send anyone in Phase I to do anything I have not done myself or would not do in the future. Others occasionally accuse me of even being too biased in favor of the crew's welfare. But the reality is, these people are my friends; I spend time with them; these are people I've flown airplanes with and hope to fly with in the future. Mike Foale's children went to the same pre-school as my daughter. I speak to his wife, Rhonda, frequently, and she and the kids have even called Mike from my kitchen.
I recently went to a showing of the latest IMAX movie on the Mir missions with the parents and relatives of Dave Wolf. I didn't need this particular event to motivate me to take my job seriously, but when a fellow's mother looks you in the eye and asks if everything will be okay for her son, you know the answer had better be the honest truth. And I told her everything will be okay, and if I ever discover that it's not, he won't go.
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Thank you very much for your attention, I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Culbertson follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Captain Culbertson.
The next witness is Mr. James Oberg, a consultant. Mr. Oberg, you're recognized for 5 to 8 minutes. Your full statement will appear in the record, and you may proceed as you like.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES OBERG, CONSULTANT
Mr. OBERG. Thank you.
It's an honor to be invited to testify here today on an issue which has long concerned me, the proper assessment of the degree of safety of American astronauts aboard Mir. I want to thank you for the opportunity, I also want to thank the people at home and around me who have encouraged me and supported me in this often lonely issue.
I'm testifying here today purely as an individual. I'm representing no corporation or agency or organization of any kind. And while I have a day job within the space industry, I'm not using any material learned from that job or violating any of their constraints. I'm a professional space engineer with a lifelong interest in the Russian space program, about which I have written and spoken for a quarter of a century.
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I have several issues to address—the first is the context of the recent Mir mishaps. The recent problems aboard Mir and the growing risk of being there are not random, but are predictable consequences of known, measurable causes. The decay of the government support there for space activities has forced what's left of their infrastructure to stretch scarce resources, use up reserves, drop levels of redundancy, push hardware well beyond planned lifetimes, and other practices which have had predictable impacts on flight success and safety.
For example, the crash last June of a Progress freighter into Mir was not just one of those things that could have happened at any time in the beginning of the program. Instead, it was a consequence of risks forced upon the Russians by the need to replace formerly reliable guidance hardware no longer available due to the loss of the supplier in the Ukraine. And more recently, the two men—one Russian, one American—who went outside the Mir to inspect for damage, were further endangered—although they got away with it this time—by inadequate Russian space communications that forced them to prepare and perform this strenuous space walk in the middle of what was normally their sleep period, thus violating spaceflight standards to avoid carrying out hazardous operations while, in essence, jet-lagged.
Even top Russian space experts attribute recent mishaps on Mir to the overall decline of the Russian space industry. Some people claim that future Russian space safety can somehow be proven by reference to past Soviet space glories, as if there was some purely numerical cause-and-effect. But the true cause of the past space successes there can easily be measured, and the recent decay of those very same factors does not augur well for future reliability.
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Are these mishaps normal on Mir? The mishaps now plaguing the Russian space program in general have been excused as only being typical of any bold space exploration; this is just not true. Russia's problems come not from trying new projects, but from simply struggling to stay afloat, performing hitherto routine operations. They are not the kinds of setbacks to be anticipated on a forward-moving space program; they are the problems to be expected in a space program in retreat.
I'll just drop down to the question of ''Is Mir safe?'' From a purely engineering standpoint, there is no justification to make such an assertion—this because the familiar process of ground-up safety assessment, which has worked well in the past, has never been fully applied to this question. In order to prove objectively that something is safe, it's not enough to challenge others to prove it's not safe, while then withholding information pertinent to the issue, and then triumphantly concluding that the absence of proof of danger is equivalent to proof of the presence of safety.
Instead, we are seeing claims of safety based on getting away—so far—with taking risks. But dodging bullets can lead to the delusion that one is bullet-proof, even though it's more like Russian roulette. We wind up glorifying such risk-taking as a measure of our courage, becoming only an excuse for recklessness.
In terms of safety, I might want to insert here, what have the results of safety studies so far proven? Prior to the launch of Mike Foale up to Mir, there was a question, because of Jerry Linenger's problems, about the safety of Mir. A review process concluded, and I'll quote to you from the May 1997 Phase I program STS–84 Certificate of Flight Readiness, ''The Mir complex is ready to support the beginning of the next increment of the U.S. mission with sufficient systems and redundancy to ensure a safe, healthy, and productive work environment.'' Perhaps one of the lessons of Mir is that these kind of assessments were inadequate.
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One other issue: Can the Mir crew really bail out safely? It's been comforting to think that, no matter what happens on Mir, the crew can always escape in the attached Soyuz landing capsule. But the most recent manned Soyuz landing suffered a major malfunction that could have seriously injured an American riding in it during an evacuation. Until the cause of this alarming incident is known, and until it's been verified that there is no commonality with the Soyuz that had the problem and the Soyuz currently docked to Mir, it is not warranted to claim that the Soyuz is safe for an American to land in during an emergency. And without a guaranteed safe escape vehicle, it is not probably safe for an American to be aboard Mir.
I want to depart briefly from my prepared text to deal with another new development which suggests that considerations of safety are perhaps becoming irrelevant to the decision-making process of continuing leaving Americans aboard Mir. Just 2 days ago, the Russian director of the Shuttle/Mir program, Valerii Ryumin—and as I'm sure you know, he's in Houston now, training for his own Shuttle flight to Mir next year—stated that a U.S. withdrawal from Shuttle/Mir could lead to a Russian withdrawal from ISS. Others have voiced the same assertion—The Washington Post, yesterday, for example—that our future space station is now a hostage (since Russian contributions are crucial to its timely success), to our good behavior regarding Mir. No open-ended U.S. support of Mir, perhaps no future Russian support of ISS. Saying it so bluntly, underscores how offensive this implied threat really is.
There is a precedent, though, to safely pulling out of joint projects because of safety concerns. Earlier this year, NASA, following the death of a test subject of a monkey on the Bion, biomedical space flight, cancelled further American participation in that program. There were no claims that we were sunshine space travelers; no claims, no attacks on our manhood or on our courage or our commitment to our partnership; it was done because of safety issues for the monkeys. Maybe it's time to give astronauts at least as much consideration.
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So what are the U.S. options? If it has not been objectively proved that leaving an American on Mir is safe, then I think it would be irresponsible to send him based only on wishes and guesses, especially the kind of reports we have had before from the last time we tried to decide if it was safe or not. Instead, work by some genuinely independent safety review panel—and there are people out there for NTSB, DOE, DOD, perhaps some people on the Blue Ribbon Panel from the Apollo 13 times—is overdue.
Recent events on Mir have apparently caught existing review teams by surprise. And we can—I can read more lists of quotes saying that what happened to Mike Foale aboard Mir couldn't happen, or wasn't going to happen. Thus, putting together such an ad hoc Blue Ribbon Panel makes a whole lot more sense before an accident than after one; and it's vital to do so.
By early next year, their results could become available; Mir could have stabilized; the report, repairs redundancy could be reestablished. For leaving another American up there, the answer next year could turn out to be yes, and we could resume the program. As for today, the rational answer must be no.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Oberg follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Oberg.
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And the final witness this morning is Marcia Smith of the Science Policy Research Division of the Congressional Research Service. Ms. Smith, you are recognized for 5 to 8 minutes. Your entire statement will be placed in the record, and you may proceed as you will.
TESTIMONY OF MARCIA SMITH, SPECIALIST IN AEROSPACE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Ms. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to testify about the Shuttle/Mir program. As you know, CRS provides objective, non-partisan analysis for Congress and does not take positions on issues. You asked that I focus my testimony on the original goals of the program, what has been accomplished, and policy options for the future.
The Shuttle/Mir program was initiated in 1992 by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin as a symbol of the end of the Cold War. The next year it was expanded at the first meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, becoming Phase I of the three phases of Space Station cooperation, that includes building the new, joint International Space Station. By 1994, the Shuttle/Mir program was comprised of seven Shuttle/Mir docking missions, two flights of cosmonauts on the Space Shuttle, and 24 months of U.S. astronaut time on Mir
The primary reason identified in 1992 for having an American stay on Mir was science, particularly life science. Engineering and operational objectives also were mentioned. In 1994, NASA explained the program's overall objectives as reducing risk in the new International Space Station through joint operations and programs, demonstrating technologies to be used for ISS, studying and developing inter-operability, and conducting research in space.
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In 1996, the program was expanded again. In return for Russia promising to deliver two modules to ISS on time, and to build a new, more capable cargo spacecraft to use with ISS, NASA agreed to add two more Shuttle/Mir docking missions to help Russia keep Mir operational. The number of months U.S. crews would spend on Mir also increased.
NASA seems already to have achieved most of the objectives set out for the program. Five NASA astronauts have accumulated 22 months of experience on Mir; relationships between Russian and American space personnel have grown; the Shuttle has docked with Mir six times and another is scheduled for later this month; joint space walks have been conducted; operational knowledge of living and working on a space station has been gained; and scientific experiments have been conducted.
Repeated system failures and two life-threatening emergencies on Mir this year have raised the question of whether NASA should continue these missions. Many of these questions are posed in the context of whether Mir is safe, a topic other witnesses have been asked to address this morning. Apart from risks that may be unique to Mir, any human spaceflight mission inherently involves considerable risk. The question is whether the work that the NASA astronauts will do on Mir in the coming months is worth the totality of these risks. Since most of the objectives have been met, and the amount of science that can be conducted has been reduced because of the June 25 collision, the damage to Spektr module—half of NASA's equipment is located there.
In debating whether to leave more astronauts on Mir, it is important to note that the situation on Mir may not be as bleak as what is portrayed in the media. Though Mir is experiencing more anomalies than in the past, the cosmonauts have extensive experience in Space Station repairs. Mir is their seventh Space Station since 1971. Set against that backdrop, the more-or-less routine anomalies that so often make headlines seem less daunting. That is not to say there aren't legitimate concerns about Mir's safety, but the newspaper headlines need to be kept in perspective.
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NASA wants to continue the missions to increase their operational experience and conduct more science. NASA also argues that the United States needs to fulfill its obligations to its partner. In that context, it is important to remember that the final two Shuttle/Mir dockings, and most of the time accounted for by the final two astronaut visits, were agreed to in 1996. In exchange, Russia made three promises mentioned earlier. Only one of these has been kept. So there does seem to be flexibility in meeting partner obligations.
The following policy options arise as Congress debates this issue: Continue with the program as planned. This option will reflect the desire to be a good partner and to gain additional experience and conduct whatever science can still be accomplished. This option also exposes two NASA astronauts to the risks inherent in living aboard a space station for many months.
The second option is to complete the planned dockings, but not leave astronauts on Mir. The United States could argue that the most important aspect of the Shuttle/Mir program for the Russians is the docking missions, since the Shuttle takes cargo to and from Mir. Since the Russians have not fulfilled their part of the 1996 agreement, there should be minimal repercussions if the United States does not complete all that it promised.
The third option is to terminate the program entirely. The United States could further argue that the Shuttle/Mir mission for next week completes the agreement as assigned in 1994 and it has no obligation to fly the additional two missions. This likely would cool relationships considerably between the two countries, since Mir is so dependent on the Shuttle for cargo transport.
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In summary, the fundamental question is whether the added value of having two more astronauts on Mir is worth the risk that something catastrophic could happen. Astronaut Jerry Linenger, who recently returned from Mir, was quoted last week as commenting that the purpose of occupying Mir has become ''survival for survival's sake.'' The question is whether that is sufficient justification for astronauts to remain on Mir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Smith follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
14SAFETY STANDARDS AFTER CHALLENGER
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Ms. Smith, for your testimony.
The procedure for the questioning this morning will be as follows: I intend to recognize members of the Committee, alternating from one side of the aisle to the other, in the order in which the members appeared this morning. So, if you got here first, you'll get to ask questions first. We will operate under the 5-minute rule. If there is a need to have a second round of questions, and there is still time available, we will have a second round of questions, and I would like to recognize myself first for 5 minutes.
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Mr. Culbertson, how has NASA applied the lessons learned from the Challenger disaster to safety questions on the Mir?
Mr. CULBERTSON. The Challenger accident occurred in 1986, as you know. For 2 years after that accident, NASA reviewed, revised, and went through all of the issues that were associated with that before they flew again. We now have a flight-readiness process in place that I believe is fair, open, and very productive in terms of ferreting out any issues that are, that come to light, or that are pertinent to any mission that, or any facts cause, or any peripheral factors to the mission.
The Shuttle/Mir program flight readiness review is based on that same shuttle process. In fact, it was instituted by Mr. Holloway at the beginning of the program, who is now the Shuttle program manager. We go through the same process of bringing in all the concerns from all the parties, all the projects, and all the joint working groups, and assess them, both for operational viability and safety.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. In my opening statement, I quoted Dr. Feynman, his quotes in the Rogers' Commission Report after the Challenger disaster, that anomalies with the O-Rings were ignored simply because there wasn't a disaster. As a result of the ignoring of the anomalies in the O-Rings, the standards of safety were lowered just a little bit every time it was ignored, and that kind of ignoring ended up causing a disaster where we lost an orbiter vehicle, and more importantly, we lost the lives of a number of brave astronauts.
Looking at the chart of Mir hardware failures that we have over on the wall, it goes up almost exponentially from 1994 to 1996, and when the 1997 figures come in, we're going to have a lot more than in 1996. How can NASA ignore that?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. First of all, Mr. Chairman, we'll have to provide you with the specific data, but that's not an accurate depiction of the failure rate of hardware aboard the Mir. I believe it's taken from a different document that does not actually relate to operational failures; my deputy can give you more details.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Culbertson, the chart was built on the Stafford Report that he submitted to NASA. This is your external review that's headed by General Stafford.
Mr. CULBERTSON. I'll have to check the source of his information on that and submit the details of that report.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. We'll be glad to get written testimony after that.
[The chart referred to follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Now here's—the House of Representatives passed a part of the NASA authorization bill in April, an amendment that Mr. Brown and I sponsored, and which was adopted unanimously by this Committee, that requires NASA to certify that safety conditions on the Mir equal or exceed safety conditions we impose on our own pieces of equipment. Has this been done, and has it been done at all times since March of 1995, when the first astronaut went up for a long-term stay on the Mir?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Every time we assess the safety of transferring an astronaut to the Mir, we assess it by, against our own safety standards to assure that we are comfortable with what the Russians are presenting to us and——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Is the answer to your—to this question that I asked yes?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, we do assess it to NASA safety standards.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, on June 11, a gentleman named Keith Cowing, who runs a web page entitled, ''NASA Watch,'' asked Mr. Fred Gregory the same question. And Mr. Gregory told an audience of over 200 people, ''the answer is no.'' You say that the answer is yes, that we do have equal safety standards when we send astronauts on the Mir then when we send them on the Shuttle. Mr. Gregory told an audience of over 200 people, 2 1/2 months ago, the answer is no. What is the answer?
