Segment 2 Of 2 Previous Hearing Segment(1)
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NASA's X–33 PROGRAM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1999
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Committee on Science,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met at 2 p.m. in room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. This hearing of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee is called to order.
On July 2nd of 1996 I sat outside NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and listened to Vice President Gore announce the winner of NASA's all-important X–33 Project. He did it by lifting up a box—I remember this so well—lifting up a box and unveiling a large model of Lockheed Martin's lifting body concept.
I walked right up to Dan Goldin after that and told him that I accepted his decision and would do whatever I could to support the project, even though obviously two other competitors were based in or near my District.
Well I remain committed to doing what I can to ensure X–33's success. I have spoken out repeatedly for the project and for Lockheed Martin's team and will continue to do so.
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With that said, I don't believe NASA has done enough to support cheap access to Space. We need to remember that our real goal is not a successful X–33 program, or even the development of SSTO technology, our real goal is to slash the high cost of getting into Space.
As most people know, since I first came to Congress I have championed investing in Space transportation technology.
Back in 1989, I worked with Congressman George Brown and Dave McCurdy to support the National Aerospace Plane. Then, in the early 1990s, I worked with colleagues like John Murtha, Norm Minetta, Joe Skeen, to promote the DCX, which was being developed by the Defense Department. But when NASA took over the responsibility for pushing Reusable Launch Vehicle technology, its focus was on finding a way to replace the Space Shuttle as cheaply as possible, rather than making Space transportation as cheap as possible.
Of course the X–33 has already paid dividends by forcing the Shuttle Program to improve itself and to lower costs and improve performance, and certainly the X–33 has moved our country forward in terms of reusable rocket technology.
The key challenge is finishing the vehicle and completing an aggressive flight test program that lies ahead, and of course I wish Lockheed Martin and NASA the best of possible fortune in this endeavor.
Yet, in my view the Administration made a mistake in hoping NASA and our industry would develop a commercial Shuttle replacement simply by funding one experimental demonstrator.
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Instead of build a little and test a little and flyoffs with competing vehicles, we put all of our cheap-access-to-Space eggs into one fragile technology basket.
If you go back and read the Committee's hearing record and the legislative reports over the past five years, you will see that we were concerned about inadequate funding and redundancy in competition, and also about the idea of giving one large company a billion dollars thinking somehow that that company would be willing to invest five or six other billion dollars.
So in hindsight, it is obvious that we should not expect some old-style industrial policy—because I think that is what this seems to be—with the Government pushing just one specific brand of launch technology into the marketplace, we could not expect that to deliver on what is the paramount goal of cheap access to Space.
The answer in finding cheap access to Space, or at least dramatically reducing the cost, is to do what the marketplace is best at. That is, having many competitors and finding a way and developing a system that we are approaching the problem from very different approaches within the marketplace trying to get as much private sector investment as possible, and not trying to discourage some people in the marketplace because Government seems to be all in favor of one concept.
Now with that said, I am looking forward to the testimony today and finding out where the program stands, and would open up for Mr. Bart Gordon for his side of the aisle. And of course he has been playing a very constructive role in this, and I appreciate that, and I want to say this before we go on.
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This is a good example of the type of bipartanship that we have had. Because the Administration did select a program that I was not pushing for, but I have tried to be as constructive as I possibly can on the project.
Bart Gordon and the Democrats, while we have been in charge of this Committee, have tried to play as constructive a role as they could play on this and other programs.
So I appreciate that type of bipartisanship and I think it reflects the best in our country. So thank you very much.
Go right ahead.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon to our witnesses. I would like to welcome you all here today.
As the Chairman has noted, the subject of our oversight today is NASA's X–33 Program. NASA is spending a billion dollars to bring the X–33 to fruition, and industry is also bringing several hundred millions of dollars to the program.
In that respect, the X–33 program is the largest cooperative program with industry that NASA has underway. I think that such Government-industry cost-sharing arrangements have much to offer to the taxpayer if they are carried out efficiently.
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I want to hear from GAO and the other witnesses about what is working and what, if anything, is not working in the X–33 Cooperative Agreement.
And, are there any lessons learned for future programs?
Based on earlier subcommittee hearings, it is clear that the X–33 Program has some pretty significant R&D challenges to overcome if it is to be successful. And, as might be expected in an R&D effort as ambitious as X–33, there have been technical and cost problems over the last year.
NASA has discussed those problems in earlier hearings, and the recent GAO Report has also highlighted them. Such news is never enjoyable. But what this subcommittee needs to know is whether NASA and its industry partners have worked through these problems successfully, and whether there are any other problems looming ahead.
Finally, GAO's recent Report stressed the importance of NASA establishing a clear path from the X–33 Program to any decision on developing an operational reusable launch vehicle.
I would like to hear NASA's response to GAO's finding and how NASA intends to use results of the X–33 Program.
Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today and look forward to your testimony.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
Without objection, the opening statements of other Members of Congress and members of this subcommittee, will be made part of the written record.
[No response.]
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The opening statement of Mr. Dave Weldon and others follow, including subcommittee inserts:]
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. The Chair requests unanimous consent for the authority to recess this hearing at any point.
[No response.]
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[No response.]
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I also ask unanimous consent to insert at the appropriate place in the hearing record a background memorandum prepared by the Majority Staff for this hearing.
[No response.]
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
Today we are fortunate to have three good friends of this subcommittee, and three friends of the chairman as well, I might add, here to testify.
But even though you are my good buddies, we have got to put you under oath. So if you would stand, we will swear you in.
Please raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. Li. I do.
Mr. RISING. Yes, sir.
Mr. PAYTON. Yes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right, you may be seated.
The Reporter shall note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
Before we begin, I would just like to remind all of you that, and as you have been here before you understand, if you could summarize your testimony to about five minutes it will give us a chance to get on to questions and answers, and we would appreciate that very much.
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First up is my good friend, former Colonel—is it now ''Mister''? Or do we say ''Colonel''? You know, they called my Dad Colonel when he retired for all of his life, but it is Mister or Colonel Gary Payton, NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Aero-Space Technology.
I see you have brought something with you to show us today, and why don't you go right ahead and then we will proceed with the other witnesses.
TESTIMONY OF GARY E. PAYTON, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF AERO-SPACE TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. PAYTON. Well good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to talk about the X–33 Program today.
Based on your letter of invitation, I would like to replay some of the conditions at the start of the X–33 Program.
Prior to X–33, NASA had not flown an experimental vehicle with Space applications for two decades. The lifting bodies of the early 1970s and mid-1970s was the last vehicle that NASA had flown.
Also, Government launch costs for both NASA and the Department of Defense were exorbitant because we were flying 1970s designs with 1960s technology.
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Our commercial launch industry had gone from market dominance to less than one-third of market capture in the international marketplace.
In fact, one foreign provider had gone through four generations of commercial launch design while our designs stagnated. We needed to play catch-up.
We needed to push technology on a broad front. And we needed to fly that technology to prove it in the relevant environment.
X–33 is our instrument for doing that, and we have been successful in advancing a large number of technologies. From the start we knew that we needed to push lightweight, strong, composite structures.
This thrust tube [holding up an example] that I hold in my hand can support the weight of two 18-wheel tractor trailers.
We needed to push rugged thermal protection systems, the skin of the vehicle. [Indicating] Yes. That is how much force it can withstand.
In addition to lightweight structures and lightweight tanks, we needed to push rugged thermal protection systems. Like this metallic panel that will cover the bottom of the X–33, it will have to withstand the heat of re-entry and even fly through weather like today's so that weather is not a constraint to our launch operation, but also stand the ground environment, what I call the ''wrench test'' [indicating].
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The X–33 Team is delivering these technologies and, while we have discovered some problems during manufacture and assembly of two particular subsystems, and the program will consume more time than we originally predicted, Congress will not have to appropriate one extra dollar for that extra time.
In your letter of invitation you asked me to talk about alternative approaches to the architecture of a technology program. We know that competition is good, but flight is mandatory.
And with that as an overlay, there are several choices on how to architect a demonstration program of this nature.
One potential is to follow the model that the Air Force used on the F–22 and the F–23 where you have flying prototypes that prove actual performance. They also prove turnaround, maintenance costs, operations costs both on the ground and in flight.
