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U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION IN HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT, PART II: THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION; PROBLEMS AND OPTIONS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Committee will be in order.
Without objection, the Chair will be granted authority to declare recesses during roll call votes on the Floor of the House of Representatives.
I'd like to welcome all of the witnesses, members of the Committee, and also the audience here today.
Two weeks ago, NASA released its Advisory Council's Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force report prepared by today's witness, Mr. Jay Chabrow. It found that the Space Station is likely to cost $24.7 billion—$7.3 billion more than originally estimated—and probably won't be finished sooner than October 2004. It might not be ready until February 2007, more than 4 years behind schedule.
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I commend those who performed this study which is invaluable not only because it puts a dollar figure on the size of the Station's problems and estimates of the schedule slip, but because it offers recommendations to prevent things from getting worse. My colleagues may recognize some of the recommendations bear a striking resemblance to those this Committee has offered since 1993, regardless of which party was in charge or who sat in this chair.
Those of you who have had the privilege of attending our ''get-togethers'' before, at this point know that the proceedings I—at this point in the proceedings I usually go through a long list of broken Russian promises on the Space Station and policy failures that have made us vulnerable to their non-performance. Traditionally, I then warn the Administration about how failure to address these problems will cause delays and cost overruns. With the exception of the preceding sentences, I will not cover the same ground today. By breaking with my tradition, I hope to break the cycle of being required to preside at a contentious hearing on Station problems every few months.
In exchange, I ask today's witnesses to tell us exactly where we stand with the Space Station's cost and schedule. I also ask that you depart from your usual script and offer us your suggestions about what must be done to right the course once and for all. For those of you who've not been here before, my recitation of broken promises on this program is very specific, detailed, and lengthy. I think my offer is generous and I hope it is accepted.
Now let's get back on the road to recovery today. Let's admit we have a problem. Let's show now how to resolve these problems. And let's take action to recover lost time and costs. That doesn't mean Congress working alone to solve these problems either. It means the White House working with Congress and NASA on the problem and proposing solutions. Specifically, I've asked NASA Administrator Goldin to seek the President's personal involvement in getting Russia to meet its obligations.
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Unfortunately, there's an empty chair at today's hearing. That chair was reserved for the Office of Management and Budget, which was invited to represent the White House on Station budget issues. I had hoped that OMB could address the repeated shortfalls in the Station budget and reconcile the $130 to $250 million annual shortfall identified in the Chabrow report. Despite appearing before Congress 162 times by our count during the Clinton presidency on other matters, OMB informs me no one is available presently to testify on the Station program. I fear this reflects the low priority this Administration places on becoming involved in finding a solution to the Station's problems. I hope after hearing today's testimony, we won't conclude an empty chair is an apt metaphor for this Administration's proposals to fix the Station's cost and schedule problems.
The way I see it, our problem is very simple. We can stick our heads in the sand, put on a happy face, and hope nobody will notice the delays and cost overruns. I think that this is very unlikely and will probably last only as long as it takes for the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Roemer, to be recognized for his questions and answers today. Or we can admit our mistakes, move on, and work together—Republicans and Democrats, Congress and the White House, Industry and NASA, the United States and its international partners, especially Russia—to get the Station built. That's why I have invited today's witnesses, including General Stafford whom I've pledged would be invited but is unable to attend due to illness. That's why I've asked for my colleagues' time to attend today's hearing and I hope it proves helpful.
And now I'd like to recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Brown, for an opening statement.
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Mr. BROWN of California. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you particularly for convening a hearing on the subject of today's meeting. The status of the Space Station program is a matter of great concern to this Committee and to all of us individually. And I think you, as Chairman, deserve particular credit for the diligent oversight that you have conducted with regard to the Space Station program.
I share your concern over the cost growth and the schedule slippage. I'm troubled by the continued failure of the Russian government to adequately fund the Russian contribution to the Space Station because the consequence of that failure for the health of the overall program are serious.
Let me say that I, if I were quantifying the level of our agreement, that we are in agreement on about 95 percent of the problems that you have raised. From the beginning, we shared a concern that the cooperation with the Russians did not lead us to become captive of the Russians in terms of their role—that that role would continue to be an enabling role rather than an enhancing role. I believe that everything that has happened has demonstrated the validity of our concern.
The modest differences that we have is that I think I'm willing for legitimate reasons to invest a little bit more political capital in protecting the Administration's rear-end—if I may put it that way—from some of the mistakes that they've been making. And this is understandable. I want this Administration to succeed and I'm willing to do what I can to help. I don't see any particular reason why the Republicans should have an equal concern for that, although the program has, from the beginning, been a bipartisan program and one which both sides want to see become successful.
Now, I think that I have to indicate very strongly that I share the Chairman's conviction in the statement that he made, that it's time for us to get down to the nitty gritty: to admit mistakes, to correct those mistakes, and to go ahead with the legitimate program and to make it succeed. If we have erroneously made an investment in the Russians out of a desire to help them recover from their difficult political and economic situation, or whatever the reason, let's admit that and fund it from a proper source like foreign aid rather than to penalize the space program. That is quite easy to do and this is an appropriate time to do it when we, apparently, have at least a small budget surplus with which we could do these things. I don't think it is any longer appropriate to continue to say that the Russians are going to meet their commitments and their schedule. They have demonstrated for the last 5 years that they can't do that.
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So, I think the American people and the Members of Congress would feel much better if we could confront the realities, treat them in a reasonable way, and proceed to complete this program in a reasonable way that will benefit all of the partners to the situation.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. Without objection, other members of the Committee's opening statements will appear in the record at this point. And also without objection, the written statements of Franklin Raines, Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and retired Lieutenant General Thomas Stafford, who unfortunately because of illness could not be here today, will also appear in the record at this point.
[The prepared statements of Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Weldon, Mr. Brown, Mr. Roemer, Ms. Johnson, Ms. Jackson Lee, Mr. Lampson, Mr. Raines and General Stafford follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I would now like to swear in the witnesses. Would the witnesses please stand and raise your right hands.
Do you, and each of you, solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give before this Committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. CHABROW. I do.
Mr. GOLDIN. I do.
Mr. MOORE. I do.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Let the record indicate that each of the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
The first witness today will be the Honorable Dan Goldin, the Administrator of NASA, who is no stranger to either this issue or this Committee. I would like to request that each of the witnesses summarize your statements in 5 minutes or so. All of your written statements will be placed in the record in their entirety at the beginning of your testimony. And, Mr. Goldin, you're recognized to proceed as you will.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL S. GOLDIN, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: I am proud to represent an agency that has accepted some of the most difficult——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Goldin, could you turn the microphone on?
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: I am proud to represent an agency that has accepted some of the most difficult and ambitious tasks ever undertaken by our Nation. NASA put a man on the moon with a 36 story rocket and we designed and operated for 17 years a 100 ton reusable Space Station—Space Shuttle. These projects presented unique and difficult challenges but through ingenuity and determination we succeeded.
Assembling and operating what will be a 1 million pound Space Station with world-class research facilities is no different. NASA has set goals that are as high as the stars, and we will meet them. That is only possible because of the unwavering support of the Administration. And I would like to thank them for their confidence in us and their commitment to our future.
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This progress is also possible because of this Committee. Mr. Chairman, I know you just got back from Russia, and I know you asked them the same hard and insightful questions that have made us more focused and the space program more robust. We are a better space agency because of your commitment. I thank for that.
Before I say a few comments on the Station, I'd also like to thank the entire NASA team—government and contract employees and those in academia. The American people have rightfully demanded a government that works better and costs less. The women and men of NASA took this message to heart and we have done what the American people, and the President, and the Congress have asked us to do.
Between 1993 and 1998, our budget has come down and we have saved the taxpayers over $25 billion. At the same time our productivity has gone up 40 percent. We've explored new worlds and we've enhanced life here on earth. And in Fiscal Year 1999 alone, we will have saved $8 billion from our projected 1993 budget. Let there be no doubt, the NASA team is doing a great job.
As for the International Space Station specifically, I'd like to make three points which hopefully we'll be able to discuss in more detail after the statements. First, the process of how we got here, where we are today. Before we redesigned the program in 1993, we had spent over $10 billion and had little or no hardware to show for it. By the end of 1998, just 5 years later, about 75 percent of our hardware is complete, and the first element will have been launched. The hardware is being built; the job is getting done.
The second point I'd like to make today goes to the budget. This is a very complex international project; we've had some problems, and I'm not going to sugar coat them. There have been various reports of our projected cost-to-date. I share their concern. The Chabrow committee predicts additional and significant projected growth. I will take their recommendations seriously. I am not yet sure that I accept all the total levels stated in their report, but I would like to thank Jay Chabrow and his team for their hard work. Their thought-provoking report—an independent report I requested last fall—brought up some very important issues. Rest assured, we will go through the report deliberately and with full consideration.
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My third point concerns the Russians. We brought Russia in because we needed alternate access to the Space Station, because we wanted to enhance capability and research opportunities, and because we thought that, hopefully, we could reduce cost and enhance schedule. Unfortunately, cost and schedule are threatened by further performance difficulties and instability on the part of our Russian partners. The concern is by no means one of quality. Our confidence in Russian technical capability remains unshaken. The issue is the lack of commitment by the Russian government to meet its obligations. I welcome your questions so that we could discuss that as well as contingency plans.
Let me conclude by saying: just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of joining President Clinton as he toured Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, he talked to our brave astronauts, met with the engineers who are assembling the Station, and repeated once again his unwavering support for this project. Because of that commitment, because of this Committee's support, and because of NASA's outstanding employees and contractors, one night, in the not too distant future, we will be able to look into the dark sky at what may appear to be a new star on the horizon. This will be the International Space Station. What you won't be able to see from Earth is its crew of scientists and researchers making scientific and technological discoveries and enriching our lives in ways we cannot begin to imagine. I look forward to that time and I hope you do too.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Goldin follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Goldin.
The second witness today will be Mr. Jay Chabrow, the Chairman of the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force of the NASA Advisory Council. Mr. Chabrow, proceed as you will, and as I indicated earlier, your complete statement will appear in the record.
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TESTIMONY OF JAY W. CHABROW, CHAIRMAN, COST ASSESSMENT AND VALIDATION TASK FORCE, NASA ADVISORY COUNCIL
Mr. CHABROW. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to present our conclusions on problems facing our Nation in the development of the International Space Station. I submit the independent cost assessment that Mr. Goldin did request as part of my written testimony for this hearing.
The Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force, which I chaired, was comprised of members who are nationally recognized experts with a wide range of experience in program management and cost assessment of large-scale aerospace and other technology development programs. The NASA Advisory Council, as you know, formally released the Task Force's final report to the public on April 21st. I just want to take a side thing and say that this has been called the Chabrow report—this is the CAV report, sir. And I'd like to really commend the people on this row back here who really are general authors and really helped me and did most of the work to put this report——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chabrow, as you know, monikers are usually put in by the press, so maybe you should have been looking in that direction when you made that comment.
Mr. CHABROW. Well, I think the most important place to place those cameras, if you will, is to place it on the team for the work that they've done over 5 months at great, great personal effort. Thank you.
The program has made notable progress over the last 4 years. Nearly half of the total of the U.S. flight hardware has been built and is in integration and testing, with over .5 million pounds scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. The Task Force acknowledges the achievements of the ISS program management team and all persons participating in this program.
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Taking into consideration past trends in the Space Station program as well as a whole range of United States experience, the Task Force has identified a number of critical areas with potential for increased cost growth and schedule erosion. The collective risk emanating from these critical areas led to our top-level conclusion that the ISS program should plan for the development schedule to extend nominally an additional 2 years with additional funding requirements of between $130 million and $250 million annually throughout the assembly period and beyond.
Our finding is that cost and schedule projections provided by NASA are optimistic, and consistent with our opinion that the program has been planned too aggressively for a technical risk of this magnitude. The breadth of technical activities and unplanned requirements that must be coordinated among 16 international partners speaking 12 languages and spanning four continents in order to build, launch, and assemble the ISS comprises one of the most complex technical and management efforts ever undertaken since World War II.
The most significant programmatic challenge has been, and continues to be, adequate to—I'm sorry—access to adequate funding in Russia and in the United States. Despite some technical difficulties, NASA has stayed within the annual funding constraint until Fiscal Year 1998. However, this has resulted in some inefficient procurement and deferred work that could have been done, I believe, and we believe, in a more logical sequence. For this and additional reasons, the program has incurred, and continues to incur, cost and schedule growth from plan.
The $17.4 billion cost to complete—estimated in 1993—was predicated on cost savings attributable to Russia taking responsibility for several aspects of this program. However, the $2.5 billion in cost savings anticipated from Russia joining the partnership have not been realized, and, in fact, continued Russian funding shortfalls have necessitated NASA's replanning and contingency activities that have added additional costs to the United States development. Furthermore, the current economic situation in Russia—and we have been there ourselves, like you, sir, over two or three times—makes future adequate and timely funding a significant uncertainty. To proceed without Russia, however, also has significant drawbacks. The Task Force believes the most cost-effective approach is to continue forward with Russian development plans while allocating additional moneys to account for specific Russian shortfalls. An example would be: development of a United States propulsion module which will insure against Russia's inability to deliver sufficient logistics support to the Station.
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The foregoing led to NASA's requesting additional funding in Fiscal Year 1999 Congressional submit, exceeding by $3 billion NASA's 1993 cost commitments. Our Task Force believes NASA's submit is still too low with respect to higher levels of unplanned cost growth that we anticipate will materialize over the next 5 years.
In conclusion, it is important to reiterate the complexity of this massive undertaking. While the individual pieces of hardware themselves are not unusually complicated, the need to integrate them all into a working whole magnifies their complexity. Major complicating factors are the significant international involvement; the need to integrate, test, and qualify multiple elements, systems, control centers; and the need to launch aboard several different rockets; and the unprecedented extent of spacewalk activity. I don't know if any of you have been through this, but the spacewalk activity itself is a significant undertaking with three times as much extra vehicular activity—EVA—as all EVAs combined since the Apollo program. In meeting the challenge of assembling over a million pounds of hardware 200 miles above earth, spanning a period of over 5 years, the program is certain to face significant cost and schedule risks.
Thank you very much, and I'm now open for questions.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Chabrow follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The final witness is Dr. Duncan Moore, the Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
TESTIMONY OF DUNCAN T. MOORE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR TECHNOLOGY, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
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Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd also like to acknowledge the hard work of the Committee in preparing the report—the CAV Committee—and Mr. Chabrow's personal commitment to this.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, first, let me say I'm pleased to appear before this Committee in my capacity as Associate Director for Technology in the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
One of the things that I have noticed in my first 4 months in this job is the strong degree of bipartisan support that exists for our national science and technology programs. Mr. Chairman, the Administration very much appreciates the leadership role that you and other members of this Committee have played in this context. I look forward to working with you and the Committee, not just on this issue but on the range of important policy issues that face our Nation.
Mr. Chairman, 1998 promises to be an exciting and challenging year for the International Space Station. The U.S. node was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center over 9 months ago and is undergoing final testing for launch. Other key elements, including the truss and mating adapters, have also been delivered to the Cape. The integrated electronics assembly is now being outfitted at Kennedy and we expect the U.S. lab and remaining flight hardware for the first six flights to be delivered by the end of this year, 1998. As has been pointed out before, over 250,000 pounds of U.S. flight hardware has already been built, with this figure doubling by the end of the year. Under Mr. Goldin's leadership and through efforts of thousands of dedicated civilian servants and contractors, the International Space Station is finally becoming a reality.
While these indicators are clearly encouraging, we are clearly—are keenly—aware of the challenges that lie ahead. To a large extent, the greatest challenge has been and will continue to be bounding risk within acceptable levels of funding and finding the right balance between the two. This is never an easy calculation to make when it comes to building space hardware. As much as we think we know about conquering the space frontier, there have been and will continue to be unknown design challenges that must be confronted and overcome. In this respect, we have to occasionally remind ourselves that this is a development program. We are currently—we are trying to do something that has never been done before: combine the scientific and technical expertise of 16 nations in a unified, orbiting Space Station for world-class research—and it's important to say world-class research—in space. As an engineer, I believe future generations will come to appreciate not only the unique research it will enable, but also the sheer amount of technical knowledge and expertise we gained as a Nation in building this facility.
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As you know, Mr. Chairman, the President's Fiscal Year 1999 budget request provides multi-year funding through advanced appropriations for ISS with assembly beginning in Fiscal Year 1998 and ending in the Year 2003. The budget request included additional funding in Fiscal Year 1999 and out years totaling $1.2 billion. The decision to request additional funding the President's Fiscal Year 1999 budget was based on the belief that we should fix problems up front in the program and not wait until later when they will cost more. We believe this is the right move and acknowledge the challenges we face in maintaining prime contractor performance, the need to accommodate unforeseen challenges, the importance of restoring reserves to adequate levels, and the need to initiate work on the crew return vehicle.
Another challenge we face is managing the ISS partnership in the most efficient and economical way. For the most part, NASA's international partners in ISS are meeting their obligations on time and on schedule. Again, by the end of 1997, our partners had completed over 100,000 pounds of flight hardware with another 50,000 pounds expected to be completed this year. To date, this represents an approximate investment by them of over $2.5 billion in international contributions to the program in addition to the value of the Russian contribution. This picture has not always been perfect as we all know. We have experienced schedule and cost impacts due to delays in the Russian service module. While Mr. Goldin's testimony went into the details of this, I want to emphasize a couple of points.
First, from the beginning, our interest in bringing the Russians into the International Space Station was based on the belief that their years of experience in operating the Mir Space Station and extensive background in human space flight could bring scientific and technical benefits to this program. That view has not changed. The first phase of the ISS cooperation with Russia—that is the Shuttle-Mir program—has taught us about operating and maintaining a Space Station. We have gained important insights into long-duration flight and have effectively trained our ground controllers for the type of coordination between the United States and Russia that will be needed for the ISS. These are benefits that are already flowing to the ISS program, and with continued Russian participation, will benefit the partnership.
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As you know, Mr. Chairman, that partnership has at times been at risk, largely due to problems that the Russian government has had in adequately funding their space agency. The Administration has been very encouraged in reinforcing NASA's communications to their Russian counterparts on that point. The Administration has taken every opportunity to underscore with the Russian leadership the critical importance of Russian funding for the service module. Last month, this message was again conveyed by U.S. Ambassador James Collins to President Yeltsin's government. We have seen some progress in the right direction. Recent statements by President Yeltsin committing the government to fully funding the space program are encouraging. But, as we all agree, the proof is in the pudding.
Last week, NASA completed the general design review in Moscow with the Russians which focused on relevant design and schedule issues relative to the service module. We will continue to insist that the Russian government meet their obligations. Through the months of May and June, NASA will assess the design review data in detail and, consistent with the time line outlined in Mr. Goldin's statement, they will make their judgement on whether and how best to use the Interim Control Module. This is a decision that NASA will make based on purely cost, schedule, and technical requirements.
Mr. Chairman, NASA continues to be a symbol of the Nation's future in science, technology, and space exploration. Beginning this year, in partnership with 15 other nations, we will begin to assemble a new research center in space, the International Space Station. When complete, I am confident it will open up new avenues of scientific and technical discovery that we cannot imagine today. I look forward to that time and to working with you and the Committee to move forward.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Dr. Moore.
Before starting the questions, let me state what the procedure will be so that members of the Committee and the witnesses and the audience will be fully appraised. The Chair intends to enforce the 5-minute rule on members of the Committee, including himself. That means that a witness will be able to answer the question when the bell goes off, but the member of the Committee will not be able to ask another question after the bell goes off. We will have second and succeeding rounds of questioning should members of the Committee wish to follow-up on what they have said. But in order to give everybody who has shown up a chance to have the first shot at a question, the Chair is announcing in advance that he's going to be kind of ruthless in enforcing the 5-minute rule. Members will be recognized alternatively from the Republican and Democratic side in the order in which they appeared today on their side. So there is a premium given to appearing on time in the Committee, and a penalty given for those who have appeared late. So, now with that bit of admonition let me start out by asking the first 5 minutes worth of questions.
14OMB'S ROLE
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I'm very disappointed that Mr. Raines has not come to this hearing. And if he had, I was going to express concern to him that the written statement that he submitted did not indicate that the Administration was going to seek additional money from NASA—or for NASA—but instead was going to seek a reallocation of money that was in the various NASA accounts to fund the cost over-runs for the Space Station. And in Mr. Raines' prepared statement he says, ''We will look for offsets within NASA while protecting our priorities in space and earth science, advanced space transportation, and aviation safety research. We will look for offsets first from within human space flight as long as it does not compromise Shuttle safety, and second from other non-priority areas.'' Now, that tells me where the Administration won't get the money from, but it doesn't tell us where you will get the money from that is necessary to fund the shortfalls identified in the CAV report. And we're talking about $7 billion here, so it is not an inconsequential fund.
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14ISS FUNDING OPTIONS
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I have a question for Dr. Moore. The White House, through Mr. Raines' statement, has taken space science, earth science, aviation safety, and advanced space transportation off the table and plans to look for offsets within the human spaceflight account so long as they don't impact Shuttle safety. That doesn't leave much. There are only three programs within the human spaceflight account: the Station, the Shuttle, and payload and utilization operations, which is where the actual scientific research and technology development is funded through. Last year we raided the human spaceflight account because of problems within the Station. NASA made some miscalculations, and the result was 600 highly skilled employees at the Cape had to be laid off by the United Space Alliance. So, can you tell us, Dr. Moore, which science and technology programs within the human spaceflight account the Administration plans to cancel to pay for this reallocation?