Mr. CULBERTSON. My experience with this question has been that people tend to mix up safety standards with certification of hardware, and its pedigree. We do assess all of our operations and all activities onboard the Mir against safety standards that both the Russians and the United States adhere to in operating in space. The verification to safety is a different issue that would address the insight into the manufacturing and construction of the hardware onboard, and frequently that's the way that's depicted.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Culbertson, on August 11th, you sent a letter to Mr. Ryumin in Moscow, which said in part in paragraph 3, ''U.S. operational and safety guidelines would not normally permit such an activity to be conducted this way,'' and this was the result of the accident relative to the Progress collision.
Mr. CULBERTSON. That's absolutely correct, sir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Now, that indicates that there are different strokes for different folks, doesn't it?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, we do operate differently, and we took great exception to them initiating that test without our joint readiness, joint review of that and conducting it in that way. We've had a great number of discussions and correspondence on that, and we now have in place a process that will prevent that from ever happening again without our participation in the review process and understanding of what's going on before it happens.
14SPACEFLIGHT RISKS
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. If the gentleman from California, Mr. Brown——
Mr. BROWN of California. Ms. Smith, I appreciate the testimony that you have given in your effort to do what is sometimes impossible here in Washington, and that's to put the proper perspective when you have several different points of view on something. You make a statement, with regard to the routine anomalies on the Mir, that they are less daunting placed against the backdrop of 26 years of Space Station experience, and as long as the Soyuz spacecraft is available for emergency return, you say aging systems alone would not seem to pose immediately life-threatening risks; and I appreciate that statement.
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But then you point out that many of the life-threatening risks have arisen not because of aging systems, but because of other matters, such as the collision of the supply craft with the Mir and in case of one matter involving a fire. There was also a discrepancy in interpretation of that fire in which NASA reported it lasted 90 seconds and that fire extinguishers were used to douse the flame, and then a later report said that it lasted 14 minutes and the fire extinguishers were ineffective. Doesn't that kind of a situation really pose a rather serious threat, unrelated to aging; and is it not probable that this is what we need to be more fearful of?
Ms. SMITH. I think what I was trying to do in my written testimony is point out there are certain risks inherent in human spaceflight, and you're going to have these risks whether it's the Mir Space Station, or the International Space Station, or the Space Shuttle. And countries who choose to engage in human spaceflight activities need to understand that their astronauts are taking these kinds of risks. The astronauts certainly understand that. And so that you can never guarantee that any Space Station is going to be safe, whether it's Mir or another Space Station.
And so when I was talking about when you look at the 26 years of the experience that the Russians have in repairing Space Stations, then anomalies like having their oxygen regenerating system break down or having their computer fail, do make big headlines in the press and seem very important to people; but, when you look against the entire, broad experience that the Russians have had, I think it can be seen as less important. That doesn't mean that there aren't tremendous risks involved in human spaceflight and countries need to decide whether or not they want to be involved in human spaceflight, taking these risks into account.
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Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Culbertson, Ms. Smith lists a number of problems that have been encountered and tries to indicate their significance, and I'll just—they're on page 6 of her testimony: Repeated computer failures, carbon dioxide removal problems, Soyuz landing engine failure, docking problems; all of which present, not only contemporary risks, but they also have to be solved before we can continue operations in other ways, with the International Space Station, for example. Do you feel that each of these problems, both specifically and generically, are being addressed, so that they will not continue to pose a risk for continued operations?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, I do feel that they're being addressed. I think they've been addressed in detail after they occurred, and we continue to seek ways to both minimize the risk incurred if they were to happen and to prevent them from happening in the future. I would like to point out that one of the reasons that we do extensive training and extensive design on spacecraft is because these are a part of the risk of spaceflight; whether it's the most serious problems of depressurization or fire or other problems, such as malfunctions of computer components, you've got to be able to respond to them in a way that does not endanger human life, and in most cases, allows the mission to continue operably and safely.
The issue of, for instance, of how we dealt with the issue of failure to dock, for instance, was actually a case where the system was so precise, on target, the commander was not able to see the crosshairs and see whether they actually were still in place above the target, and he stopped, moved off slightly to see if it was still there, and then continued manually. It was not a failure of any system whatsoever.
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14SOYUZ FAILURE
Mr. BROWN of California. What about the Soyuz landing engine failure, which occurred—I'm not quite clear when it occurred—but since this is a system that we are going to continue to rely upon, we need to make sure that doesn't occur. That's a Russian system, but what is the solution to this?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, as soon as we heard about this, we of course were greatly concerned as to what the level of concern should be and whether it affected our ability to assure safety during the next, upcoming increments. So we sought the answers to that quickly; the Russians were very forthcoming. The soft-landing engine was installed on Soyuz to reduce the impact during landing and reduce the need for the shock absorbers and other deprivation materials that are in the system to prevent injury to the cosmonauts. They had one previous incident where the soft-landing engine did not operate properly; the Soyuz landed; the crew was not injured; it was a pretty good impact, but the seats stroked fully and absorbed the impact.
The Soyuz is also designed so that if the soft-landing engine does not fire, it's designed such that there will be no injury to the crew because the shell is designed to deform and absorb the shock of touchdown, and the landing seats themselves stroke and then act as shock absorbers on a mechanism to absorb the shock and prevent injury to the crew.
We did a thorough review of that with our counterpart, and they are still evaluating the specific cause of the engine expiring early, which is what happened. They have not been able to duplicate that, so they sent the mechanism off to the manufacturer in St. Petersburg, but they do know that the reason that it fired early was that there was some malfunction in the avionics that gave the wrong signal, and it fired at about 2, 3 kilometers, but there was no injury to the crew, whatsoever.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Nethercutt.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Thank you, Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for your testimony.
I want to focus my——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. With that happy note, let me recess the Committee to go and vote. Would Mr. Nethercutt please hustle on back and you will be recognized right when we get back.
The Committee is recessed. Will the members please come back promptly so that we can continue the questioning?
[Brief recess.]
14OXYGEN GENERATING SYSTEMS: PROBLEMS
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Committee will be in order. Because Mr. Nethercutt is not back yet, the Chair will recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Cook, without prejudice to Mr. Nethercutt's right to be the next one up when he does come back. The gentleman from Utah is recognized for 5 minutes.
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Mr. COOK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do want to thank the panelists for being here today to answer some of these safety problems on the Mir, especially as they relate to the future International Space Station. The number of disasters, and mishaps, and accidents that plagued the Mir, I think obviously the two most significant are the Mir collision and the fire of February 23rd.
I would like to just focus a few questions here on that fire of February 23rd—about 7 months ago. Now I understand that the back-up oxygen-generating system is certainly not the primary electroloysis system that constantly goes out, because up to the 23rd, I understand that over 2,400 of these back-up canisters that are composed of a solid lithium prechlorate material have actually been lighted, as candles, in the popular press, as it is called, to supply the oxygen for the Mir. I understand as much as 40 percent of the time these back-up systems are being utilized. Is that basically correct?
Mr. CULBERTSON. The number is actually higher than that, Mr. Cook. The solid-oxygen generators have been used in the Russian space program since the beginning of their Space Station operations as their primary source of oxygen. Not until over a year into the Mir's life did they add the electrolysis system to produce oxygen.
Mr. COOK. Okay.
Mr. CULBERTSON. So, they use these extensively throughout their program very safely. The technology came from their submarine program which also has used thousands of them.
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Mr. COOK. I know, Mr. Culbertson, you have kind of implied something you think is negative about this staff work in putting together the increase in mechanical hardware failures, and so forth. Particularly, I would like to draw to your attention, though, this atmosphere revitalization system that's clearly been the fastest growth in failure the last 2 years. And, I do know this oxygen regeneration, or secondary oxygen generation system, is certainly, well, probably not even reflected as the major problem that has occurred in this chart, because that happened in 1997.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Sir, or Mr. Chairman, if I might ask permission to ask my deputy to address this, he has more details on particulars of the source of this data and what it actually does reflect.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. What is the name of your deputy?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Mr. James Van Laak, who is sitting right next to me.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Van Laak, would you please raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. VAN LAAK. I do.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. You may proceed.
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Mr. VAN LAAK. Thank you. If I could address, just for a moment, the chart. The chart happens to represent data that was deliverable under the contract that we have with the Russians, and, as such, it essentially began, in terms of being contemporaneous data, at that time. We also have requested of the Russians that they share historical data with us, but, as you may be aware, the Russians don't have the proliferation of personal computers and other data management systems that we have in the west, so that data is contained in little green notebooks that the specialists carry around in the mission control center in Houston. We do have an initiative underway in order to address that and to try and collect that data so we'll have a better understanding in the future, but in discussions with the individual specialists and the anecdotal data that we have received, we believe that the failure rate has in fact been fairly constant. And, I would point out that the number that we have had, the number that we did have in 1996, was 111 failures were reported as actual hardware failures; and, so far, as of July 1997, we had 42. So we do not have a dramatic increase in 1997.
And, I might also point out that the International Space Station program has done analysis of what they expect the failure rate of their hardware, which is roughly an analogue—talking now about the U.S. segment, we don't have data for the Russian side—and they are predicting 170 failures a year. So I would like to illustrate for people who think that, based on shuttle flight experience, that things don't break, you know, major aerospace systems have failures all the time. And, in fact, I might also point out that we're planning to operate the failure on ISS, since the alternative is to pull perfectly satisfactory hardware out of service.
Mr. COOK. Okay. If I could focus your attention a little more on these canisters—the back-up system. They're a lithium prechlorate——
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Mr. VAN LAAK. Yes, sir.
Mr. COOK [continuing]. Solid-generating system. Lithium prechlorate is well known to many of those in the explosives industry as a highly unstable——
Material.
Mr. VAN LAAK [continuing]. Highly reactive material.
Mr. COOK. Highly reactive material, and just a little bit of extra temperature and pressure from this initiator or screw device that is connected to it can lift the temperature to start the decomposition of the oxygen—to allow the oxygen to come forth and resupply the atmosphere in the module?
Mr. VAN LAAK. Well, I'm not a chemist, so I can't address the specifics, but I believe the initiating temperature is on the order of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. So it won't be encountered in any reasonable situation onboard the Mir.
Mr. COOK. Well, what I would like to focus on, if I could for just a minute, is that initiating system that NASA has told us is sometimes unreliable; they have to jerk it around a number of times, and sometimes they give up on it and actually take an ordinary hammer, ordinary nail, hammer that through as an alternative to the screw device—now, is that true—to start the ignition, or the oxygen generation, the decomposition of the lithium prechlorate to form the oxygen?
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Mr. VAN LAAK. I have heard that anecdote. I do know that the actual mechanism for initiating the reaction under normal controlled circumstances does wear out, and they do change it out on a periodic basis. And, also, because of the nature of the way the mechanism works, it may be necessary to rotate the canister to get a clean shot on the initiator, which is a small pyrotechnic device. But, in general, it is an extremely reliable device.
Mr. COOK. Well, I think the bottom line is that, 7 months after that event, authorities still say that they don't know the exact cause of the fire. There could obviously be a cause of this lithium prechlorate material, just the temperature and pressure being elevated beyond what it was supposed to be for the oxygen generation, to cause a fire to break out. And I submit that that wouldn't be too far away from a dethlegration or even a detonation explosion of that material. I am just wondering if there will be an answer; or if there is an answer we simply haven't heard yet; or if there is any attempt, very importantly, to change these ignition systems on that back-up oxygen system, either for the Mir or—and I understand that the same system is going to be used in the International Space Station Project. I mean, what provisions, what planning, what steps are being taken to ensure a safer, more reliable oxygen back-up system?
Mr. VAN LAAK. Unfortunately I can't address what is being done for the International Space Station. I can tell you that the ones that are onboard the Mir are thought to be understood very well. Mr. Ryumin did bring over the preliminary report of the failure analysis, and I don't know if it is appropriate to go through the details right here, but it sounds very plausible and appears to be something that can easily be avoided by crew attention as they're installing it—just paying more attention to.
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Mr. COOK. Again, I guess the position is, if I just quickly summarize with this final thing, is the position is that this is just another problem of the astronauts making mistakes? There is nothing wrong with the hardware?
Mr. VAN LAAK. I wouldn't characterize it exactly that way. It is an experienced-based thing; as we learn more about it, we learn to pay more attention to certain things.
Mr. COOK. Well, thank you.
14COSTS VS. BENEFITS
Mr. WELDON of Florida [presiding]. The Chairman would like us to try to continue the hearing while he and the other members are returning from voting.
And, first of all, let me personally extend my welcome and my thanks to the witnesses for being here, and I also want to enter into the record my thanks to the Chairman for calling this hearing.
As many people know, I am one of the strongest supporters of the space program, and I have personally and publicly fought in support of Russia's continued role in the International Space Station as well as the Shuttle/Mir program. And I believe that, overall, the Shuttle/Mir program has been both worthwhile and beneficial. However, I believe the continued rationale for the U.S. participation on the Russian space station Mir is seriously in doubt at this time. Just in the last few days we have had further computer problems, a potential collision; and of course over the last few months, we have had some of the serious problems that have already been discussed, such as the decompression; the fire; and contamination of the air-water systems; as well as the failures in the oxygen-generation system.
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Let me be the first to say that I fully understand that space travel is inherently risky; and we can never take the element of risk out of space travel, especially when humans are involved. And, I fully support NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn, even though many have called that too risky. And, in analysis, I believe the risks are not so great that we should end it. I think the knowledge to be gained is worthwhile.
Indeed, let me also say that I feel that our society in general, American society, has become too risk-adverse, and that we do learn a great deal by overcoming the risks associated with adversities like the space environment. But when taking unnecessary risks and ignoring warning signs, we have the potential of getting involved in serious mistakes or tragedies. The knowledge and experience we can gain from sending more U.S. astronauts aboard the Mir no longer merit the risks involved.
And I would like to address my first question to you, Mr. Culbertson: How much real science can our astronauts perform on the Mir if they are constantly involved in managing emergencies and repairing systems?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Dr. Weldon, in fact, they are not constantly involved in emergency procedures or managing systems. They are scheduled periodically to participate in maintenance activities, and this has been a change from the early part of the program where they were concentrating primarily on science, in fact, almost entirely on science and research, and not really participating in learning how to operate a station. They now are full participants in that. That time is scheduled in conjunction with the allotted time for the research program.