That clearly is the lowest-risk sort of technology demonstration program, but it is also the most expensive. In the days of the F–22/F–23, competition in the Air Force Program Office had approximately $2 billion a year.
For a Space-launch equivalent, each of two or more competitors would cost in the vicinity of $4 to $5 billion for such a full-scale prototype competition.
Backing out from that, a subscale sub-orbital flyoff would demonstrate technology traceability so that once we prove the technologies in flight you could scale that knowledge up to an orbital-sized vehicle, but nonetheless you would retain your knowledge on turnaround costs, OPS efficiencies, maintenance costs.
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In today's dollars, each of those sorts of competitors would be approximately $2 billion requiring five years to deliver.
Another option is called Leader-Follower, where you have multiple design teams with alternative vehicle designs in the competition, but you select the most promising one to give it the inside track to flight test. But you maintain the other designs, the other alternative technologies, on a slower pace, perhaps two, perhaps three years behind the team that is on the inside track.
That leads to competition. If the preferred, most promising concept falls off the track for any reason, you have the other teams and the other designs ready to go two or three years later.
Again, each of those flight test vehicles would cost about $2 billion each. Depending on how many teams you have, that would determine your total budget. But because of the phasing of the program, that would be spread over seven to eight years instead of four or five.
You could choose the Flight Demonstrator with alternative technologies proven only on the ground. Again, the most promising concept would be on a pace-to-fly. You would demonstrate reusable technologies with that vehicle. You would add knowledge about operations costs and turnaround costs, but you would need to maintain at the component level tanks, engines, structures. You would need to maintain alternative designs, but only on ground tests.
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And in this scenario, if your most promising concept again fell off the track, it would take probably three or four years to gin up the alternative design, the alternative suite of technologies to pick up the slack on the program.
The fifth alternative is a ground-only technology program. And while that basically you could spend a few hundred million dollars a year on, since that sort of ground-only technology program honestly never leads to proving those subsystems in the relevant environment in flight, we rejected that option.
Thus, amongst all the choices we had amongst us in front of us at the start of the X–33 Program, faced with the time constraint that we were marching to, and faced with the projected budget that was laid out for us, we had to make difficult choices.
The X–33 Program did have competition in it. The Skunk Works won that competition. I have absolutely no question that this team has performed superbly. They have constrained costs in those parts of the program that are not on the critical path.
They have been superb managers of the entire system from engine to nose and, while there are other architectures for technology demonstration program with the constraints we were faced with at the start of the program this has ended up being the best we could deliver.
I am eager to answer your questions.
[The complete statement of Mr. Payton follows:]
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Colonel Payton.
Next we have Jerry Rising, the President and CEO of newly formed Lockheed Martin Company's VentureStar. Before this, Jerry was the Vice President of Reusable Launch Vehicles for Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works Company and, as the original X–33 Industry Program Manager he has lots to say so, Jerry, you may proceed.
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TESTIMONY OF JERRY RISING, VICE PRESIDENT, REUSABLE LAUNCH VEHICLES, LOCKHEED MARTIN SKUNK WORKS
Mr. RISING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee:
It is my pleasure to be here to talk about the X–33 program. As you know, NASA and industry have a partnership to develop cutting-edge technologies that will lead to routine, low-cost access to Space.
We intend to accomplish the X–33 program in just four years and with a fixed Government investment.
Before focusing on the X–33 specifically, I would like to reflect for a moment on the state of America's Space business. Notwithstanding the telecommunications market's successes, during the past year the market has been affected by technical failures, by business failures such as iridium and ICO Global Communications, and by policy failures as identified in the COTS Report.
These events only reinforce the necessity for bold initiatives like X–33 to achieve our quest for highly reliable low-cost Space transportation and a recapturing of U.S. launch leadership.
This should continue to be a national priority for our country. Over the past few years the United States has developed and demonstrated the key technologies that can make a Space plane a reality.
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Now is the time to take bold steps to capitalize on the state of this technology. That in essence is what the X–33 program is all about. The guiding principle of the X–33 program has always been to reduce the technical and operational risks sufficiently to embark on a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch system.
Our intent has been to validate the performance of key subsystems such as engines and the metallic thermal protection system, and perhaps most importantly the operational efficiency of the vehicle enabling turnaround within one short week for reflight.
The X–33 flight test program will achieve all the technical and operational objectives we have established during the demonstration program.
X programs are both challenging and exciting. They are characterized by short schedules and cutting-edge technology. They are driven to minimize the risks of the operational system development.
The premise of X programs is simple. It is much less costly learning on an experimental vehicle than in the development phase of a fully operational program.
X programs also need to be flexible enough to accommodate the technical difficulties associated with development programs, and allow for the adjustment of workloads to stay within funding limits.
Roughly a year ago we announced a schedule slip to accommodate manufacturing difficulties with the composite hydrogen tanks and the aerospike engine.
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Both hydrogen tanks are now completely built, and the first one is undergoing qualification testing at Marshall Space Flight Center.
The first aerospike engine has been delivered to Stennis Space Center and will begin hot firings this month. We are doing everything we can to ensure that we meet the schedule and begin flight tests next summer.
There is some concern raised about the X–33 vehicle flying at a speed a little under Mach 14 rather than at NASA's originally requested speed of Mach 15. Essentially flying lower and slower will produce higher thermal stresses than originally planned which will exceed the original Mach 15 trajectory simulating full re-entry conditions.
This will permit us to achieve all our technical objectives on this metallic thermal protection system, which is a critical element to validating the maintainability of the vehicle.
The NASA X–33 Program budget was $1.12 billion in July of 1996, and the NASA Program Budget has remained constant. Subsequently, an additional $75 million was invested by Lockheed Martin to cover technical problems and schedule delays.
Since these additional funds were expended within the limits of Lockheed Martin's Independent Research and Development Funding, it does not represent additional cost to the Government.
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Consequently, the Lockheed Martin team has increased its expenditure on the program to cover the technical problems and schedule delays and has not imposed additional cost on the U.S. Government.
Mr. Chairman, you asked us to comment on lessons learned. When we embarked on the X–33 program, both Skunk Works and NASA considered it not just an experiment in technology but an experiment in management and an experiment in business.
Now essentially 80% through the program, we believe the flexibility of this partnership has allowed us to work through the technical challenges we expected and encountered, allocated the appropriate expertise and resources to address them, and move on as quickly as we have.
In summary, the X–33 vehicle fabrication is almost complete. The landing gear, wiring harnesses, avionics box, the reaction control system, feed lines, sensors for monitoring the performance of the vehicle, are all in place.
We have made significant progress on the VentureStar design as well and are currently testing in the wind tunnel to validate its performance.
Based on this progress, we believe that the overall program has been very effective in not only developing the technologies for the next-generation launch system, but also at showing the value and effectiveness of a Government-industry partnership in which both parties share risk and work toward a common goal.
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I would just like to conclude by expressing my appreciation for the support Congress has shown for the X–33 Program.
Thank you.
[The complete statement of Mr. Rising follows:]
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
Our next witness is someone we have called in as sort of a troubleshooter so many times, and I want to express my deep appreciation to Al Li. He has done a great job for this Committee and sometimes he's had to come in the middle of some very controversial issues and take some heat, and he did so with dignity and integrity and I appreciate that.
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Recently we did ask him to come in. Both Mr. Gordon and myself asked him to look at the X–33 project. The GAO has completed a report on the project, and there are some good things in it and some bad things in it, and we would like Mr. Lee to tell us about that.
Thank you very much. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ALLEN LI, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION, UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY JERRY HURLEY AND JEFF WEBSTER
Mr. Li. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gordon, and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to summarize the results of the report that the Chairman just mentioned. With me today are Jerry Hurley and Jeff Webster who are part of my NASA Team.
I need not tell the Subcommittee that the stakes are high. Clearly, as the Chairman stated, in an environment of constrained budgets, one of NASA's highest priorities is to find ways to significantly reduce launch costs.
One of several options NASA is considering is to eventually phase out its Space Shuttle fleet and purchase launches on the VentureStar.