Mr. MOORE. Thank you. First point is, we have not yet agreed that the amount that is in the Chabrow report is the one that it is actually going to cost us. As you know, there is due to be a report to this Committee on June 15th. We are currently in the process of reviewing that, and so we are not in a position to say exactly what the final cost-of-build will be. Within the direct question that you've asked me, I am not in a position, unfortunately, to answer that question. That is an OMB question, and I deal with the whole issue of—but I'm pleased to get the answer for the record.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Fine let me announce the next hearing after June 15th, and we'll see you and hopefully the new Director of OMB will come and testify because we've got a money problem here. And if the problem is to be fixed, we're going to have to stop playing games with allocating money out of other NASA accounts and into paying for the cost over-runs in the Space Station. We tried to do it last year, we ended up losing the institutional memory of 600 employees down at the Cape and I don't think anybody wants to see that happen because the consequence of that is either to jeopardize Shuttle safety or to require the cancellation of Shuttle flights which ends up further compounding the problem that we're facing. You know, I don't want to see, you know, all of the science and technology that is currently funded through the human spaceflight account being canceled out and that means that somebody's going to have to step up to the plate and be honest in saying, you know, what we're—how we're—going to get the money rather than coming up at the end of Fiscal Year 1999 with another embarrassment. Is the Administration sensitive to that point?
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Mr. MOORE. Yes, we are indeed.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Okay.
Mr. MOORE. We look forward to coming back on June 16th, or whatever.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Well, it won't be June 16th because we're going to need some time to digest your report, but it won't be too long after that. That you can rest assured of.
14RUSSIAN ACCOUNTABILITY AND UTILIZATION
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Now, the other thing I'd like to bring up in my first round of questioning is: over on the wall, I have prepared a chart on which of the international partners pays how much of the total cost of the Station—which are the blue bars—and which of the partners get the time for astronauts on the Station. I've got a two-part question. First, Russia is not paying even a percentage of what's in its blue bar, and yet gets a huge amount of astronaut time on the Station. First, what is the Administration doing to make sure that Russia is paying its dues to earn that time? And second, the Russians have stated that they are planning on selling some of their astronaut time to the Ukrainians in exchange for having Ukrainians build one or more modules. Now, that to me indicates that Russia is unilaterally adding Ukraine as a partner for the International Space Station. Is the Administration going to do something to prevent this type of unilateral activity from taking place or is that decision going to be excused or not enforced?
Mr. MOORE. With regard to the issue Ukraine, unfortunately is an issue that is completely new to me, and I have to admit that, and I'll have to get back to you with a written answer on that particular issue.
The issue of the balance between the United States and Russia in terms of the pay for the hardware, pay for the thing plus the flight time, we have to remember the Russians have a tremendous amount of experience in long-duration flights. They have much more experience than we do. We can work with them, particularly on a lot of EVA experience that they have, and we should be utilizing them whenever we can. I think we'll find them to be a very beneficial partner in this whole operation and we should be utilizing thatwhenever we can. And to get an exact balance, I can't say how we're going to get—whether we should even get it to an exact balance. I think we should be using that experience as much as we possibly can.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from California, Mr. Brown.
14NEW MEMBERS
Mr. BROWN of California. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Mr. Chairman, allow me the opportunity to introduce our newest Member on the Democratic side, Representative Barbara Lee from Berkeley who is attending her first meeting today.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I would like to welcome the gentlewoman from California to the Committee. I wish it would have been in less contentious circumstances, not caused by us, and I will assure her, that because you were early, you will be the next on the Democratic side to get your licks in.
The gentleman from California may proceed.
14ADMINISTRATION ASSURANCES
Mr. BROWN of California. Yes, well, may I reassure you that Barbara Lee is well accustomed to controversy and knows how to handle it, so don't worry about that aspect of it.
Mr. Chairman, as you have mentioned and I have mentioned, we in the Committee here have raised the issue of the cost over-runs and the delays in schedule now for a number of years. I can recall vividly how at each meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission we would be assured on the return of the Vice President that Mr. Chernomyrdin had promised that the funds that the Russians had committed would be released and that we would be moving smoothly to recoup the finances that were necessary. Even when the President would meet with President Yeltsin, we would receive the same reassurances that the Russians were solidly committed and that we could expect that their back-payments would be made.
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We no longer have a Prime Minister named Chernomyrdin. We may not even have a President named Yeltsin before long, and I'd like to know if we're going to continue to receive these assurances that everything is going to be alright? Is the Administration prepared to recognize that it made a mistake in assuming that the Russians could meet their commitments and made a mistake in continuing to cut the massive budget when the amount of the cuts amount approximately to the amount of financial shortfall that we have at the present time? I'm very unhappy with this situation because we have been urging a different course for a number of years and have been repeatedly told that we didn't have to worry about this that everything was in good hands and we could trust either our Administration or the Russian Administration to make sure that everything went well. A confession that you were wrong would make me feel an awful lot better.
14RUSSIAN COMMITMENTS
Mr. GOLDIN. I'll speak to that, Mr. Brown. Yes, the Russians have not paid their bills and it is unconscionable that their leadership did not supply the fine people at the Russian Space Agency with the funds they needed.
But let's also take a look at the perspective of where we had a need for Russian help. We have learned more in the last 3 years on the Shuttle-Mir program than we did in the 17 years we flew the Shuttle by ourselves. The Russians are experts in long-term, long-duration space flight. We needed the Russians for that issue. I don't believe it is the wrong thing. I do believe we have got to have a change in course in moving forward. We, knowing what I know now, would not have been able to build the International Space Station without those Shuttle-Mir missions and without the interaction with the Russians.
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I might also point out that on that chart, we do a very thorough allocation based upon the contributions committed by the countries, and the Russian commitment is significantly larger than the others and we needed the Russians on the Shuttle to perform those activities.
Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Goldin, I'm willing to accept your statement as to the value of the cooperation with the Russians on the Mir. I am not willing to have you assert that we can count on the Russians to continue to meet their obligations or to begin meeting their obligations when there is no evidence to——
Mr. GOLDIN. I did not make that assertion.
Mr. BROWN of California. I know you didn't make that.
Mr. GOLDIN. I just wanted to clarify.
Mr. BROWN of California. I thought you deliberately avoided making that assertion, as a mater of fact.
Mr. GOLDIN. I cannot make that assertion, I'll be very clear. I have a severe concern about whether the Russians will do what they say they're going to do. We have a lot of good people working real hard, and we have got to deal with this situation in our report to you.
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14FALLBACKS FOR RUSSIA
Mr. BROWN of California. Wouldn't you prefer to have a fall back position in which there was an alternative method of financing the Russian share, rather than to continue to present the fiction that some day they are going to make up their mistakes.
Mr. GOLDIN. I have lots of fantasies and lots of dreams that I'd like to have. This is a tough job. I want to tell you that the NASA people have done unbelievable things and we take on tough tasks. I'd like it to be different, but you want to know something, I'm very proud of what we've got accomplished to this point.
14NASA'S DECLINING BUDGET
Mr. BROWN of California. Let me say that I concur with that statement also. And I've heard you make it a number of times. NASA is fortunate in having someone who, such as yourself, as a leader who is willing to stand up for NASA. But you haven't been willing to stand up to the Administration and tell them—at least publicly, I don't know what you've said privately—that they're making a mistake when they cut the budget to the degree that they have and put you in the untenable position of having to create a program with inadequate funding.
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Brown, I'd like to respond to that also.
Mr. BROWN of California. Go ahead.
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Mr. GOLDIN. I don't know of any government agency that has done as much as what the American people ask for. I want to go back to the elections of 1994, 1994, and 1996. The American people wanted the people to do more with less. Most agencies have had budgets corrected for inflation and have gone up. NASA has signed up to do very difficult things to show the American people that this is a different time and a different place and a different government. We have had some problems with regards to the Russians. But you show me an agency that has turned back percentage-wise what we have done from the 1993 budget, and I'll stand pat on where we are.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time is expired. The gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert.
14COST ASSESSMENT
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chabrow, how high is your confidence level in your estimate of $24.7 billion cost to develop the International Space Station?
Mr. CHABROW. Very high; we stand in back of that, sir.
Mr. CALVERT. If—I'm going to carry through on this—if you had to come up with an estimate of the program's total cost and your confidence level was 90 percent, how much would that International Space Station cost at that point? You're sticking with the $24.7 billion?
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Mr. CHABROW. Yes, I think that if you'll look in the report—which I should do now, I guess—at a 90 percent capability, at a 90 percent cost—and I'm going into my sheet here—at the 90 percent cost is the approximate cost growth incurred would by $1.24 billion over that. So I would think—I'm sorry, go ahead.
Mr. CALVERT. Does your cost estimate include the cost of merging the X–38 and the CRV programs and accelerating them?
Mr. CHABROW. It does. We only put in a piece for the CRV; just a piece to start it. There's $700 million—$600 million—the answer is yes to what you just said.
Mr. CALVERT. How much would it cost to implement the report's recommendation to create and implement a plan to provide an American replacement for the service modules propulsion capability?
Mr. CHABROW. Well, at the outset, we understand that it would cost an additional $400 million—we'd have to have $400 million. Each of ICMs would be about $200 million apiece, and we think there should be maybe 2 of them that could occur and it would be $400 million.
14COST OF BACKUP PLAN
Mr. CALVERT. Your report indicates that NASA does not have a backup plan to completely remove Russia as yet from the International Space Program. Did you have an opportunity to assess the cost of doing that?
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Mr. CHABROW. We did not, sir; and that's one of the things that we did not do and say that there was a complete withdrawal of them. We did not assess that. That's not part of our plan.
Mr. CALVERT. So you don't have a comparison with the cost of keeping Russia in the program if Russia continues to cause delays and NASA feels compelled to expend funds to make up for Russia's failure?
Mr. CHABROW. No, we do not have a cost in there in case there's a complete pullout.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lee.
14ADDITIONAL FUNDING
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do appreciate the opportunity to serve with you on this very important Committee. And given the fact that we are in a problem solving mode, I look forward to working with you to find solutions that will benefit all of our partners in this very important effort.
Let me just ask a couple of questions with regard to the whole issue of the funding shortfall with regard to the potential, or the possible, allocation of additional funds—shortfall. How, and along those lines let me just ask in regard to the most significant accomplishments of the Space Station effort. How do we address this issue with regard to the public? How do we explain this in terms of the benefits of moving forward, if we do have to potentially fund Russian shortfalls in this area? I mean, what—in terms of the significant accomplishments, what do we tell our constituents with regard to the Space Station, Mr. Goldin?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Is that addressed to me?
Ms. LEE. Yes.
Mr. GOLDIN. Sure. If we have to provide additional funding, it will go from America to Russia. We will have to build equipment in this country to make up for the lack of funding on the part of the Russian government. That's the first point.
14SPACE STATION JUSTIFICATION
Mr. GOLDIN. The second point is, the same reason we believe that the Space Station is the right program. NASA is about opening the space frontier and exploring other worlds. If we are ever to leave earth orbit, we do need the Space Station to set up colonies on the Moon or on Mars, or research Stations on asteroids. While we do that, we are going to have an incredible research facility, which each and every day, with each and every Shuttle mission and each and every Mir mission, we're finding that we're doing fundamental research in combustion, physics, biomed, biotech, communications, robotics, integrating machines and people. And these are where the benefits accrue to the American public. And we can't say where it's going to be, but we know that it will happen. And we now have an experiment sitting down there at Cape Kennedy that was built by professor Sam Ting, a Nobel laureate, who feels the Space Station is the place where he's going to explore cosmic rays and obtain some very fundamental information that he couldn't get any other way. So that's the basic issue of why we have a Space Station.
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Ms. LEE. Okay. Do I have—Mr. Chairman, do I have a couple more minutes?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Two minutes and eleven seconds.
14STATION VERSUS OTHER PRIORITIES
Ms. LEE. Thank you very much.
Okay, given the reasons that we do have a Space Station, which I think are very important and very good reasons, the fact that we do have these cost overruns and this shortfall, now how do we explain that vis a vis the other issues that many of us are dealing with in this country, such as homelessness and the lack of adequate health care, you know, and all of the other kinds of domestic priorities that need funding?
Mr. GOLDIN. First, I would say that NASA has been incredibly conscientious about funding. And, as I stated to Mr. Brown, we have turned back $25 billion in the last 5 years. We have scrubbed every budget, and our productivity has gone up 40 percent. And we project even further savings by the Year 2000. We look at every nickel and every penny. We do, at some circumstances, have developmental problems. This is not a production line where we build thousands and millions of computers. It's something that has not been done before. We have a problem. We will make an assessment of how much we think it is. At the present time, I have personally reviewed the report of the CAV, and our team is diligently at work coming up with a response. But my initial sense is that we will have some growth. But I do not share, quite yet, that it will be as large or as long as the CAV Committee has stated.
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Ms. LEE. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to commend and recommend to my fellow colleagues a speech that you gave to the Space Transportation Association 2 weeks ago. Those of you who'd like to get a good understanding of what this—what the issues are that we're dealing with here in depth, I would suggest to read the Chairman's remarks to the Space Transportation Association 2 weeks ago. It will give you a full background and with all the statistics right there in front in you. And I commend you for that speech, Mr. Chairman, and the leadership you are providing.
And I'd also like to commend Mr. Goldin for the leadership he's provided NASA. And I know we're in a little contention here today, but we shouldn't forget some of the areas that Dan has been very successful in.
When he first became the Chairman—when he first took over as head of NASA—let's put it this way—that I had a lunch with him, and we had to talk about two issues. One was bringing down the cost of getting into orbit. And number two was cooperating with our former enemies in the Soviet Union, now Russia. And let me note that from that discussion, from that time, we now have so many people working on bringing down the cost of getting into low-earth orbit. And NASA has been doing this and done this in a way that broadened the private sector, as well as mobilized the troops in NASA to that end. And so that's been very successful, and we hope to see hardware pretty soon on that.
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14CHANGING RUSSIA'S ROLE
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Number two—in terms of our cooperation with Russia. Let's note now, as we're discussing this issue, that some of us did not only recommend, but we pushed forward NASA and said, ''go after that business with Russia.'' And, of course, this has proven to be a catastrophe in terms of our finances right now. And this is a—we're talking about billions of dollars of overrun that I believe can be traced right back to this bad relationship with Russia.
Mr. Goldin, some of us who were suggesting the cooperation really were—and actually went beyond suggesting it, we actually tried to put this down in legislation—of a cooperative effort in which the Russians would be dealt with more as subcontractors rather than as partners. And, in fact, I have also—I have heard the word partnership creep into the conversation today. Doesn't it come down to this—as the Russians are unable to be partners with the United States because they are not in a stage of development of their country where they can be full partners, and by trying to treat them as full partners rather than subcontractors? Isn't that the heart of problem here?
Mr. GOLDIN. It is a difficult problem. One would like to expect that when you make an agreement, you do what you say you're going to do. It's a very difficult thing for me personally because this is how I attempt to conduct my personal life and my public life.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, now we know we can't do that with the Russians, right?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Well, we are going to review that. Certainly, a different relationship is a possibility, one we would prefer not to have. But if it approves necessary, we may come to that conclusion on both sides and move down that direction.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Dan, I would——
Mr. GOLDIN [continuing]. But don't want to rule it out.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would hope that you—unfortunately I know you're—the Administration and you are trying to reach out to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I think that we've already gone the extra mile for these folks. And, okay, give them an extra month to come up with—I know there's two or three pieces of technology for a couple things that we've ordered that need to be installed, and then they will have succeeded somewhat. But let's quit giving these fellows the benefit of the doubt. It's costing us so much money, and we don't have that money.
14TOTAL STATION COST
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me note that between 1984, when someone erroneously suggested that the Space Station was only going to cost $8 billion to Ronald Reagan, to 1993, we spent $10 billion. And that money, for as far as I can see, was right down the black hole, so to speak. And in 1993, until the completion of the project when you came in, when we restructured it, said the cost would be $17.4 billion. Now that's the cap.
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Now we're hearing today from Mr. Chabrow that it's going to be what, $7.3 billion more?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes, sir.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And are you agreeing with that figure that we're going to have to spend $17.3 billion more to complete this project?
Mr. GOLDIN. I'm not agreeing with that figure today. I reviewed the report. We have a team going through, item by item, of the recommendations of the CAV report. And we will have a position on the 15th.
Based upon my personal review of that report, and I read it cover to cover, twice, it is my assessment that there are areas of disagreement and clarification that we will have to talk to the CAV committee about to better understand. But right now, I don't necessarily agree that the number will be that big. But it will be bigger than the number we have, and we do need the time to interact. And, by the way, I felt it would be inappropriate to talk to Mr. Chabrow until we had this hearing. And after this hearing, I will sit down and talk to them about those issues.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Gordon.
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Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I'd like to announce I have a number of spellbounding and eloquent speeches, commentaries, and casual observations by Mr. Brown that if anyone would like to——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, they'll be placed in the record at this point.
[Laughter.]
14INTERIM CONTROL MODULE TIMELINES
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Goldin, I'd like to start by returning to a question I asked Mr. Rothenberg at our March 19th hearing on the NASA human spaceflight program. And I'll quote from the record: ''Since you have spent money for the Interim Control Module, when are you going to use it? I mean, when are you going to say, 'We're going to have to get on with this,' assuming that the Russians don't come forth?'' His response was: ''We have a plan now that is laid out between now and May 15th, which says we're going to make some measurements of their progress, number one, technically at a design review. Number two, financially, in terms of have they received the remainder of the 1997 funding as well as some of the 1998 funding.''
And, as I understand from your testimony, you're saying now that you don't expect the Service Module will be launched before March or April of 1999, a 4-month delay. And that that's still dependent upon funds coming in, which seems to be of question. With that, I guess, premise, since we have already spent the money for a temporary replacement for the Service Module, to take care of just this situation, why don't we baseline the Interim Control Module in the Space Station assembly schedule now, and let the Russian space—or the Service Module be added when it finally becomes available?
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Mr. GOLDIN. First, let me say we have been looking at that, and, in fact, in the last few weeks we've come up a better way of mounting the Interim Control Module. And the time we've spent has been very well worth it.
We are on a path right now to have a decision to launch the Control Module in July, based upon this deliberative effort that we're going through now. And it could be launched by May of next year. But once we make the decision to launch the Interim Control Module, if we presume that the Service Module will not be there, we then will have to take a next series of steps. Mr. Chabrow indicated that he thought that those steps would be about $400 million. This may be one place where NASA may be too low. We testified, I believe last year, that the next step in moving towards having more U.S. hardware up there in place of the Service Module will be probably closer to three quarters of a billion, not $400 million. That's why we're taking the time to go through a deliberate decision process to move forward.
Mr. GORDON. When would you expect to make a decision on whether you're going to pull the plug on this ICM?
Mr. GOLDIN. The ICM decision will be in July of this year.
Mr. GORDON. So, Mr. Rothenberg wasn't correct when he said May 15th?
Mr. GOLDIN. I wasn't at the hearing. Excuse me, let me just turn around and ask him?
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What he reminded me of is we went through the design process, and in order to get it launched in time, we would have had to make the decision May 15th. But we found a new way of hooking it up that is a much better way. So that gives us time until July to make the decision and have a little bit more time to do the analysis.
Mr. GORDON. So July, then, is when a decision will be made?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Mr. GORDON. Let me also——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Would the gentleman from Tennessee yield just to complete the record?
Mr. GORDON. Certainly.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. In the prepared testimony of Mr. Goldin, he states that ''as of yesterday, the money that was promised to the Russian Space Agency for April or May has not been paid by the government.''
14ALTERNATIVES TO THE STATUS QUO AND CANCELLATION
Mr. GORDON. Let me, as you have detected, there is some discouragement within the Committee on a bipartisan basis of both the cost overrides. Still, given the premise of NASA doing more with less, there is still a, I guess, a commitment out there for certain projects. And so there is a disenchantment with the cost overrides and with the time overrides. And particularly being put in the situation of continuing with these things or canceling the program. That's a very difficult choice.
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So I'd like to ask you whether you see any other alternatives?
Mr. GOLDIN. Alternatives to——
Mr. GORDON [continuing]. To continuing with what appears to be cost overrides and extended periods of delays, or canceling the program? Are there any other options?
Mr. GOLDIN. I believe that we will have a position to accommodate what the CAV team has said that will establish what we think those changes in course and schedule will be. And then it will clearly be up to the Congress and the American people to decide what they want to do at that point in time.
Mr. CHABROW. You know, I was warned not to talk unless I was asked anything. And since, I'm new here——
Mr. GORDON [continuing]. That was my next question. If you see an alternative?
Mr. CHABROW. You know, one of the things that we were asked to do was to bound it. And we did put the bound on it. And there were terms that were used like when will this end, is out of control. And there were terms that were—those things that I've read in the press just like all of you have. And talk about runway behind us, about how much overruns there were, and whose fault it was.
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We bound that cost. We have absolute confidence in the cost that we have here.
Now one of the options is not to—I mean, that's up to you—it's not up to me obviously because I'm just a person that was called up here to do a job. But one of the options is to take a look at this cost and say, ''Is this it?'' If it is, and we put it on the plate, then one has to say, ''Do we step up to the plate and pay the price to put America in space?'' That's an answer. It's not do you cancel it? Is the overrun out of control? Is there more? When does it end? And those are some of the questions that I've already heard here.
That's not the answer. The answer is, you have the cost. We bound that cost. We stand by this cost. And now are we ready to pay it?
Mr. GORDON. Or, is there another redesign?
Mr. CHABROW. Well——
Mr. GORDON [continuing]. Or another option?
Mr. CHABROW. There could be some shortcuts I'm sure that Dan, being as creative as he has been for the last few years that he's been in that job, I'm sure that he'll find alternate ways once he does read this. Of course, I can't read his mind, but I assume that's what he'll do.
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Mr. GORDON. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ehlers.
14LESSONS LEARNED AND PRECEDENTS
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It seems to me something very important to review at this point is what lessons we can learn from the problems that are developed? And second, what can we do, from this point on, that doesn't lead to further problems in the future. And one of the big lessons to learn is doing it right from the start.
And I think a good example of doing it right is what we've done with the Large Hadron Collider with CERN. As you may recall the initial agreement was not acceptable to this Committee or its Chairman, and the Chairman personally went over the CERN and negotiated it.