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David Wolf, who is scheduled to go up on the next mission, has 550 hours allotted for the, I believe it is 550, for the research program, and all of that has been filled with the planned research; and we also are carrying two additional back-up experiments in case we have any hardware failures in the research hardware that will require replacing them, so that he can continue his operation.
But all of the factors of any space station operation include: maintenance, housekeeping, hygiene—all of that is required to remain living in a habitation module for extended periods of time. You are basically working where you are living, so that does require a certain amount of time.
14CONSEQUENCES OF FUTURE FAILURE
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Ms. Smith, I would like to address a question to you: What do you think the consequences would be if a U.S. astronaut were killed or seriously injured aboard the Mir? And, I would invite Mr. Oberg also to make a comment on that.
Ms. SMITH. The consequences in terms of public opinion?
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Yes. And support within the government and within the House of Representatives? Your comments, please.
Ms. SMITH. I do think that because there has been so much press attention to Mir lately—almost entirely negative—that the public opinion is that Mir is a questionable place to send U.S. astronauts, either for research, all because of safety reasons. This may or may not be a justified opinion, but I do think that is what has been portrayed to them.
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If there were a calamity aboard Mir, I think that they would wonder why it was that NASA had sent an astronaut up there; what was it that the astronaut was going to be doing up there that was so important and so valuable, that they would risk his life, considering the circumstances aboard Mir. I think it could have very dire consequences for the public opinion regarding NASA and regarding the International Space Station.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Oberg, did you want to comment on that?
Mr. OBERG. Well, yes, I would. First is to totally endorse what Ms. Smith has said about the impact. People would wonder why the danger, that seemed to be evident to everyone else, was not evident to the people who made the decisions. And, the second thing they would wonder about is the value of the international program. I think this is the greatest risk, is that we have had a tremendous amount of valuable experience from Mir, and it is—I totally agree with the testimony—that it is crucial to getting ready for the International Space Station. But any kind of accident or set-back—even an emergency landing at this point—could pollute that memory; could take the Mir station, which I think deserves to be retired now with honor. And, our participation in it should be listed as a tremendous success, and we are threatening that success—and we are threatening the future—by taking these risks. This is the view that I have: that we may wind up, by going into this danger and by falling to this risk, losing the very thing that we are trying to get from this program.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. My time is expired, I'll be turning the chair over to Mr. Ehlers.
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Mr. EHLERS [presiding]. I am sure that Mr. Sensenbrenner will return momentarily. I know that Mr. Nethercutt was due for questioning, but we have had a few from the Majority; I think we should turn to the Minority next, if you don't object, Mr. Nethercutt; then you will be next in line. The next on the list would be the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Roemer, 5 minutes.
14WHEN, WHY, AND HOW TO END PHASE I
Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the timeliness of this hearing. I represent the great State of Indiana, and next week, Dr. David Wolf, a fellow Hoosier, is due to go up and show his professionalism, and bravery, and courage on the Mir. So, your timing couldn't be more appropriate.
Back on June the 26th, I wrote Mr. Goldin at that point saying that I was very, very worried about the recent mishaps, continuous mishaps, on Mir, and that we should not send another astronaut up at point. Now, CRS documents, since my letter, since July 9th, another 11 series of mishaps have taken place. And I am not here to be critical of Mr. Culbertson, of NASA, of anybody's integrity and hard work. As a matter of fact, I am so proud of Dr. Foale who is currently on Mir; the great job that NASA is doing to work, to try to work with the Russians, that are putting you, Mr. Culbertson, I think, between a rock and a hard place; increasingly difficult safety concerns that you are confronted with, for obvious language reasons, hardware reasons, a host of other things.
And I think where this Committee is trying to exert its jurisdiction is not to be critical of you at all, but to exercise our critical analysis, as the Committee of jurisdiction over NASA. And, because I am short on time, Mr. Oberg, I just ask for a one word answer: According to your testimony, do you recommend that we suspend further U.S. astronauts from going up to Mir, prohibit or continue?
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Mr. OBERG. Suspend for the moment until we can find a team that cannot be caught by surprise again and again by these accidents.
Mr. ROEMER. And, Ms. Gross, as the Inspector General—tasked with a very, very difficult assignment, within NASA—you have an interim report. It is not a finished report. When will your report be concluded?
Ms. GROSS. I think that answer depends really on what actions NASA takes in response both to conversations I have had with the Administration and in response to this hearing. It certainly would be a different task if they are going to do a blue-ribbon panel; it would be a different task if, in fact, you have peer reviewing of the science results—comparing its baselines of what NASA knew when they went into the science with the Mir 1.
Mr. ROEMER. What is your—I want to get to some questions of Mr. Culbertson—so what is your estimate at this point?
Ms. GROSS. You can never get a hard answer from an Inspector General on when something will be done. I would say, again, it really depends on what further we would have to do on it and whether there are spin-offs. It would be in a couple of months.
Mr. ROEMER. Couple of months. Sixty to 90 days, you think?
Ms. GROSS. Depending on what else happens.
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Mr. ROEMER. Okay. Mr. Culbertson?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ROEMER. I'd be happy to.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. There'll be another hearing when it's done.
Mr. ROEMER. Right. Good, Mr. Chairman.
Here is a quote, Mr. Culbertson, and here is the difficulty that you face, and I really respect the difficult job that you have. Quote, ''Mir is an aging spacecraft that has long exceeded its original design life and is exhibiting an increasing number of in-flight anomalies,'' unquote. ''Long exceeded its original design life.'' That's not Tim Roemer; that is your boss, Dan Goldin, quoting from him before a Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space.
Now, you have a very, very difficult job, sir. You have to integrate language, hardware—you say on page 8 of your testimony that the Russians have now developed to operate until failure. We've had 11 mishaps in 2 1/2 months. Where do you think is the threshold that you would then recommend, not that Mir is safe, but that Mir is unsafe for David Wolf and other astronauts to go up there?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. We have a jointly-agreed-to criteria for continuing the U.S. missions onboard the Mir that addresses all the life support systems, as well as the level of consumables and other systems onboard the Mir. If we can't meet those criteria, then my recommendation would be to not continue. That criteria also includes the leg of maintenance capability to restore functionality of systems using back-up systems in the interim, if it becomes necessary. So that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But we do have very specific criteria that we are meeting now, and that we will continue to meet, or we will recommend termination of a particular mission.
Mr. ROEMER. Now, when Dr. Lucid came back from Mir, she recommended that the carbon dioxide removal system was virtually failing, or that is a quote that we have—I see her nodding her head—that there were problems with it. Does that increase human error, if that has a problem? Does that increase the likelihood that there is human error if we have problems with the removal system?
Mr. CULBERTSON. With carbon dioxide removal?
Mr. ROEMER. Correct.
Mr. CULBERTSON. I suppose that if it reached very dangerous and hazardous levels, it could, but I don't know. The doctors would have to answer that question. I think Shannon would be happy to answer exactly what she said about carbon dioxide and her opinion on that, if you would like to have her address you, sir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Nethercutt.
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14MIR FIRE
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Thank you, Chairman, and as I started to say earlier, I appreciate your all being here, and we thank you for your testimonies today.
I want to focus my line of questioning in the limited time I have on the issue of fire. I notice, Mr. Culbertson, in your testimony, you made mention of the docking problem as the most severe problem—or serious problem—related to the health and safety of the astronauts. That's the way I understood your testimony.
Mr. CULBERTSON. You mean the Progress?
Mr. NETHERCUTT. The docking problem.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. That occurred in this year.
I happen to think that the issue of fire is equally, if not more, serious for the safety of the astronauts and the cosmonauts on this space vehicle. And, I want to focus on the testimony that appears on page 5 of your written statement: ''The final report on the investigation into the causes of the fire was not available until recently, due to the time required to return the hardware from orbit to the manufacturer.'' Do we have a final report, sir?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. We have a report from the Russians that was produced by their manufacturer on what their estimate of the cause of the fire was. There is an additional report they are awaiting from their criminology division in Moscow, who also did a separate investigation for them. What that initial report said was that there was a gasket that appeared to be missing.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. I understand that. Is there a final report?
Mr. CULBERTSON. There is not a final report. There is not a final report until they get the additional one.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. So, I take it you are correcting your testimony that, ''the final report was not available until recently.'' That was not a final report, correct?
Mr. CULBERTSON. If that's the way it reads, that's——
Mr. NETHERCUTT. That's the way it reads.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Okay, that's an error.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. So there is another report that's coming?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir.
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Mr. NETHERCUTT. From the Russians?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. I see that in the results of the investigation that—I'm sorry to cut you off—indicate that the fire was most probably due to the absence of a rubber seal that can be inspected by the crew prior to operation. Is that good enough, Mr. Culbertson: ''most probably due?'' We don't really know what caused it, do we? But your estimate is that it is a most probable cause?
Mr. CULBERTSON. That's based on the first report that we got from the Russians, and so the information that we have is that that is the most probable cause. As they get more information, I am sure that there will be further conclusions drawn.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. All right. I guess I am concerned, with all due respect—and I highly respect NASA and all that you do—but I wonder if we're not dumbing-down the standards of NASA to comply with the late reports that seem to be coming in, if ever. I mean, we've gotten an interim report, and now I guess we're going to get a little more report later. Are we not dumbing-down our standards to comply with the very difficult problems of dealing with a foreign country that doesn't have, perhaps, the same standards that we do, given, this year, the history of Mir?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Absolutely not. Many accidents occur where we do not have an exact cause. Look at TWA flight 800; we still do not have a cause to that. It was a type of accident that we have not seen before. The Mir fire canister was a type of accident they had never seen before. And they have not been able to duplicate it on the ground. But, they have taken additional precautions to ensure that it does not repeat. If there were a fire again on-board, they also have installed additional equipment and made sure it is standing by whenever they do activate one of these.
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Mr. NETHERCUTT. So, you are telling this Committee that the standards that are employed by the Russian Space Agency, in connection with the discovery of the cause of this fire, is the same—are the same standards that NASA would adopt in connection with this kind of an occurrence—where we have 900 degrees, apparently, a fire that goes from 1 to 4 feet in length, depending on whose testimony you believe; you are saying that the Russian Space Agency standards are acceptable at this time? And, if you answer is, ''yes,'' I ask you: Are those the same standards that NASA would employ if it had suffered this kind of an occurrence on a spacecraft?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, they are adequate, and, in fact, I went through our experts that I could find all over NASA, and outside NASA, to assess what they thought had happened and whether the actions the Russians were taking were adequate, and the concurrence was that, yes, they are adequate, and we're doing the right thing.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Final question—unless I have more time, I'll take more—based on what you've reviewed, you can't safely conclude that another fire won't be generated from the oxygen candles that were the cause of the fire that occurred in February of this year, can you?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I cannot predict the future, and I cannot say with 100 percent assurance that another fire will not occur, because you've got stored energy, and any device that has stored energy has the potential for rapid release of that energy.
Mr. NETHERCUTT. And they release that energy by whacking the candles, do they not? Is that your understanding of the way that they activate these candles, these oxygen——
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Mr. CULBERTSON. That is not the procedural way of doing it. If it has been done, it has been done in violation of the procedures, and I have only heard anecdotes and have never been able to substantiate that, other than through anecdotes. I have also been assured by the Russians that their crews that have gone up since that time have been very seriously admonished that they follow the procedures exactly on the solid-oxygen generators whenever they are activated; and I feel sure that that——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Captain Culbertson, do you believe that the IG's report adequately reflects the statements made from Dr. Lucid with regard to the CO2 and, if we might, Mr. Chairman, may we hear from Dr. Lucid?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, based on my conversations with Shannon since the report came out, she said that there was more to it than what was in the report.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Dr. Lucid and the other astronauts will have time to testify later. She was not on the witness list, and I don't think it is proper to recognize her at this time.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, if you like, I can expand on what——
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Mr. LAMPSON. Would you please? She was quoted as saying that when the CO2 concentration was getting too high, it was a little harder to think; that it was easier to make mistakes. And, she also spoke about reasons that would cause the concentration to go up. I'd like to know if those statements were accurate and if they could be clarified?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Would that properly be addressed to Ms. Gross, the Inspector General who received the statements?
Mr. LAMPSON. Well, no, sir, because I don't believe that she adequately stated Dr. Lucid's comments—her answer.
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Culbertson, you can answer.
Mr. CULBERTSON. All right, sir. From my own experience and talking to people who have operated on the Mir, because you are dealing with a large volume, it relies—and there is no convection since there is no gravity—you rely on the ventilation system to keep air circulating throughout the different modules. As you are probably aware, any time you have flowing fluids, you are going to have some eddies; you are going to have strong currents; and you are going to have spots where there may be some lower circulation than other areas. And, if you stay in that spot too long or if you are generating a lot of CO2, like during exercise, it may accumulate locally in certain areas, or maybe even throughout a module if the ventalation doesn't keep up with several people exercising or living in the module. So, it could get elevated during a time such as that. However, we have been monitoring the CO2 levels on the Mir since the beginning of the phase I program.
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The Russians actually have a tighter standard on that than we do; we allow 15 degrees of mercury on the Shuttle; they only allow 8 millimeters of mercury before they take action. And, we have only seen it bump that limit once throughout this time; and in general it operates around the 4 to 5 millimeter of mercury range.
The actions the crew take if they do detect that there may be localized high CO2 is: Either leave the area; activate some fans, which they have many of onboard that they can activate in a local area; or, if necessary, they can consult with the ground and activate a lithium hydroxide canister, which is the same system we use on the Shuttle for the removal of carbon dioxide.
So, I believe this is just an artifact of space flight, that you occasionally are going to have localized CO2; it does occasionally happen on the Shuttle; it happens in meeting rooms, and I believe that it is something that we are learning to deal with as a technique. But, in general, the systems support that, and there was never any danger to Shannon or her crew members by high—elevated—CO2.
Mr. LAMPSON. Do you feel like it was, Dr. Gross? Would you like to, Ms. Gross, would you like to respond?
Ms. GROSS. Sure. Where I took the quote from was questions and answers from the flight-crew support division post-flight de-brief with Shannon Lucid. This is from documents that NASA supplied to me. This was not from an interview with Dr. Lucid. It was on Tuesday, October 15, 1996, building 4–F, 10:00 to 11:30.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Is her total statement included?
Ms. GROSS. It's called, it goes on page—it looks like every 10 pages—called crew performance. I could quote it again.
Mr. LAMPSON. That's not necessary. In the future I would like to at least hear from her, Mr. Chairman, at some point in time, so that we can—we can clarify this question.
Basically, Captain Culbertson has told me that she didn't feel that there was danger at that time; that it was adequately addressed. And, do you feel like that it is addressed so that it is not going to put our men and women in jeopardy in the future? A simple answer, because I have others.