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I will make four points this afternoon:
Point one, although NASA and Lockheed Martin anticipate that the feasibility of advanced technologies and techniques will be demonstrated, some original cost schedule and performance objectives will not be met.
Problems encountered in developing technologies have led to cost increases, a 16-month delay of the first flight, and a reduction in the test flight speed objective.
The issue regarding cost is worth expanding on. Under the Cooperative Agreement between NASA and Lockheed Martin, NASA's contribution is fixed at $912.4 million. The current estimate of Lockheed Martin's and its industry partners contributions is $286.6 million. An additional industry contribution of about $75 million is in the process of being formalized.
Because NASA's contribution to the agreement is fixed, Lockheed Martin must deal with any cost increases. However, the Government will eventually bear part of such cost increases. Indeed, Lockheed Martin and its partners can recover part of the X–33 investment as independent research and development costs.
Factoring in this recovery as well as costs for NASA's civil service personnel which were not included in NASA's X–33 Program budget, and costs of program office operations, the estimated Government share is about $1.29 billion.
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Point two. NASA's oversight of the X–33 Program reflects the use of the Cooperative Agreement. Under the Agreement, NASA monitors and verifies the Program's progress and makes payments to Lockheed Martin when milestones are met.
NASA also provides personnel and facilities at its field centers to perform technical tasks for the Program under Lockheed Martin's direction.
Mr. Gordon, you would probably be interested in knowing that AEDC also does some work, did some work in terms of the Wind Tunnel for the X–33.
In traditional R&D contracts, information about contractor performance is gained mostly after the fact. In many of those cases, NASA personnel perform an extensive review of whether the contractor completed assigned tasks in accordance with contract specifications.
In contrast, under the X–33 cooperative agreement, NASA and industry personnel worked side by side. This ongoing involvement in the work enables NASA to obtain real time and detailed insight into Program activities.
Point three. Several issues will need to be evaluated before NASA decides to use VentureStar to support the International Space Station.
First, the results of the X–33 Program must provide sufficient information for NASA to determine that risks have been adequately reduced and that continuation of activities leading to the agency's use of VentureStar is warranted.
Second, even though VentureStars are intended to be commercially owned and operated, Government financial incentives may be needed. This could be in the form of loan guarantees or tax credits.
Third, the amount NASA would have to pay in additional development and production costs to enable VentureStar to carry people would need to be determined.
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Lockheed Martin is considering either using a module carried in VentureStar's cargo bay or the crew return vehicle being developed for the Space Station.
Fourth, possible disruptions through science operations would need to be considered. VentureStar's smaller cargo capacity will likely require more flights than the Shuttle. As a result, there will be additional docking activities.
This could reduce the amount of stable time available for some science operations.
My fourth and final point, the design and management of the X–33 Program reflect the guidelines of the National Transportation Policy. However, to the extent that the program will achieve a reduction envisioned by that policy is unclear at this time.
In that regard, we believe that NASA needs to establish a linkage between the X–33 Program and its objective of reducing the costs of access to Space.
NASA concurred with our recommendation to develop performance targets for the X–33 Program that (1) established a clear path leading from the X–33 flight test vehicle to an operational RLV; and (2) show progress toward meeting the agency's objective of significantly reducing costs.
In conclusion, in the next few months as the X–33 takes to the air, NASA should have more information on several key technologies and on the feasibility of quick turnaround operations.
While this will be an important step, key evaluations need to be completed before NASA can implement any strategy aimed at significantly reducing launch costs.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my verbal statement. I would be happy to answer any questions at this time.
[The complete statement of Mr. Li follows:]
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, very much.
I guess the first question, and it just comes straight from the last part of your testimony, Mr. Li, is to your finding that we just don't have anything that is going to guarantee us that the money that has been spent will result in achieving the goal of dramatically lowering the costs of getting into Space?
Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Li. What I am saying is, up to now if you were to ask me are we going to achieve that particular goal, I would have to say that obviously since it has not flown yet and all indications are that they have no big problems, however my issue is that I cannot tell you that those launch costs are going to be reduced, which is the major objective.
And the reason why we say that is we feel that the performance objective, at least established in response to the Results Act, was only one in which they're saying we think that success will be determined by the flight of the X–33. There was nothing leading up to that.
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We believe there needs to be some intermediate measures of performance by which you can get to that point, and that is what we were saying.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right.
Mr. Rising, go right to it, Jerry. There's the challenge.
Mr. RISING. Well I agree that much rides on flying the X–33. NASA has cleverly designed payment milestones for the X–33 flight test, so it is mandatory for us to turn the vehicle around in a week on two occasions, and in two days on one occasion, to demonstrate the operability of the system.
So needless to say, we are focused on achieving those payment milestones during the X–33 flight program.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well what about different technologies? I think Mr. Li is suggesting that there be things between now and that flight when you can test the turnaround and things such as that that would be indicative of whether or not you were achieving your goal of something that was actually not only just going to fly and have turnaround, but to get it to fly and be not quite so expensive as the Shuttle.
Mr. RISING. I agree, and we have done a lot of that already. The Metallic Thermal Protection System has already been qualification tested in wind tunnels. We actually flew it on an F–16. It has been exposed to loads testing, environmental testing, vibration testing, thermal testing, and has passed all those tests. So in my belief, we have already gone through those wickets to get ready for flight.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And I take it from what you're saying then, that those are cheaper than what would be on the Shuttle?
Mr. RISING. The Metallic Thermal Protection System——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes.
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Mr. RISING [continuing]. Has four bolts. You can take it off, put it back on, in just a matter of three, four minutes. Actually our testing shows that only under extreme circumstances would you even need to replace a panel.
So this is a very robust thermal protection system compared to anything that's in use today.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. So going for Mr. Li's point, which is where are these guideposts we have to show that we're going in the right direction, you would say the Thermal Protection System, for example, is a new technology that will cost less than what the thermal protection system on the Shuttle costs, and thus that will show that we are going to be spending less money at least in this one area? Is that what you're saying?
Mr. RISING. That's correct.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, Mr. Payton, you're shaking your head yes?
Mr. PAYTON. Yes, sir. The real fundamental question that the GAO brought up was that we had, up until recently, we had focused our GPRA Performance Objectives on the X–33 Flight Test Program itself.
What the GAO has suggested, and we totally agree, is that we include in next January's submission to Congress in FY 2001 submission, that we include not only flight test metrics, but also how that flight test program leads to very efficient operational reusable launch vehicle. And that is what we will include in the next submission.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well we are going to be looking very closely at that, because of course that is the central purpose. And as I stated in the beginning, we are not just looking for a successful X–33 flight. I mean, so what? The X–33 flight takes off and it's a magnificent view of this new type of vehicle taking off and landing, and then we find out that it costs just about as much as the old system? Well then we will have wasted billions of dollars.
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So it is not success of the X–33. Success of the X–33 is going to be based only on whether or not, number one, it safely flies of course, but number two whether we have brought down that expense.
You are confident, I take it, that we are going to achieve a major reduction? And you might just give us a guesstimate now of what that reduction will be, and then I will turn this over to Mr. Gordon.
Mr. RISING. Do you want me to——
Mr. PAYTON. Let me try it, partner.
Mr. RISING. Okay.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I know I sort of slipped that in on you there.
Mr. PAYTON. The way we got to X–33——
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right.
Mr. PAYTON [continuing]. Was to design an efficient, reusable launcher. We started with an operational design and devolved the requisite technologies that we had to demonstrate in flight.
For instance, the Rugged Thermal Protection System, we've talked a lot about that. Additionally, the X–33 has no hydraulic system on board. Anybody who's maintained their hydraulics for their brakes on their car knows that it's a pretty labor-intensive subsystem.
We designed out that subsystem on the operational bird and replaced it with electromechanical actuators. The X–33 is testing electromechanical actuators to prove that we can do away with hydraulics.
So when we started with the operational system, we drove down the costs on the operational system before we ever designed the X–33. And so that's why the X–33 is an absolutely crucial stepping stone toward an operational vehicle.
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And if we are successful in this stepping stone, we have a huge confidence that the operational vehicle will be immensely cheaper because we have designed out all of the high-intensity, labor-intense subsystems.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So what you're saying is VentureStar is going to be much cheaper——
Mr. RISING. Yes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. Per flight?