Yesterday, in this very room, we had a reception of particle physicists from across the country, and a number of them commented to me how extremely well the agreement is going. And it was especially heartening to hear staff members of DOE and the National Science Foundation, both of whom had initially been upset about the Chairman's decision that the agreement was not good enough and had to be renegotiated, now saying that it's a marvel. When they have meetings over there, everything goes smoothly. We understand each other well. And it's going well.
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That's clearly an example of doing it right.
I think a good example of doing it wrong is with the history of the Space Station when, it seems to me, it started out as primarily a foreign policy objective, perhaps even a foreign aid objective on the part of the Administration. Things weren't tied down. And we've gotten into the mess we have now.
I've suggested only half facetiously several times that since the agreement was negotiated originally, if it was negotiated, on the basis of foreign policy and foreign aid, perhaps the overruns should come out of the State Department budget of the foreign aid budget. But I don't seem to be getting a great deal of support for that.
The question is what lesson can we learn from this and how can we avoid establishing a bad precedent for the future? And my concern at this point—and I'd like to have Dr. Moore and Mr. Goldin both address this—if we don't hold the Russians to account in this case, which I seem to hear people saying—we'll just muddle through and pay the extra cost—what precedent are we seeing for the future? We establish partnerships, and partners will look at this and say, ''Well, you know, we can renege on the agreement. The United States is not really going to come back at us in any strong way.''
We are in a real box here, but I am very concerned at the resolution of this at this time, not just in terms of our costs, not just in terms of achieving our objectives, but what kind of precedent are we setting for the future? Because I see big science being largely a cooperative enterprise in the future, and we want to be very, very careful about the precedents we set.
I'd appreciate the comments of Dr. Moore and Mr. Goldin.
Mr. MOORE. You're obviously quite right. The precedents that are being set are very, very important to us in all these international arenas, not just in the Space Station. And the fact that science is becoming much more complicated. It is becoming much more expensive. It's very much harder for any one country to put up the capital to build some of these facilities that are necessary to move us to the next level of scientific research.
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And, so, we're going to have to find out who are—I'll have to call them—our good partners and who are not good partners in this.
I would like to say, however, in the case of the Service Module which happens to be part of this whole debate here today is the fact of the matter is over 80 percent of it is done. Ninety percent of the hardware is built. This isn't like something that's just sitting around in, you know, a scrap heap or something like that. That it is moving along, and what's truly amazing to me is that—and I think this is unlike Americans—they're doing this in many cases without getting paid. There is a huge amount of pride on the Russian side to try to maintain their continuity in space. They have been continuously in space for, I think, it's over 20 years. And they want to be part of this whole agenda. And they recognize that they've got a problem. I mean, they have a budget problem as we do. I mean, there's always competition for available dollars. Reuters yesterday reported that Yeltsin has directed his key people, including his new Prime Minister, to make sure that they do honor their obligations in the International Space Station. Now, again, those are words. We have to see if that money actually flows. If that $45 million that's necessary—that is the shortfall from Fiscal Year 1997—shows up tomorrow, then we'll know that Yeltsin has had some impact on that. But I think it's, you know, we do have to judge our partners. We judge people that we interact with on a daily basis, based on whether they honor their commitment and honor their words. And we will have to do the same thing in international partnering in science.
Mr. EHLERS. It seems to me that what we have to be very careful about in the future is making it clear from the beginning that if troubles like this develop, we cut and run—period. And that we not let people think that we're going to handle every project this way.
Mr. MOORE. I think it's a very difficult tradeoff as you make—in any sort of partnership or any sort of interaction, whether it be between two colleagues or not. And, you know, when you say you're going to cut and run—I mean, if it's a clear contract that says you're going to do X or Y, and they don't do X or Y, there normally are consequences in those contracts—performance-based issues.
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I think it's going be a lot hard harder as we get to some of these big science ones because, in a lot of cases, we don't really know where some of the problems are likely to arise. It's very difficult to write a contract up front that can carry off every contingency in a development program.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Roemer.
14CAV REPORT
Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldin, have you read the report?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, I have.
Mr. ROEMER. And have you talked to Mr. Chabrow about the report?
Mr. GOLDIN. I have not. I felt it would be inappropriate to talk to him until this hearing occurred. But after the hearing, I plan on having discussions with him.
Mr. ROEMER. But you haven't had discussions with him, but you still are saying that you don't agree with aspects of the report?
Mr. GOLDIN. There are areas that I have to clarify with Mr. Chabrow.
Mr. ROEMER. Let me just express my frustration with this whole process over the years. I know Mr. Gordon said he was disenchanted. My disenchantment goes much deeper and goes to a greater extent to almost total frustration with the answers that we've received on the Space Station over the years. And I continue to advocate cutting the Space Station out of the NASA budget. I think it would save us a lot of problems and further cannibalizing the NASA programs that are going to be hurt. I think it would save us programs with other domestic priorities that we have in this country—for education, and homelessness, and people having problems with basic healthcare. I think that this program should be eliminated.
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We heard NASA several years ago say, ''if the Russians only get involved, we're going to save $2 billion.'' Well, now they've cost us $4 billion.
We've heard NASA say that we're going to agree to a $2.1 billion cap. That's been shattered. We're through that. Now we hear that we've got things under control, but we're not even sure if the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force has even talked to NASA yet about these huge cost overruns—$7 billion in cost overruns.
I don't think we're in the same planet or the same universe in discussing the big problems that we're having with the International Space Station here. I am extremely frustrated by the lack of communication here. And I am extremely frustrated that as we go down the line, that we continue to see problems with the Russian DUMA allocating the money. That's going to come out of our pockets.
14RUSSIA'S ROLE
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Chabrow, my question to you would be, we have not had the Russians participating in this. Isn't the very, very least thing that we should do at this point is get the Russians out of the critical path?
Mr. CHABROW. I don't believe so. This is my own personal opinion, and you've asked me that for my own personal opinion. I have to be very—I have to be very—circumspect, if you will, about what I say because I also represent the team. And the answer is that we're so allied to that Service Module—we're so allied to that Service Module—we're so close that I would think that it would be wrong. And our whole team would think it would be wrong if we were to disassociate ourselves from that now.
Number two, space agency to space agency—they work. I'm going to give you an answer. The answer will be no. Engineer to engineer, they work. I've been there three times now. I've seen frankly the head of ISS talk to his peers over there. The space agency people work very well with each other. The technical people work very well with each other. The subcontractors work well with each other, just like we do here. The problem is funding. Somebody—and maybe I'm talking over my head because I'm not used to actually being here, so I hope I don't say anything that's wrong here—somebody if they had funding, they could get the job done, and it's not time to let them go. If they don't have it, then, yes, we have a very serious downstream problem.
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Mr. ROEMER. We do have a very serious—they haven't come up with the funding——
Mr. CHABROW [continuing]. If they don't have the funding, you can't get the commitment——
Mr. ROEMER [continuing]. They haven't paid for it. They haven't done this on time. And each time, they fail to do it, it costs the American taxpayer and NASA more money.
14SCOPE OF COST PROBLEM
Mr. ROEMER. Let me read from your report. You say that the costs are ''bound'' under this report. You go on to say, on page 6, ''but this does not include catastrophic launch vehicle or payload failure, or withdrawal of an international partner, or the development of a U.S. propulsion capability.'' You go on and on to say this does not cover all these things that may——
Mr. CHABROW. Catastrophic, yes, it's impossible——
Mr. ROEMER [continuing]. May, in fact, happen. So even though you are saying—and you're disagreeing with NASA. You, I think, called in your opening testimony that NASA was optimistic and overly aggressive. You disagree with their projections. You and Dan haven't sat down yet to talk about it. The Russians aren't paying their fair share. They can't even get their scheduling done on time. You say in your report that even though it's $7 billion in cost overruns, you don't take into account if an international partner gets out, or if there are other problems in the program. So your costs are not bound.
Mr. CHABROW. Well, they are bound, with the exclusion of a catastrophic effect—the catastrophic effect. You know—just going to use the point here—you know, I've taken eight planes in the last 3 weeks. And I'm using American airlines, which are great—you know, United Airlines, Delta, whatever. You know, three of them were absolutely canceled, never actually took off, for 4 hours late. Another two of them were on time. And the rest of them, I don't know what time I was here. So, I'm saying if I can't take a look at that, how does one take a look over 93 launches over 5 1/2 years, with people doing 33 things in space. How does one take a look at that and price that?
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Mr. ROEMER [continuing]. That's my point, sir——
Mr. CHABROW [continuing]. Okay, so——
Mr. ROEMER [continuing]. That's my point.
Mr. CHABROW [continuing]. I'm saying that you can't actually bound that——
Mr. ROEMER [continuing]. How can you bound the costs, when you cannot project all those things?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Florida, Dr. Weldon.
14THE TASK FORCE AND THE MEDIA
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chabrow, in late March you spoke to the media and blamed Congress for the program's cost growth——
Mr. CHABROW. I knew this was going to come up——
Mr. WELDON. Specifically——
[Laughter.]
Specifically, on March 23rd, the Wall Street Journal reported that you said the cost cap did more harm than good and that Congress imposed the cap. On March 24th, The Orlando Sentinel, which is close to my home at the Cape, reported that you blamed NASA, Boeing, the Russians, and Congress for the program's problems—again, blaming Congress for the cap.
Then the Sentinel reported, and they quoted you: he—Chabrow—said ''Congress and NASA should have known it would have cost more'' because a White House Space Station advisory committee, which included Chabrow, said it would take at least $2.8 billion a year.
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Are you aware that the Congress have provided every dime that the President has requested for this program? In fact, in 1998, the Congress gave NASA more than what the President requested.
Are you also aware that the President imposed the cap and invited Russia in to join the program against bipartisan opposition from Members of Congress?
Were you aware of those facts when you made those comments to the Sentinel and the Journal?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes, and I'm quite aware of the fact that that was not so; that it was a cap that was a self-imposed cap that was done by the White House at the time. And I've since sent letters in to you, sir, and to the others, and also made that—made that—made that obvious to the press afterwards. The answer is yes.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Well, I would just like to add to the record, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of documents just to clarify for the public who was responsible for the cap.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, the documents referred to by the gentleman from Florida will be inserted in the record at this point.
[The following information was received for the record.]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Specifically, on June 24, 1993, the President's Science Advisor, Jack Gibbons, wrote to Dan Goldin and said, ''essential to the President's decision is level funding for the program through the 1990s. NASA should plan that this level will be $2.1 billion each year until development is complete.''
Additionally, right off the White House Web site, in 1993, there was a briefing from a ''senior Administration official'' which states ''the President's decision today to fund the Space Station at $2.1 billion each year over the next five years.''
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And additionally, I have a letter from you, Mr. Chabrow, in which you say that you believe ''the International Space Station Alpha program can be implemented with an expected budget authority of $2.1 billion a year.''
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Capps—also a new member of the Committee.
Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Sensenbrenner. I am very pleased to be here this morning for this very important hearing. I think like most members of the Science Committee, I am a great supporter of NASA. Your unparalleled successes have amazed both the science community and the world at large.
It is very troubling to hear the CAV report and realize the downside of this in terms of our relationship with Russia and the tremendous cost overruns and the delays in the schedule.
14U.S.-RUSSIAN RELATIONS
Ms. CAPPS. Despite all these problems, I don't feel this is the time to turn back on this important project because of the goals that are so important and the importance of the presence—our presence and this relationship in our work in space.
I have a lot of faith in Mr. Goldin and in NASA. And my question has to do with, really with the sense of many of the questions that have been presented already this morning. Mr. Moore, I'm concerned about the relationship—beyond the space issues itself—our diplomatic relations really with Russia. The credibility to me seems to lie in the area that we made certain expectations. The science part of it we knew was so valuable—the people's expertise, their history of involvement in space. And, yet, the financial commitment just doesn't seem to be there. And that, I believe, indicates the area that we need to push into. I'm not so sure I would use the phrase ''cut and run.'' But more of the diplomatic relationship between the countries—this is a new kind of world we're embarking on, not just the space exploration, but the relationship with Russia. A lot of people in this country are watching, from a lot of different sectors, to see how this new relationship goes. And that's the area I would like to hear more.
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Mr. MOORE. Yes, this is a very important issue, and particularly as we run up to the next G–8 meeting where president Yeltsin and President Clinton will be meeting. And we hope that this will be on the agenda for that meeting.
The Prime Minister, Vanuf Kirienko and Gore will be meeting sometime this summer to continue what used to be GCC. I guess it will be GKC now. And we, again, at OSTP be—hopefully we'll be putting that on the agenda for that discussion.
The GKC is a very important part of our international relationship with Russia, not only in space, but in energy and environment, trade, and things of that sort. And so we expect that hopefully that will be on that agenda at that time also.
I did. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Ms. CAPPS. If anyone else wants to comment—that's—that was the extent of my question this morning.
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, I would.
I will confine my comments to why we wanted Russia and why we wanted the service module.
When we had the Space Station redesigned, we weren't going to have permanent human habitation because we did not have that capability with the American equipment and it would occur years later.
The whole reason for the Service Module was to get permanent human habitation much earlier in the program. We have gone through an incredible learning experience, and I want to come back to Mr. Ehlers' question, Dr. Ehlers' question: What have we learned?
14MORE LESSONS LEARNED
Mr. GOLDIN. We have learned that it is very difficult working with a country that's transitioning from totalitarianism to democracy; and that there is nothing guaranteed. We were too naive—I accept that criticism—in expecting them to act like we act. But we have gone through fundamental cultural changes and watched it occur with these people. When you have a totalitarian society, you don't do what you say you're going to do. You do what the commissar told you to do.
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We had to develop person to person relationships and develop trusts. We did things in America that the Russians—drove the Russians crazy. They have people on a job for years, and we would put people in and out. The learning has been unbelievable, and I think when the history is written, we'll look back that this was a turning point; that it is the one major thing that we are doing with Russia that is not bristling with all sorts of problems in a technical sense, in a people to people sense. And this is a very important lesson. The Cold War is over. The Cold War is over, and the Russians are going to have to learn to work with the western world.
Now I want to express—and I'm getting a little tense here—I am very frustrated. I am very proud of this team. I have built relationships with the Russians, but I am very frustrated and angry at the leadership in Russia who doesn't do what they say they're going to do. And they are moving to hurt the tremendous pride of the Russian people. And if they want to work with us, in a world that's dedicated to peace, they cannot say manana, manana, we'll do it. They've got to deliver. To me, this is so frustrating because we are so close—I see it right in front of me. This Station is a symbol, not of the end of the Cold War, but this Station is a symbol of what nations could do not to build weapons, but to do things on a peaceful basis. And for that reason, I'm not prepared to give up.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired. The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Salmon.
Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I'd like the panel and us up here to recognize one of my all-time favorite heroes, Buzz Aldrin. [Applause.]
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Aldrin, would you please stand and take a bow, and we certainly welcome you. [Applause.]
Mr. SALMON. Second, I wanted to tell you personally, Mr. Goldin. I've always been a fan of yours. In fact, I think you stand out like a flamingo in a barnyard with this Administration.
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[Laughter.]
I mean that.
Let me say that I believe that over the years, you have done everything a fiscal conservative would want you to do in doing more with less. I heard how you responded to the question about dealing with the financial times and the expectations of the American public. And in doing more with less, as corporate America has to do more with less, the expectations are high, and I think that you have risen to the occasion. In fact, I've always said that since I've been here anyway that you walk on water and don't leave any tracks. This Russian thing kind of makes you leave a few tracks. But I think we'll get beyond it. And I have confidence that working together with you, instead of against you, we can accomplish that.
That having been said, I have a couple of questions.
14RUSSIAN FINANCING
Mr. SALMON. Has the Russian finance ministry approved the budget for the Russian Space Agency yet? And if so, how much is the budget?
Mr. GOLDIN. This is one of my points of frustration. I'm now calm again. But it is very frustrating—the Russian government proposed a budget for 1998 that was one-third of what they needed to do the job. When we talk about the problems in the American budget—in spite of all the problems, we're talking about hundreds of millions a year out of $13.5 billion. The Russian government allocated one-third the amount of money, and the DUMA passed it. They keep telling us that we're going to have off line financing, and we keep waiting for a plan.
You have to see the disappointment in the eyes of the Russian engineers and the scientists that are building the Station. We cannot have this relationship, so the direct answer is: No, they did not allocate the full budget necessary to build this Space Station.
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Mr. SALMON. Okay, I know I have a couple of letters, Mr. Chairman. With the 5-minute rule, I'm concerned that I wouldn't be able to read them, but I would like to submit them.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection, they'll be inserted in the record.
Mr. SALMON. Thank you. The letter basically was a response from you to General Stafford—excuse me, a letter from you to General Stafford—and then his response back to you. And back in, I believe, 1990—let me see—I believe it was back in 1997 that you asked him to go over to Russia and to try to work out some of the concerns that you had at that time with Russia's participation. And basically you said that, ''We're unable to understand clearly the basic process by which funding assurances at the highest level of the Russian government are implemented.'' After his trip, he came back saying that ''I believe the Russian government has a credible process in place that, if implemented as planned, will adequately fund the service module requirements in 1997.'' For this hearing, though, General Stafford has gone on to say, as stated on page 7, he could not guarantee that Russia would meet all of its ISS requirements in a timely manner. The funding status of its space organizations is too uncertain.
So I have a question for you, Mr. Chabrow. Would you say that we're not able to validate the promised funding releases from the Russian government? And if so, how?
Mr. CHABROW. No, right now, as we stand, they still owe us $45 million from last year. And the RSA, the budget, Duma, they passed $100 million that has been passed. They have $240 million that were also passed by the Ministry of Economic and supplemental promised in April. So what we have here is we have $340 million that they need now. Plus, they haven't received $45 million from what they had last year.
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I don't have anything to say about that except if that keeps on, obviously problems will occur, and I sense the same thing that everybody here would sense, and anybody would hear if they were a subcontractor. So the problem is that this will have to get solved quickly because of logistics that have to be billed, vehicles that have to be built—service modules. And I think that, from what I hear, Dan and probably people over Dan are trying to get that work.
I had the same—the same thing occurs with me when I'm there. They always say that the money's there. It will be there in a week, and it's not there.
Mr. SALMON. Well, I believe that you all have been very, very credible, and Mr. Goldin, I commend you for your tenacity in not wanting to let them off the hook. I know that, with our diplomatic rapport with Russia, you have to be very, very careful about how you approach the solution to this. That having been said, I'm hearing from you that it is possible that Russia's funding problem could pose a serious threat, if we don't resolve it, to the successful completion of ISS. Would that be a valid statement?
Mr. CHABROW. That's a valid statement, and the Russians are at a turning point now. They've been welcomed into the most difficult, most important large science project of the 20th century. And they have to decide do they want to be a partner, or do they want to have some other relationship with us. If they want to be a partner, they've got to act and do what they say they're going to do.
Mr. SALMON. Thank you very much. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. By the luck of the draw, the next questioner will be the gentlewoman from Texas, who spent the morning of April 7th with me in the Russian Finance Ministry hearing all kinds of frustrating news.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I—excuse me—I sense the frustration here. And I must tell you there was great frustration there.
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They're dealing with what we call very comfortably over here democracy, which is quite different from what they've had to deal with in the past. And they did express extraordinary interest and talked about their history of being involved in space and do not want to give up their involvement. But they freely admitted their financial shortfalls. My concern—well, first of all, let me say I hope we don't rush to judgement, but keep the pressure up. I guess the only question that does remain is whether or not they can come up with the dollars. They simply didn't seem to have them. They were looking for ways to get lines of credit and loans, which didn't sound very promising to me. What is your opinion of whether or not they're going to be able to continue their interest through support—real support?
Mr. GOLDIN. If they remain as a partner, they will have to figure out how to reprioritize, within their government, the things that they want to do. This will be a signal that this is important. I can't let go. I want to go tell you my personal experience. I spent 25—I told this Committee before, but I haven't told you. I was a weapons builder. We spent trillions of dollars during the Cold War to defeat the Soviet Union. What we are arguing about now is some hundreds of millions of dollars out of a $30 billion program. Roy Bridges who's the Center Director down at NASA-Kennedy said to me, ''Dan, if this was private industry, the decision would be very clear. If I had a supplier on a $30 billion program that was in trouble, I would go fix the problem.'' But we deal within the constraints of governments, and constraints of law, and constraints of politics, so sometimes it's very difficult to do the obvious and direct. But one thing is clear to me, if we cut off the Russians, and now I'll speak not from a technical standpoint, we're going to be sending a signal to the people in Russia, who aren't looking for democracy, we'll be sending a people to—the signal to the people in Russia we don't want to have cooperation in space. And I'm not sure that that signal is going to help us have less of expense for America, it might be more.
And, for this reason, on a personal level, I don't know how to let go, but I also feel my responsibility as a representative of the President of the American people, it's a very tough situation, but my inner-self says we've got to work together to find a way and not let go of this window of opportunity that the people of this world are looking at. We—I have talked to the prime ministers of countries, and foreign ministers of countries, who work with us who also feel the same way. Somehow, some way within the laws of the land, and the politics that determine those laws, we've got to find the solution and that is what we're talking about here today. And I wish I had the wisdom to tell you where that solution set was but I want to commit to you, I'll be tenacious and not give up.
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Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would share my agreement with what many of my colleagues have said about you, Mr. Goldin. I think we all hold you in admiration. You have done what you said you were going to do, and, and we admire the work you've done with smaller and smaller budgets. I would say this, though, first of all, it is difficult for us to live with some of these financial mistakes. We can afford, however, to make some mistakes in that regard. We cannot afford the luxury of self-deception, and what concerns me in dealing with the Russians is that we continue to buy into the self-deception that they can't afford this. Because I would call your attention and, for the benefit of the members, in today's Washington Post there's an article and a picture of a new mammoth warship that the Soviets launched just in the last several days. Our estimates were that this warship cost over a billion dollars. The Russians can afford what they want to afford. Now, I understand they've got economic problems, and those are not going to dissipate.