Ms. GROSS. The context wasn't that she was in danger; I mean, she was describing her human performance and the effect on that. It was, in the context of our report, was saying that there were failures to be able—you know, some of the anomalies that were happening on the Mir were stopping them from removing the CO2—and other people in other situations were saying that there was more danger. She is just that, in certain circumstances——
Mr. LAMPSON. Captain Culbertson, let me interrupt you or I'll run out of time. What would be the results if there were a suspension right now? Very quickly.
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, it would be a tremendous loss of opportunity of continuing to operate in this environment and getting ready for the International Space Station. We are just now beginning to, I believe, get into a situation where we are very fully communicating with each other on how we operate in space and how we operate together, which I think is a key factor in ISS. If we don't continue that, it is like, you know, if you drop out of junior high school, you are going to have to start all over and get your GED. And we are interrupting our educational process in both working with the Russians and operating a long-duration space mission.
Mr. LAMPSON. Bottom line: Would you feel safe going to Mir now?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Myself?
Mr. LAMPSON. Yes.
Mr. CULBERTSON. I would love to go Mir right now, and I would feel very safe, and I think my wife would allow me.
[Laughter.]
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon.
14BASIS OF U.S.-RUSSIAN SPACE COOPERATION–MTCR
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Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time, and I will get right to the point. I will not discuss the safety of Mir; rather, I will discuss a much broader issue, and that is the continued involvement of the United States with Russia in this project. And I say this as someone who has supported with my vote and my mouth continued Russian-American involvement, in not just space, but in energy, the environment, defense cooperation, housing initiatives, and I chair the Russian Duma-American Congress Study Group.
My question gets to the point of a technology transfer that took place this year, involving Yuri Koptev, the Director of the Russian Space Agency, which is our counterpart agency in Russia. This technology transfer is allowing Iran to develop a 1,200-mile capable-range missile that can hit all of Israel and all of Saudi Arabia. The system could carry a 4,000-pound warhead for a chemical/biological weapon, but it does not have sophisticated guidance technology.
It is a clear violation of the MTCR, Missile Technology Control Regime. I raise that issue as the Chairman of the House Research and Development Committee for National Security, because in 1993 the Administration testified before this Committee that compliance with the MTCR would be a crucial part of our continued involvement with Mir. So, it is a key part of whether we continue to cooperate.
In fact, since 1993, the Russians have violated the MTCR seven consecutive times. They have transferred a number of technologies, including: North Korean scud launchers to Syria, solid-rocket fuel technology and guidance systems to China, space-launch integration technology to India, large-rocket assistance to Brazil, and a 1,250-mile rocket technology now that we have Koptev linked up to the Iranian missile agency. In fact, reportedly the Israeli intelligence has a copy of a $7 million contract between the Russian Space Agency and Iran.
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My point is, unless this Administration gets more serious about adherence to arms control agreements, this whole project is going away.
Now, for my colleagues on the Committee, let me call your attention to two devices. This is a gyroscope, manufactured in Russia. This was on a SSN–18, which is one of Russia's most sophisticated long-range ICBMs, which in the past has been aimed at America's cities.
This is an accelerometer which is also made in Russia; it has the Russian markings on it. It was also on an SSN–18. Both of these devices, along with 180 similar devices—actually 178 others—were found being transferred from Russia to Iraq. They were found being transferred last December.
I was in Moscow and I asked Ambassador Pickering about the transfer a month after it occurred, and he said we hadn't asked Russia the question yet. I wrote to the President, and he wrote back to me in April and said we don't have enough information, even though we had 180 of these devices in our hands.
Now, why are these important? Because these are the devices that will give Iran the capability of taking that 1,200-mile-range missile they are now developing to give it the precision to land specifically in Israel. It's a direct violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime, and it is the seventh time it has happened. My point is: Yes, we fool Russia. Russia has terrible instability right now. I know; I have been there twice this year. But it is not just Russia. Unless this Administration does what it says it will do, and that is adhere to the arms control agreements as part of our bilateral relationship, as they testified before this Committee, Mr. Chairman, was the basis of our continued involvement in Mir, this program is going to go away, because Members of Congress want to know why we are using American dollars to fund technology programs when this technology is leaking to countries that are going to threaten our allies and the United States.
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That is a very real problem, and I urge my colleagues to give this the most serious consideration. And, I urge you, Mr. Culbertson—this is certainly above your pay grade—but if this program is going to continue, this cannot continue to happen.
Now, I met with Ambassador Wisner on Tuesday. He asked to brief me before he went over to Moscow to meet with Yuri Koptev, and he assured me he is going to raise these concerns with Russia.
But the point is that we are sending the wrong signal to the instability in Russia by ignoring seven consecutive violations of MTCR; by not calling the appropriate officials and agencies into question; by allowing these violations to occur. We encourage them, the rogues in Russia; we encourage the mafia operations in Russia to continue to do these kinds of transfers. And, now we face the prospect, as Israel now does, of Iran having a missile that can hit any city with precise precision that can carry a chemical, biological, or nuclear warhead, and hit any city in Israel directly from any position within Iran.
It is unacceptable, Mr. Chairman. I applaud you for this hearing, and I would just say that I want to be on the record expressing my grave concern, as a supporter of Russian-American cooperation in the Mir program. And, I thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall.
Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would be remiss if I didn't recognize Curt Weldon's 5-minute speech there, because Curt Weldon and Thomas Jefferson are exactly right when they both have said, ''eternal vigilance is the price we pay for freedom.'' I thank you for that. I want a copy of it.
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14MEDICAL RESEARCH
Mr. HALL. Captain Culbertson, I want to talk to you just a moment about the need for Mir, the need for the Space Station. As you know, my basic thrust in space is the biomedical thrust. Bioreactor—we have adequate money in there now; the Chairman has helped to do that, and this Committee has supported it because we need a product out of space, like a cure for cancer, or diabetes, or anything like that. American people want that, and they're expecting it. Rather than vast expenditures of money and ticker-tape parades, we need a product—to put Mir back; and to put space back; and to put NASA back to where we were in the good days.
I think you know of the need for a bioreactor. We need it every day. I think, statistically, Dr. Weldon could tell us that every minute a person dies of cancer. What other—if we suspend the use of Mir—what other zero-gravity-thrust in biomedical cancer research do we have right now?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Actually, Mr. Hall, I wish I were a Ph.D. so I could give you a more detailed answer on it, but I do know that we flew the bioreactor on John Blaha's mission—the third mission to the Mir—they grew cardiac cells in space which were larger and three-dimensional than many of the other applications they have seen on the ground. And, they are still in the process of validating that experiment against the ground procedures.
They did find some problems with the hardware in that there was some leakage, some performance they didn't expect in certain areas. They managed to keep it operating and completed the experiment with good results—or at least data that they could analyze. But, because of the problems on the hardware, they modified it, and they are now flying it again on STS–86 to be transferred to the Mir with what we call the bio–3D experiment.
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Coincidently, Dr. Wolf, who is flying this mission, is one of the inventors of this bioreactor process and the hardware that is being used. So having him there is, I think, a great coincidence in him being able to evaluate the hardware in orbit.
Mr. HALL. We don't still use electrophorsis technology, do we?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I don't believe we have any of that in the Phase I program; do we, Dr. Nicogossian? No.
The bioreactor, however, is a key part of ISS research, and, on this particular experiment, they are looking at leukemia cells. NIH is involved in the experiment and they're hoping to, if not come up with specific answers in the research area, at least we know how to begin that research, so that when we get to the big show on ISS, the bioreactor will, in fact, be ready to operate.
Mr. HALL. The point I am trying to make, and I thank you for it, is that for every moment and every hour and every day that we keep this operation going, the biomedical thrust, with 1,500 people dying per day, every minute is important, with a person a minute dying. And all of us have people wasting away in a cancer ward. It is something that—if we don't have this Space Station, if we don't do our utmost to keep it—that we have to pay for it and we have to answer for it, and we will have to answer to ourselves and the people in our families and to those people who are without hope, unless we have this continued thrust, and I thank you.
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14INDEPENDENCE OF STAFFORD-UTKIN COMMISSION
Mr. HALL. I have a question for the Inspector General. Ms. Gross, I find a lot of aspects of your testimony to be very troubling, as you are apparently aware of, and I would like to ask you a few questions. Let's look at page 2 of your written testimony where you state, and I quote—and if I quote you incorrectly, please me stop me, and if I don't quote you incorrectly, please don't stop me—''As I stated previously,''—and this is your statement—''As I stated previously, because of time constraints, we have not evaluated the effectiveness of these mechanisms.'' And I think the mechanism, if I can find your testimony, is the mechanism, is the testimony as to whether NASA has adequate processes and procedures to assess risk versus benefit. Is that right?
Ms. GROSS. I'm—I'm still trying to find where you are. Are you at the bottom—the page—the paragraph——
Mr. HALL. I'm on the—I'm on the page 2, when they start with the words, as I stated previously, in the bottom paragraph on page 2, where you set out what you're questioning. You're not questioning whether astronaut participation aboard the Mir is risky; you agree that it is. But you go on and talk about the testimony as to whether NASA has adequate processes and procedures to assess risk versus benefit. I mean, that's no big deal; that's what your study was, wasn't it?
Ms. GROSS. I'm sorry, I was in the wrong document. I'm not—I wasn't citing you.
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Mr. HALL. Well, I haven't incorrectly quoted you yet, have I?
Ms. GROSS. No——
Mr. HALL. I may get around to it, but I'm not there yet.
[Laughter.]
Said regardless, both current and former NASA employees question the adequacy of the assessment process. Now, I'll make a statement about that. You don't name them, do you?
Ms. GROSS. No, I don't. I——
Mr. HALL. Let me go on now. You then go on to publicly repeat these anonymous individual's charges in your testimony without even indicating how many individuals are making these charges. Namely, you said, and I quote, and we'll get on page 2 again at the bottom, ''The chilling impact of free discussion and criticism caused by the pivotal role of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for the human space program, (2) [you name] . . . the lack of independence of the Stafford team due to its perceived ties to the JSC Center Director, (3) . . . the reduced level of risk assessment performed because of the overriding goal to continue participation in the U.S./Russian partnership.''
So, in those, you pitch, old ''who'' in there when you talk about—without indicating how many individuals, as to who they are, or who's there, and you pitch in there, old ''they.'' Now, who is ''they?'' Who are you talking about as they? Do you want to name any names?
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Ms. GROSS. No, I don't. When we come back to——
Mr. HALL. You haven't, yet, in this and it's un——
Ms. GROSS. Can I explain why? I think it's——
Mr. HALL. Yes, ma'am. Do.
Ms. GROSS. A number of people requested confidentiality from us. They're both former employees. Many have plenty of relatives that work at NASA, many of whom actually have relatives that work at JSC. Many of the people are in some way or another directly or indirectly connected with the astronaut corps and what they say is, they want to fly. And so, it's what things that the Inspector General's office is doing to protect the confidentiality. And so, I tried in the testimony, my oral testimony—and I assume you were listening closely to that—to say, in fact, there are people that are very, very supportive of the process and there are people that really question it, and question whether or not that they fear that they can speak freely, and they also question whether or not the process is as independent as it should be.
These are the kinds of issues that it's important for the Inspector General's office to bring to the attention and let it be sunshine; let the processes work and let's have a big discussion about that. As I said, I raise these as concerns. I'm not trying to impugn anybody; I want to put sunshine on the process and try to get it so that nobody feels afraid of speaking out about safety in a human flight program.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher.
14STATE OF RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It seems to me that the Administration is doing its very best to paint the best possible picture of what's going on with the joint Mir project. And let me say that wishful thinking is not a good idea in this situation. I—and I understand where people really want to keep this program going and are trying to minimize the damage that has been done by some of the accidents and some of the things that happened there. But, if we do not have a commitment to absolute honesty and scrupulously truthful assessment, it's not just going to affect Mir, but this is going to bring down the Space Station program.
And let us realize that, you know—it's all, positive attitudes, you know, are appreciated and we always have to look forward and try to do what we can, and I'm the biggest advocate of that in terms of government policy. But it seems to me that if we don't have this commitment to an absolutely honest assessment, when we're dealing with sophisticated technology on which lives are at stake and that billions of dollars have been spent, it's going to lead to, well, it could lead to the death of an astronaut and it would totally demoralize the American people and lead to an ending—it would greatly damage the American space program in general. So, I just have to make that clear.
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It seems to me, after looking—listening to what you're saying today, the Russians' technologically have these capabilities, but what we're not talking about is the Russian financial situation and this is—leads—you, sir, as, Mr. Oberg, is that how you pronounce your name? Aren't we really talking about the Russian's financial situation; that is the heart of the problem here?
Mr. OBERG. I think it's a key problem that the dedication, the talent of their cadres over there is unquestioned. And they—and again, the honor they have earned for keeping the Mir going under these conditions should not be diminished. But the amount of money actually falling to the workers is a—is a major question, the amount of payment, whether they are paid partially and paid months late. We know there's major cash flow into the Russian Space Agency, but in many cases the trickle-down doesn't seem to reach the root where people have to actually make a living. Many people in their space program have two jobs and they come to work part-time, while many other officials, as I'm sure the Committee is aware, on the program are building half million dollar mansions, brick mansions out there, on Star City, out of somebody's money, but not the money the workers are getting. So, without this kind of money reaching the people who need it, the factories that need it, the suppliers that need it, we're seeing case after case where suppliers are stopping sending equipment.
The Progress collision in June was because a supplier who used to give the reliable guidance hardware for Progress, for the automatic docking, wasn't sending any more because the Russian government could no longer pay in cash for the factory to build these units. So, their financial strain, I think, is showing very severely on their capabilities, despite their—despite their enthusiastic contentions.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. And, if we don't face this situation, look at it squarely, now we're trying to force the Russians into a partnership situation, this could bring down the whole space station if we have this same kind of approach, couldn't it? I mean, we're talking——
Mr. OBERG. That's—that's what——
Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. The degeneration of standards, here, because the Russians, not that they don't have the will, not because they don't want to have higher standards, because they are financially incapable of doing so.
Mr. OBERG. The—their budgetary—their budget right now is operating under, as you've seen the latest issues of getting money, they have—no longer have money from their federal tax revenues; they are now taking out bank loans, both from domestic banks and now they're seeking bank loans from foreign banks to finance their space activities.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Culbertson, when he quoted—in his statement when he was talking about whether or not the current astronaut thought it was safe enough to go up there, he quoted the astronaut as saying ''it is sufficient,'' the safety level is sufficient to send another astronaut up. And then when you were asked, Mr. Culbertson, about the level of standards, you used the word, well, it's ''adequate.'' Well, pardon me, but that's less than a ringing endorsement in terms of what we expect when you're talking about putting billions of dollars at risk and people's lives at risk. I mean, I was expecting to hear things, like, you know, we have absolute confidence, but no, these—these are hedges. These answers, as far as I'm concerned, are hedges. And that's what the report indicated, and let me just ask you a question about that, Mr. Culbertson.