Mr. RISING. Yes.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And you are still confident? You are both very confident of that?
Mr. PAYTON. Well I might just piggyback on that just a little bit to say that X–33 has a requirement to do the operational turnaround with fewer than 50 people, and in less than a week.
The model for VentureStar is to do that with fewer than 300 people in less than a week.
So it is basically a gas-and-go concept which is very inexpensive to operate.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. We will let the Ranking Member have his chance now.
Mr. Gordon. Thank you.
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Li, I am interested in learning more about this cooperative agreement between NASA and industry. In general, I think that there can be positive aspects of that in that it saves taxpayers dollars, and it also helps to prioritize. That is, that if the industry is not willing to put up some money, then you wonder do we really need to do this? But this is a program that is about ten times larger than any other cooperative agreement I understand that NASA has done.
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So let me start by just asking you any thoughts you have as to what has been learned from this agreement, and what is good, and how do we need to make it better in the future?
Mr. Li. Mr. Gordon, you are absolutely right. This is a very unique use of the cooperative agreement. In researching what NASA has this year on the books in terms of what it uses cooperative agreements for, this is by far the largest one.
The next one that comes to mind is the agreement that NASA has with Boeing on the X–37. That one has a value of about $80-something million. So I mean you are talking a big difference between $900-something-million and $80-something-million.
The use of cooperative agreements, Mr. Gordon, is one which probably has to fit the needs of both the agency and of the country itself in the type of research that we're looking for.
Some of the reasons why a cooperative agreement might be used instead of like a contract, under a normal contract that NASA would have with Lockheed, for example, they would in essence be acquiring something. They would be acquiring services, or they would be acquiring a vehicle.
In this particular case under the cooperative agreement, it enables NASA to be able to provide not only the substantial financial aspect of it, but also to be included as a partner in terms of working with Lockheed Martin.
So from that standpoint, if there is a requirement to be able to—if there is a public good, then a cooperative agreement would be more applicable than just a contract.
If you had a contract in this particular case, and I will let Gary talk about this more, the issue is that they really feel that going with a cooperative agreement has saved them some money in terms of not having to pay for the profit that Lockheed Martin would have been privy to had there been a contract.
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In terms of a lessons learned, and you asked this point about is there something about the cooperative agreement that we can learn from, I think this being so unique and so new and so big, it's really hard to establish right now, but just from where I stand I think there are some issues with regards to the management that, in terms of a positive that we've learned, I think from a cooperative agreement perspective, yes, they've been trying to work side by side but I think there have been instances where NASA has stepped up to the plate. They have seen some situations where they feel that management of Lockheed Martin perhaps could have been a little bit more aggressive.
One of those we mentioned in the report is on Systems Integration. They told them that. They withheld some payments. Lockheed Martin took notice and they made some changes.
So I think those are some of the positive aspects of what they have done.
Other than that, right now I would have to say that it is so unique that it is very hard to be able to establish—
Mr. GORDON. Well I hope you can continue to follow that and help us to better understand it.
What about those that would criticize the agreement by saying that it is a subsidy to a particular company or more to the detriment of others, and that takes out that bit of competition and makes it impossible for someone else to get into this type of endeavor?
Mr. Li. The use of the cooperative agreement was not one that was done in one single phase. As Gary was saying, the first phase involved competition amongst three vendors, and Lockheed Martin was selected after that first phase.
It is true that there is nothing to have probably stopped NASA from conducting one in which more than one vendor was in Phase II. What has stopped them, as Mr. Payton has said, are the dollars. They just didn't have the money in the budget to be able to extend two vendors in terms of a neck-down, what we call a neck-down in procurement.
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Would the risks have been reduced with two? In my experience in looking at weapons systems, the longer you carry a competition between two, the more they sharpen their pencils. That is true. But that is in a procurement when you are acquiring something.
In this particular case we are talking about a research project. So they are not analogous. But I wanted to be able to at least explain to you some of the things that have been done in the weapons area.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you.
Not to take too much time, but Mr. Payton if you could maybe quickly tell me, hopefully everything is going to go well, but if there is a problem and you lose the X–33 vehicle during the test flights, what is the backup?
Mr. PAYTON. We looked at this seriously early in the X–33 program, a second tail number. A second tail number would have cost us in the vicinity of $300 to $360 million more.
We also realized that if we had what I call a ''cookie cutter'' second tail number, an identical clone of the first vehicle, that in a broad-push technology program like this something could happen to the first vehicle that would cause it to crash, run off the end of the runway or something like that, that same flaw would be embedded in the second vehicle because we designed them at the same time, we built them at the same time, it would not have really reduced the risk of the program.
So that dissuaded us. That, plus the $300-and-some million dissuaded us from going to a second tail number.
What happens during the flight test program, how we respond, how we react to the loss of the vehicle during the flight test program, depends on when it occurs. If we lose the vehicle on the 14th flight and the technical objectives have been demonstrated, we probably would not go in and rebuild the vehicle.
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If we lose it earlier in the flight test program, or even we could lose it in theory due to a problem not related to the flight test, if we do lose it earlier than toward the end of the program, we would have to sit down, analyze the progress we've made, progress we've made toward the technical content of the program, and what still remains to, what technology risk reduction is still on our plate to get to the point where full-scale development could start.
It would have to be a shared decision between us and our team mates to figure out how to respond to that loss of the flight test article.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Gordon.
We now have Mr. Calvert, who is of course chairman of his own subcommittee, but also I might add was a small businessman before he came to Congress so he knows all about how to watch out for budgets and oversee things such as this.
Mr. Calvert, why don't you go right ahead.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rising, it seems like some of the recent press articles on the GAO report have mischaracterized the flight test data and technical hurdle as new news, when actually you informed us almost a year ago of these very same issues.
It is unfortunate the way the press has played this but, you know, making other slips and hurdles, this isn't the case. Could you comment on flight test schedule and technical hurdles, other type of hurdles you may have encountered?
Mr. RISING. I would be happy to. Thank you very much.
We encountered our problems with the liquid hydrogen tanks last December, and the engine development program a month before that, and actually announced our flight delay in January of this year.
Since that time, we have solved our problems with the tanks. We are actually in qualification test on the engines and holding to the schedule that we established in January of this year.
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Mr. CALVERT. Carrying on about the money issue, Lockheed Martin and your team mates are contributing their own money to the X–33. How much has industry contributed to date on the X–33?
Mr. RISING. The industry contribution has been $287 million. I think Allen said $286.6 in his testimony, and I round off a little bit.
Mr. CALVERT. That is a significant amount of money.
Mr. RISING. The other thing I would like to point out, though, is we waived profit and overhead on all cooperative agreements.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Payton, since the DCX first flew, a whole bunch of commercial companies have been started to pursue their own RLOV concepts.
How will the X–33 program benefit those companies? And what, if anything, else is NASA doing to try to help them compete?
Mr. PAYTON. The X–33 as a technology program could provide the knowledge base of component technologies that those entrepreneur designers could inject into their vehicles when they deemed the time appropriate.
Additionally, we have recently within the last several weeks broadened our exchange with the entrepreneur community, some of which want no influence from NASA at all, some of which want NASA to be a customer once their vehicles are proven, and others of which are beginning to appreciate the component technology development that NASA can provide.
So that the working relationship is changing with the entrepreneurs, but nonetheless the technologies that we push in our X vehicles, 33, 34, and 37, could be available to them with the proper intellectual property rights agreements and such.
Mr. CALVERT. While we're talking, with regard to the IRAD issue that is being raised in the GAO report—this is for Mr. Payton—is Lockheed Martin getting any special treatment in terms of reimbursement?
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Mr. PAYTON. I believe every contract with, a cost-reimbursement contract with the Federal Government, has clauses in it that allow independent research and development. The Federal Acquisition Regulations allow that and demand that industry control how that IRAD money is expended.
We cannot dictate to Lockheed Martin or Allied Signal or anybody else that they must put money into X–33. It is their choice. They could choose to put that money into better radars, into better air-to-air missiles, into better airplanes.
Those industry teams, those industry participants in the team have chosen to put those IRAD resources into the X–33 Program because it pays off for their future.
Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate it.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Lampson from Texas, a very active member of this committee and tries to be very diligent about every one of the projects we are overseeing, so you may proceed, Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I was wanting to get an understanding of timing and development of technology as it might relate to what we are doing with the Space Shuttle Program.
There is no question that this has to come. It is going to come. It will be there. Something like it is going to be there at some point in time.
Are we learning enough right now and developing the technology enough right now that perhaps some of this could be transferred to Space Shuttle?
Maybe I am getting my questions out of order, as well. Let me ask another one first. Be thinking about that just a second.
We know that we are looking at many years down the line probably before this is phased into operation, if we are close to a year away from this prototype flying, and then some years into development.
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Will you project when it is anticipated that this might begin to be able to be used as Shuttle is being used right now. Let's start with that, I guess.
Mr. PAYTON. We have been working on what we call architecture studies, Space Transportation Architecture Studies, with industry and with our in-house teams for the past several months.
The current best guess that we can surmise is that a fully reusable vehicle coming out of the X–33, X–34, and X–37 technology programs could become operational as soon as 2008, but perhaps as late as 2012.
Mr. LAMPSON. Okay.
Mr. PAYTON. We will not fly a new operational vehicle until it has proven in flight its reliability and cost efficiencies. Even the X–33 follow-on, the VentureStar, admits that its early flights would not carry people. They would probably fly 17 or 18 times before we put people on board.
So with those sorts of efficiency and safety constraints on our potential replacement for the Shuttle, we see nothing any earlier than about 2008, maybe as late as 2012.
Mr. LAMPSON. And that is going to be to make the decision to begin to use it. And then beyond that, Shuttle would continue to be used before it is phased in, perhaps for many years?
Mr. PAYTON. There would be a transition period, clearly. The transition period would probably—well, we don't know how long the transition would be.
Mr. LAMPSON. Some said maybe as long as 10 years?
Mr. PAYTON. I would not like to see a 10-year transition period because that means we are kind of paying for both at the same time.
Mr. LAMPSON. Right. And that is sort of where I am going. And that is going to come back to that question that I was asking.
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We are going to obviously have to be doing something to make sure that Shuttle is safe, efficient, effective for us while we continue this development.
Now talk to me about some of the transfer of technology that you are learning in the meantime. Is it possible that some of that might be able to be used on Shuttle?
Mr. PAYTON. Well pointing to the TPS again, a sample of this very sort of metallic panel was flown as an experiment on the Shuttle down at the base of the tail back in the Spring of 1996 as a precursor to the X–33 design. Clearly that is one experiment that we have flown.
We have flown, additionally, experiments on using more modern navigation systems, differential global positioning satellite navigation technology that could be retrofitted into the Space Shuttle.
And so there is a wealth of technologies that this program is pushing at the component level that, when we approve them, after we approve them, could be retrofitted into today's Shuttle.
Mr. LAMPSON. Will that begin to help us reduce those costs for its operation in the meantime? Obviously it is going to have an effect on safety, but will it help us with costs, as well?
Mr. PAYTON. A rugged thermal protection system, whether it is metallic or a new generation of ceramic thermal protection system, is a crucial manpower saver on how much manpower it takes to process an orbiter between flights.
So that is one of the early payoffs once we have proved these technologies.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Li, who is working to make sure that these things are considered and looking at them together, and when we are at a point where something can be moved over to Shuttle as a part of its upgrades that that's happening?
Mr. Li. That is exactly the issue that we are raising in terms of how are we going to be getting there. Let's have some measures.
But there is one point, Mr. Lampson in terms of the issue of the Shuttle and VentureStar. Those decisions associated with both of those vehicles are very closely intertwined, and perhaps it is work discussing.
Lockheed Martin's decision to go forward with VentureStar is likely to consider and assume that NASA will be a major client of it's. Therefore, even before this time frame that Mr. Payton is talking about in the 2008, whatever time period, there are going to have to be some hard decisions made associated with, yes, we are going to make some commitment that we're going to be using the VentureStar in the future.
I do not believe—and I think that Mr. Rising can probably address this better than me—I do not believe that Lockheed Martin can garner the type of support for VentureStar if it does not have some evidence that NASA is going to be using it in the future.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Li. I think my time is gone.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, that is very interesting, Mr. Li. Thank you very much. We will talk about that in a moment.
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Now, Mr. Lucas from Oklahoma.
Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rising, I have some constituents in western Oklahoma who are intensely interested in X–33 and I am asked when I am back home about the timeline. I know that that has slipped because you have had to overcome some very challenging technical matters.
If you could for a moment, discuss with me what potential problems you view that may lie ahead between now and X–33's first test flight. What do we have yet to overcome out there?
Mr. RISING. Thank you very much, Mr. Lucas.
Actually, we are in a phase of the program which is a fairly comfortable phase. We have completed much of the fabrication—basically, all of the fabrication. We are in the qual test phase. We have completed a lot of the qualification tests.
What we need to do is finish qualification tests on two liquid hydrogen tanks and on the aerospike engines, and basically that gives us the go-ahead to complete assembly of the vehicle.
Those are the only two hurdles remaining in our way currently, the completion of qualification tests on tanks and engines.
Mr. LUCAS. So it will be your view that probably we are now to that point where we will be consistently on schedule again, perhaps?
Mr. RISING. Yes, sir.
Mr. LUCAS. Are there any problems that you could foresee in a broader sense as we go into this testing phase that, short of a catastrophe, might prevent you from completing all 15 of these test flights?
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Mr. RISING. No, sir. Piggybacking on Gary's comments about what happens in case of a problem, we have taken a lot of painstaking time and effort to design against the occurrence of a major problem in flight.
We have a triply redundant avionics system. We have engines which allows an engine to fail and actually go ahead and complete the mission.
So we have taken every step we could to ensure that that one vehicle is successful.
Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Rising.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right, thank you.
Mr. Cook of Utah.
Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am certainly delighted to be here as part of this hearing on the X–33 Program. I would like to add my welcome to the panelists.
I am excited about the X–33 Program, and particularly excited about the fact that X–33 will be flying to my home State of Utah in its inaugural flight next summer.
I am amazed the trip is only going to take 14 minutes from Edwards Air Force launch site. I for one plan to be at the Michael Army Air Field next year waving in the X–33 as it arrives, and I hope some of my colleagues on the Committee will be there to join me.
Last March I travelled to Lockheed Martin Skunk Works with NASA Administrator Dan Goldin to see the X–33 vehicle in the assembly plant and to visit the X–33 launch site facility at Edwards Air Force Base.
I was very impressed by how much of the fabrication of the vehicle is already done, assembled. The oxygen tank, landing gear, wiring, harness, avionics box, the reaction control systems, and the feedlines are all in place on the X–33 flight vehicle. In fact, both of the hydrogen tanks, which were built by Alliant Tech Systems of Utah, in my District, now are completely built and undergoing qualification testing at Marshall Space Flight Center.
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While we have talked about some of the technical difficulties, but I want to get back a little bit and just ask, first of all, Mr. Payton.
What difficulty beyond the catastrophic flight that Mr. Lucas was talking about, could possibly affect things even before the first flight?
I mean what—you said that there was even a chance that you could lose the vehicle before even it was first flown.
What is an example of——
Mr. PAYTON. I was referring to problems that, in the handling of the vehicle on the ground, and those probably wouldn't destroy the vehicle by any regard but they would put into question some structural member, and we may decide well, this structural member is in question right now, that maybe we shouldn't risk a flight test.
Do we take that structural member out, repair it, and put it back in, or have we done enough for that flight test program already. That's what I was referring to.
Mr. COOK. Okay. Then if I could ask Mr. Rising, what could I tell the average American taxpayer in terms of the percentage of the cost of the overall X–33 program, maybe through its 15 flight tests, has been contributed from private sources, from Lockheed and others besides just funding from the federal government.
Could you give me a rough percentage?
Mr. RISING. I think currently Allen has the precise numbers I'm sure, but I think about 24 percent of the investment has come from the industry team, and the remaining from NASA.
Mr. COOK. And if this goes forward to full VentureStar status, and really becomes what we all hope it will become, is that again about the same kind of percentage number as far as—or has that changed beyond that significantly?