14MISSILE TECHNOLOGY CONTROL REGIME
Mr. GUTKNECHT. One of the other self-deceptions we simply cannot afford to deal with is this whole deception about what they're doing with missile technology, and that brings me, and, unfortunately, Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania is not here today, so I'm going to probably ask some of the questions that he would have asked, and I'm certain that he will ask when he convenes his own Subcommittee.
Dr. Moore, if you go back in history, and one of the things that we have the benefit of, is going back to some of the previous hearings that this Committee and others have had on this whole issue of Russian compliance with the Missile Technology Control Regime. I mean, historically part of this whole strategy was to bring them into the Space Station to get them to comply with these provisions. Am I correct on that?
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Mr. MOORE. That was one of the considerations, that's right.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Are you familiar with some of the stories then circulated about Russian missile technology going to places like Iran?
Mr. MOORE. Yes, I am.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Are you concerned about that?
Mr. MOORE. Yes, we are very concerned about that. That, this is a very high level issue within the Administration. We're concerned on a number of levels. Erroneously, the Russian Space Agency was included on the list. They should not have been on that list, and outside of the Space Agency issues, those issues are being considered by the National Security Council, and people at the State Department as we speak.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Do you believe it's correct?
Mr. MOORE. I'm sorry, which is correct?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. That they have transferred missile technology——
Mr. MOORE. I'm not in a position, I'm not personally aware of that.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. But if it is correct, how much will that cost us?
Mr. MOORE. In terms of?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. In terms of we'll have to change some strategies then won't we?
Mr. MOORE. I believe that's correct. But, again, this is a National Security Council issue, not a technology issue.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Okay, well, it's an issue for us——
Mr. MOORE. Yes.
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Mr. GUTKNECHT [continuing]. And it's one that we ought to be aware of.
Mr. MOORE. Absolutely, correct.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Because we, I mean, I am correct, and, perhaps, Mr. Goldin can, would want to interject here, but that was part of our original plans was if we bring the Russians into the Space Station, that this is one way that we can—this is one lever we can use to help bring about compliance as it relates to the MTCR.
Mr. GOLDIN. On numerous occasions, I have called to the attention of my counterpart in Russia, the criticality that we have a civil space program, and under a civil space program, NASA works with those programs that abide by MTCR. We cannot work with countries that violate that. I've made that very, very clear. I am not involved in the foreign policy situation, but with each and every one of our partners, I do have that discussion.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. So, if the National Security Council comes to a clear conclusion, then Russia, then our Russian friends will be cut loose from the Space Station, is that correct?
Mr. GOLDIN. I will abide by the law of the land as I carry out my responsibilities as NASA's Administrator.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Just an observation, the article referred to by the gentleman from Minnesota lists the cost of the atomic power cruiser, ''the Peter the Great,'' at about a billion dollars. But maybe the secret on why that was completed and financed by Russia, and the Space Station is not, is in the last two sentences of the article. It says, ''The boat also boasts a special presidential cabin for Yeltsin. He has visited once.'' Is there any problem in having a minor redesign of the Space Station——
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[Laughter.]
Chairman SENSENBRENNER [continuing]. So we can have that?
Mr. GOLDIN. We will not redesign the Space Station with a special cabin.
[Laughter.]
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you. The gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow?
Ms. STABENOW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think you're moving the right direction there. Mr. Goldin, first of all, I, too, would like to commend you for your efforts, and some very challenging times, and NASA has, I think, had some extraordinary accomplishments under some very difficult situations and multiple agendas and concerns. And as we look at where we are now, I'm hearing the Service Module is over 80 percent done, dollars are not being paid, but we have a Service Module that is over 80 percent completed. Clearly, the question now is whether we proceed in keeping the pressure on or moving in another direction. I would share your feelings that, and the feelings of colleagues, that we need to keep the pressure on, and that this really is a critical point for Russia, a turning point for them. But we need to keep the pressure on and do everything we can, in my opinion, to try to make this work within being responsible for our people, and our country.
14BENEFITS OF A SPACE STATION
Ms. STABENOW. But in light of all this, I wonder if you could take a moment, you spoke a little bit about the benefits of the program. As we deliberate as to the direction that we wish to go in, and the dollars, and how we're going to proceed, I think it's important to take a moment again to speak to the reasons why it's of benefit to our constituents, the people that we represent to move ahead beyond Mir to the next step in terms of what this means to people here on Earth and the benefits in terms of communications and health and so on. As we talk about this, I'd like to keep that in perspective because I believe there are tremendous benefits that have been gained and will be gained and wondered if you could speak a little bit to those?
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Mr. GOLDIN. I would be pleased to. Right now, we just returned from space with Neurolab. This is a joint experiment between NASA, NIH, and the Office of Naval Research to understand the brain and the relationship of the brain and the nervous system to the human body. We are doing fundamental research that will help people overcome problems like orthostatic imbalance. An old man is in bed and sits up and blacks out, same thing happens to an astronaut. We are studying what happens with balance disorders. We're even studying how signals go from the brain to the different muscles to be more effective, so astronauts could be safer in space.
We have a countless number of lead physicians in this country that believe that this is the case. Right now, on the Mir Space Station, we're working on the Bioreactor which was developed for the Space Station, invented by NASA. There's now a company that sells thousands, that sold a few thousand of these devices for medical research. We could build human tissue in three dimensions outside the body. We're doing research right now on building breast cancer tumors on board the Mir Station. We're having some problems because we're trying for the first time ever to build—we took cancer cells and blood vessel cells and we're trying to get them to differentiate just like in the body of a woman that's developing a child. This is important for medical research.
We're doing materials research and micro gravity. I have a letter from a professor at MIT who said the Space Station, because of cutbacks in funding in re-engineering of American industry and materials research, cut back in funding in the DOD, NASA and the Space Station will be the place where they'll be the advanced materials: ceramics, alloys, metallics that we will be developing in the future.
So, it is crucial to all these fields and then on top of that because astronauts have to be protected in space, if we go to Mars, they'll be gone for 3 years. We're developing total immersion virtual presence for telemedicine. Right now at Stanford University, because of the fact we're working on Space Station, surgeons are able to do reconstructive surgery on a light table by taking a CATSCAN of a patient and a laser scan of the patient and they can reconstruct the face of someone who has had a terrible accident, or someone who is recovering from cancer and be able to preview it and train the physicians and then go in and do the surgery.
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So it is a broad range of things. When we went to launch the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers who were comfortable with ground-based with telescopes said, ''What is the Hubble Telescope going to do for us because we have all these valuable systems on the ground?'' We are moving forward in a very bold task with 16 other nations, and now we're beginning to plan the harvesting of the crops, not the planting of the seeds.
14RUSSIA'S SPACE PROGRAM
Mr. GOLDIN. I want to come back to the first statement you made. We feel it's crucial to keep the pressure on the Russian government because we are learning more from the Russians than they are learning from us right now. We're trying to maintain it, and in response to Mr. Gutknecht, who's not here, one of the reasons I said I was frustrated is I saw that the Russians had money to build this ship and they didn't have money for the Space Station which is supposed to take us in other directions.
Thank you.
Ms. STABENOW. If I might just do one follow-up because in speaking of the Russian Space Program, based on the Shuttle-Mir experience, what is your assessment of the capabilities overall of the Russian Space Program and what you have seen?
Mr. GOLDIN. In human spaceflight, it is unbelievable. They have an incredible capability that when we first entered this relationship we had no idea of. I didn't have any sense of how high of a regard they put on safety and the various safety approaches they have. We have merged their medical program with our space medical program to get the benefits of both and we now have one program. We have solved logistics problems that are unbelievable. I might point out that in the 5 years we've been working with the Russians, there have been as many flights to the Mir with the Russian vehicles in the Shuttle as we will have in building the assembly flights on the International Space Station. So we've worked out logistics in docking and how you recover from emergencies. We've worked out a whole host of medical problems, command and control problems. We would not, in retrospect, we would not be able to build the International Space Station without Shuttle-Mir and, to my surprise, and it shouldn't be now, we're learning more from the Russians than they are learning from us at this point in time.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Ms. STABENOW. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Before recognizing the gentleman from Washington, I recognize the gentleman from California for unanimous consent requests.
14NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY LETTER
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I request for unanimous consent that we insert into the record at the appropriate place a letter to President Clinton from the National Space Society which calls on the President to solve a problem created by making Russia a full partner in the International Space Station.
[The letter referred to follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection. The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Nethercutt?
14DE-ORBITING Mir
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, gentlemen, especially Mr. Goldin. I want to thank you again for coming out to the fifth Congressional District and doing such a good job speaking to the student population of my major city there. I have a special interest in biomedical research, as you know, and appreciate your testimony in that regard relative to what's happening up in space these days.
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Mr. Goldin, there's been considerable discussion about the immediate problem which are the numerous delays in delivering the Russian Service Module. I think we need to look at, perhaps, the next stumbling-block which is the inadequate number of Russian launch vehicles for support of both Mir and the ISS assembly schedule. As you all know, the Russians are promising to de-orbit Mir by the end of 1999. We've heard promises before and there's been testimony to that effect today, and I'm sure before I arrived here there was testimony about it. They have contractual obligations with other countries, and apparently they have the ability to fulfill those obligations in the first half of 1999, then de-orbit Mir during next summer which would eliminate the possibility of the shortfall of launch vehicles which would then create further delays in International Space Station assembly. And I hear, Mr. Goldin, your testimony regarding maintaining pressure on Russia, and I support that.
I guess my question for you, sir, and anybody else who wants to answer there, is whether you're prepared to enlist the aid of the Administration, the heads of the agencies involved in this program to insist that there be that de-orbiting of Mir by the Russians in the summer of 1999?
Mr. GOLDIN. I will say on this point I have very strong support from the Administration and, in fact, for the first time because of the support from the Administration, the Russians have come up with a de-orbit plan. That's the good news. The bad news is we believe that the de-orbiting should occur by the summer of 1999 to avoid the problem that you referred to. We will continue to press on this point. Now this is a sovereign nation with their own Mir Space Station, but they said that the International Space Station will receive the priority and if we are to have a production capability necessary to support the International Space Station, we believe Mir should come down in summer of 1999, not December of 1999. And that is a very important issue that will have to be resolved with the Russians.
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14BROKEN ADMINISTRATION PROMISES
Mr. NETHERCUTT. Well, thank you. I've had some concerns about the Administration's commitment in its dealings with Russia. I wasn't here until January of 1995, but my information is that the Administration did promise this Committee in 1993, and again in 1994, after the systems design review, which finalized the current design, that the Station could be built independently of Russian participation, and I'm told that we were advised that removing Russia from the program would not require another redesign. I believe you testified, Mr. Goldin, in 1994, in April, that your Agency had taken some very critical action so that Russia is not in a critical path. So, I guess, I know it's a big question, perhaps, for you to answer in a short time, but I'm just wondering how we got here? When was Russia placed in that critical path? And the report we've just seen, the Chabrow report that clearly identifies Russia as the biggest wild card, and I'm just wondering how things changed so quickly? And, if you can, summarize, sir, quickly for us in the time that we have what your sense of how we got to where we are and Russia is now in the critical path?
Mr. GOLDIN. I think we did a lot of good things, but in retrospect there was one thing we didn't do. Let me tell you the good things first, and then I'll go to confession.
We put functional redundancy in guidance, navigation, and control. We purchased the FGB tug which was going to be the first launch and we felt we could get that behind us. We are building an independent environmental control and life support capability, we accelerated the U.S. power module, and we took a number of other steps. That appeared to be the right thing to do. In retrospect, I wish, that we built a propulsion module. We did not, and I accept the responsibility and the accountability for not doing that.
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Mr. NETHERCUTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlemen from Minnesota. Mr. Luther?
14INCREASING PRESSURE ON RUSSIA
Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Goldin, nice to see you. And I understand you're in a difficult position on this particular project. You've touched on some of the efforts that have been undertaken and that even our plan to stress the importance of this to the Russians. In addition to what you've already touched on, what specific concrete ways can be utilized to ratchet up the pressure, rather than merely evicting the Russians from this project? Could you just comment on specific concrete things that could be done in addition to what you've already touched on?
Mr. GOLDIN. Well, I have had discussions with the highest level of government, and the Administration to make them aware of the situation, and they are taking a number of steps. When Mr. Sensenbrenner returned from Moscow, I passed along his comments directly. This is a very difficult circumstance that takes diplomacy and determination. From every conversation I've had with the senior levels in the Administration, and I had one before I got on the phone this morning, they have indicated tremendous support.
Now, other specific things. I don't believe the Russians thought we were serious about building the Interim Control Module. I invited the head of the Russian Space Agency, along with the heads of the Russian corporation that's building their portion of the Space Station to build the Interim Control Module. They were surprised by what they saw. So the other part of it is the determination that the Russians understand that we're serious about getting this built, and it's not that the head of the Russian Space Agency doesn't want to do it. He really does. And he needs the funding. So, it is a determined pressure and push and the President is very committed. He said so to me when I was in Houston 2 weeks when he talked to the astronauts and the wonderful people in Houston.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lampson?
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Goldin, one of the things that I can't turn loose of is the look of wonderment and excitement on the faces of the children in my 9th grade science class in 1969 when we put a man on the moon and returned him back. I know that we have an obligation to the future of this Nation, and to that of humanity to use our resources to discover and interpret the scientific advancements that can be made through our research in space. I recognize the need to balance our budget, but the 2.2 cents per day that it will cost each American to fund our portion of the International Space Station is an investment in healthier, longer lives and new high technology industries that we've seen develop through all of the time of our work in space.
14NASA'S POSITION ON NEW COST ASSESSMENT
Mr. LAMPSON. I want to try to ask four questions through this short period of time so try to keep your answers as short as you possibly can. Mr. Goldin, the Chabrow report paints a significantly more pessimistic picture of the status of the Space Station Program than NASA has in its past testimony to the Committee. Does NASA agree with the report's findings, and, if not, what's the reason for the differing views?
Mr. GOLDIN. We received the report on April 21st. Today is May 6th. I can assure you we have a team of people diligently working through it. I personally read the report and there are many questions that I have but I felt it would be improper for me to talk to Mr. Chabrow before we had this hearing because I felt his input needed to be completely independent of any questions I would ask. I am committed to working with Mr. Chabrow and their team to understand it, but I have done my own personal assessment. I await the assessments of our team that will be very thoughtful and deliberate so that we can resolve some of the issues.
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There are issues, I'll just pick one as an example, the Crew Return Vehicle. In our people communicating to Mr. Chabrow and his team, I think they left him with the impression that the Crew Return Vehicle is on the critical path of the Space Station. And, as a result, in his schedule table he has 18 months for that particular item as a potential delay and then he root sum squared that with other numbers in the table. We believe that we have other alternatives to doing that, and we could do it through operational control of the astronauts so we could get by with a Soyuz Return Vehicle until we bring up our own Crew Return Vehicle. There are a number of those very detailed technical issues, but I feel it's essential to sit down and clarify. And, I might point out, our people met with the Chabrow team and they have been thinking about many of these issues and exchanged it with them. But, again, I want to come back and say I felt it was inappropriate for me to personally communicate with this team until after this hearing.
Mr. LAMPSON. As you go through that, will you let us know of your findings and feelings by some form of communication?
Mr. Chabrow, the Space Station Program has been diligent and resourceful. In your report, you said that, ''The Space Station Program has been diligent and resourceful in managing the unique challenges of this complex venture.'' Would you elaborate a little bit on that statement, tell the Committee some of the specific which brought you to that conclusion?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes, well what we meant by that is this was so big, and, again, it's the largest massive undertaking that's ever been done, off or on planet, planet Earth. And it's like playing a game of golf, you're in the rough, but you have to get back on the course. And there's no way that you cannot be in the rough every now and then with a job of this kind. And I think that, just of the things that Dan was talking about now, such as dealing with the RSA, dealing with the Primes, dealing with new techniques, new products, new testing, environmental testing that has never had to be done because of the type of job this is. I think that it's probably axiomatic that surprises will occur, and they're on top of those. There are a few that we've said in the report as you read, that maybe they could have done earlier to actually mitigate risks. But in the main they've been on top of things and, yet, they've had a few things that happened that took a right turn. And I think, you know, you'll be able to look at that when you see the report.
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14RUSSIA'S FINANCING PROBLEMS
Mr. LAMPSON. Okay. Dr. Moore, has the new Prime Minister stated a position on the funding problem, does he see the importance of this problem? And what is the Administration doing to convey to the Russian government the importance of its meeting its commitments on this program?
Mr. MOORE. According to a Reuters report yesterday, Yeltsin specifically has talked to Kiriyenko about this very issue to be sure that we do receive the full funding that is due us. So I have to believe that Kiriyenko is very much aware of the issue today.
Mr. LAMPSON. Is there anything that you can tell us specifically that we're going to do beyond meeting with people? Is there something specific that we can do to make sure that that message is conveyed?
Mr. MOORE. We are hoping that this will be raised with President Yeltsin when President Clinton meets with him in Birmingham at the G–8 meeting which is in 2 weeks.
Mr. WELDON of Florida [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. LAMPSON. Real short, one word question. Are any of you prepared to pull the plug on this program right now?
Mr. MOORE. No.
Mr. GOLDIN. No.
Mr. CHABROW. No.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. WELDON. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman for this very important hearing, and certainly, Dan, I'd like to, as well, thank you as I know my colleague from Texas whose District Johnson Space Center, Congressman Lampson who I enjoy working with on these issues, for the excitement of the visit of the President and, of course, the recognition of the support teams, staff, professional team, astronauts, I'm sure, are covered in all those names, but certainly the families that represents the men and women who are part of the NASA effort and certainly that contribute to the International Space Station.
I would simply say that the amount of benefits, the knowledge that will be gained, and can be gained, from the International Space Station, in my perspective, justifies the cost. Now, as I know that Mr. Raines was here, we are obviously in a totally new climate. That climate is that of the BBA, the Balanced Budget—I call it the Balanced Budget Amendment, I call it ''the Balanced Budget Atmosphere.'' And that means we're even more constrained than we might have previously been but I think our arguments must be as vital and as vibrant as to the technology and the knowledge that we will gain with an International Space Station. I think you'll see over the summer an enormous number of movies coming out, the most recent Deep Impact, which applies, or apprises us of asteroids, if I have that correct, that are moving about in our atmosphere. So I think you'll be getting a lot of phone calls.
14MECHANISMS FOR REMOVING RUSSIA FROM THE PROGRAM
Ms. JACKSON LEE. But I do want to go straight to the question dealing with Russia. They are not in this hearing today. They are obligated to $340, I believe, is it million dollars? Their allotment this year is about $65 million for the Space Agency and $8 million for Space Station. My question is a direct one. What would be the mechanisms for removing, it may have been asked, but I'd like to hear, Russia from this process? This is setting aside whether or not it is positive to have them in it. You may want to comment on the political concerns, but is the mechanism, Mr. Goldin, from NASA or is the mechanism from the White House, or is it a legislative mechanism in terms of saying the Russian commitment is there, but the financial wherewithal, we now begin the process of removing them from the partnership?
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Mr. GOLDIN. First, I would like to say from a technical standpoint, the Station will suffer significant loss from the absence of the Russians, and, secondly, from other broader considerations we would suffer loss. Saying that, the way we take the next step would be going to step two of our contingency plan which would be to build a logistics capability to handle some of the propellant re-supply and to build, in effect, a propulsion module which would allow us to hold the Space Station up on orbit.
Third, we would want to install the environmental control and life support systems that we had built, that we're building for later deliveries but we could put it in our U.S. laboratory. That would be the next step in that process, and then what we would do is having these pieces of equipment, we would then build a Space Station. It would be later but we would build it, and we would have later permanent human presence for the first time and at least give the Russian some option to deliver up the Service Module. The step after that would be a complete step where we would have to have alternative means of getting up to the Space Station. We are working with our European and Japanese partners. The Europeans are developing the, I believe it is called the Ariane Transfer Vehicle which is capable of taking fuels and supplies as are the Japanese developing such a vehicle. We would have to make appropriate modifications to the Shuttle and/or build other delivery systems to take it, perhaps put it on top on an expendable launch vehicle. That next step will be very significantly more expensive than just the second step I talked about.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. So the Russian involvement is an involvement that deals with the intricacies of getting the Space Station where it needs to be in terms of how it's built. They are intimately involved in that. And would that be then, as you have just related to me, an internal restructuring or would you need political impact on their non-involvement? Because the way you've described it, it looks as if you would say, ''We can fill in the gaps, and then we'd wait to see whether down the road they could come in and meet their obligations.'' That's one way of looking at it, and I hear from that way that no one else is a player in this, the Administration, or legislation, is that my understanding?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Whoa, this would not be a unilateral action by NASA.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. That's what I'm trying to understand.
Mr. GOLDIN. It would be an action that would be undertaken by the Administration and the Congress. It would not be unilateral. The NASA Administrator does not have the authority to go do that, nor should he.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. But your answer would be directed toward the idea of——
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's——
Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. That you could fill in the gaps?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Time has expired.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I ask for just an additional 1 minute?
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. If the gentlewoman were here at the beginning of the hearing, I said that I would be very ruthless in enforcing the 5-minute rule so as to give everybody a chance to speak. And I have been that way with everybody else on the Committee before and I think it has worked out fine, and that's why you're speaking now rather than a half an hour from now. So the gentlewoman's time has expired. The Chair would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I appreciate that obviously we have other obligations but I will have my questions for you, Mr. Goldin, and I thank you very much for your time.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall?
14NASA TRANSFER FROM SCIENCE
Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, perhaps, I can yield the lady some time at the end of my time. I won't take the full 5 minutes because I have not been here during the other questions, nor the testimony, but I would want to start out by thanking the Chairman for having this hearing, and his usual courtesy and professionalism in running the Committee.