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In terms of the standards, we—for example, isn't it true that the cosmonauts aren't even using the, and I'm—let me get this word right—Altair-relay satellite system to support communications with the ground because the Space Agency doesn't have the money to support that type of communications?
Mr. CULBERTSON. No, sir, that's not true.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, in a letter on August 11th your counterpart, and let me quote him, Valery Ryumin, said to you and was—excuse me, in your letter to him, you stated specifically your concerns that the Russians attempted the June Progress document without the support of that radio contact because they couldn't afford it. Now, doesn't that just——
Mr. CULBERTSON. I said that they couldn't afford it?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Aren't those words exactly what we're talking about here?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I don't recall saying that if they couldn't afford it——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. In your letter of August 11th—let me make sure because my staff, obviously, researched this——
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, the full text of the letter will be placed in the record at this point.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. And your letter of August 11th to your counterpart, Valery Ryumin, you were specific—stated that you were specifically concerned that the Russian attempted the June Progress docking without the support of radio contact with the ground. Now, why did they try that radio contact—that type of Progress, or that type of docking without using the radio system? Isn't that because they didn't have the money to adequately do the job they were trying to do?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I can't address whether they had the money or not. They use Altair routinely for communications. We use it; the Russians use it; other people that are up there use it and it's available on a scheduled basis in conjunction with their military.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. But what answer did you get back?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. What I ask—I'd ask unanimous consent for one more minute.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So, what answer did you get back when you wrote your counterpart and asked him about your concern that they weren't using the radio? What answer did he give you of why that docking was attempted without communication with the ground, which is now what we believed caused this problem in the first place?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Actually, we have no indication that the lack of communication with the ground during that time was the cause of the accident. However, we do feel that, in conducting a test like this, that the more coverage you have from the ground, the better. And that was our objection to them doing this test when we found——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. But he didn't answer you when you——
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, he did answer me. He did—he did say that their standard procedure, and it's been shown over the years, has been to have certain portions of the rendezvous occur outside the Russian ground station coverage. And they can do this——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So their standard is lower than ours, because you wouldn't have done it that way, is that right?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Ah——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Their standard is lower than ours because they don't have the money to do it?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Their test procedures were different than I would have utilized. And they, in retrospect, said that you're probably right, we probably should have had more coverage during that phase and we'll review that before we do this again.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Culbertson, can you please supply Mr. Ryumin's response for the record?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, it will be included in the record following your letter to him.
Mr. CULBERTSON. We'll have to send it to you, sir.
[The information referred to follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Gordon.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my friend from Alabama.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Cramer, is recognized by——
Mr. CRAMER. I thank my colleague from Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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14SAFETY STANDARDS
Mr. CRAMER. As the members of this panel and the audience can tell, there is intense interest on the Mir safety record there, and this is the kind of hearing where we would expect to air all of our dirty laundry here. But, at the same time, we want to keep this in balance.
Ms. Smith, I appreciate the comments that you were able to make when you said that there isn't—is at least some opportunity for exaggeration of certain of the safety issues that come out of this risky program. We all know that space exploration is, in fact, risky.
Captain Culbertson, I want to come back to the general line of questions that we've engaged you in, but at the same time to congratulate you and the other astronauts for your fine work and your dedication. You wouldn't be here today unless you were intensely interested in expressing yourself, and I appreciate that. But there's been concern expressed or suggestions made that NASA is applying a different safety standard to the Shuttle/Mir program than to our own human space flight programs. Would you respond to that?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Actually, in terms of the way the program was initially set up, the first flights of people in Phase I were Russians onboard the Space Shuttle. The way that we were able to accommodate that was that we guaranteed their—the safety of their crew members while operating onboard the Shuttle per U.S. safety standards. In addition, they were to guarantee the safety of U.S. astronauts onboard the Soyuz and Mir per their safety standards. All of our evaluations from the beginning of the program have showed that the safety standards are comparable and compatible and that they do not in any way, if you follow these standards, endanger anyone's life. However, neither program had the capability or the time, really, to go through what you would do on a system that you yourself built in determining how everything was built and structures were certified.
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Mr. CRAMER. Well, needless to say, you could not anticipate every situation that would occur. Dr. Lucid is behind you there, and I know she's not a witness here today, but I think it's very important for us to hear of how the astronauts that went up there adapted, how they reacted and how—what sort of measures were taken to revise safety checklists or other reactive courses or agendas that were developed. Could you give us the benefit of a little information about that?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir. The very first program—the very first mission was Norm Thagard who flew up on the Soyuz, of course, and spent 115 days on the Mir. Norm was there without the benefit of the Spektr module which came later and Priroda which came during Shannon's mission. He spent a great deal of time preparing for those missions and doing the little bit of science he had available to him, but he also spent a great deal of time commenting to the ground on how we could improve on operations up there, improve on communications. We responded to all those recommendations and they have since been incorporated in the program.
And every recommendation that comes from a crew member, even the current mission, is assessed immediately for how we might incorporate it if applicable or resolve it if necessary. But we have improved communications. I called Shannon from my living room to let her know that the Shuttle was having problems with its booster and she was going to be coming home a little bit later. And we've come a long way since the early days when we didn't have that capability.
Mr. CRAMER. Captain Culbertson, is there anything in the Inspector General's interim report that was a surprise to you, or anything that you feel like you've not had the opportunity to comment about today?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. There were no issues in there or safety concerns that were alluded to that were a surprise to me at all because we had dealt with all of these things in the course of the program. A lot of them were what I would, I mean in the very short time of the program, what I would call ancient history. They happened in 1995 or 1996. We dealt with them immediately and reacted both—together with the Russians and unilaterally, as necessary. So, we've corrected all of those. We haven't addressed all of them but, since it's an interim report, I don't feel that I should bring them up.
Mr. CRAMER. What would be lost if we don't send another astronaut up there, if we don't complete our Mir missions?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, you'd have about 35 experiments that would not be conducted; you would have development work——
Mr. CRAMER. What kind of experiments would those——
Mr. CULBERTSON. The biotechnology reactor that I mentioned before, some microgravity research on crystal generation, human life sciences experiments, the Earth observations. We also have development of the—the portable computer system that will actually be the core system for the ISS. This will be the first flight of that computer, allowing us to get some on-orbit time and see whether it will, in fact, operate in space satisfactorily, because it's critical to the communications and data gathering on ISS. And we've had problems with computers in space in the past.
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Mr. CRAMER. I want to know, then, if I still have the time, if you saw situations develop that made you conclude that we should not send any more of our astronauts up there, how would that be expressed and could you shut the missions down at that time?
Mr. CULBERTSON. If I saw a situation develop that I thought was unsafe or that said that we should not go, I would immediately notify my chain of command, Mr. Abbey, Mr. Goldin, Mr. Trafton, and let them know that I recommended that we either not send the mission or that we recommend to the Russians that they come home. The Russians also do continuous evaluation. If it were a situation on the Mir, they've required the return of the crew to the earth. We would coordinate on when that would occur, how it would occur, and under what circumstances. But we have specific criteria that would generate that activity.
Mr. CRAMER. And that would be our decision to make, not with any input from the Russians?
Mr. CULBERTSON. In terms of beginning the mission, or terminating the mission——
Mr. CRAMER. Or stopping all missions?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, terminating all missions——
Mr. CRAMER. Of our participation in——
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Stopping our participation? That would be our decision to make.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time——
Mr. CULBERTSON. And it would be based on technical assessments.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as you know, I've always been a strong supporter of the International Space Station. I believe that we should cooperate with other countries around the world, including Russia, in building a permanent facility in space. I've always thought that our astronauts' main purpose in taking part in Mir was to obtain knowledge and experience of a prolonged presence in space. Instead, it seems to me, and I think to many people around this country, that, at least in part, we're becoming part of a maintenance crew, performing jobs in a dangerous environment. I know that risk is certainly a part of space exploration and certainly a part of an astronaut's life in outer space, but unnecessary risk is something we need to be extremely careful about.
To this Member from southern California, a region heavily invested in space exploration, I draw three conclusions from this, and these, hopefully, would pass on to the International Space Station. If you build it, maintain it. If you operate it, do so safely. And three, space is inherently dangerous and expensive. Don't make it more dangerous by bad practices and bad decisions.
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This question, I think, may be appropriate for the entire panel, especially Ms. Gross. Please state what you see as the biggest safety concerns with regard to Mir. What would be your biggest concern, if there is one that pops in your head?
Ms. GROSS. For me, it's the balances; it's the controls and the procedures to make sure, in fact, that you have everybody's concerns aired and fully considered and not have any overriding kinds of pressures on having an international partnership. On a very particular kind of issue, it'd be the fire, and until they have the Russians duplicate the incident of the fire more than once or at least so that they can show that they think they have the cause, that right now is a concern for me because they're still using that as a backup system, the candles, and they intend to those use on the ISS also as a backup system. So, it's—the fire as a particular—but as a more global matter, it's the controls, is to make sure that they have adequate controls in place for assessments.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Culbertson.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir. Before I answer, I would like to say that I agree with your assessment and importance of what we should be getting out of a Space Station program and what we should be paying attention to, which we're doing in Phase I and Phase II.
The greatest safety concern I have is a depressurization onboard that could be caused by micrometeorites or orbital debris, and I believe that this is something that we're going to have to deal with in great—to great lengths in the future for ISS, Shuttle, all space craft that are flying, because there's a lot of stuff up there and we're going to have to figure out some way to deal with it and prevent it from hitting our man—our space craft that have humans onboard. And we need to be prepared to deal with it. The Russians have procedures for dealing with that, but I believe depressurization, for whatever cause, is probably the greatest safety concern that I have.
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Mr. CALVERT. Go ahead, and I have one other question.
Mr. OBERG. My concern again is maintaining the Station as it ages and its components age with deteriorating ground support, including deteriorating support from the industry, flight control, and elsewhere. Depressurization is one issue; the fire is another. We're now operating the Mir at a 25 percent oxygen concentration, not 20 percent, and so that is a slightly elevated hazard for fire.
My other fear—concern—is that we're trying to operate Mir without an adequate knowledge of its own history, the lessons the Russians have learned before. I know we've seen excuses for the inadequate knowledge of their historical data, such as them carrying the data around in little green books in their back pockets, so we can't get it; thank you very much. That may be difficult, but someone should go out and get that data. There are historical records of previous failures, previous fires, including the previous fire with an oxygen candle, historical records of CO2 incidents, carbon dioxide buildup to near bailout levels. They had to almost abandon the station the year before Thagard got onboard because of a CO2 problem. That information needs to be dug out, so we can have more perspective on the Mir.
14EMERGENCY EVACUATION
Mr. CALVERT. If I could interrupt you for a second, I'd like to do a follow-up question, since I have limited time, on that issue. I keep hearing about how the crew could just escape in the Soyuz module if they need to, but I also understand the February fire burned in a place that blocked off one of the Soyuz escape capsules from being used which would have stranded three of the six people, as I understand it. Then I saw Jerry Linenger's concerns in Newsweek that the fire threatened to burn through the wall of the station, if that was correctly reported. I asked the Science Committee staff to do some calculations and they tell me a hole the size of a softball would have incapacitated the crew in 6 minutes. Don't you think that 8 minutes is an awfully long time to be able close a hatch, if that's what I understand was also one of the problems in using the—or getting to the Soyuz escape modules?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Are you addressing it to me, sir?
Mr. CALVERT. Yes, sir.
Mr. CULBERTSON. We may be mixing two incidents here. It did take them about 8 minutes to close the hatch after the collision when the Spektr was depressurized. The equivalent size hole was about the size of a quarter, and that's actually about the design hole that they planned for in terms of a depressurization and being able to set up the procedures in order to either evacuate or close the hatch.
In terms of the fire, the Mir is actually very restricted on fire retardant materials onboard as well as it's being built to be fire retardant. And the Russians analyze everything that comes across the hatch for its flammability. The fire that occurred did last for somewhere around 10 to 15 minutes by some reports and we really have no way of proving that yet but the fact that the Russians—the crew was actually fighting it, rather than trying to evacuate, I'm not sure that we could make a clear conclusion as to whether they could have evacuated or not because they did not make an attempt to do so. I do know that once the fire had burned out, they were on oxygen masks and, as in any situation when you've got a life-threatening occurrence, you're going to take action subsequent to—that's appropriate. If appropriate was evacuating and getting to the Soyuz, they could have done that once the fire was suppressed. The likelihood of that fire spreading to other components in that module, as I said, is extremely unlikely because of the materials they use for building it. The only reason the fire was sustained for the time that it was was because of—it was a chemical reaction with a very hot chemical that escaped its canister. And that is a great cause for concern. We do take it very seriously.
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What we've done is a very thorough evaluation of what the chances of that occurring in the future are and our judgment is that it is extremely low because of the corrective action the Russians have taken. In terms of being able to evacuate, I believe that at the conclusion of the fire they could have made a decision to go or stay. The Soyuz itself was not damaged, not blocked by any debris or anything, and they could have travelled through the module and gotten there.
I also know what crew members on orbit are very resourceful and, if you need to save your own life, you're going to figure out a way to do it. There are places, however, where there is a hatch, there is a corridor, and occasionally the Soyuz will be at the end of a module. And if something happens between you and the Soyuz, then, yes, you are in a position that you've got to either wait for that situation to rectify itself or take other evasive action.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. CULBERTSON. It's a reality——
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lofgren.
14RISKS VS. BENEFITS
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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now, I have been a supporter of the Space Station program verbally, with my votes; I am still a supporter of that program and proud to be a supporter. However, I think our role here today is to evaluate with some distance, and not emotion, what's the best thing for the space program. And, as I listen to the testimony, I think it's important to say, and I think others have alluded to, how much we appreciate the bravery of the American astronauts and, I would add, the Russian cosmonauts. I mean, it takes some guts to strap yourself in and go into space, especially with some of the problems that have been experienced here. And I think as a group, and this is international, both the Russians and Americans and anyone else, people don't go into this line of work if they aren't brave, if they aren't curious, if they aren't willing to take risks to advance science.
And I, as I've listened to the testimony and the comments today, I'm trying to factor that into the decision-making process because, arguably, being in Congress doesn't require the amount of bravery that being an astronaut does, and we need to make an assessment on whether the benefits of continuing in this program are worth the risks for the brave people willing to do it, and what jeopardy we place the space program into if we continue, and there is a complete breakdown and disaster. And I, frankly, think were the worst to occur, that would have a serious implication for the continuation of the space program here and for the Space Station in the future, and that needs to be added in.