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Mr. RISING. Well that changes dramatically, Mr. Cook. The numbers go about 90 percent private investment and as much as 10 percent support from NASA for critical technology areas that they could further help us with.
Mr. COOK. And then if I could just kind of ask a final question, Mr. Li.
Given that basic cost-sharing situation that's been outlined with Mr. Rising, how does that compare with the Space Shuttle program, for example, in rough——
Mr. Li. There's no sharing in the Space Shuttle program. All the funds that are being expended for the shuttle are all from the government. There's no sharing arrangement.
Mr. COOK. And if I could ask just one more question, and I'd like any one of you to respond.
Isn't this program, this X–33 program hopefully leading to VentureStar hopefully leading to a real reusable launch vehicle. Isn't this really one of the best Space deals the American taxpayers have ever come across?
I mean, if I sound like a booster, that's because I am, but I'd just like to compare it to what else we've done in Space, and for this program, if you could just, you know, if anybody would like to comment, I'd be interested.
Mr. PAYTON. We have discovered, even during the execution of X–33, when there are corporate resources at stake, that everybody pays very close attention to the bottomline, dollars-per-day, dollars-per-man hour.
That sort of attention to the bottomline will be there in spades when a commercial vehicle is under full scale development.
And unlike cost-plus contracts or some other instrument that the government tends to use, when it's a commercial endeavor, everybody is focused on that bottomline. And the schedules and the deliveries tend to be much more efficient in that sort of full scale development environment.
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And that's what we're shooting for because we want to, we, the government, as a future user, want to benefit from that efficiency and full scale development.
Mr. COOK. Thank you.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Cook.
It is very refreshing to hear a member of Congress declare himself a booster of a project that is yet to prove itself. Usually they wait until after the first successful flight, and then they step forward—well, I was always a booster of that program.
Mr. COOK. And a lot of it comes from your own district.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Next, we have Mr. Ehlers who is again is a PhD who we look to as a man who'll give us lots of guidance here, and we look forward to your line of questioning, Mr. Ehlers.
Mr. EHLERS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought one of the advantages of the X–33 is that it didn't need a booster. [Laughter.] But I also have to make clear, to the best of my knowledge, no part of the X–33 is being made in my district so perhaps I may not be as enthusiastic as some others.
First, Mr. Rising, the engine test, when is that scheduled, the first full scale engine test?
Mr. RISING. Actually, we have an engine in the test stand right now, and they down some cold-flow tests. They are very close to doing the first ignition test, so there's a series of tests that we build up on the long-duration hot fires, but that will come later this month and early next month.
Mr. EHLERS. And that'll lead then a full test, full power, et cetera?
Mr. RISING. That leads to full test, full power, yes, sir.
Mr. EHLERS. And when do you expect that to take place?
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Mr. RISING. Later this month or early next month.
Mr. EHLERS. Okay. I think that's critical because——
Mr. RISING. Well, later this month I guess there's one more day left in this month, so next month.
Mr. EHLERS. Next month, okay. I think it's critical. It's a somewhat different engine design than we've used before and that it's going to be a very important test.
The VentureStar, is that basically the same configuration in every way of the X–33 but simply scaled up?
Mr. RISING. Yes, sir, it's very similar. What we had to do, of course, and we knew we would have to really increase the packaging efficiency of the full scale VentureStar vehicle, so it is a concept which is basically 90 percent fuel.
But when we designed the X–33, we knew that it had to be at least half scale to be traceable to the full scale vehicle development.
Mr. EHLERS. But is, for example, in the X–33, do you provide space for a payload basically and that same payload space configuration would be on the VentureStar? Or will you be redesigning it in terms of location of the bay and so forth?
Mr. RISING. Well, there's been some evolution in the design. What we have discovered is that we will carry the payload on VentureStar external to the vehicle, and that was necessary to increase the internal packaging efficiency.
Mr. EHLERS. Okay. I didn't realize any load evolution in California.
The scale factor will be roughly double the size of the X–33, is that not correct?
Mr. RISING. Roughly double, perhaps a little more.
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Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Payton, you commented on the X–33, X–34, X–37. What about the 34 and 37? What's their status, configuration, and stage of development?
Mr. PAYTON. The X–34 is a program that we started about the same time as X–33. It is a smaller vehicle than X–33. It will do alternative technologies.
For instance, it will, instead of having a metallic skin like the X–33, it will have ceramic, a rugged version of ceramic thermo-protection system. That is one generation more advanced than what the shuttle was using back in the mid-90s.
Since it's a smaller vehicle, it flies at a lower velocity, somewhere between mach 7 and mach 8, and it flies off the bottom of a carrier aircraft.
Orbital Sciences Corporation is the industry member on the X–34 program and their L1011 that launches their Pegasus vehicle will also carry the X–34.
Right now, the first X–34 vehicle is undergoing airborne compatibility and stability tests with that L1011, and today out in Virginia, there's a program review going on to give us the status of the next vehicle, the next X–34, which will have a—the first one will have the rocket engine in it and it will be flying out at Edwards in the middle of next year.
We will precede the power, the rocket power tests of that X–34 with unpowered tests to prove the guidance and navigation system. We will fly the unpowered tests early next year.
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One of our objectives again, with X–34, is to prove different technologies than X–33, and to have a higher flight rate.
While the X–33 flies 15 times, the X–34 will be flying somewhere around 27 times. So the X–34 is our operations workhorse.
Mr. EHLERS. And the X–37?
Mr. PAYTON. The 37 was recently awarded to Boeing. It also is a cooperative agreement similar to the instrument we use on X–33. This is a 50/50 cost share but on a smaller vehicle.
It will fit inside the payload bay of the shuttle and it will be a cargo in a shuttle flight in the fall of 2002. We will deploy the X–37 from the shuttle payload bay. It will fly on its own away from the shuttle doing a wealth of experiments of on orbit Space transportation technology, and then it will do a separate de-orbit burn and fly back to the U.S. separate from the shuttle.
We currently are planning for two flights of the X–37.
Mr. EHLERS. That's also a reusable vehicle then?
Mr. PAYTON. Yes, sir. And it also will be designed so that it can fly not only in the shuttle payload bay, but it could fly on top of an expendable also.
Mr. EHLERS. And the goal of this project of the X–33 and VentureStar is to reduce the payload-to-orbit costs from $10,000 a pound to $1,000 a pound?
Mr. PAYTON. Yes, sir.
Mr. EHLERS. And do you still expect to achieve that objective?
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Mr. PAYTON. That is a goal that we had at the start of X–33, and we see nothing that deters us from that goal right now.
Mr. EHLERS. And what about the overall, the payload size and the overall size, comparing them?
The payload size, for example, of the shuttle compared to the VentureStar?
Mr. PAYTON. The VentureStar will satisfy, under current design, will satisfy commercial Space launch requirements for commercial satellites to low earth orbit, and it will also satisfy payload requirements to the International Space Station.
But it does not carry as much to the Space station as the shuttle does.
Mr. EHLERS. What are the numbers? What are the numbers?
Mr. PAYTON. Twenty-five-thousand pounds, I believe, or a little bit more than that is what the station mission would be for VentureStar, and something like 55,000 pounds for commercial satellites at a lower orbit.
Mr. EHLERS. And compared to the shuttle, what is that?
Mr. PAYTON. I believe the shuttle is 32,000 to the station.
Mr. EHLERS. Okay, so it's not that much smaller.
Mr. PAYTON. The VentureStar, I believe, would require something like 11 flights to do what the shuttle does in five of six flights.
Mr. EHLERS. And the initial purchase cost of the shuttles per unit?
Mr. PAYTON. Sir, maybe I better get a—answer that for the record.
[Information to be provided:]
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Mr. EHLERS. Okay. I'm just trying to get a comparison between that and the VentureStar.
Thank you very much. My time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. We now have Ms. Jackson-Lee who we're very grateful to have you with us, Ms. Jackson-Lee, who always jumps in and has some very poignant questions. So please proceed.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I will take that as a warm-and-cuddly statement. I do thank you for your kindness, and I would like to ask—the Chairman is always gracious—if I can submit my opening statement into the record, ask unanimous consent.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Certainly, without objection.
[Committee insert:]
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Ranking Member.