I want to start out by saying I don't have any part of the Space Program that I don't support, and I've never had any problems with the budget. I have some questions I want to ask Mr. Goldin, perhaps, about Chairman Chabrow's report, but you've not, you've read it but you don't care to testify about it today so I'll ask the Chairman directly while I have him here. I want to first start out by saying that, by the way, Mr. Chairman, and from the interest of being really fair, when Congressman Lampson asked, ''Is anyone here prepared to pull the plug on the Space Station?'' The record should reflect that Mr. Roemer had gone.
[Laughter.]
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The record will so state. But he has been pulling like the little Dutch boy on the dike ever since we started and hopefully with the same result this year as in the past.
[Laughter.]
Mr. HALL. I want to re-recognize Buzz Aldrin here. His offhand comments sometimes mean more to us than sworn testimony even. He's certainly been a reliable source to my office and I want to publicly thank him for that. Two, I thank you for putting Tom Stafford's statement in the record. And three, Chairman Chabrow, I appreciate your report dated April 21, 1998, and I have a concern about the approximately $500 million that has been transferred from research to hardware. And I don't have anything against hardware and I have great faith in the people who are managing the inner-company, so-called ''transfers.'' I'd like to know that that's not an amount lost on research, that that will come back and there will be a time when that will be emphasized perhaps more than it has been the last 2.5 years. It's a significant amount to be transferred out of research into hardware.
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But in your report on Subsection 1.5, under recommendations, subsection 7, you say that you recommend maintaining the current level of research funding, develop plans to maximize science utilization on orbit during scheduled stretch-out. I appreciate that and I hope that that means exactly what it says, and would ask you if you'd have any comment? And in developing your study and formulating your report, what consideration was given to the amounts of money that had been transferred out of research into hardware, and what was the necessity for it?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes, well, we understand that that money was, as you see, transferred out and with the commitment to pay that back, and our thinking was at the time it was needed to make sure that they had proper funding during those particular years. I understand that the full $500 million is not going to get paid back, that it will be somewhere around $400 million and the reason why that is because there were barters that were made that there will be other persons that will pay that back, but, in essence, research itself will be paid back.
As far as the part two that you asked me, sir, what we meant when we put that in was that we hope that whatever it is that they can spend to put hardware up there, whatever way it is that they do take what we take out of the report, that to the maximum capability that they had, that they still continue to produce research. The exact amount, I think is going to have to be said when they do come up with the answer to this report but we wanted to make sure that whatever they do to implement whatever we said in the report, research does not, if you will, take a backseat to anything else.
Mr. HALL. I thank you, and Mr. Chairman, if I have any time, I'd like to yield back to the gentlelady from Texas.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlelady from Texas is recognized for 52 seconds.
14ADDITIONAL FUNDING
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentleman. It takes a gentleman to be a gentleman, and I thank you very much. My question is simply to say my point is not to exclude the Russians. I think they are vital participants. I want to find a way to have them involved, Dan, and I wanted to make sure that my question did not direct in the wrong direction. Mr. Chabrow, I simply wanted to ask you, you think we need about $130 to $250 million in your report, if we can get that can we survive, and can we have the Russians involved?
Mr. CHABROW. We believe so. And we believe that, I want to just carry through, I'm glad that she asked that if I can possibly give her the answer all told, that, and I'm going to take a little bit of extra time here. If, on one sense we can spend time, which we have on a particular issue, we didn't go through the whole report here, but it's okay. I thought we were going to go through a little bit more and it's fine. But if from one sense you're looking at runway behind us with cost, and those costs that you just said, and how much we think things will cost, and it would be better, in my own personal opinion, if we were to take a look at the plate that's in my right hand. And, as you said, there are millions of people on this Earth, including cosmonauts, astronauts, and my kids, and others who want to see a Station get up there. And the time, I would think, this is my own personal opinion, even though some of my team would say when I talk, I talk for them, but I want to talk for myself also, because 24 hours from now I go home to my life and my wife. And I just wanted to say that the time is better spent, from my point of view, looking at what NASA can do with the cost that we said, how do they get the money, and how do we do what has to be done? And without getting on a soap box, which I will for a second, I want to quote John Kennedy when he said, ''The Nation does not intend to flounder in the backwash of space, we intend to lead it.'' And I hope we get back there and get on with things and get them the money that they need.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired and I think that is a very positive note in which to end this hearing. To sum up, first, let me thank you, Mr. Chabrow and the members of your team——
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Mr. CHABROW. Thank you.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER [continuing]. For performing a very valuable service in narrowing the issues and quantifying the cost on how we get this program back on track. And if nothing else is served by the submission of your report, at least we know what the issues are and we will not have to debate what those issues are, or what those issues should be, which has been the subject of previous hearings that have been held before this Committee, not only since I became Chairman but during previous Administrations as Chair of the Subcommittee as well. So I think that the entire American public is in your debt, and I want to thank you very publicly for performing what I think has been at tremendous public service.
Mr. CHABROW. Thank you, sir.
14CHAIRMAN'S CONCLUSIONS
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Now, having said that, I think we have a challenge, as Congress, as NASA, and as the Administration on where to go from here. And the train is leaving the station because in June and July the appropriations bills will be written, will be debated, will be passed and sent to the President for his signature, and unless we resolve these problems before the HUD/VA/Independent Agencies appropriations bill gets out of Subcommittee, we're going to be talking about transfers, re-programming and the potential supplemental appropriations. So this is a deadline that is imposed upon us, not by anybody who is in this room but by the people who work in other committee rooms in other parts of Capitol Hill.
14OMB'S RULE
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I have three specific concerns that I hope are addressed before we have the next hearing on this subject in this Committee. First of all, the Office and Management Budget must be an active participant in the solution to this problem. Without their participation, NASA and Congress are going to be left to muddle along. The alternatives that I read in the letter from OMB Director Franklin Raines are, frankly, unacceptable. They talk about taking more out of the human spaceflight account. We took too much out of the human spaceflight account in Fiscal Year 1997, it resulted in the 600 people being laid off down at the Cape. My guess is that if we take more out of the Shuttle, we will either compromise safety or cause a cancellation of one or more Shuttle missions which will further complicate the problem and NASA being able to deal with what it has to do, both in terms of the Station as well as the other important missions. So, I believe that OMB is going to have to be more forthright because the solution that I think is proposed in the Raines' letter is not an acceptable one.
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14CREDIBLE PLAN FOR DEALING WITH RUSSIA
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Second, there has got to be a credible plan to deal with continued Russian failures. When Mrs. Johnson of Texas and I were in the Russian Space Agency and Russian Finance Ministry offices on April 6th and 7th, we were told that the financing problem would be partially resolved, and there was an absolute commitment that approximately half of the $45 million owed for 1997 would be paid by April 30th. Today is May 6th, it hasn't been paid yet and once again another deadline that the Russians have given themselves has come and gone. So there has got to be more of an active contingency plan, and I think that that contingency plan should not go to kicking the Russians out of the program because I agree with all of the witnesses today that that would become prohibitively expensive. But at the same time, I do think that the Russians, as a result of their failure, should be told that they get less time for their astronauts on the Shuttle and that would be reallocated to the other partners to do as they see fit because it's the other partners that are picking up the slack as a result of another Russian failure to meet one of it's own time tables.
14ADMINISTRATION INDECISIVENESS
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Finally, I am concerned, Mr. Goldin, that you announced today that there was a further slip in the decision on whether to use the ICM as a replacement for the Service Module. Mr. Rothenberg testified earlier this year that that decision would be made by now, it hasn't. It has been postponed. And, you, yourself, as early as 1996, in response to questions that Mr. Roemer asked, said that a decision on whether to go to an alternative to the Service Module would be forthcoming relatively quickly, and that was 2 years ago when you made that statement. So, we've had a further delay on whether the ICM is going to replace the Service Module. I think that delays like that on our part also increase the cost of the American taxpayer.
I think that it's time the President decided to invite the Russians in, and to impose by his letter the funding caps he realized that continual cost over-runs in the Space Station would sink the program. And, as we know, we almost lost it in early 1993 when the Roemer amendment was defeated by just one vote on the Floor of the House of Representatives. I guess we've been kind of coasting on our laurels with rather comfortable margins in support of the Space Station the last couple of years. Cost over-runs erode that political support. We have to figure out a way to curtail them, and figure out a way to cap them. Mr. Chabrow has given us a road map. If you don't think Mr. Chabrow's road map is a good one, you're going to have an opportunity some time late next month to tell us what your road map is for his consideration and our consideration and that of the American public.
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This has been a very constructive hearing. I'd like to thank each of the witnesses for their patience, and the members for participating, and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION IN HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT, PART III: HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM: THE ADMINISTRATION'S PLAN TO FIX THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The Committee will be in order.
Without objection, the Chair will be granted authority to recess the Committee during votes today.
For the last 2 years, this Committee has pressed the Administration to act on the Space Station's mounting problems. Unfortunately, the Administration has fallen down on the job. We tried to help in last year's Civil Space Authorization Act, but the Administration declined to act on our ideas or to offer any solutions of their own. As a result, the Station's problems have grown worse, while my patience with the Administration's inaction has shortened.
Last week the House VA–HUD Appropriations Subcommittee cut the President's request for the International Space Station by $170 million. The appropriations bill holds the Space Station to the $2.1 billion annual cap that the President proposed when he redesigned it in 1993. When Congress is faced with a program that appears to be slowly spinning out of control, this is a natural and logical step.
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We had hoped that the report of NASA's Advisory Council's Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force would prompt the Administration into confronting these problems. But last week we received the Administration's response to the task force report and our hopes were dashed. In a nutshell, NASA accepts the main task force findings that the International Space Station will cost more and that its budget is inadequate due to the risk mitigation needed to prevent things from getting worse. Unfortunately, NASA's response to the task force report also indicates the Administration has no plan for coming up with a substantive solution until Fiscal Year 2000, which is still 15 months away.
We would like to work with the White House to get this program back on track. Last month, we invited the Office of Management and Budget to testify about the Administration's plan to fix the Space Station. OMB declined to appear before this Committee. Instead, it offered a statement for the record which also pledged to do nothing. The President would not approve extra resources to make up for Russia's problems and did not propose a restructuring of the program. Instead, OMB proposed taking more money out of the Shuttle program and the science accounts within Human Space Flight. Those wells have been drained dangerously low already.
We had hoped giving the White House another 6 weeks to review the task force report and come up with a response would help. Again, we invited the White House Office of Management and Budget and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to present a plan to fix the International Space Station at today's hearing. They declined and sent the NASA Administrator up to defend the very Administration policies contributing to these problems.
To be fair, both OMB and OSTP did promise to appear before this Committee after the July 4th recess. I appreciate that. But it's late in the fourth quarter. The home team is behind, and the clock is ticking on the beginning of Fiscal Year 1999 with the HUD–VA Appropriations Subcommittee already having marked up and reported out a bill.
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Today Mr. Brown and I are sending the President a letter asking the White House to get back in the game by directing OMB to present a credible plan within 30 days for fixing the International Space Station. It will take a week to review the White House response, and then have another hearing on this subject with OMB and OSTP during the first week of August before Congress goes into summer recess.
The legislative calendar moves with or without the Administration. We can't wait much longer or the opportunity to deal with this problem in the Fiscal 1999 appropriations bill will have lapsed. In the meantime, the Committee can use this hearing to explore some of the legislative options that Congress will consider in the next budget cycle.
I now yield to Mr. Brown for an opening statement.
Mr. BROWN of California. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I welcome our witnesses. I would like to offer my congratulations to NASA and the Russian Space Agency on the successful completion of the Shuttle-Mir cooperative program. I honestly did not believe at all times that it was going to be successfully completed. But it is a significant accomplishment.
Finally, I would like to thank the Chairman for calling this hearing because I think that the time has come for us to reach a consensus on how to proceed with the International Space Station program.
It's a little more than a month since our last Committee hearing. I do not intend to repeat the lengthy opening statement I made at that hearing, but it was a good statement and I commend it to our witnesses.
Instead, I think that it is more important to hear from the witnesses. We need to hear from NASA Administrator Goldin about how he intends to implement the recommendations of the independent Space Station Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force, known as the Chabrow Task Force. In his June 15th letter and report to Congress, Mr. Goldin indicated that NASA agreed with most of the recommendations of the report. He also estimated the additional cost over the next 5 years to implement the recommendations. It is a significant additional cost.
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Administrator Goldin stated that NASA was continuing to review the cost estimates. He offered little hope that the cost estimates would be dramatically reduced. Thus, I think it's time for NASA and OMB to work with us to determine where we go from here. We need a plan, not a continuing series of ad hoc adjustments to the latest Station funding or programmatic crisis. Chairman Sensenbrenner and I have indicated as much in the letter which he referred to. We can not afford to drift through another budgetary cycle without coming to grips with the reality of the Space Station program situation.
I am not prepared to lay the entire responsibility for resolving the problem on the Administration. We in Congress also have a responsibility to address the issue in good faith. I believe that we can and will work together to get this program back on track. Thank you very much.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Without objection, opening statements by other members will be included in the record at this point.
[The prepared statements of Mr. Calvert, Mr. Roemer, and Ms. Lee follow:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Today the witnesses that we have are Mr. Allen Li, Associate Director of the General Accounting Office, Mr. Jay Chabrow, Chairman of the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force of the NASA Advisory Council, and NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin.
Mr. Goldin has indicated that Joseph Rothenberg, who is the Associate Administrator for Space Flight, will be giving some testimony and answering some questions. So when I swear the witnesses in, I would ask Mr. Rothenberg to take the oath as well.
Would the witnesses please stand and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear, each of you, that the testimony you will give before this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?
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Mr. GOLDIN. I do.
Mr. ROTHENBERG. I do.
Mr. CHABROW. I do.
Mr. Li. I do.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Let the record show that each of the four individuals mentioned have affirmatively answered the oath.
Mr. Goldin, you may proceed as you wish. Without objection, all opening statements, printed statements by witnesses today will be included in the record after their testimony. Mr. Goldin, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL S. GOLDIN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. GOLDIN. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear before you to testify on the International Space Station program. Twelve days ago, the Space Shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center, brought Astronaut Andy Thomas home, and ended the important Shuttle-Mir phase of the International Space Station development. It is always an emotional day when our astronauts come home, but this was a special one for other reasons too because every so often, people come together to explore new frontiers, to inspire our children, and to benefit all of humankind. It is a less common occasion, however, when it is not only people coming together, but countries. But that is exactly what the International Space Station with Americans leading the way has done and is doing. Leading a broad international project of this scope and complexity has not been easy. But, Mr. Chairman, the entire NASA team has done an outstanding job under incredibly tough circumstances.
I could not be more proud of the Agency it is my privilege to lead. Just look at how far we have come and how much we have accomplished. In 1993, we signed an agreement with the Russians to fly a cosmonaut on a Shuttle and an astronaut to Mir. The Shuttle had never docked with another vehicle before, but only 2 years later, we made it happen.
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STS–91, our ninth mission to Mir, since the first mission to Mir, astronauts spent more elapsed time, invaluable time in space, than the entire 17 year Shuttle program. Before we designed the International Space Station program in 1993, we had spent over $10 billion and had little or no hardware to show for it. By the end of 1998, just 5 years later, about 75 percent of the hardware will be complete and the first element will have been launched.
All of that has been done by an Agency that by the fall of 1998 will have returned $27 billion from its projected 1993 budget to the Treasury. In fact, since redesign, with the exception of $100 million provided by the Congress, all additional resources needed for ISS have been handled within the NASA budget. At the same time, as I promised during my confirmation hearings, the percent of the budget spent on NASA science, aeronautics, and technology programs has greatly gone up. Today we're not bigger, but we are balanced and better. The proof is in one simple but profound fact. Ever since 1994, the NASA budget has come down in real dollars, but our productivity has gone up. Not many agencies could make that statement.
People say that's impossible, but we do it anyway. Very few agencies have a record like that. But that was the performance expected from us when first President Reagan, then President Bush, and finally President Clinton, along with the Congress signed onto America's leadership role in the development and assembly of the International Space Station. Yes, the work has been tough. Yes, there have been obstacles. Yes, there may be more in the future. But this was the performance expected. This was the performance delivered. This is the performance, Mr. Chairman, that will continue.
To make sure that performance does continue is the very reason I asked Jay Chabrow last fall for an independent cost assessment and validation review of the ISS program. I look forward to discussing that report with the Committee this morning. But before we get to that, I would like to thank Jay Chabrow and the team for their work.
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Like this Committee, like you, Mr. Chairman, they all asked hard questions that make us a better space program. For the report itself, we have reviewed it and basically agree. First, this project is very difficult and managed very well. Second, we have been overly optimistic. That is not atypical for NASA, but expectations that were too high have left us with reserves that were too low. This is a real warning and one we take very seriously. But make no mistake. NASA does not want or at this time need a blank check from the Congress. We are not asking for $2 billion in a 2-year slip. We are not asking for any more money in Fiscal Year 1999 because simply put, the cost outlined in the Chabrow report at this time are risks, not reality. Knowing the potential cost of those risks and understanding the value of ISS only strengthens our resolve to do even better.
Mr. Chairman, we are actively creatively and aggressively taking steps now to prevent setbacks later. If they do happen, we will come back. We will be honest with you and honest with the American people. We'll fight for what we need in the Fiscal Year 2000 budget. But until then, and if the day comes when we need more, we are going to keep fighting day after day, month after month, year after year, keep attempting to do more with less, keep overcoming the unexpected, and exploring the unknown, because that is what NASA does and that is what we do better than anyone else in the government or America.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldin follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Goldin.
Mr. Chabrow.
TESTIMONY OF JAY W. CHABROW, CHAIR, COST ASSESSMENT AND VALIDATION TASK FORCE, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
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Mr. CHABROW. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to once again appear before you to address development issues regarding the International Space Station. I have read through NASA's response to you and I am glad to see that NASA has embraced the recommendations of the Cost Assessment and Validation Task Force.
As the Committee will recall, the CAV Task Force was comprised of nationally recognized program management and cost assessment experts. The task force identified a number of critical areas with potential to increase cost growth and to cause schedule erosion on the ISS program. By the way, we already see indications of this in the latest April 1998 performance report which does disclose that there is additional prime contractor cost growth of $80 million over and above last fall's $600 million over-target estimate at completion. The collective risk emanating from these critical areas led to a top level conclusion that the ISS program should plan for the development schedule to extend at least an additional 2 years, with additional funding requirements of between $130 million and $250 million annually throughout the assembly period and beyond.
In NASA's response, estimates of the magnitude of additional funding needed to enhance current risk mitigation activities and provide additional reserves to cover schedule slippage are roughly the same as the CAV task force proposed. There may be differences of opinion relative to specific amounts for individual risks and the annual funding profile, but overall, NASA's response appears for the most part to accept the task force findings.
The task force is particularly pleased to see NASA identify funding requirements for a U.S. propulsion capability. The Russian Space Agency action in reprioritizing its program clearly reflects their commitment to the ISS. But we note, however, that even though the RSA has ''outlined a plan,'' they still have not agreed to the important and critical early MIR de-orbit date. Additionally, the overall government funding situation continues to worsen in Russia. As a result, it is more evident today than it was last fall that a United States propulsion capability should be developed.
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Also worth noting are the increased reserves which NASA has identified beyond what the task force recommended for the Crew Return Vehicle, CRV. The CRV is a project that still has a lot of technological developmental uncertainty, and increasing the reserve level is prudent.
NASA's recognition of the threats remaining on this program is a positive step toward supplying the Administration and Congress with a full understanding of the level of risk exposure the program is carrying, as well as the potential cost to bring it to a successful completion. However, there is still cause for concern.
Given the current situation in Russia, NASA appears to be continuing its cautious reactive stance rather than taking a proactive position on risk reduction. This appears to propagate rather than mitigate exposure to further cost growth. There is now a greater certainty than ever that Russia will not meet its commitments. It is hard to understand why NASA and the Administration do not identify the immediate steps they will take to protect the United States investment.
The fact that NASA has not identified annual funding profiles for any of the increased cost growth is of concern. It conveys a reluctant acceptance of the fact that there will be additional cost. On one hand, NASA states that the increased risk mitigation actions will reduce the total program delay projected. On the other hand, NASA appears to be pushing any funding for risk mitigation out to the Year 2000, beyond the point of being proactive. One questions whether substantive proactive actions are really being taken now, and whether NASA will ever fully recognize cost growth in advance. Is NASA planning on funding these actions through year-to-year supplemental funding requests?
NASA continues to take an optimistic position relative to assembly completion. The CAV task force recognized the potential for the program to slip 1 to 3 years. We recommended that the program plan for a 2-year schedule slip. NASA now says its risk mitigation activities can reduce the CAV task force projected slip to 1 year. Yes, there are steps that can reduce the risk of schedule slippage. One example of that NASA has identified is that of procuring Soyuz vehicles to provide schedule relief in case the CRV is late. However, the level funding profile that NASA projects in 1999 does nothing to convince us that anything is being done differently.
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While NASA's response appears to recognize the magnitude of the problem, NASA is at the same time diminishing the CAV task force opinion that these additional costs will be incurred. NASA's response continues the misconception that somehow they are going to find a way to hold the schedule, perform necessary risk mitigation activities for significantly less cost at some time in the future. Further, NASA's response requires that Congress and the American people continue to wait for decisions that will be made downstream. Well that is an approach, but it's not what the CAV task force did intend in our recommendations.
NASA has submitted a budget request that is not enough to cover current and future costs for the ISS. This again results in a credibility problem and gives the illusion, albeit not true, of a program out of control.
We appreciate NASA's endorsement of our effort. We believe we provided rationale for a substantive plan. However, based on NASA's response, we do not see this forthcoming. Additionally, even though they accept our findings, they are still not getting the required funding. But once again, they are being asked to look inside, causing them to be again, overly optimistic on their forecasts and depleting already threatened reserves.