Ms. Smith, I was very interested in your comments and on page 4 of your report, you say ''Mir has become a technological experiment itself. How its systems and materials deteriorate over time can provide important information . . .''—and am I right that really the experiment is to see how we can cope as this falls apart? Is that sort of what you said in a more eloquent way?
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Ms. SMITH. I don't think that's an intentional experiment, no. But I do think that there are useful things that you can learn by studying how Mir degrades that will be useful for the ISS and any kind of space object that you're going to plan to leave up there for long periods of time.
Ms. LOFGREN. I guess, just listening here, and we will, I'm sure, have further deliberations, I'm reminded, just as a layperson, of when you know your machine has fallen apart. And I have a car right now that's in the process. First, the electrical system goes, and then the tire, and the brakes, and it just reminds me actually of kind of what we've heard today about this station. If we continue to have incidents in the Station, wouldn't it be true that the scientific experiments we hope to conclude would be impacted? For example, if the astronauts and cosmonauts have to deal with saving their lives, they're not going to have time to do some of the science experiments. Would that be accurate, Mr. Culbertson?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, ma'am. That's clear. If you have to be dealing with emergency situations or saving your life, you're not going to be worried about research. But, you know, that's not the case right now. The crew is getting ready to begin Dave Wolf's mission; they have recovered a great deal of the power from the Spektr module, and the folks in the science program are optimistic they are going to have a very full program. If something comes up to impact that, then they will have to deal with it and take a back seat to operational and maintenance concerns, but that's the way it goes in space.
Ms. LOFGREN. Ms. Smith, as an observer, a longtime observer of this program and a member of many space and scientific societies, if you had to estimate the value of participation in Mir between the experiments yet to be conducted versus the experience of being in space and learning how to work collaboratively with the Russians in space, which is the more important of the two in your judgment?
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Ms. SMITH. Well, I think that there is value——
Ms. LOFGREN. Given where we are today.
Ms. SMITH. I think that there is value in conducting scientific experiments. The question on Mir today is whether or not the science that can be conducted by the last two astronauts is sufficient to justify them being up there since half of NASA's experiments are in the Spektr module which is inaccessible.
Ms. LOFGREN. Right.
Ms. SMITH. There is value in the operational experience that they're going to get aboard Mir but, since they already have had five astronauts had that experience, I think there is a question as to whether or not the added value of having two more astronauts up there for 4- or 5-month visits really is enough to explain to the American people why you put the astronaut up there, considering all that they've been hearing in the press lately about problems with Mir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Bartlett.
14SCIENCE CONTENT
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Chairman, I'd first like to put my comments in context. When I first came to the Congress the Space Station survived by one vote in the Congress. It was—I was honored to be able to make that one vote. I'd like to comment very briefly on some observations made by Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania and Mr. Rohrabacher about Russia's ability to finance Mir and the Space Station. Russia is now involved in an exercise which has so far cost them about $4 billion. They are building under Yamatah Mountain the largest and most secure nuclear secure facility in all of the world. They have two cities, totaling about 60,000 people. They are building swimming pools and tennis courts for those people. It's not a matter of not having money; it's a matter of misplaced priorities, and their misplaced priorities are placing their cosmonauts and our astronauts at risk, and we need to call the Russians on their misplaced priorities.
I'd like now to follow up on the line of questions that the previous questioner, Ms. Lofgren, asked about the science. We are justifying future involvement in Mir on the basis of three considerations, I think. One is foreign policy, which we've not talked about today. Another is gaining additional space station experience and the need for further science experiments. Indeed, as indicated by Marcia Smith, science was the most important goal of Mir early on.
I think it's very appropriate now to raise serious questions about the quantity and quality of science to be performed on Mir. I'd like to parenthetically say that in another life I was a scientist. I have a Ph.D.; I'm a human physiologist. I have about 100 papers in the scientific literature, both in basic research and applied research. I worked at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics laboratory where I was involved in space experimentation. We built the space craft for Dr. Torgalt-Tyerati, who was a scientist at Ames Research Center, so I'm familiar with space experimentation.
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To put some of my concerns in context, I'd like to read from the prepared testimony of the—that was presented early in this hearing. ''The astronauts encountered impediments to conducting useful science experiments including: (1) poor instructions from their principle investigators; (2) poor ground communications and absence of the experiment-related telemetry; and (3) onboard interruptions to the experiment caused by moving the experiments about the Station, loss of power, and equipment failures. Other astronaut concerns relate to the poor training and poor instruction they received to conduct experiments. For instance, the astronauts would receive a book of the science projects that were to be conducted according to the astronauts, which often did not contain all documented procedures for each scientific project. Sometimes instructions were missing or nonexistent. During their stay onboard Mir, the astronauts would request scientific instructions from ground support. At times, ground support took several days to reply. By then, the astronauts may have proceeded with the experiment and improvised an action different from the principal investigator's final instructions. Some of their equipment did not work properly. These are not only impediments to scientific research, but, according to some witnesses, may make the result questionable. The Progress collision and the resulting shutdown of the Spektr module severely curtailed the remainder of the scientific research for Phase I. The U.S. science equipment stored in Spektr was lost, along with the power needed to conduct these experiments. If power to conduct science experiments was unavailable during NASA's mission, the astronauts' participation may very well be limited to station maintenance and repairs and very simple science activities.''
I would gather that the response to a question about whether we were going to have a robust science experiment series upcoming would be that, yes, certainly we were. And relative to that, I would just like to note that at the press conference on Tuesday, September 16th, Mr. Ryumin, the Russian Mir Program Manager, stated that the recent repairs have allowed us to continue an abridged science program. Now, is it a robust science program or is it an abridged science program?
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In May of this year, John Uri briefed that only 31 investigations would be completed on Mir 6, which is markedly less than the 36 claims on the flight-readiness review chart that I received or the 37 claims on those charts or the 36 claims in Tuesday's news conference. Before the collision, we were going to have 31 experiments. After the collision, we were now going to have 36 or 37. Perhaps, if we have another docking accident, we could have 50 or 60 science experiments.
I wonder if you think that the scientists—that the astronauts who participate in Shuttle/Mir program or long-duration missions on Mir are adequately utilized for science mission. I'm sure your answer would be, yes, certainly, they are. But I'd like to quote from some of the participants themselves.
In Aviation Week, July 24, 1995, Norman Thagard said ''I found myself with really too much time on my hands.'' More recently, August 22, 1997, Newsbrief, Jim van Laak, Phase 1 program manager—''so, to be honest, science yield from his increment is probably going to be 50 percent or even something less than that.'' August 28, 1997, from Nature, ''Mir's Problems could Scale Down for Science,'' the title of the article. One non-NASA scientist participating in the Shuttle/Mir program says that ''although the astronauts do the best they can, science experiments are, for better or worse, at the bottom of the totem pole.''
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. And the time of the gentleman has expired.
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Mr. BARTLETT. I have made my point, Mr. Chairman. I thank you very much and would appreciate response from the panel.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well——
[Laughter.]
14RISK ASSESSMENT
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Time is marching on, and I think I'll recognize the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, for 5 minutes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman very much for this hearing and certainly thank the panelists for coming this morning, and now almost afternoon or afternoon.
Americans are used to the anecdote, ''there's a light at the end of the tunnel.'' However, I would say in that optimistic view, we, as Americans, so as not to have this hearing break down in partisan squabbles, are all concerned about the safety of this program. Particularly let me say, not to associate a point in history where all of us had a great sadness, I know and feel very confident that NASA learned from the tragedy of Challenger. And I think that is an important note. For, we should say to the American public that this is not a frivolous effort in which we are engaged in. Frank, I'd appreciate it briefly if you should share with me your role in the risk assessment process. I know there are two other participants. Just specifically, what do you do?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. As a——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. As you assess the risks of our continued participation.
Mr. CULBERTSON. As a Director of the program, one of the elements of the program is a joint mission safety—joint safety and mission assurance working group that is headed by Gary Johnson and Dr. Boris Sutnikov on the Russian side. This safety group assesses continuously the processes that we have in place and builds the documents that document how we do this risk assessment and also documents the anomalies that have occurred during each Shuttle mission and each Mir mission and how those have been resolved. I review these documents. We have a flight review process which brings in all of their safety concerns as well as any operational or hardware safety concerns from the other working groups, of which there are eight.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Are you confident that you are diligent, or this working process is diligent, in a very frequent manner in reviewing these documents and having open discussions?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, ma'am, I am confident that it is diligent. In fact, we have a lot of very animated discussions on a lot of the issues and bring them to the fore and figure out how they're going to be resolved and, if it's on the Russian side, what the Russians are going to do to correct it, and, if it's on our side, what we're doing to correct it. And we're just as concerned about safety as we are on the Mir, particularly when we're doing things such as loading the space hub or activating our scientific experiment.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. There is, and I appreciate the answer, the 5 minutes usually turn into bionic minutes so I'm going to ask for as close to yes or noes as I possibly can get.
There's been some suggestion that there is a chilling effect among employees. NASA Johnson has been cited. In all honesty and truthfulness, is there a chilling effect, is there a tempered atmosphere where there may be those who are intimidated to speak up, if there should be viable concerns to be expressed?
Mr. CULBERTSON. No, ma'am, not that I've observed and, in fact, if you're referring to the leadership at Johnson Space Center, my most difficult audience is explaining to Mr. Abbey why it's safe to continue and I—he has—I have been free in disagreeing with him on any issues that I don't agree on. We have very good open communications.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I appreciate that and you are speaking as you sense the atmosphere with the Stafford group as well?
Mr. CULBERTSON. The Stafford group is—I only see them when they come in to get information from us. I have testified before them on what we're doing.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you've been open and truthful before them?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Absolutely.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. And feel that they are getting the information that they need?
Mr. CULBERTSON. There's no way I'm going to fool that group.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If there was a chilling effect, would you promise this Committee to immediately dispatch from this hearing room to assure any employee that you may come in contact with that has relevance to this—to the Mir and the relationship between Russia and the United States in the Mir Space Station that they have every opportunity to speak their mind?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, and I believe that they should come to me and anybody else that is responsible for the program. And if you don't think we're responsive, go to the appropriate people, including the IG.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. In the cost-benefit analysis, which is very cold, because cost-benefit analysis means the life of an American or human being, the life of the Russian cosmonauts, the life of the likes of a Dr. Shannon Lucid, and Mr. Foale—in this instance, are you sending, as we continue this mission, our astronauts on a suicide mission?
Mr. CULBERTSON. No, ma'am.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would you be very cautious and concerned that this would never be part of this mission, no matter how much science is left to be detected or discovered?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Absolutely.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me move very quickly to Ms. Gross, and let me acknowledge you have a tough job. We thank you for it. We don't make light of fires and tragedies and we should all be concerned as Americans. But let me emphasize what you have said in your report.
First of all, that this interim report provided no definitive answers to the issues that were raised regarding the suitability of Mir for habilitation by U.S. astronauts, research productivity onboard the Mir, and cost-effectiveness of continued NASA involvement. And you certainly note the risks of the fire. I think you also say that in the report, you did not evaluate the effectiveness of massive safety review mechanisms. What do you want us to get from your report?
Ms. GROSS. This report was merely to get a focus to the committee. We were given a task to make an evaluation. We were then asked to give back information. We collected boxes and boxes of information and really what it was to be doing was putting in one document that there are a lot of anomalies, that there's a lot of issues, and that there are mechanisms that raise issues about their effectiveness, and to say these are all on the table and need to be openly discussed because they're important——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Right——
Ms. GROSS [continuing]. For U.S. astronauts.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I think you—your report did not, at this time, ask for this mission to cease and desist, is that my understanding?
Ms. GROSS. That's correct.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. In fact, the final question in your report says ''Does the Russian/U.S. partnership require increased Headquarters oversight?''
Ms. GROSS. That's correct.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you have not gotten an answer back from NASA saying we won't increase our headquarters oversight? There's been no rejection of your suggestion at this point?
Ms. GROSS. Actually, Mr. Goldin had been in communication with me this week and had indicated that he is going to ask for greater involvement by Mr. Gregory's staff with the astronaut corps and with the Stafford commission, which hasn't had that much interaction, actually, with the astronauts, though it has had with Mr. Culbertson's group, so that they can have a forum there. So, in fact, I think they (the astronauts): are going to be—they're taking that comment seriously.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you don't feel that your efforts and your report is mutually exclusive——
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Mr. WELDON of Florida [presiding]. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, if I can finish this last question, I'd appreciate—mutually exclusive from the continuation of the Mir/U.S. Space Station arrangement at this point?
Ms. GROSS. That's correct.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. It's not mutually exclusive?
Ms. GROSS. It's not mutually exclusive.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank you. I thank the panel and I thank the Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Chair will now recognize the gentlelady from Maryland, Mrs. Morella.
14LOSS OF ATTITUDE CONTROL
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. I want to also thank the Chairman for this meeting, and the panelists, also, for their presentations and for responding to our questions.
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Ms. Smith, I'd like to ask you: We all appreciated Captain Culbertson's demonstration in his opening statement of the Mir Station without attitude control; however, the impacts of that loss of control are well documented on Mir's power system. I wonder if you would please describe some of the impacts on Mir operations that you found by these ongoing losses of power?
Ms. SMITH. Well, when they lose the correct orientation to the sun, they don't get as much electrical energy as they should, which means they have to power down their systems, including the science experiments, and so every time you have one of these failures it does impact both the work and the living routine for the crews aboard the space station.
Mrs. MORELLA. Would you like to comment on that, Ms. Gross, also, because you had the opportunity to observe NASA's public description of the impacts of the power losses, and I wondered after your investigation, is it now your opinion that these have been adequately addressed in public discourse?
Ms. GROSS. I do want to correct that it's not an investigation. At this point, we're trying—the short time we've been involved we're trying to get inside at this point.
The problem with powering down, it not only impacts on science; it's going to impact on the living environment that they have, because what they do is shut down other systems to save power, and if that's going to be a system that's going to be a scrubber for carbon dioxide, if that's going to be having to affect the coolants, or if that's also happening while you're also having problems with the cooling system anyway, all of that impacts on the environment that astronauts and cosmonauts have to live in which is a safety issue, it impedes judgment.
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So, have we addressed it? We know it's an aging system and so that we are going to have ethylene glycol leaks. It's—apparently, they think it's because it's a combination of two metals, it's going to happen again. It doesn't mean that they're not trying to take affirmative action. It's not that they're not monitoring it, and I guess they're also, from what I hear, they also are developing an alternate system, particularly for the ISS. It's going to happen. So when you ask me if they've addressed it, some of these are going to happen; they've been happening in the last 2 or 3 days.