Let me first of all acknowledge that the reason why I can comfortably sit in this hearing is that I would imagine that as we move into the 21st century, for the comfort of ensuring that we always will have access to Space, that even as we are utilizing the unmanned technology and ultimately when we might utilize it for manned usage, we will continue the shuttle so that we can ensure that the technology is totally safe.
So I'm hoping that the shuttle continues—do I hear about 2012 or some time therein? Is that an accurate assessment?
Mr. PAYTON. Yes, ma'am. The earliest likely date would be 2008, 2012, somewhere in that time frame would be when a proven, reliable, second generation RLV might be available.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you understand the intent of my question, representing the surrounding areas of the Johnson Space Center and the number of hardworking, dedicated, committed Space advocates who live and work in that area.
So I hope that we'll be very sure, when we transition, that we can do so.
But I do want to pose a question to Mr. Rising about, and to all of the witnesses in fact, Mr. Rising, thank all the witnesses for their testimony, that as we look at the X–33 program, what do we see as the considerable challenges that we will be facing and how would you rank them, so that we can, in this narrowing budget window, as we look to the future, address them, or do we even need to consider that as we look at our authorizing and budgeting responsibilities?
I'd be interested in that.
And I do have a follow-up question that is particularly pointed to Mr. Rising that deals with the audit and assessment and study that you made dealing with some of the aftermath of the series of launch failures.
If you could, did Mr. Young, who headed that effort, did they examine the X–33 program and what were the recommendations, if any, and as well somewhat tied to my shuttle question, what are you doing to ensure success of this mission?
So the first question goes to all of the witnesses, and I'll yield to you.
Mr. RISING. Do you want me to lead off with that?
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First of all, with regard to the budget that we would need to go forward with the VentureStar vehicle, that's a very small wedge and it fits within the OMB funding that has been already identified, so there's no additional funding beyond that. And that would be primarily for NASA technology support and a couple of critical technology areas.
With regard to Mr. Young, his next stop is to come take a look at the X–33 and VentureStar programs and to make sure that what oversights might have occurred on other programs that we don't experience the same problems.
So does that answer your question?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, my first question is what do you consider the challenges of the program, and I'm asking that to everyone, the X–33 program.
Mr. Li. I'll take a stab at it.
In terms of a challenge, not only are we talking about a situation where we have to increase the number of flights within a certain amount of time, but I think that one of the things that many, many experts will be looking at during this phase of the X–33 is whether or not single stage to orbit can be done and can be done economically.
The SSTL aspect and the operations I believe are key challenges.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Key focal point. Thank you.
Mr. Payton.
Mr. PAYTON. Currently, the hydrogen tank that's in test today at Marshal and the aerospike engine testing that's going on to day at Stennis are the crucial elements in moving forward with X–33. We knew that these two subsystems were crucial when we started the program in the summer of '96.
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And so the way the program has unfolded truthfully is not unpredicted, but conversely these two subsystems are probably the highest value new technology in the vehicle.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, to follow up with that, are they on schedule? When do we think the results will be in place and move toward their necessary results that we may need to use?
Mr. PAYTON. The tanks are undergoing tests right now. We will not push them more rapidly than is advisable because we don't want to fly unsafe tanks. And the same thing with the engines.
And so we're at that stage of the program right now where we will let the progress of the qualification testing dictate, but——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. So we're not rushing it. We're going to be monitoring it and when we feel we've reached the point of ultimate conclusion and success to our satisfaction, that's when you'd move.
Mr. PAYTON. Exactly.
Now saying that, to date, there is nothing that has yet jeopardized either the summertime first launch estimate or, more importantly, the end of the cooperative agreement between NASA and the SkunkWorks.
I think the emphasis has rightly been placed on the first flight but the real end result is at the end of year 2000 when the cooperative agreement stops.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. When do you, Mr. Rising, what are you doing to ensure mission success with the testing that's going on on the X–33?
What's VentureStar doing?
Mr. RISING. We have very extensive verification and validation program ongoing. It's a complete simulation of the X–33 test flight with all the avionics represented in the simulation. Many mechanical elements are actually in that simulation as well.
And after we do what we call V&V, verification and validation, we do an IV&V which is another independent check of that validation and verification.
So we do have very extensive simulation going on to make sure that the vehicle operates safely.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, thank you very much.
And finally we have Dr. Weldon who of course represents an area of Florida where currently we see the shuttle taking off and he has a very special interest in the development of these technologies.
So, Dr. Weldon.
Dr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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And I want to thank all three of our witnesses for being here. I think this has been a very interesting hearing.
I know the X–33 Program is a very exciting program. At least the people back home in my District on the Space coast are following it very closely. And despite the fact that should it eventually replace the shuttle it could put many of them out of work, they are nonetheless very excited to see new technologies being developed and possibly someday implemented that would better usher in the Space race.
My first question is to you, Jerry. The delays in X–33 caused by the tank issue and the engine issue, has that had any impact on the timeline regarding the VentureStar launch site selection issue?
Mr. RISING. Yes, sir, it has. Basically, we have moved that process to the right to be consistent with our X–33 flight schedule, we don't really want to press that process until we have confidence that the X–33 is going to work and work well.
Dr. WELDON. And your first flight is scheduled for next summer, and you anticipate how long a time period to do all of those test flights? It's 17 or 18 flights you were mentioning. Is that over six months, a year?
Mr. RISING. We have about a six-month flight test program planned, yes, sir.
Dr. WELDON. So I can conclude, from what you're saying, that somewhere in the next year, year-and-a-half time frame, should everything go well, then you would start moving on the VentureStar site selection front more aggressively?
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Is that correct?
Mr. RISING. That's correct. We would issue a request for proposal following the X–33 flights.
Dr. WELDON. Now, Jerry, you mentioned in your statement, I believe, the failure of iridium impacting the industry.
Has that had any impact on your pursuit of funding for the construction of VentureStar?
Mr. RISING. That's a very good question, Mr. Weldon. Actually, it hasn't had any impact on the funding currently, but it has caused us to go back and look at our business plan to make sure that we have a realistic market capture in there for commercial Space business.
Dr. WELDON. Based on the current economic environment and the fact that even if X–33 were a success, the VentureStar would still, nonetheless be an experimental vehicle.
Do you feel that it's possible to obtain funding for a program like VentureStar in the venture capital market without some form of government participation or loan guarantee?
Mr. RISING. We've studied that extensively in our business planning process and our business plan development from the very start and in the proposal we submitted four years ago we had government incentives. Four years ago, we talked about government loan guarantees.
Since that time, we've looked at tax incentives as well. The minimum program cost in our analysis is if you're able to acquire low-interest financing through some kind of guaranteed loan.
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And of course that translates to lower launch prices as well. So we would need some assistance in that regard, yes, sir.
Dr. WELDON. Now I understand the design of the X–33 is cast in stone, but in the case of the VentureStar, that is not the case. Are you working on any kind of design modification for the VentureStar at this time?
Mr. RISING. The demonstrator program is extremely valuable from lessons-learned standpoint, and the path to a full scale operational vehicle design is much better understood, as a result of the demonstrator program.
What we have done, as an example, and we knew we needed to get a vehicle that would be basically 90 percent fuel at gross liftoff weight, so we had to move the payload bay external to the vehicle to get the packaging efficiency that would allow us to develop the full scale, single-stage-to-orbit vehicle.
And the design team has got a lot of confidence in the current system that we've put together on a conceptual level.
Dr. WELDON. I assume you're going to be making more of this information available at some point in the future, where you're going with VentureStar?
Mr. RISING. Actually, we have periodic reviews and quarterly reviews with NASA, and much of this information is coming to the forefront as we speak.
Dr. WELDON. Okay. I just have—I see my time is up. I just have a quick question for Mr. Li, if I may, Mr. Chairman.
We've had some delays because of the tank, and as I understand it, you've got to have the tank because the whole vehicle's sort of built around these tanks because these are essentially flying tanks.
Should NASA—and essentially, it was a de-lamination of a panel in the tank—should NASA have planned for those kinds of problems better when they originally laid this thing out, and would it have ultimately saved money in the end if they had those kinds of exigencies in the program?