Our goal was to generate a report which finally displays the risks and the resulting cost and schedule implications. The task force was asked to do this and we did it. Now is NASA's opportunity to put all on the table, forecast a total funding envelope, get adequate funding support from the Administration, rebuild trust with the public, and get on with the business of producing this vital space asset. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Chabrow follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you, Mr. Chabrow.
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Mr. Li.
TESTIMONY OF ALLEN LI, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS ISSUES, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION
Mr. Li. Good morning, sir. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Brown, and members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here today to summarize the results of our recent report focusing on the Space Station's development, assembly, and operations costs to be borne by the United States. Also with me today are Jerry Hurley and John Gilchrest, who are part of my NASA team.
As requested, I will summarize my formal statement. I will compare our current estimate with the one we developed in June of 1995. I will also provide information on a variety of areas such as potential cost increases, current program reserves, and the impact of recent revisions to the assembly sequence. I have five points.
Point one. Since June of 1995, total estimated Space Station life cycle costs have increased from about $94 billion to about $96 billion. Estimated development costs have increased too, $21.9 billion versus $17.4 billion. This increase is mostly due to schedule delays, additional prime contractor effort not covered by funding reserves, additional crew return vehicle costs, and costs incurred because of delays in the Russian-made service module.
In-house personnel costs have more than doubled. Eight Shuttle flights have been added to the development program. However, Shuttle support costs are lower because NASA is projecting a significant reduction in the average cost per flight.
Point two. Program costs could increase further. We reported that a number of potential program changes could significantly increase the current estimate. Launch schedules depend on the launch capacity in the United States and Russia, and the program's ability to meet all manufacturing, testing, and software and hardware integration deadlines. As pointed out by the CAV task force, this integration is a real challenge.
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In addition, we note that over 90 launches by NASA and its international partner will be needed for assembly, science utilization, resupply, and crew return purposes. Delays in the development program would increase costs because, at a minimum, fixed costs such as salaries, contractor overhead, and sustaining engineering would continue for a longer period than planned. Also the program could require more Shuttle flights than are baselined in our estimate. For example, the baseline does not include additional flights that may be needed for crew return vehicle testing and eventual launches and some resupply flights.
As you know, the CAV task force reflected many of the areas we identified. The task force also cited complex assembly requirements and potential schedule problems associated with remaining hardware and software development.
Point three. Funding reserves may be inadequate. The program has used or identified specific uses for a significant portion of available reserves. But this is with almost 6 years left before the last assembly flight is scheduled to be launched. In January of 1995, the Space Station program had more than $3 billion in financial reserves to cover development contingencies. Since then, reserve levels have steadily declined. In March of 1998, net unencumbered financial reserves available to the program were down to about $1.1 billion.
In the past, reserves have been used to fund additional requirements, overruns, and other authorized changes. Some of the potential funding needs include those related to NASA's decision to add a third node to the Station's design. NASA's statement today suggests the potential need to enhance reserves in several key areas such as the crew return vehicle.
Point four. NASA's requirement for debris tracking will require DOD to upgrade its surveillance system. Due to its large size and long operational lifetime, the Space Station will face a risk of being struck by orbital debris. NASA plans to provide shielding against smaller objects and maneuver the Station to avoid collisions with large objects.
The Agency recently updated its overall requirement for space debris tracking. It includes the ability to track and catalogue objects as small as one centimeter. Studies by NASA and DOD indicate that the cost to achieve that capability could range from $400 million to $5 billion. The sources of funding are undetermined right now. In addition, while the most stringent requirement is related to the Space Station, all other space activities would benefit from improved tracking. So the issue here is that NASA and DOD will have to work together to work an appropriate funding arrangement.
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My fifth and final point. The latest assembly sequence called Revision D, impacts the life-cycle analysis in our report in a number of ways. For example, the new sequence shows an assembly complete date of January 2004, an addition of 1 month. We stated in our report that each additional month of slippage at the end could result in an added cost of more than $100 million. Also, our analysis included a number of areas of support costs such as civil service personnel and principal investigators. These costs would also be higher because the assembly complete date is now in the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2004.
The cost of the additional flight now included by NASA would need to be added to our development phase estimate. The ultimate dollar impact will be based on a new average cost per flight calculations.
I know that we will discuss NASA's latest actions in greater detail. But I wish to point out that the new sequence reduces the overall time frame to assemble the Station. This may impose additional stresses on the Shuttle in achieving the new launch schedule. To that end, the need to achieve greater Shuttle processing efficiencies, while maintaining safety, and I know that Congressman Weldon is well aware of this, is now even more relevant. If NASA is unable to achieve these efficiencies, there will be more schedule slippage.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Li follow:]
offset folios 678 to 687 insert here
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Li.
The Chair will state that he will impose the 5-minute rule on everybody including himself. We'll see how the first round of questioning goes. There may be a second round of questioning if we have not ventilated all of the issues that are necessary.
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So the Chair yields himself 5 minutes.
Mr. Goldin, your prepared statement, at least the first two-thirds of it, sounds like all is well and looks at the significant accomplishments that NASA has made over the last 5 to 8 years. However, we know that all is not well. The purpose of this hearing is to figure out how to fix what is not well. I must be honest, that I am disappointed in that while NASA had agreed with most of the conclusions that Mr. Chabrow and his team came up with, the solution to fixing those problems is still not to be placed on the table. The clock is ticking. The longer it takes to resolve these problems and determine whether or not additional funding is needed and if so how much, the more it's going to cost. I think we know that schedule slips mean cost overruns. We want to avoid both of them.
Now, has NASA prepared any type of preliminary or other cost estimates in response to the conclusions that the Chabrow report has reached and which NASA agrees with?
Mr. GOLDIN. We did present those cost numbers in our response to you in the report itself. I believe we indicated we wanted to increase the reserves by nominally $1.4 billion. We wanted to consider up to $300 million more additional for the crew return vehicle as upward bound possibilities and we had looked at the possibility of spending as much as $790 million on further Russian contingencies for step II. Those monies we put in there.
The reason we have not put it in the budget is we are looking at a number of alternatives. I will give you a few examples. One approach to backing up contingency and against the Russians not delivering propulsion is to make very simple cross strapping changes to the Shuttle during OMDP so that each Shuttle could come up to the Station and raise it 10 to 13 miles at a shot and over the period of a year have a chance of doing the majority portion of the orbit raising, perhaps without having to invest in a propulsion module. Our people are performing that analysis. That is a much lower cost approach.
We are looking at a second approach in parallel with that, where we would take existing pieces of hardware from the Shuttle OMS and thrust vector control systems and use those pieces of hardware which could be available already, and not have to procure a long lead. That could form the basis for a propulsion module.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. I have only 5 minutes in this round. I would like to—this litany, I would like to ask you to submit for the record. But the only thing we have heard from OMB on this entire issue is to take more money out of the Shuttle and to take more money out of the Human Space Flight account. Have you submitted any material to OMB relative to providing more money for either of those two accounts or for the Space Station account? If so, what has been OMB's response?
Mr. GOLDIN. We have indicated the one area that could have a possibility of needing more money in Fiscal Year 1999 was the contingency against the Russian activities. We do not have the exact numbers yet, but when we do get those exact numbers, we will deliver them forward to OMB and discuss it.
It is their position that any additional resources that we need for solving these Russian contingency problems would come out of the existing NASA budget.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Now you wrote me on June 12th, and said that the Russian Space Agency was due to receive 800 million rubles in the second quarter of 1998. As of June 12th, they had only received about 117 million rubles, which is about $20 million. Do you have any indication of whether or not the balance has been paid to the RSA by the government?
Mr. GOLDIN. As of today, the balance has not been paid by the Russian government.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. What do you think the odds are that the balance will be paid within the next 7 days, which is the end of the second quarter?
Mr. GOLDIN. I no longer make speculations on what the Russians will do.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. That is probably because it's a certainty. Right?
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Mr. GOLDIN. I don't want to comment on that. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait until the month is out and see what they deliver.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. And if the month is out and they don't deliver anything, what is the Administration going to do about it?
Mr. GOLDIN. I could tell you what the NASA Administrator will do. We have to make a decision in July on whether to launch the first Interim Control Module. The ability of the Russians to perform on the Service Module, tasks that they have signed up to, to perform on a task to get the FGB ready for launch, to have the launch vehicle ready for the Service Module, will be the most important factors to us. We will watch what they do, not what they say and take appropriate action during July as we owe you a letter to tell you when we would launch the ICM.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. My time has expired. The gentleman from California, Mr. Brown.
Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Li, you raised some interesting points in your testimony. One that I hadn't devoted much thought to, specifically, the question of this required shielding of the Space Station from orbital debris, which you estimate could go as high as $5 billion. You do point out that this is a problem which applies to much more than just the Space Station.
Mr. Li. Absolutely, sir.
Mr. BROWN of California. It is a matter which we have been considering in general terms with an anti-asteroidal collision program of one sort or another. Asteroids are a little bigger than orbital debris, but the principle of detecting and doing something about them is the same.
Is it your view that we might be able to combine a program which would be of benefit to NASA and say the Defense Department or other civilian agencies, and possibly even combine it with an asteroidal detection program in such a way that this cost could be in some reasonable way divided amongst other agencies?
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Mr. Li. I think you are absolutely right on the mark, sir. The fact of the matter is, as this particular Committee has brought out several times, commercial space is going to actually take over a lot of the activities in the next few years. There are going to be a lot more vehicles up there that are commercially launched. As a result, they will benefit tremendously.
We only bring this up with regard to the Space Station because there was a requirement that was established by NASA on the size, but I have to agree with you that many people would benefit from this capability.
That said, it is obviously very difficult to be able to get international partners and commercial concerns to provide whatever funding is needed, a tax or whatever, I don't know exactly. I know we have had some attempts at that when we came up with the GPS system, the Global Positioning System, in terms of commercialization. Those are some of those issues. But I agree with you, sir.
Mr. BROWN of California. As a matter of fact, the explosion of the satellite vehicles is probably far greater than anyone anticipated as recently as even 3 or 5 years ago. It is something that astounds me. I like to think in astounding terms.
But one device might be a uniform policy of insuring all these vehicles and using the resources developed here to fund certain systems that would reduce the need for the insurance basically. I would like to consider that.
Mr. Goldin, just a point. I notice that—or maybe Mr. Chabrow would be better able to answer this. We have had some failure to meet cost goals from the major contractor, Boeing. I think you indicated Mr. Chabrow, that cost growth of about $80 million which is about 10 percent of their contract or something like that. Could you indicate just very briefly why they have that cost growth? What is the nature of it and is there any possibility that that will be brought under control?
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Mr. CHABROW. You know, it is going to get brought under control, I'm sure. How much it's going to get brought under control, I don't know. But right now they have missed the mark to de-staff. The latest cost report that I have seen, they are $80 million over once they got to the $600 million new cost mark. It would seem to me that their costs, as we had said, are probably going to be $800 million and more. NASA I know has reserves against that of $817. Again, I just don't see the end of that.
The current mark, they do exceed it because of problems they are having at Huntington Beach and a couple other areas. Their costs are going to exceed the $600 million.
You know, it's interesting to me when I see the, I am going to use this term spin, that was put on in the press that they still have $600 million as a result of the day that they said that they only had a $600 million overrun. They already had overrun $40 million. Now it's up to $80 million. Some of their subcontractors, such as Allied, sir, have capped their costs. So even though they have technology problems, some of the major subcontractors that have run into some technical problems have capped their costs up to $100 million.
So I just think that the $600 million is not enough. It is obviously not enough now. It will be upwards of $800 million.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Some of these figures are a little bit overwhelming, Mr. Chairman. I am just trying to grasp some of these figures. It's just a little bit overwhelming. The contradiction between Mr. Goldin and Mr. Chabrow seems to be a little overwhelming as well.
Mr. Goldin, I have always respected you and admired you. Frankly, today if I am hearing right from Mr. Chabrow, either you or this Administration is being totally irresponsible.
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Mr. Chabrow, is that—am I being too harsh on the Administration?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes. Yes. Well not on the Administration, but on Dan, yes. I have the highest respect for Dan.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I didn't blame this on Dan. You notice I said the Administration. I assume that Dan Goldin is trying to do the right thing and that being a good soldier, that he is taking the hit for somebody who made a decision above his level and told him to be here today saying what he is saying. But am I wrong in saying that if we believe what your report says, the policy of this Administration and what they have asked for this year is being irresponsible towards the success of this program?
Mr. CHABROW. I would not like to categorize it by using the word, but if you'll let me answer that.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, sure.
Mr. CHABROW. In a way. Somebody once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. I used to live in Florida 40 years ago. I remember hurricanes coming every now and then. The warnings were up, the storm warnings were there. People were going out and I was taping up my home, and I was making sure that everything was battened down. At that time, everybody helped each other. If I needed tape to tape up my glass to protect my home, it was done.
The warnings are up here. Russia is not able to deliver what they said. The warnings are there that they are not going to get costs. We need money for propulsion. We need money to mitigate against that risk. I do not see that money forthcoming from the Administration. Like you say, Dan is being asked to look inside his house. I don't think that's fair. I think that he should get the money.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Well let me—you don't buy Mr. Goldin's argument that they are coming up with newer ideas and technology? For example, the propulsion system you just used as an example, something that Dan said that they are going to have this new system with the Shuttle being able to elevate the Station. It will save money.
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Mr. CHABROW. That is an option. That is an option. I just picked one, but that is an option. There are three out there. I just picked the one that I think that we would be probably better off in the long run for.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Because you're suggesting that they need to be requesting to actually run this thing in a business-like way, $240 to $360 million for Fiscal Year 1999, above what they are requesting. Is that correct?
Mr. CHABROW. That is correct. That is correct.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Dan?
Mr. GOLDIN. I would like to respond to that. This is a very tough time. I fully appreciate what Mr. Chabrow has said. NASA has not been blessed with a lot of money since the day I arrived. I go back to conversations about what we could do and we couldn't do.
I do have a problem, Mr. Chabrow, with irresponsibility. I think you ought to think about that. I was told it was irresponsible to launch the Mars Pathfinder for a quarter of a billion dollars and that we would never do this audacious project. It's impossible. We know with certainty it can't be done. Well, the human being that told that to me had to wipe a lot of egg off his face with the Mars Pathfinder landed and said it happened.
Now we don't want to come back and ask for money that we don't need. When we heard the Chabrow report, I challenged the NASA scientists and engineers to think long and deep and creatively and to say this Nation has a deficit problem. This Nation has reduced the NASA budget year after year. We have not had the Administration or the Congress throw huge sums of money at NASA. So I have a certain level of skepticism within myself that we will ever see an additional $2 billion.
So I told our team, why don't we act like the American people expect us to act and dig down deep into our intellects and get smart. Under the leadership of Joe Rothenberg behind me, and Boeing, I am proud of them as a contractor, these folks got creative. What they are doing is looking at the possibility of three things. One is a standard. Buy two more Interim Control Modules. That will cost a lot of money.
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Second, see if we can take existing Shuttle hardware right off the production line so we don't have to have new drawings, new anything. We have long term experiments, no qual, and see if we can pack it together as a propulsion module. And by the way, Boeing, give it to us fixed price in 30 months. Tell us what it's going to take. Tell us the funding profile.
Jim Arbaugh, the fellow from Boeing is off working that. We don't have the numbers here. NASA in the past has given imprecise numbers, only to be embarrassed that it was a different set. So that is one path we are going down.
The second path came out of Houston, Tommy Holloway and George Abbey, about cross strapping the propulsion tanks so we could actually use the Shuttle to do propulsions. You take the equipment up and you do propulsion. Every time we do an OMDP we upgrade another Shuttle. Now if there is an emergency, we could use the early ones and take them up numerous times.
This is not an inconsequential approach to saving money. So long as I am Administrator, I am going to slip every nickel. As soon as we have this data, then we will come forward.
Joe Rothenberg initially estimated $110 million that he needed to get it on with the Russian activity. Now it is looking like it might be $45 to $60 million. So I don't want to give Joe Rothenberg a blank check and say, ''Joe, have $240 million. Go have at it. Go do it.'' I think we have got to be very, very tough and press the system. That is the approach we are taking.
If we have more problems and need for more money, I will make it clear to everyone who I report to that that money is necessary.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Dan.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
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The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Gordon.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just some really sort of elementary questions that I want to ask. Mr. Li, you are something of a tie breaker here so let me start with you.
You know, just to simplify this discussion, it seems to me that Mr. Chabrow was saying that whenever you have a project of this complexity, that things are going to happen and you are going to have to have some additional reserves for it in general. In the specific, you can look at the Russian situation and others and just say, this is more beyond just waiting for stuff to happen—this is just 90 percent going to happen. And to be smart, you've got to get ready for it.
Then, Mr. Goldin is saying, justifiably, we've done a good job. We're doing more with less and because we've done a good job, I'm optimistic we're going to continue to do a good job; that, maybe we've been undersold on some areas, but we've come forward. But, if something happens and we don't do as well as we would like, or as I said, as we have been, then we'll come to you and ask for money at that time.
Is that essentially what we've got here?
Mr. Li. Yes. I think that what the CAV Task Force is suggesting that, that insurance policy better be there because they see some warning signs that you may have——
Mr. GORDON. I don't have much time.
Mr. Chabrow—this could be real short—is that essentially what we've got here? Do you disagree with that analysis? I mean, that could be more articulate, but Mr. Chabrow, is that basically what we've got here?
Mr. CHABROW. That's true.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Goldin, is that basically the—okay. Now, let me just show some ignorance, and I'll go back to you, Mr. Li.
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I think Mr. Goldin is saying, yes, we don't have all that much money, and it would be irresponsible of me to take money from other projects and set out here in some kind of reserve fund if we're not going to need them. Now, once you have reserves, are they rolled over each year? So, if we had reserves this year and there weren't problems for the next couple of years, then do you lose those? What happens?
Mr. Li. No. The way that the program is configured, reserves are built-in on an annual basis. And as a result, some of the reserves that have been—for example, one of the problems that NASA has pointed out that has happened to them is that, had they been able to spend beyond what was allowed in terms of the cap that, they would have been able to perhaps, address some of these issues earlier. But they did not have that capability, because of not having enough money.
Mr. GORDON. Yes, but can you continue to roll these reserves if they're needed?
Mr. Li. Yes.
Mr. GORDON. So you don't lose them?
Mr. Li. No, absolutely not.
Mr. GORDON. Now the issue here for 3, 4, 5 years, whatever—within the program—as they're building it—but the issue I think, here, is a matter of judgment. What NASA is saying in essence is that, in their judgment, they want to be really sure before they come up with a solution.
Mr. Chabrow is saying that, I've seen enough—I think you better have that insurance policy in hand.
Mr. Goldin, do you want to add anything to that?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, I'd be pleased to, because reserves is a very complex subject. I might point out that part of the rolling over is a half billion dollars of un-costed carry-over from 1998 to 1999.
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This is one of the reasons that I am so incredibly reluctant to ask for money in 1999 because, a few months, I got the surprise because of the changing in schedules that tasks weren't done, and money is being rolled over. We are talking about tens of millions of dollars and with a half billion dollars worth of carry-over and $200 million in non-threatened reserves. Given what they have to do, I think they have the resources.
If we proceeded in a path which said, put $240 million in there, what we probably would have done is gone out and bought two more Interim Control Modules because that's what we knew about. But that might not be the lowest cost solution. And that might not be the best solution. So, what I would rather do is take the couple of months available to understand what we need, and then when we know what that cost is, ask specifically for it.
Because one of the problems we have at NASA is when people have too much reserves, we have this un-costed carry-over and then we get accused of not using unappropriated money.
Mr. GORDON. Excuse me, before the time runs out.
Mr. Chabrow, do you have any comment you want to make on that?
Mr. CHABROW. Yeah, I wanted to say, it's interesting that the $468 million carry-over that they had from one year to the next, is really for deferred work. That money will be spent. They're over-spending that money now. There's a reason why they're not pulling people off the job. So the un-costed carry-over, sir, has to do with work that is yet to be done because it's been pushed out. So, it's either pay me now, or else, pay me in another year.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Boehlert.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. Goldin, as the Committee knows, I am a big fan of yours and it's more than just the New York connection. I think you're an able, indeed, an exceptional administrator. And I think you're a visionary. I like you being where you are. But, as I look at your opening statement, it looks like Mary Poppins wrote it. I sometimes think that what we should do at the beginning of one of these sessions is acknowledge that 95, 96, 97 percent of what you do is good and noble and outstanding, and we should applaud it. And we should devote these hearings to the small percentage of issues that remain outstanding that cause real problems.
For example, I think there's been a total failure to acknowledge the likelihood of Russia not fulfilling its commitment. For example, I think we have problems in dealing with a crew return vehicle, and I want to discuss that a little bit. We've got to develop a propulsion capability. These are some of the things that we should concentrate on. So, let me ask them—one at a time—let's talk about the crew return vehicle.
That, as we developed it, you've got some technical developmental problems. Is that correct?
Mr. GOLDIN. I didn't hear the question.
Mr. BOEHLERT. The crew return vehicle, the development of that?
Mr. GOLDIN. We have an ongoing activity right now called, the X–38 development activity which is pre-development activity for the crew return vehicle. Yes, sir.
Mr. BOEHLERT. But, are you acknowledging that there are some technical and development problems?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes, of course.
Mr. BOEHLERT. All right, good. Do you feel they're well in-hand? That you're going to be able to resolve them? They're challenges more than serious problems? Or how would you characterize them?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Right now, I see two sets of problems. One set are developmental problems and they are minor. We've already had a drop-test, and it looks like it is going to work.
The concern that I have is in the requirements development and I wanted to make sure that the crew return vehicle is designed robust from a safety standpoint so that, in case it has to pull away from the Space Station, in the event you want to re-dock, it has that capacity. Or, if it pulls away from the Space Station and has to loiter for a number of hours, there's extra oxygen supply.