14FAILURES TO FOLLOW RUSSIAN SAFETY PROCEDURES
Mrs. MORELLA. Very good and very important points that this is something we must take seriously so that we don't do any repeating of what happened, because it could be far worse. I know Captain Culbertson probably wants to respond to that, but I wanted to get on to one other issue too, if I could, and this has to do with the statement that was made about the standards that are comparable and compatible—Captain Culbertson, you said that just a little bit ago. I'm also wondering about these standards that, according to Cosmonaut Tsiblyev, there were at least three distinct times when the Russians did not even comply with their own standards. Now, sometimes we say, ''Oh, maybe that's courageous,'' but, hey, if they're not complying with the standards that have been established, how much confidence can we have in these standards and in the kind of training that's going on and faith should NASA have in the Russian safety rules if they don't even obey them?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Is this a question to me?
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Mrs. MORELLA. Could you, yes, I'd like to ask you.
Mr. CULBERTSON. I didn't see the actual Russian text of what he said; I know what the English translation said. As it was described to me by people who were there, what he was saying was that they were within their rights to evacuate the station in a couple of or maybe even three cases and would probably not have been criticized by the ground. However, he used his commander's prerogative to stay and rectify the situation rather than leaving the ship, and I think that's an important distinction in this program, is that the Mir is not like a shuttle; it's not like an aircraft where if a problem occurs onboard where you've got to worry about whether you can get back and land, the Mir is never going to re-enter. The shuttle, if it has a problem, the first impact we assess is whether it can re-enter or not.
Mrs. MORELLA. So, you see it not as a mandatory rule, but as something that has a great deal of flexibility then, sort of guideline?
Mr. CULBERTSON. That's exactly the way we operate on the Shuttle. We have rules, and we have procedures, and you abide by them, but the real situation almost never correlates to what you predict, and if the commander's judgment is such that you go a different direction, then he has that prerogative, but he takes the responsibility for the consequences if that happens.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Oberg, you want to add one brief statement to that since you also talked about safety?
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Mr. OBERG. Talking about the electrical issue there, the issue of losing the computer, that was a very good question, because that kind of failure when it occurs by itself can be handled; the station can maintain attitude. What we're seeing is failure piling on failure. We're seeing cases where one failure either masks or makes worse another failure. When the computers fail now, they have enough power. If the computers failed 2 weeks earlier, before the spektr cables were reconnected, they could have been in a very serious situation. So it's the multiplication of these failures and the fact that they do occur not at random but often together, such as during a docking attempt which was able—they took over manually and were able to do that, but the failures are starting to come together, and that combination of failures makes the combination far worse than any single failure.
Mrs. MORELLA. So, it's sort of an ominous portent of what could happen?
Mr. OBERG. I believe it's a portent, and I believe these are signs that the Station is giving us that should be read in a different way than other people think.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much to the panelists, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WELDON of Florida [presiding]. The Committee will now stand in recess for 15 minutes.
[Brief Recess.]
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14ETHYLENE GLYCOL
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman, Mr. Gutknecht, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the panel's indulgence for us to have to run back and vote.
I first want to ask a real quick question that was asked—posed to me by a mother. It relates to the—and, perhaps, Mr. Culbertson, you're the correct person to answer this—do you feel very confident that the escape module will work?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, I do feel very confident it will work.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Has it ever been tested?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Well, actually, it's not an escape module; the Soyuz is what they use for their normal ascent and re-entry every single mission; it's not a separate lifeboat.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. All right. The questions I want to focus on—and I think I really want to refer these to Ms. Gross—I'm from Minnesota. I think I know what ethylene glycol is, at least. It's the principal ingredient that we have in antifreeze where it gets very cold, and it's called a coolant here in this thing. My concerns relate to the fact that there's been an awful lot of it that has leaked, assumed that it's leaked into the atmosphere, and I want to read just a couple of things that—for example, NASA did an analysis of the ethylene glycol exposure on April 2, 1997. It concludes that only 9 grams or 8 milliliters of coolant would have had to have leaked to lead to an average concentration of 19 parts per million.
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Then you go on—and I think this is actually NASA's own report, and I will read from it—this is a quote; it said, ''This is a fairly small volume and a magnitude of the release in the reports I've heard indicate that much more than this volume probably escaped.'' Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ms. GROSS. I think the whole issue on the ethylene glycol contents is—needs examination. In looking at debriefs by Mr. Linenger, he indicated, in fact, that there may only not be accurate tests that had been done. I think, subsequently, I understand from the debrief that Mr. Culbertson just recently did on September 8th, that they have monitors that they've been—filters that they've been placing in, and that both sides, both the United States and the Russians, have been more consistently monitoring the samples than before.
I think it's an open issue. I certainly would ask the agency to respond on that. There had been some controversy about whether the amounts were being—and samples were being—accurately reflecting the conditions that astronauts were living under.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Our calculations—and I think these are fairly accurate—that over 3 liters of antifreeze has leaked into the atmosphere. Is that about right?
Ms. GROSS. I'm going to defer that to the agency on that. I think the amounts in there—there's a lot of different points of view on that. People have varying numbers, and some question whether or not the measurements have been accurate or if they were minimizing the amounts that were in there.
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Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Oberg, you seem to want to respond to that.
Mr. OBERG. Well, this was a serious issue, of course, back in the March time frame when they were having these major leaks. The ethylene glycol that did leak and did reach very serious proportions in the atmosphere, they were having both irritation and, beyond that, having allergic reactions to some of them—some of the crew, and the levels were probably levels that you consider in a toxic area at least temporarily. It's been cleared out by the filtering system, and currently it does not appear to be in there. It's a good testing program to maintain that, but the issue of the coolant loops is an open issue, because they still use this material in the loops; they still need those loops.
I can read to you from testimony before the Stafford Commission in April, ''Coolant loops corrosion problems will not go away, and will remain as a real threat to Mir usable life.'' That was a quotation made to the—by Hank Rodard to Tom Stafford on April 9th, and I think that's a very accurate assessment, that these loops are still there; they still have the chemicals; the loops are still aging, and there will be more leaks. You can pretty well guarantee there will be more leaks. The question is, how much more will leak out? What levels will it reach next time?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, I would refer back to a comment—and I think it was a pretty accurate analysis of my colleague, Ms. Lofgren, from California. I mean, originally, it's my understanding that the lifespan of this vehicle was about 5 years. It was built in 1986, to put it in vehicle comparisons. We've got a vehicle up there that was designed for about 100,000 miles, and we're bumping up against 200,000 miles. In fact, our back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this vehicle has flown about 1.5 billion miles so far. We've had 1,400 breakdowns; we've got leaks in the radiator, so to speak; we've got all these other problems.
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I really am concerned, and I know that I'm not the only member of this committee that's concerned that NASA is taking some very serious risks with our people and that if there is a major catastrophe up there, it's going to set our space program back a long ways, and I'm one who voted for the Space Station; I've been a longtime supporter, but I'm deeply concerned about this.
The reason I raise the thing about the antifreeze is—this may sound funny, but—we've had three dogs—antifreeze kills dogs. I mean, it doesn't take very much of it; it is a powerful toxic, and dogs love it, because it tastes sweet, and they'll drink it, and they'll lick it up if it leaks on your driveway, and I think that we've sort of glossed over, because if there had been 3 liters leaked into the atmosphere of this vehicle, and we don't have adequate monitoring devices, we really don't know what the levels reached in those vehicles. I think this is a very, very serious concern and, as Mr. Oberg just testified, you can almost guarantee that we're going to have more of those leaks. Do you want to respond to that?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I would love to respond to that, sir, if I may.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Culbertson, do you want to respond briefly?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir. I'm afraid that there's—with all due respect—there's so many inaccuracies that I really believe should be addressed in the comments that were made.
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There's probably actually more than 3 liters of ethylene glycol that over the course of the Mir have leaked into the atmosphere. Ethylene glycol, however, acts very much like water in the atmosphere where it is condensed out very quickly, either on the walls of cold surfaces or in the condensate recovery system. One of the concerns they had during the time that they had leaks on the Mir was with the condensate recovery system picking up all the ethylene glycol. We have found, since we carried real-time monitoring capability up on STS–84, that the atmosphere itself has been relatively free of ethylene glycol since they repaired the leaks, and the Mir itself has been fairly tight since then.
Yes, ethylene glycol is in the thermal control loops and will remain so, because to change it out would require introducing ethylene glycol to the atmosphere again, and it's really not practical at this point. However, they're improving on that for ISS. But the fact that they took such a conservative approach with the condensate recovery and required two sets of samples to be returned to ground to be evaluated by both the United States and the Russians' specialists before they would approve that for drinking by the crew, I think indicates their level of concern for safety in this regard. You would have to drink ethylene glycol as you described dogs doing in order to—for it to be fatal as you describe.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. So, a concentration that entered the lungs through the atmosphere would not be dangerous?
Mr. CULBERTSON. I'd like to submit for the record a report from our Chief of Medical Sciences Division, written by our toxicologist, that goes into a great deal of detail on the toxicology of ethylene glycol and how it is handled and what the effects on the human body are.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, it will be introduced.
Mr. Oberg, did you want to add something?
Mr. OBERG. I certainly agree that the situation has improved on that, and the monitoring appears to be adequate.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has once again expired. The other gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Luther.
14MIR'S NEAR MISS WITH A SATELLITE
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the panel for your presentations today.
I had just one question, really, that I wanted to ask about the near miss on Monday night that was reported in the media. As I understand it, the—we're talking about a few hundred yards. There was a reconnaissance satellite—an American reconnaissance or at least——
Mr. CULBERTSON. Science satellite.
Mr. LUTHER. Okay. Another satellite, in any event, and apparently it was on a perpendicular path with the particular station in question here.
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Overtaken from behind.
Mr. LUTHER. Okay. I'm going by the press reports that I've read——
Mr. CULBERTSON. I understand.
Mr. LUTHER [continuing]. And I assume that there could be some inaccuracies in some of those press reports, but apparently what occurred is that the occupants of the Station chose to seal themselves into the capsule rather than to position themselves to maneuver the entire Station to outmaneuver the overtaking satellite or whatever the case may be.
My question is, is that a standard operating procedure for the Mir spacecraft? Would that have been the standard operating procedure for a U.S. spacecraft?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Under certain circumstances, yes, sir, it would. Actually, Mr. Oberg is more of an expert in ballistics than I am and can probably describe the scenario better, but I would like to say that we—at the beginning when we began our cooperative effort and put Americans on the Mir, one of the things we were concerned about are what we call conjunctions, or close approaches of other spacecraft or debris with the Mir itself. We follow this all the time for the Shuttle, and it's a major endeavor that we watch very closely, because there is a lot of stuff up there, as I said.
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We received a notification from our Space Command through our mission operations director that they passed it onto the Russians. The procedure there is to give them the data on the satellite or whatever it is; they start tracking, if they're not already, and they keep talking to each other and concurring on what the track is and what the miss distance is going to be. What triggers that is a close approach—estimated close approach of inside of a two-by-two-by-five kilometer box. That was the case here. The estimate initially was about 2 kilometers, and then it reduced down to about 1 kilometer. The Russians' procedures are if it is inside 2 kilometers, they will evacuate the Mir, and get into the Soyuz—they don't necessarily seal the hatch, though I do believe they close it in most cases—and they're ready to evacuate or separate themselves from the Mir if it does take a hit. The Mir, being much larger, is more likely to take a hit than the Soyuz itself.
The procedures on the shuttle are such that if anything is estimated to enter that same box—and, usually, they start getting some data about 24 hours or so before—is that right, Jim?—ahead of time.
Mr. OBERG. Yes, you get advance word, and then you can start the maneuver ahead of time.
Mr. CULBERTSON. And then on the Shuttle, our flight rules state that if we are not in any critical activity, we will maneuver the Shuttle to move that debris outside the box. If we're in a critical maneuver—and that's defined by several different ways, including being docked to a Station or in the middle of a rendezvous or deploying a satellite, there are a number of them—we would not maneuver the shuttle. The reason for that is there is a certain amount of uncertainty on the calculations that are conducted by Space Command, at least plus or minus 250 meters or so, and so you might maneuver right into it rather than away from it.
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So, it's one of those things that I'm very concerned about, and I believe we need to address more completely, but it's one of the real hazards of space flight that we have to be aware of.
Mr. OBERG. The fact that this one happened last week really makes you wonder who's loading the dice, because it wasn't the Russians' fault, and it wasn't the old Station's fault or the ground infrastructure; it was just one of those things. It did come closer than usual, but the Russian experience has been and appears to be prudent that space is really big, and there's lots of things up there that can fly close to you; they can pass by you, but if they don't touch you, if they miss you, you're safe.
Going into the Soyuz appeared to have been the appropriate level of reaction, and they've done that before—I'm not sure how many times before—but it appears to have been—it's a safe procedure to do. So, I have no concerns ever doing that. The satellite was an old dead DOD sensor satellite, and it was in a polar orbit. It just happened to pass down through the orbit of the Mir. They are watching for these things, and it's reassuring that they see them in advance.
Mr. CULBERTSON. We see this about every 1 or 2 months, and usually they end up not being that close.
Mr. LUTHER. But, in any event, what you're assuring us is that you didn't see anything that, in terms of the reaction, the response——
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Mr. CULBERTSON. No, it was totally appropriate.
Mr. LUTHER [continuing]. That caused you any concern?
Mr. CULBERTSON. No, sir.
Mr. LUTHER. Okay. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. And last, but certainly not least, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Foley.
14EVALUATION ABOARD SOYUZ
Mr. FOLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have to go home every weekend and explain why I support the space program to a very skeptical public. We have, daily now, military aircraft falling out of the sky or running into each other, and then we read press reports about the safety of the Mir program.
The IG's report states several things: Soyuz is a rescue vehicle; fire hazards; problem with oxygen generators; fatigue and stress training; communication, a lack of knowledge about Mir systems. No one in their right mind would let their child or daughter ride in a car to the mall under these conditions, but, yet, we seem comfortable in placing our men and women in space.
I have to ask a question, because I'm concerned when we talk about the Soyuz vehicle as a rescue mission. There was a press release put out by the European Space Agency commending Thomas Rider as the first non-Russian astronaut to receive a Soyuz return commander certificate. He received this as training. He's the first non-Russian astronaut to have earned this certificate. I guess my question is: Why don't we have people trained in this same type of technology in being able to pilot, if you will, this rescue ship?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. We haven't had anybody assigned as a commander of a Soyuz yet. It's an additional 6 to 8 months of training. Charlie Precort, here, who is with me, has received some training on the Soyuz, and is actually a fairly good pilot of the simulator, but he can attest to the level of training that is required for that. The Europeans contracted with Star City to complete that training; paid for it, and that was a result, was a certified European cosmonaut.