So, my concern is not so much in the development—that's going quite well—it's in specifying the requirements that will give us an appropriate safe vehicle. That's the second concern I have.
The third concern I have, is how much is it going to cost? We have built a prototype of the X–38 with $92 million that ultimately, will fly up to the Space Station. We have a new way of doing business. Now, some of the people in NASA think this is going to cost billions of dollars, and some of the people in NASA think it's going to cost a half billion dollars. We've got to figure out where, in that dynamic range, it is. Now, on the one hand we could say, well, give us a big amount of money and then, we're going to be safe. That is an approach.
Mr. BOEHLERT. We have a wide variation within the Agency.
Mr. GOLDIN. Okay, but the point is, we are systematically working away at these things and when we come up with the right numbers we will ask for the money and we will ask for the money——
Mr. BOEHLERT. Do you have a guesstimate of when that might be?
Mr. GOLDIN. In the Fiscal Year 2000 budget, by the end of this year we will have those numbers. We're driving along on that path to have it. Now, one approach would say, well, let's put in an extra $300 million. Ask for it; ice the money and then, we have it. And then I'm afraid we would have a vehicle that would cost too much.
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There's another approach which says, we have this government development team; we could invite the contractors to come in with us, work on the first prototype unit, and then ask for a fixed-price contract for the remaining four. Those are the alternate approaches we're looking at, and that's why I'm reluctant to up-front the answer——
Mr. BOEHLERT. Do you anticipate the need for additional flights for the crew return vehicle testing?
Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Mr. BOEHLERT. And, have you factored that into the cost?
Mr. GOLDIN. We have been talking to our international partners. Another concept we're trying to look at, is the dealing with OPM—Other People's Money. And we're trying to work with our international partners. There are a number of countries that are interested in working with us on the crew return vehicle because they feel they can convert it to a crew transfer vehicle. And, we're seeking some flight opportunities perhaps, on the Ariane or on the Japanese H2A vehicle.
Mr. BOEHLERT. When do you anticipate you might have some resolution to those discussions, something definitive to report?
Mr. GOLDIN. These are ongoing, probably over the next months.
Mr. BOEHLERT. All right. Let me ask you also about—Mr. Chabrow, the report says, ''it's more evident today than it was last fall, the U.S. propulsion capability should be developed.'' What are we doing there?
Mr. CHABROW. Are you asking me, sir?
Mr. BOEHLERT. No, no. I'm asking Mr. Goldin.
Mr. GOLDIN. Oh. Yes. We have three approaches: One, we know exactly what to do with this golden interim control module. We bought one of them already and that could be ready for launch by May of next year.
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The question is, should we buy two more of those or should we build a propulsion module built out of components from the Shuttle and have Boeing do it on a fixed-price basis? We've asked Boeing to give us a proposal for that; we expect that proposal in two months.
The third approach is to cross-strap the propellant lines on the Shuttle to give us an additional boost capacity. That assessment should be done in a few months.
We anticipate we will probably go ahead, at a minimum, with the cross-strapping and probably, if we get a good price from Boeing, proceed with a propulsion module. That data will be available in months.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. BOEHLERT. Thank you very much.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Roemer.
Mr. ROEMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goldin, I couldn't agree more with your earlier statement about how proud you were of Pathfinder. I'm proud of Pathfinder. But it seems to me that we have two NASAs. We have a NASA that is faster, cheaper, better; that did Pathfinder on budget. And then, we have a slow, bloated, and out-of-control NASA on the Space Station. We have to reconcile the two before the slow, bloated, and out-of-control Space Station part of NASA cannibalizes the rest of the good, worthwhile, and very admirable part of NASA.
I continue to hear my colleagues blame NASA and blame the Administration. I think some blame comes right back to this body—Congress—who needs to have the courage to oversee this program. We continue to draw the line in the sand, and tell NASA, don't go over $2.1 billion a year. And they kick sand in our face and say, well, no, we're going to go over it; see what you do. Then they say, well, we'll go to a cost of $17.4 billion. Now, don't go over that line in the sand, NASA. NASA goes over that line and they kick sand in our face, once again, and we come back to these hearings—month-after-month, year-after-year—and we're not getting any answers.
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Now, I want to ask some very, very quick questions and I would appreciate a yes or no answer. Mr. Li, are there answers—this hearing is called, ''The Administration's Plan to Fix the International Space Station''—are there some answers in the budget, fiscally, that will fix the Space Station? Yes or no?
Mr. Li. No.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Chabrow, are there some answers to fix the Space Station, fiscally, in this year's budget? Yes or no?
Mr. CHABROW. It's a tough question.
Mr. ROEMER. It is tough.
Mr. CHABROW. I won't answer that, yes or no. There are some in there, yes. There are some in there, yes, some—not all of them.
Mr. ROEMER. And your words as you testified said that, we don't have answers to mitigate the problem. What we have today is propagating more and more problems.
Mr. CHABROW. That's true. Some answers are there, and some aren't. That's the answer. It's not a clear yes or no.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Goldin, in your letter to our Chairman, Mr. Sensenbrenner, for the first time you acknowledge a host of problems. You acknowledge that the Russians are $340 million dollars short. You now say for the first time, NASA's plan does not contain sufficient reserves. You also say that the Space Station schedule is characterized as overly-optimistic. You go on to say, ''NASA will outline in subsequent correspondence with the Committee, when and what preferred course of actions determined with the Russians.'' And you go on to say, ''Counter-measures may be required by the United States to reduce the impact of further Russian funding shortfalls.''
But you do not outline any course of action, other than to say, we may outline something to this Committee in subsequent correspondence. We have a huge problem here. The Russians have no intention. They don't have the money to fulfill their obligation. What do you plan to do about this critical gap, where we can't really build this Space Station if the Russians don't come through with their money—and they're not—what are you going to do about it?
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Mr. GOLDIN. I just outlined it for Mr. Boehlert. I'll outline it once again.
We are looking at three approaches: One is to buy two more ICM's; another is to use Shuttle components and build a propulsion module—we're expecting a fixed-price proposal from the Boeing; and third, we're exploring modifying the Shuttle by cross-strapping the front and back propellant tanks to give us an orbit-raising capability.
Mr. ROEMER. And how much is all that going to cost?
Mr. GOLDIN. We don't have a number on that. We are months away from having that data. We think, it might be on the order of $45 to $60 million at the present time to execute that activity in Fiscal Year 1999, and this is why I'm reluctant to ask for $240 million in Fiscal Year 1999 until we know what that number is.
Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Goldin, I just continue to have huge problems with naming a hearing, ''How to Fix the International Space Station,'' when the fix continues to come back to more and more money, more and more cost overruns, more and more delays, and more and more problems for the other very, very good programs going on in NASA that are faster, cheaper, better.
Mr. GOLDIN. I object that we hurt any other NASA programs. The other NASA programs are in terrific shape and they are not being impacted by the Space Station, haven't been, and won't be.
Mr. ROEMER. Well, that's what you continue to say to this Committee, but for the first time, you've now acknowledged a host of five or six problems, and have not outlined sufficient answers to these problems fiscally or policy-wise for the Committee, other than to say, we'll let you know how much all this is going to cost after the next vote in Congress. Then, we'll let you know what the bill is going to be.
Mr. CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time is expired—none left. The gentleman from Florida, Dr. Weldon.
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Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank the Chairman.
Dan, we laid off about 600 people out at the space center on the Shuttle program back in February. And when I went out there to Kennedy Space Center and I talked to people out there, the general consensus was though, there were claims that it can all be done safely, the general consensus—at least, from the rank-and-file people who are out there turning the wrenches—is that, the reason it can be done safely is we're not flying that often. And there is just a general feeling that this Russian thing has ''come home to roost—big time'' in the space coast where I'm from, that people are literally losing their jobs.
Now, I know space isn't a jobs program and the people at Kennedy Space Center work there because they love the space program; they want to be part of it. But nonetheless, it gets very tough to defend.
And, I also sit on the Banking Committee and we're having these ongoing debates and discussions about giving the IMF more money because, not only the Japanese and the Asians appear to be going into the tank economically, but evidently, Russia is going from bad to worse, is what we're being told; that they may need significant economic assistance in the months and years ahead. What is it going to take to get from the Administration, an acknowledgement, that this is not working out and that you need to pursue one of these plans, and that they're going to put the resources behind making this happen?
Mr. GOLDIN. We intend to present to the Administration what it's going to cost to go through these three approaches I just outlined. We intend to have discussions with them and then identify those resources.
I might point out that the issue with the layovers at Cape Kennedy has nothing to do with the Russians, but it has a lot to do with the commitment of the Boeing Company, the Lockheed Company, and the USA Company to do what they said they're going to do, and that is to get higher levels of efficiency and improve the safety and quality of the Shuttle.
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Go back in history. The corporation said it's time for corporate America to take over the operations of the Shuttle. I would love to have a situation where my peers and industry lay awake nights worrying about the lives of the astronauts and each and every step in the process and not having to come back to the U.S. Government and have us tell them where the safety problems are.
This is a question of: Is USA going to step up or not? We're working the process. That's what it has to do, the commitment of the USA Company. I am going to hold them personally and corporately accountable to demonstrate to us that they're darn-tootin serious about the safety of that system and the care and feeding of their employees. That's the issue with the 600 lay-offs. It is not Russia.
But Russia is a major problem for the International Space Station and that's where we have an obligation to take it on.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Well Dan, you can say that, but I'm telling you that the people that I represent have a different opinion on this issue and that it's just real hard to keep slashing and cutting the workforce and trying to get the sufficiency out of it if you're going to be operating the Shuttle eight times a year, seven times a year as was originally planned. And then, when you're dropping back to four missions a year, five missions a year, because the Russians are delaying their funding year-in-year-out, that's essentially making it impossible to continue to operate safely. Perception is reality. It amazes me that we can't get the Administration to acknowledge that this is not working out. While the Administration on one hand is saying they need $17.5 billion more going to IMF for all these future economic lay-offs, but yet we remain tied to the Russians in this incredibly high-tech enterprise and month-in month-out, they're not getting the job done.
You just admitted they're behind and granted, you don't want to comment for another 7 days until the end of the month, but we all know what's going to happen. What is it going to take? When are Al Gore and Bill Clinton going to stand up and say, this is not working out. As far as I'm concerned I'm not angry at you. I think you guys are doing a good job, frankly. I mean, your bosses are letting you down big-time. I'm just incredibly disappointed in this, and I hope we can get a commitment from them in the months ahead that we're going to do something finally, and quit engaging in this charade.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for conducting this hearing.
I'm pleased that I had the opportunity to travel to Russia with our Chairman to talk with the Russians concerning the Space Station. I think I came to understand many of the problems they're encountering. I think it's called dealing with a new democracy. I don't know what we can do to affect that in this country, and I was not convinced that we were looking at the end of the problem with Russia.
My question is: What are we expecting from Japan? Their economy is in a sag as well. Is everybody else contributing their aspect, their taking care of their responsibilities relating to the international project?
Mr. GOLDIN. At the present time, our international partners appear to be delivering the hardware when it's supposed to. The Italians are going to ship the Mini Pressurized Logistics Module July 24th, and in October, the Canadians are going to ship the arm that we need. The Japanese schedule seems to be on-track. So each of our other partners seems to be performing. In fact, the Brazilians are now delivering equipment bilaterally to the United States. They seem to be on-track for their part of the activity.
Ms. JOHNSON. Has there been a discussion with the other international partners about sharing the cost on behalf of Russia?
Mr. GOLDIN. At the last meeting we had of the heads of agencies, the Russians invited the international partners to buy time on board the Service Module with the Russian-allocated astronaut time and operating time. The request was made openly and directly to each of the partners. I endorsed that concept. I encouraged our partners to acknowledge that this was an international activity and it required everybody contributing. And they said they'd go back to their home countries and establish if they could buy some astronaut time.
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We also encouraged the Russians to talk to other countries that are interested in sending astronauts up to the Service Modules in the slots that they would have astronauts so that they could get a revenue stream. So this would be one approach where other countries could pick-up some of the costs and gets back to the concept I was talking about before. Another approach is dealing with other people's money, in addition to the U.S. taxpayers.
Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. It is clear in talking with the Russians that they are very interested and went on to document their activity in the past as related to space research. And I don't guess the President, nor the Vice President, can determine when they will be ready to pay their part or to pitch up. Have you had any indication of that?
Mr. GOLDIN. The Russians have made a fundamental decision to prioritize what they're doing at our request. They have loads of things they were doing and they're making the delivery of the FGB the first launch a number one priority. The completion of the testing on the Service Module and its launch a number one priority, and to buy long lead parts for the Soyuz and the Progress vehicles is a second priority. Everything else is such a low priority, they may not accomplish anything else because we say that's our number one goal.
That allows them to operate not with $340 million, but $160 million in Fiscal Year 1999, so that reduces the load. Will they get that money? I don't know. But this prioritization is the right way of doing things and only do what's essential to the critical elements that we need.
The other thing that they're doing that has yet to be validated—the Chairman asked me to check into it—the Russians are selling frequency spectrum and they expect to have the resources from that within months. And we're trying to understand which spectrums are up for sale so we could have our corporations take a look at it and give us a sense whether there's a value to it. Once again, the Russians are attempting to operate with other people's money as another approach to getting the monies they need. That information will be available within months.
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Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. What is the status of Boeing and its problem?
Mr. GOLDIN. Boeing has done a masterful job of restructuring its space team. They have brought in a whole new fresh team of people. They have done a very sound job.
We anticipated that their estimate of $600 million was too low, and that is why we put in an estimate of $817 million to give us some flexibility because we didn't think they'd staff down as fast as they could which is one of the concerns that the CAV team had. We have nothing but very proactive support from Boeing. They are doing some very creative things.
One of the risk mitigation things they're doing is putting in a $30 million integration facility where we can get a chance to work problems early, and the software-hardware integration and it will allow us to do on-orbit testing. They have really pulled up the schedule on the laboratory and shown a real commitment to make things happen. So, right now, I give Boeing a very, very high report card and look for more positive reaction from——
Mr. CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ehlers.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me preface my comments, Mr. Goldin by expressing my respect and admiration for you. You're one of the better, if not the best, Administrators that we deal with on this Committee. You've been put in a very difficult task. As I see it, you're at the point of being charged to trying to convert a total disaster into a manageable disaster. It's a very difficult circumstance and we're here to try to help you.
I commented the last time you appeared before us, that there comes a time when you have to cut-and-run, and I think we're getting very close to that with respect to the Russian involvement here. You and the United States are being put in an impossible situation which has to be resolved very quickly. It's going to be a tough decision, but I suspect you're going to have to make that one.
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What we've ended up with—and some of this is in response to Mr. Roemer's comments—we've ended up with a fine kettle of fish and the fish are starting to smell. And the question is what to do about it. As a scientist, I always felt that the scientific merit of this proposal per dollars spent is fairly low; that you could do a lot more interesting things per dollar with other projects you have or with other science efforts in this Nation.
But I also recognize this—I think everyone in Congress does—there are other reasons for continuing our effort in the Space Station. Mr. Roemer's just looking at the scientific merit. We recognize that there are some public relations and public interest issues. These involve also some international relations issues in terms of economic aid to the Soviets, keeping some highly-skilled scientists employed in the field so we can benefit from their expertise and so forth.
I think the important thing is to learn what we can from the history of how this developed. As the Chairman has put it in some of the speeches I've heard him give, this is a good example of how to start a project wrong and have it end up wrong. I think it's primarily because the decisions, initially, were not made by you and not made by a NASA Administrator, but were made at the highest levels of the government in conversations with leaders of the Soviet Union at that time, and then later on, Russia. And they simply did not pin things down, did not have concrete agreements on have to proceed.
What we almost have is a Vietnamization of the Space Station where we have a situation that's a terrible situation, but we almost have to continue because it will get worse if we don't. So, on that basis, I'm going to continue supporting you. I think most members here, are.
What I think we have to do is agree to work together in this very carefully on this difficult situation and come up with good results. I really do think we have to continue and—even though as a scientist, I said I have some questions about the scientific merit per dollars spent—I personally will just pledge, I am willing to do everything possible to help you, and NASA, in your efforts to reach a good decision, a good resolution of the problem, and I think, most of here feel that way. But we have to be kept fully informed, fully involved, and in particular, have to try to correct the problems that the Chairman has pointed out repeatedly—not just today, but at earlier times too—to resolve this issue. It's a bit of a sermon and I hope you don't mind it, but I'd like to give you a minute to respond if we have a minute left.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. A minute and 17 seconds, specifically.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you.
Mr. GOLDIN. I think you've raised some very, very important issues, and I don't want to diminish how difficult this problem looks. The approach that I think we need to take is one of an orderly approach, a systematic approach and establish what we need and when we understand what we need, ask for it. And I would have loved to come forward and say, we're going to go forward with approach A, B, or C to back-up the Russian activity, but the data was incomplete and immature, and as a result, I felt it was inappropriate to present. But I will take to heart, the words you said because I think those were very well-intentioned words and good advice.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentlemen for being here today. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit a statement for the record, if I may.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lampson follows:]
"The Official Committee record contains additional material here."
Mr. LAMPSON. There's several reasons why we want to build an International Space Station, obviously, science, health, international relations and well beyond. But because we're embarking into an area that we have no way of knowing where we're going, we can't guess exactly what we're going to be spending our money and certainly, we're not hitting our mark. Because of that, we've got some people who feel, rightly or wrongly, that perhaps, the Space Station should not be continued and that it should be killed as a project.
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So, I'd like for all of you to comment on a couple of things for me, if you would. Have you given thought to what kind of costs would be involved if we shut this project down and did not complete the Station, financially and otherwise? And, would any of you recommend that that happen? Can you expound on that general idea for me, and whoever would like to go first——
Mr. CHABROW. I'll go first and say that the answer is no and no. I mean that's easy. It's like when you go up to the airline and they ask has anybody looked at your bag—those are easy ones. No and no.
I want to add one other thing, the term, and I'm not going to take your time, I understand that, but it would be a bad thing for anybody to throw terms around such as ''irresponsible.'' I have the deepest respect for Dan, as all of you, I'm sure. Irresponsibly funded, maybe, but not because of him. And the Russian Space Agency themselves, are just going to deal with this for——
The Russian Space Agency, themselves, they were supposed to get $340 million. They were also supposed to get $240 million supplemental. Instead, they were asked to cut 25 percent. They increased—the person who is like Dan, over there—increased his own costs by some $60 million to $160 million. So the RSA, themselves, 40 percent of the total money that RSA had is now for ISS. They want this to be done. It's the government funding that's causing the problem.
And all we were asking Dan was to maybe expose some of those costs that maybe it would cost us now. And he's got three options and I understand why he wants to wait to see what those three are. I just wanted to make the point that the scientists, as you say, the technical people that were there, the Space Agencies, both of them work very well; it's the other problem that we have. And I just wanted to add that to what you just said.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you.
Mr. Goldin.
Mr. GOLDIN. I think that if we did cancel the Space Station, I would say absolutely no. If you'd asked me that question before I was even asked to be NASA Administrator, I would have said yes. But I would have said yes, out of ignorance. I have learned about this program and I feel that this is the future of our space program. Because if we cancel the Space Station program, we will cancel human space flight. There is no place for the Shuttle to go on. For the Shuttle to spend another 17 years going up and down, 7 days to 14 days makes absolutely no sense.
So what this Nation would be faced with is saying, we are not going to open the space frontier beyond Earth orbit for exploration. This is part of our country. This is part of our culture. This is part of our heritage and while we do that exploration, we also will do some terrific science. I think it would be devastating to do it.
I also believe, and I will say again, that the folks have done a terrific job to-date and again, I want to provide perspective at the sake of looking like someone who's overly optimistic. This is a tough program. It is ugly. It is difficult, but it is not irresponsibly managed. It is managed in an outstanding way and I'm proud of everyone who works on it. We are dealing with 16 countries and Russia is in big deep trouble and we need to have some alternatives to keep the program going. And we will have those alternatives, but we don't want to throw money at those alternatives. We are going to do it right.
I also want to come back to what I said in the opening statement. It's not inconsequential that we turn back $27 billion of the federal treasury. And everyone in the Congress and the Administration and the America public was very happy to receive those monies, a large portion of which came out of Human Space Flight. We now have a problem measured in the billions of dollars and I think those billions of dollars far outweigh the loss of the future of exploration in this country.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and as most of us here I obviously, support the Station and all we're attempting to do I think, is to give you some constructive advice. So, as many here, I have great admiration for the job that you've done. And I think that you're working under very difficult circumstances. It would be much easier if you could operate this program unilaterally without partners. Those of us who have been in business, understand sometimes how it is to have partners, both good and bad.
On the schedule, the CAV report anticipated a 10–36 month delay in completion of the International Space Station. NASA's response says, it thinks it can hold the schedule erosion down to one year. Yet, the assembly sequence adopted at the end of last month only projects a 1-month delay in assembly complete from December 2003 to January 2004. Does this mean we can expect additional revisions of the assembly sequence that will move the assembly complete date out to January 2005?
Mr. GOLDIN. The answer to that is probably yes. And the reason we took the strategy that we did was, if we slip the schedule up-front now, we're guaranteed to have a 1-year schedule slip. We got the people together, the contractors, our NASA people, our international partners, and said, would you rather keep the heat on, manage it tight, get the hardware done, and if we have a problem then, face up to the slip? Or do we want to let it all out?
It is my experience in management that once you give away all the goodies, give away $2 billion, it is gone and not recoverable. Everyone thinks they own it. I would like the man behind me here, Joe Rothenberg, to feel the heat and the embarrassment of having to show up in my office and say, Dan, we've slipped another month or two, rather than giving him a year, spreading it out and making it a little too easy and then having him come back and say, gee, I need another year or two.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Would the gentleman yield? I'll make you an offer you can't refuse. We can share the heat and Mr. Rothenberg can come here and explain it as well.
[Laughter.]
Mr. GOLDIN. It's my job and I'm here to answer the questions. I will take the heat for my people.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chabrow, do you have any comment about that?
Mr. CHABROW. Well, I think Joe better get ready to have an asbestos suit.
[Laughter.]
Because I think that there will be a slip. I know that Dan's doing whatever a prudent Director would do. I've been in this field for 45 years, and I know that what Dan says is true—if you give it away now, it'll get spent. So what he is doing is exercising what every normal, prudent program chief would do and that is to keep it tight. But, I'm going to tell you something, we'll stand by the CAV report and say, there will be a slip.
Mr. CALVERT. The General Accounting Office reports that Russia has not been able to sustain the flight rate it needs to support the Space Station. GAO also cites a January 1998 NASA study of personnel reductions which found that NASA cannot currently sustain the 9–10 launches a year it will need to assemble to support the Space Station unless additional efficiencies are found in the Shuttle program. How credible does GAO find these expectations of an additional efficiency since NASA has already cut $1 billion out of the annual Shuttle budget in the last few years?
Mr. Li. That's an issue, sir, that we're going to pursue in some follow-on work. We are going to be looking at how NASA is projecting those efficiencies to see whether or not USA has those plans in place and whether or not they will be possible. But, right now, it's premature for me to be able to comment on that.
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Mr. CALVERT. Well, is it likely that additional schedule slips because of inability to support the flight rate?
Mr. Li. That is a possibility. As I have in my statement and as I mentioned in my verbal statement, that is one area of concern that I do have; in that, if those efficiencies do not materialize that that will materialize it and result into a schedule slippage. Yes.
Mr. CALVERT. NASA's response to the CAV report indicates that the Administration will not address additional funding requirements until Fiscal Year 2000. Does the delay in taking risk mitigation actions increase the risk of future cost growth?
Mr. GOLDIN. We will not delay any necessary risk mitigation activity—that is a ground rule. And if we do have them, we will communicate them to the Administration. And we indicated one of the areas we were concerned about was risk mitigation to protect against the Russians. We told that to the Administration and they said, when we understand what that number is to come and work with them. But their present position is, those monies will have to come out of other parts of the NASA budget.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Capps.
Ms. CAPPS. Thank you, Mr. Sensenbrenner. I want to thank you for this testifying here. For me, as a new member of this Committee, this is tremendously considered for me, a learning experience.
I really appreciated the testimony of Congressman Ehlers and I want to second what I feel to be his position. I find myself intrigued by a couple of different areas. One, the international relationship that is part of this Space Station and I would like a brief comment from the three of you.
The schedule slips, and granted, we started out with not the right kind of background for having this funding, but given where we are now, is there a point at which we should say, no more? And, how much of this relates to the international relationships of other people's money particularly, Russia? How much of this can we ever expect to control with a project of this kind of scope, which is I believe, unprecedented or at least, unparalleled?
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A comment maybe, from each of you.
Mr. Li. I'll take a stab while they're thinking about their answer. Because I was going to respond to Mr. Lampson at one point. Your question on what would some of the possibilities, what would happen.
I look at it from a very pragmatic standpoint. There are going to be some repercussions in terms of not only international relations because our international partners—and we're not just talking about Russian, in terms of 16 countries are going to be building the Station—they will be putting up without Russia, about $8–$9 billion of their own. There are a lot of activities going on right now, in terms of the Europeans building their module, the Japanese building their module, and I think that if something were to happen in terms of us not going forward, there would be a lot of not only loss of prestige—if I can use that word—but also from in terms of a financial standpoint.
I recall some instances where we have had cancellations of military programs, like the A–12 navy fighter. That amount of money has not been significant, that we would have to pay in terms of a termination of a contract. So there are financial international repercussions that go beyond a lot of the dollars and cents that were just taking here.
Ms. CAPPS. I guess, in response to that then, what I feel I need is the right kind of advice so that we can be responsible within our overall budget concerns that you can still have confidence to go forward and yet, not continue this coming back with reports of schedule delays and overruns. Is that an impossible task?
Mr. GOLDIN. This is a very complex program. Even if the Russians were not involved, this is a complex program. It's audacious to never pre-integrate the whole system and then, do it up in space. The requirements for the system are unbelievable. The communications, the logistics, are very, very tough.
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But this is what the new world is all about. And in the 21st Century, major corporations, large multi-nationals are going to be faced with these kinds of situations. Let me put this in a business sense so I can explain it to you.
If I was in private industry and I had a supplier that had a problem that was one-tenth of a percent of the total program—I think that's what we're talking about—or one percent of the total program, I would go take the money, pay it, and say here, go fix it. I'll see you in court at the end. But because this is an open political process, we are in a democracy, we can't treat this like you would do in a normal business world.
Therein lies one of the significant constraints that we have. We carry out national policy as it is. In addition to that, our other partners are putting up $8 to $9 billion—I think it's closer to $9—$4.5 billion of which have been spent. If we cancel this program, where the U.S. was looked to leadership in international space, we will be a second rate power and I think there will be repercussions for decades on-end at the end of that activity.
Ms. CAPPS. Did you have anything to add?
Mr. CHABROW. Yeah. I would just like to add, I'll answer the first thing that you asked. Yeah, I myself, I think, all of us here would like to see once-and-for-all everybody put those costs on the plate so people don't have to come back here again. How much is under Dan's control? I don't know. But once we put that on the plate, somebody should say, this is the envelope—now keep it within that, and that's it. I feel so far, the CAV feels so far, that still hasn't been done and we look downstream. I understand what Dan said because he has to take a look at which option he's going to do.
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As far as one of the partners such as Russia totally pulling out, just let me say this, that we're stuck right now with them for the next year anyway. Because Progresses have to be used. Because anything that we do, any option that Dan is going to have, whether it be building another ICM were doing, a new prop thing, there's a 30-month lead time. So, if we're going to launch everything and get it up there on time, those things have to be done now. People have to make up their minds are they going to fund these things now. So, even though we don't see the costs now, there is a time frame here, and the time is now for us to take a look, because these are lead items.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Brady.
Mr. BRADY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I support the Space Station and I am proud of the space exploration on the background of my T.V. set, Mr. Goldin. I fully support the exploration of space and what you've accomplished and I would echo the comments our Chairman and others here who implore you to fix, to address the Russian problem before it sinks us all.
But I have a simpler question. In the last month or so since the budget process has begun, and then today in earnest, we'll begin asking our colleagues to support us and support the Space Station and I know last year I gave my colleagues a certain set of numbers and talked to them about the benefits of a Space Station. And this year, we'll begin again.
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Knowing that the cost of Station assembly complete has risen from $17.4 billion to a 50–50 estimate, under Mr. Chabrow's task force of nearing $25 billion, the time line has slipped from June 2002 to somewhere between the end of 2004, the end of 2006, I want to tell our colleagues that Dan Goldin assures us, with 90 percent certainty, that the Space Station will cost this much to build and it will be completed, up-and-running by this date. Can you fill in those two real important blanks for us?
Mr. GOLDIN. I could never guarantee anything with assuredness because of what the space frontier is like. One of the items that Mr. Chabrow pointed out in his report was we don't know what problems we're going to run into when we get onto orbit. We're going to try and minimize them, but that's one of the caveats.
I don't know how to put a number on it, but I would certainly have a comfort that we have an outstanding chance of getting it up on time and being under that dollar value. That would be the way I would phrase it. I don't know how to put a number on it.
Mr. BRADY. But, you would say the cost would be closer to the $25 billion than the $21 billion?
Mr. GOLDIN. I never give up, and I'm not willing to say that the cost will be there. I'm willing to say the cost could be as high as that, but I'm not willing to sit here and say that the cost is going to be $24.7 billion. Because the very moment I make that statement, all of the financial people and all the institutions working on this program are going to find a way to spend that money. I'm reluctant to do that. I know human nature. I've been in business. So, I'm willing to say I believe that's about as much as it would cost. But, I'm also going to say I want us to draw it as low to $21.7 as can be. This is the position that I take.
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Mr. BRADY. So the answer is that the Space Station, the cost to build it will be $23 billion?
Mr. GOLDIN. As close to $21.7 as is humanly possible.
Mr. BRADY. And not to show disrespect, but you may be the only one in the room who believes that is going to happen, at least, according to the testimony that we have. All I want to do is be able to look other members in the face and tell them this is a realistic, honest estimate of what it's going to cost to build this thing. And it will be up and running pretty close to this date. And you are dealing with a complex issue, but for those who support this Station, we need to be able to give some realistic cost-estimates to our colleagues.
Mr. GOLDIN. I'd like to satisfy what you're saying. The way I'd come back to it is, I don't believe that it will exceed $25 billion, but I'm not ready, willing or able to say it's going to be that high. I'd like to see how we could creatively work on this thing to keep the cost down.
Mr. BRADY. And the date it will be up and running, your best guess, realistic date?
Mr. GOLDIN. It's halfway between where we are now and a 2-year slip that Mr. Chabrow has pointed out.
Mr. BRADY. So, somewhere in the Year 2005?
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Mr. GOLDIN. Yes.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Lee.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say, I appreciate your very clear testimony and responses to our questions.
This international space program is a partnership. In partnerships, partners have responsibilities and participate in all levels of decisionmaking. But if a partner can't come through with their part of the deal for whatever reason and if we step up to the plate in meeting our partners financial obligations, what happens to the partner? Or stating it another way, does Russia give up some of their input and some of their influence in the overall mission of the Space Station? Or put another way, do they become, in a way, subservient to the United States in all aspects of the program?
For example, here in America one of the arguments for welfare reform is that, providing public assistance prevents people from becoming self-sufficient and forces dependency on government assistance. So, in this effort, what happens to our collaborative efforts if the United States, of course, is overwhelmingly in the driver's seat when it comes to Russia if we pick up the majority of the costs? Do we end up with a level of influence that really negates our collaborative efforts and our goal of collaboration with the Russians in this very effort?
Mr. GOLDIN. The Russians have signed-up to perform a very specific set of tasks. And in return for performing those very specific set of tasks, they have a number of opportunities for utilizing that Space Station. As they diminish the number of tasks they perform, their ability to utilize the Space Station will diminish proportionately. At some point in time, it comes to a point where they're not an equal partner if they give too little. And then, they could run the risk of becoming a subservient partner or no partner at all.
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Ms. LEE. At what point does that occur or do we know yet, if we do step up to the plate in this instance?
Mr. GOLDIN. If they deliver the Service Module, launch the FGB, and provide the propulsion activities, and then, at some point downstream in the future they deliver the solar power platform and their research labs, they will still be a full partner, but with diminished capacity.
If they don't deliver the Service Module; if they don't provide the propulsion activities over a significant period of time, they run the risk of falling out and being a real member. However, the Space Station is designed so that at some point in the future, if they did want to come back they could then deliver all the things they said and restructure the arrangement. That is a hope that they will deliver the service module, and the FGB and the propellant that we need.
The one thing that we are very seriously considering doing because we are concerned about the funding level, is realistically, we think, in another year or two to protect ourselves against the gap we might have before we have the crew return vehicle is that, we may have to buy some extra Soyuz vehicles. That's the only specific element that I could think of that we are considering buying right now.
Ms. LEE. Mr. Chabrow, could you respond to that, please?
Mr. CHABROW. Yes, I was going to say, it's like when you owe the bank $10,000 the bank tells you what to do. When you owe the bank $10 million you tell the bank what to do. Right now, Russia is in the seat where the service, that SM is so close to being done, the FGB is ready for launch, that there is just no way that we can say, well, that's it, and let's say, drop the partnership. That would, in essence cost us anywhere from $2–$3 billion if that were to occur—very, very foolish move.
So, when you take a look at where we are now, I think that those two things and the one thing that Dan said, and you get Progresses early on, we're fine. After that, I think we have to take a look at the ''marriage'' that we have, if you will, with them and also, protect ourselves.
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Ms. LEE. Mr. Li?
Mr. Li. I guess I'm just as much of an optimist at times as Mr. Goldin because I do hope that the partnership is successful. What would happen in terms of our financial commitment would really go up in terms of a taxpayer if we had to make up for it.
But I think that one of the things that I do, perhaps, have a comment on is that we're focusing on some of the near-term issues with regards to Russia in terms of the Service Module and the FGB. Further down the road, we do depend on them for a lot of supply flights. And they are supplying that and that's going to be a substantial amount of money.
I would hope that we could build this relationship early on and that we would not then, have any problems with these future endeavors.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. English.
Mr. ENGLISH. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, my apologies to the panel because other obligations kept me away from the earlier part of the testimony. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Can I ask a couple of questions that I hope aren't too redundant.
Mr. Goldin, are you confident of your ability to estimate the cost of protecting the Station from space debris and of your ability to develop the technology to track and catalog small objects? And on that point, do you feel that these costs are institutional because they're common to other parts of the program and should not necessarily be considered part of the cost of developing the Station?
Mr. GOLDIN. First, let me deal with the tracking and space debris, which I think is a national issue, not just limited to the Space Station but a requirement for launch vehicles required for spacecraft operating in low-earth orbit.
We have a partnership council with the Unified Space Command where we are very, very aggressively working this, not just for civil space and defense space, but for commercial space. As the first step in that process we're exploring the possibility of coming down from a tracking diameter of 10 centimeters down to 5. That would be a very great step forward.
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On the other end, we're looking at improving our capability of withstanding pieces of debris 1 centimeter in diameter to perhaps, get up to 2 centimeters. So now, we've narrowed the gap from 1 to 10, to 2 to 5. That, we believe, is something that we ought to be aggressively looking at and we are.
We've made some significant breakthroughs in the debris protection equipment and we're thinking about the possibility of installing shields that are in critical places in the Space Station. We also will continue to explore how we can get to not just observe, but to track these pieces of debris, because if you can't track them, you can't get an early warning system. And that's where the problem comes up that was pointed out before. If you try and track down to 1 centimeter, that is a very, very tough job. And that, I think, is going to be further out. But a 1 centimeter particle for a spacecraft that's unprotected, a commercial spacecraft, could be devastating.
So, I look upon that as a national activity and not unique to the Space Station and something that we must work on.
Mr. ENGLISH. And do you feel with time, that you're going to be able to—how soon, should I say, are you going to be able to get your arms around the cost of protecting the Station from space debris?
Mr. GOLDIN. Well, we have a basic approach right now that meets minimal, acceptable standards. Now, it's a question of how much better we could make it, that is, approach to safety. We think we have a safe Station, but we want to make it safer. So we want to step up at the lower end from 1–2 centimeters and at the higher end from 10 down to 5. That's where we're focusing on right now and I don't believe we have any specific time estimates, but for the record I will give you a response.
I don't recollect the number in my head.
Mr. ENGLISH. Very good. Would any of the other panelists care to comment on this?
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I guess my only other question—we have focused and with good reason on Russia's capability of meeting its obligations as a program partner, I wonder if you have any observations, Mr. Goldin, about any of the other program partners and their ability and their commitment so far to follow-through and meet their obligations? Specifically, Russia is not the only program partner to have severe financial problems. Japan, obviously, is financially overall a much stronger nation, but they're going through a very difficult time. Do you feel that the other program partners, ultimately, are going to be able to fulfill their commitments?
Mr. GOLDIN. I'll go through them, one at a time. The Canadians, I think, are really on-track and we're very, very comfortable with what they're doing. By the way, we had a crisis with the Canadians in 1994 with their change of government. They've recovered from that.
The Italians are going to deliver the Mini Pressurized Logistics Module on July 24th. The bilateral relationship with Italy is going well. The people in ESA are moving out very, very assertively and we believe they will have their Ariane transfer vehicle and they will have their Columbus Orbital Facility delivered in time.
And the Japanese, in spite of the crisis so far, our people are telling us the hardware is coming together; they're building it; they're on focus and so far, so good.
Mr. ENGLISH. Yes, sir?
Mr. CHABROW. I want to add to that first part. I wanted to maybe add to what you said, Allen. And that is hope, we hope that the Progress vehicles are going to be able to give the adequate supply downstream. Right now, I can't deal with hope. We have to deal with what is, and what is, is they do not have the money for spares, long lead or to fund those items that you just said. So, we have to take a proactive stance right now—not, a reactive stance. A proactive stance and say, what will we do when that does not occur, because it's not going to occur.
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Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement that I'd like to submit for the record.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. Without objection.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the gentlemen for their appearance here and frankly, tried to recount for the record some of the points that I think are extremely important.
First of all, I'd like to ask the question: How can we go back? How we can turn the clock back when this is the country that took the lead in both space exploration, space research, and space leadership?
I would think that it would be a crisis to turn the clock back and as a member of this Committee, I hope that our challenge is to be advocates, recognizing the diversity on this Committee, but to be advocates for continuation—successful continuation of a Space Station. And I would think, Dan, that your challenge of the leadership role that this country plays has to be listened to.
But it begs to question as well that I hear-tell, we're going to have some difficult days ahead in this next appropriations process. We need to be serious and realistic about those who believe that the momentum to oppose and eliminate the Space Station is not gathering. Hearing the troubles with the Russians mounting, I think we do have to ask the hard questions and you've got to give us some of the hard answers.
It is extremely important to note that Russia has a commitment. But the difficulty is, of course, that they have a tax structure that may not support monetarily, where we need to go. At the same time, I think we should contrast the $8–$9 billion that our other partners give us. With that in mind, I have two concerns that I'd like to have your comment on.
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First of all, I think you're right to say that you want to give something to the Administration so that they can respond; that, before you ask for money you want to develop a plan. I don't like the present plan of dipping into other accounts to help the Space Station. I think we have to have a plan that solidly speaks to the needs of the Space Station, in contrast and in complement, to the Human Space Flight. So, I'd like you to respond to that.
Then, I'd appreciate a response to Mr. Chabrow's recommendation of a specific organization and management structure with the responsibility for systems and engineering, how will that be accomplished, and Dan, what you believe that can do for the program and whether that program is feasible?
The other one is, of course, I've always asked the question about risk-management mitigating the opportunities, and I believe, your letter to the Chairman says that the budget plan that you now have does not contain sufficient reserves in the ISS program to provide coverage for all perspective technical and scheduled risk. Those are questions that will be asked in debate on the Floor of theHouse. And I'd appreciate both your response to that, how we can compensate for that, what you're doing about it, and in fact, as well, Mr. Li to answer that.
So, if you would, gentlemen, those two questions about the establishment of the organization and then, the risk factor.
Mr. GOLDIN. First, with regards to added funds, we will identify what those funds are; establish—if we can operate with those funds within our existing reserves—establish with the Administration where we might find those fund within the NASA budget; and, seek their support to do the right thing.
With regard to systems organization—system engineering organization—we took to heart the comments of the CAV and we're taking a look at the model that NASA utilized on the Viking program and see if the lessons learned from Viking can more clearly address the issues that the panel had pointed out to us. And we hope to be able to report back to the panel what we have found on that subject. And I'm optimistic that the Viking model is going to be a good model to satisfy the risk concerns that the panel had.
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With regards to dollars for risk-management we have identified, in our response, a number of areas where we're taking steps to avoid risk, things that we are doing to avoid risk. We will continue that process and continue to scrub and have that data available when we make our fiscal submit for the 2000 budget process.
Mr. Li. In terms of organization as the sustaining engineering issue, I don't believe it's so much an organization as much as making sure that the people that are going to be transitioning over from development over to operations have the skills and ability to be able to do that work. From reading the response that NASA has I feel encouraged that they have recognized that as a problem.
In terms of the risk-management issue, I believe that as NASA has indicated that, risk-management is really a judgment issue that those people that are more conservative or are don't want to have as much risk, will spend the money. As NASA has indicated they can spend the money.
The issue here—and today it's really come to the forefront—the Administrator is saying that he's really ''between a rock and a hard place,'' in terms of the cost issue. And that, he trying to maneuver in that particular environment and trying to make sure that he addresses those risks. I think the issue here, is that the risks that Mr. Chabrow has identified, are things that are really worrisome. And I believe that in the next few months, as they come up with their 2000 budget, I hope they recognize those.
Chairman SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
I would like to thank the witnesses for their patience and for their very insightful testimony which has been very helpful in identifying the problems and giving this Committee information as to what the solutions are. I would hope that the President would respond to the letter which Mr. Brown and I have sent to him today, as an invitation to work together to try to bring the Space Station program on track. Because with a couple of notable exceptions, the members of this Committee are firmly committed to seeing the Space Station through to completion and having it operate as the scientific platform that we hope it will be.
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I said in my speeches and press interviews all along that Russia's problems are centered on the government. The government is not fulfilling its financial commitments to the Russian Space Agency, and that the RSA personnel led by Yuri Koptev and the contractors, when they are financed adequately, do superb work. I'm awfully afraid that if the President does not accept the invitation that Mr. Brown and I have given in the letter as well as what both of us said at the last hearing, the United States, we're going to be in the same situation where the government's the problem—not NASA, and not the contractors, but the government's the problem—in not addressing the issues that are at hand.
I do agree with you, Mr. Goldin, that if you give folks more money they will spend it. It's like, if you build it they will come. But on the other hand, I want to reiterate my concern that the standard OMB line of ''take it out of the Shuttle and take it out of the human space flight account'' is worn out. There is no more water in that well without having serious, adverse consequences to the non-Station activity that NASA does so well.
And that's the message I want to give to the public; that, within the next month, I hope that the Administration will be a constructive player in dealing with a solution to this problem. Their answers to-date have not been adequate. I don't think that this Committee believes that they're adequate on a bipartisan basis. If there is one message that comes out of this hearing it's, let's get the solution wrapped-up in a way that is responsible, then, we can have the last hearing on this subject, hopefully, in a long, long time.
But if the Administration doesn't come up with a solution, then I'm afraid that we're going to be back here on a kind of regular basis to see where we go as a result of muddling along.
So, with those happy words, we will see a lot of you the first week in August.
This hearing is adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the Committee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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