Our people have been assigned as flight engineers onboard the Mir station. They were not assigned as commanders. It's a similar situation to the flight—the mission specialist and the commanders and pilots onboard the shuttle. You have a division of responsibilities, assigned roles, and we don't train everybody to be a commander on the shuttle, and we're not going to train everybody to be a commander on the Soyuz.
Mr. FOLEY. But isn't that their only means of escape in an emergency?
Mr. CULBERTSON. All three crew members would come home in an emergency. It's a normal return sequence, and, in fact, the Soyuz has the ability to stay on orbit for 2 days, if necessary, to work out any problems that might occur.
Mr. FOLEY. But who would pilot it?
Mr. CULBERTSON. The commander of the mission.
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Mr. FOLEY. Well, what if he is ill? If he's not ready to leave? If he's the only——
Mr. CULBERTSON. The normal re-entry is actually fully automatic, and there's no actions required on his part. The training they give is in case there are failures, which is a prudent thing to do, and what we do with our crew members, if there are failures, you're trained to take over manually, and it takes a great deal of training to execute that manual sequence and fly it back through the atmosphere, through the G-loading and the precise trajectories that are required to make a safe re-entry.
We do the same type of training on the shuttle launch where we train people to control it manually, if necessary, but we have never ever manually controlled a shuttle.
Mr. FOLEY. But, see, I'm concerned. I think you have to have that as a safety feature. I mean, if I travel on U.S. Air, they sit there, when I'm in the emergency row, and tell me how to get out. Now, they don't invite me—''I'll invite you to fly the plane home, if you like, so you're fully capable of it, because I want you to be the commander of the plane and able to help passengers exit in emergency.''
Mrs. Lucid said in the debrief on October 19, 1996, asked about the human factor conventions, standardized labeling switches in the Soyuz control; stated that there really isn't any human factors design present in either the Soyuz or Mir, and when asked if she thought that it prevented—does it present a safety hazard, she replied, ''I think you could kill yourself one way or the other if you use the wrong one.''
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Now, I mean——
Mr. CULBERTSON. The fact is, sir, that if you use the wrong switch in any spacecraft or aircraft or vehicle that you're in, yes, you can kill yourself. That's why training is so important.
Mr. FOLEY. But why haven't we trained someone?
Mr. CULBERTSON. She was trained to fly onboard the Soyuz, not as a commander—just as you're not trained to land a U.S. Air aircraft, you're trained to——
Mr. FOLEY. Thank God.
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir; no comment.
[Laughter.]
The fact that you are briefed on how to exit the aircraft is actually a level far less than the level of training Shannon got on being able to actively participate in the Soyuz operations, should they be required. But the fact that we don't train everybody as a commander is just a fact that we already have the commander onboard, and it is coming back under automatic.
Mr. FOLEY. I think that neglects the fact that we have so few people up there. It's not like we're trying to train the world. It's not like I'm saying, ''Please train 1,000 people capable of ''—I'm talking about a few people that are in space; that if one is sick or injured due to the fire, a problem, a sighting problem, maybe something gets in the eye, and now you're saying, ''Who is the backup; we don't have a backup.''
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Now, you also suggested earlier in your testimony, ''if I felt it was unsafe, I would call them home.'' Well, if the Russian pilot of the Soyuz doesn't want to leave, how do you call them home if the other commander's not capable of flying. So, these are significant concerns, and let me ask Ms. Gross first: Have you found it in your IG report, anybody compelled to change their information provided under debriefs? Has anybody been compelled by being told maybe they'll never fly another mission if they spill the beans, if you will, on the problems they've encountered in Mir?
Ms. GROSS. I don't think it's the debriefs. I think the debriefs—I think people are fairly candid. I think that we provided a lot of the debriefs to the Committee, and I think that's not where the issue is. It gets to be an atmosphere where people—and it's not just the people who were labeled that—where people get to be called whiners or complainers or nay-sayers or that they're alarmists, and I actually heard a very senior official before the IVA—I'm sorry, we were talking about the EVA—it was before the EVA; one of my staff had to ask the senior official, ''Well, what about Linenger's concern about the sharp edges?'' And the senior official answered back, ''Oh, he's considered to be an alarmist inside Russia, and he's just an alarmist. Why don't you ask''—then they named another person, who is not an astronaut, had never been on the Mir, and didn't know what the outside looked like. Now, you know, it was just a bizarre answer. It sort of confirmed what some people said to us, that people got painted. Now, that didn't happen when they went into the flight readiness review. In fact, they were talking about the sharp edges; they absolutely were talking about that; it's on the schedule as a concern.
What was bothersome to us is the individual who made that comment, how high a level that was, and it was almost like creating an atmosphere for, are people whiners, complainers, or alarmists if, in fact, they have a reaction that is important to hear? It's important to hear, so you can do the very kinds of human factors that I think that Ms. Lucid talks about, so that you can hear people say—the more candid you are, you can get profiles of people who might be compatible on long durations. You want to encourage those things. They're not whiners; they're not those kinds of things just because they don't talk the ''right stuff.'' You want that full communication. So, that was our concern, but nobody was told to change in a debriefing. In fact, the debriefs looked fairly candid.
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Mr. FOLEY. Only because as I noticed Mr. Culbertson turn around when I made——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. FOLEY. Unanimous consent to extend for 2 minutes?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Mr. FOLEY. Thank you.
I just noticed how he turned around so quickly, as if to question—could she have possibly made that statement? And I want to make certain people are given the benefit of the doubt that they are being asked to be candid. I mean, they are risking their lives to adventure in space, and I hope we would learn from them. I mean, U.S. Air—FAA won't allow them to take off if there's even a little fuse or a light out on the wing or anywhere else in the plane. They have to have that complete safety done before it takes off from the field.
And, so what I'm reading here on the conditions of Mir call into question whether we're capable of being an active participant, and I want to make a quote here by Mr. Victor Blagoff, the Deputy Chief of Russian Mission System. When we talked about training, he acknowledged that ''U.S. astronauts have only superficial knowledge operating the Soyuz capsule,'' but said, ''that's only because NASA didn't request more comprehensive training.'' Is that an accurate statement?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Initially, we did not request more comprehensive training; we have since then. I'm not sure when he made that——
Mr. FOLEY. But nobody has been—nobody actually—do we have somebody that can pilot it other than this French——
Mr. CULBERTSON. The flight engineer number two, the other cosmonaut also is qualified to pilot it, if necessary, although he is not as qualified as the commander.
Mr. FOLEY. And the commander is our commander?
Mr. CULBERTSON. No, the commander is a Russian. The flight engineer number one is a Russian, and ours is flight engineer number two.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Will the gentleman from Florida yield?
Mr. FOLEY. Yes, sir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. My reading of the internal space walk that was done to reconnect the wires that were severed when the hatch to the spektr was slammed shut had the two Russian cosmonauts do that, but Michael Foale was in the Soyuz in case something bad happened, and he had to bail. What would have happened if something bad did happen, and the two Russian cosmonauts were killed? Could he have piloted that, given the limited training he had?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. First of all, you're talking about a number of failures that would have to occur simultaneously, but——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, I'm—you know, everybody said that the internal space walk was very dangerous and that Foale was to be left alone inside the Soyuz capsule. I assume that that was a safety precaution in case something bad happened to the cosmonauts, and this was plowing unchartered ground with people who did not have as extensive training as usual. You know, again, my question is, if the two cosmonauts were either killed or incapable of operating the Soyuz capsule, could Foale have brought it back to Earth?
Mr. CULBERTSON. Yes, sir, because it would come back automatically, and any functions that he was required to accomplish would be taken care by air-to-ground communications. Again, we deal with accepted risk in space flight where it's on the shuttle or on the Mir, and we look at the number of failures that would have to occur to get into a particular scenario such as you outlined. The number of failures in that case were probably approaching five or six, I believe, to get to the case where Mike would have to manually control the Soyuz for return. He would have two days on orbit with which to communicate with ground on how he might do that, if he were required to, but I don't believe that we'll ever see a situation like that.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Are the communications, worldwide communications or is it the Russian-type communication that only operated when the capsule is over the former Soviet Union?
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Mr. CULBERTSON. Actually, we have ground sites—three ground sites in the United States and one on Germany to supplement the Russians, in addition to the altair satellite that can be called up whenever needed and scheduled, and so we would have—they have communication at least once each orbit on being able to talk between mission control.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Florida?
Mr. FOLEY. Again, I don't want to simplify it, but if I go on a cruise, the first order of business, we have to get on deck and learn how to do the evacuation, and learn how to get the boat off the boat to save my life. If I get on U.S. Air, I have to work the door to get out of there to save my life, and I'm finding we're spending billions of dollars to put our astronauts in harm's way and expect or hope that this Frenchman or the Russians will bring him home safely if they're capable.
Mr. CULBERTSON. That's an entirely appropriate scenario with the pilot bringing the craft home. The first thing we do is assure that they're briefed and prepared to board the Soyuz when we transfer them to the Mir.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ehlers.
14SHANNON LUCID
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the fact, Mr. Chairman, that you have scheduled this session. I think it's been extremely helpful. I do apologize to you and the witnesses that I've been in and out. I had some urgent meetings that I simply had to go to, and so, therefore, I will not ask a question, for fear that any question I might ask might have been asked before.
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I would, however, like to just make a brief comment, and on behalf of my community and my district, the point was tied to the fact that Astronaut Lucid has some Grand Rapids connections. In fact, the college at which I taught for 16 years, Calvin College, has a dormitory named after her grandfather, and many members of their family have attended Calvin College, which is indubitably one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the United States, if not the universe.
[Laughter.]
So, I just wanted to mention that connection to Grand Rapids, and thank her for her presence here, and thank you, once again, Mr. Chairman, for what I consider to be a very outstanding hearing.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall, has a point of personal privilege and is recognized for 5 minutes for that purpose.
14A POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make an inquiry of the Chair before I begin my 5 minutes, if I might.
On behalf of Mr. Lampson and others, we've asked you to use your technological expertise and your innovative leadership—that is obvious and that I recognize and appreciate—to give us a virtual-reality-feel hearing, teleconferencing with one who is on Mir and those on this committee, to where we can ask those direct questions, and they can answer without fear of oppression.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well——
Mr. HALL. Or to look into it, and report back to us, and tell us whether or not it's possible.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, as I told the gentleman from Texas, this is the first of a series of hearings, and we hope to have the astronauts who spent time on Mir come before the Committee at a future hearing, and give us their candid assessments of exactly what the problems are; what the benefits are, and how much science has been done, and whether the string of catastrophes aboard the Mir has significantly impeded upon that. So, I have given Mr. Brown my assurances, and I have given the Committee and the public my assurances that that will happen. When it will happen I think depends upon scheduling problems and also how far along the Inspector General is in giving us a final report.
Mr. HALL. That's a good answer. I was just asking that on behalf of Mr. Lampson. Basically, I didn't know Mr. Brown had also made the inquiry, but when is up to the Chairman and if—but I think—I gather there some intent of yours to try to do that?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Absolutely, and we will bring General Stafford before the Committee at a future hearing as well. We would have liked to have had him today, but he's out of town, and was not available.
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, I'll begin my 5 minutes now, and I will tell you that the reason I asked to have this 5 minutes is that I understood you to say earlier that we'd have second rounds, and I relied on it; canceled people that were in my office working for me. Dr. Weldon who was chairing said, ''Come back in 20 minutes,'' and I came back in 20 minutes. I had some questions I wanted to tie up with the Inspector General, and, really, the reason that I wanted to tie them up was in fairness to the people at the space center in Houston and Marshall and Kennedy, because anytime anyone is pointed out and their names aren't related to us, and they make accusations, I think it's very important that we let the light shine in, and that if General Stafford is going to be named, that those that are accusers of General Stafford should be named, in fairness to him. And, by the way, he's on his way back here now with information that would be very beneficial to us, and I understand the chairman not putting this hearing off until he got here, because he's not here and this was said, and we had witnesses that were coming in this direction.
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But when we talk about the accusations and, basically, once, again, I want to go back to page 2, where in the testimony of the Inspector General she speaks of the lack of independence of the Stafford team due to its perceived ties to the JSC center director and——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Will the gentleman yield at this point?
Mr. HALL. Yes, I do.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I have the report of—the first joint report of the Stafford Task Force and Academician Utkin, and it has the membership of the Stafford team, and I'd just like to point out that there are 15 members on the Stafford team; 8 of them are NASA employees, and 7 of them are not NASA employees, but many of those 7 are employees of firms that do significant contracting with NASA. I don't think that what the Inspector General had to say in any way impugned the integrity of General Stafford, whom I admire very much, and whom I believe is a very straightforward and direct and honest person, but the fact is that a majority of the 15 members do get their paychecks signed by NASA.
Mr. HALL. Well, Mr. Chairman, I certainly differ with your analysis on it. If you can't read her statement that the chilling impact on free discussion and criticism caused by the pivotal role of the Johnson Space Center for the Human Space program, the lack of independence of the Stafford team due to its perceived ties to JSC, if that's not an indictment of General Stafford and George Abbey and others down there, I don't know how to indict them. I don't think they ought to be indicted. I think that they ought to have the right to come here and speak for themselves. We ought to hear from them.
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And I would go on and point out that, in the interim report to Chairman Sensenbrenner and Mr. Brown, she makes no mention of any allegations regarding General Stafford or regarding the Johnson Space Center; neither does the letter by Mr. Harlan that you cite in the interim report.
What are we left with then? We have a NASA Inspector General publicly repeating charges by anonymous individuals about a man that's not here; that's in Russia doing work for us; bringing us some facts; that smear the reputation of General Tom Stafford, an American who has served his country countless times with distinction, and Tom Stafford isn't even here to defend himself. So, we have the NASA Inspector General publicly repeating charges by anonymous individuals that question his integrity, and finally we have the NASA Inspector General saying these alleged revelations to announce at a high—announced it at a high-visibility hearing; she didn't save that for us.
Now, is there value, I ask, in having independent oversight of the Shuttle-Mir program? Of course, I think all the members would agree with that, but does that type of investigation that I've just described contribute anything useful to this oversight? No, I think it's disgraceful.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
This concludes the hearing. Let me thank all of the witnesses for their very frank and candid testimony, and also for their patience as we went running across the street to cast our votes on important issues, like to adjourn the House for the day and the approval of the journal by the Speaker.
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[Laughter.]
Nonetheless, we did get the job done. I think that the members of the Committee asked many very relevant questions that helped put these issues in better perspective.
Again, let me appreciate all of the work that everybody has done to put these issues on the table. I think that it has been very worthwhile, and the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
Next Hearing Segment(2)