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Mr. Li. NASA and Lockheed followed the normal way of development, which is they did go do a critical design review, and one of the questions that I had for them at that point in time was why, during critical design review, were you not able to predict this sort of problem.
And the answer that I got, and I believe and I think it's a reasonable one, is that these were fabrication problems and not an engineering problem.
But I think that's a reasonable answer.
Dr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
And Mr. Gordon, do you have anything in summary that you'd like to say at the end?
Mr. GORDON. No, but I'll take the Chairman's prerogative and just say that I haven't heard anything that would suggest that this program is in disarray or that people are not still having the same optimism that they had before. They know they had challenges to overcome.
So I am assuming that things are still moving forward. Is that right?
Mr. PAYTON. Yes, sir.
Mr. RISING. Yes, sir.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And I'm grateful for that because usually we don't have these hearings unless there's some type major, major problem going on.
And we are very, very pleased with that report, and very pleased that Mr. Li has taken a close look at this and came up with some things that we should keep in mind, but nothing that would call into question the viability of the overall program.
We are watching, we are on your side, and we want you to succeed, and we thank you very much for coming here today and sharing with us this information because we feel this is, again, we're part of the team and we're all hoping for the best.
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This is just the first in a series of hearings that I am hoping that this Subcommittee will hold this fall relating to the future of Space transportation.
In two weeks, we will hear from the commercial Space plane companies that are out there trying to compete with you folks, and then we'll look at some other issues as well.
My goal is to lay out all the options facing NASA as they prepare a strategy so that we can provide our input and have effective oversight.
Again, I would like to thank the witnesses for testifying. I'd like to thank all the members of the Committee.
Mr. Ehlers, do you have one other question you want to ask?
Mr. EHLERS. Just a comment. I also wanted to point out that this project will meet the California Clean Air Requirements by using hydrogen fuel. [Laughter.]
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, that's terrific. Okay. I'm pleased to hear that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would the Chairman yield for a moment before he gives his final statement?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I certainly will.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, because you've been so innovatively focused on this issue, I just want to ensure that there is sufficient minority and small business persons who will have the opportunity to be engaged in this unique and on-going research and technology.
And I'd just like to make that for the record, and I look forward to hearing from Mr. Payton on some responses on that.
Thank you very much.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you.
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And I would advise any member of the Subcommittee that they may ask for additional information for the record and they may submit written questions within one week of this hearing and have an answer.
And one last thought in terms of what Ms. Jackson Lee just brought up. The design and the whole idea of trying to come up with a reusable system and bringing down the cost of getting into Space is to open up Space so that it's not just there for the big companies, so that we in the future can have small entrepreneurial endeavors by people in a broad cross section of America involved in utilizing Space to uplift all of human kind, and I'm very pleased that you are trying to make sure that everybody's included, and I know that's what's your motive and that's a very good question.
And we do want to make sure everybody's included and that means everybody.
So thank you all very much and I would end this hearing again by thanking the witnesses and I call this hearing as adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:39 p.m., Wednesday, September 29, 1999, the hearing was adjourned sine die.]
COMMERCIAL SPACEPLANES
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
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The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Curt Weldon (Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. WELDON. Good afternoon. This hearing of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee is called to order.
Chairman Rohrabacher is delayed on the floor with an amendment piece of legislation and he has asked me to fill in for him.
Today, the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics is holding the second in a series of four hearings on the future of space transportation in America. At the first hearing we discussed NASA's X–33 program and Lockheed-Martin's proposed Venture Star. This afternoon we will hear from five entrepreneurs who are developing their own RLV concepts using private funds.
Earlier this decade three developments helped spark the emergence of a wholly new commercial space transportation industry in the United States. First, the early flights of the Pentagon's DC–X showed that launched vehicles could be operated more simply and more cheaply. Second, several companies proposed building constellations of dozens, or even hundreds, of low-earth orbit communications satellites. Third, budget limitations on NASA and the Air Force led policymakers like Bob Walker and George Brown to champion expanding the private sector's involvement in space transportation.
As a result, well over a dozen new companies have been set up to develop low cost expendable and reusable launch systems. Some of these vehicles are aimed at the conventional geostationary satellite market, and some are focused on smaller payloads. Some of them have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment, and some have little more than conceptual designs posted on web sites. But in every case, they show the energy and creativity that are the trademark of American entrepreneurs.
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All of the five leading RLV companies with us today have raised significant funds and built impressive teams. And yet they all face immense business and engineering hurdles before they can bring their RLVs to market, let alone earn a profit. But so did the first steamship, railroad, automobile, and airplane businesses. And while the Government cannot, will not, and should not simply pay for these companies' vehicle developments, we should realize that Federal technology and infrastructure investments, often for military purposes, have always played a significant role in enabling new transportation industries. For example, NASA should help demonstrate component technologies or even innovative operational approaches. Both the Air Force and NASA should find ways to buy services from these companies as early as possible, honoring the spirit as well as the letter of the Commercial Space Act.
We in Congress also need to determine what will be the space age equivalence of land grants and airmail contracts. There are at least two public interests in play here. First, greater competition and innovation in space transportation will lower costs to and improve services for Government space projects. Second, and more importantly, cheap, reliable, and plentiful access to space will lead to the creation of new commercial space industries. Our strategy should be to enable several companies to try their ideas in the marketplace so that the market, not politicians and bureaucrats, can pick the best approaches.
Normally in the hearing I would now yield to the ranking member, Mr. Gordon, for his opening statement. But he, like Mr. Rohrabacher, is tied up, in his case in a markup. So, without objection, I ask unanimous consent to allow Mr. Gordon to make his opening statement later.
Without objection, so ordered.
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And without objection, the opening statements of other members will be made a part of the written record.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
The Chair requests unanimous consent for authority to recess the hearing at any point.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent to insert at the appropriate place in the hearing record a background memorandum prepared by the majority staff for this hearing.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The referenced memorandum follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. Today, we are fortunate to have five pioneers of commercial space with us to testify. If you could all please stand so I can administer the oath. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give us is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. WELDON. The reporter shall note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
You may be seated.
Before we begin, I would like to remind you all to please summarize your comments in just five minutes so we can get on to the questions and answers as quickly as possible.
First up is an old friend of this subcommittee. Over a decade before any of us were even in Congress, Dr. George Mueller led the Apollo program at NASA as the head of the Manned Space Flight and later helped initiate both the Skylab and the Space Shuttle programs. He has had a distinguished career in industry ever since. Four years ago he decided to take another challenge and joined Kistler Aerospace, where he is now the chief executive officer.
Dr. Mueller, you may proceed.
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TESTIMONY OF GEORGE MUELLER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, KISTLER AEROSPACE CORPORATION
Dr. MUELLER. Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee. My name is George Mueller, and I am chief executive officer of Kistler Aerospace. I would ask that my written statement and its appendix be made part of the record of this hearing.
Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
Dr. MUELLER. Let me highlight today the most important points from my written statement. We have completed fabrication of 75 percent of the first Kistler K–1. We have completed testing of many of the vehicle's systems and its components. These slides show our completed hardware and some of the testing. Our goal is to complete the first K–1 vehicle in 2000 and to carry out our test flight program that year. We plan to start commercial operations immediately after successful testing. We have in hand a contract for ten launches from Space System Lorel.
Our vehicle is being built by some of the best contractors in the country. These include: Northrup-Grumman for composites structures; Aerojets for engines; Draper Laboratories and Allied Signal for avionics; Urban Industries for parachutes and landing bags; and Lockheed-Martin IC for the aluminum tanks.
At peak activity, more than 1,400 engineers and technical staff were working on the K–1 program around the country. Assembly has begun in the plant in Louisiana, by Lockheed.
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Kistler is building this vehicle and its supporting systems using private capital. We have spent more than $500 million in private financing. We are in the process of raising several hundred million dollars more to complete the first vehicle and carry out the test flights. Work on the vehicle is at a standstill until we complete our financing.
In our view, the U.S. Government can best support the RLV industry in three ways:
One, through making available contingent U.S. Government launch contracts. Kistler is prepared to enter into contingent launch contracts or launch options with the U.S. Government. If we can achieve defined milestones, the Government would commit to using the K–1 for a series of launches at an agreed price. Kistler would require only a nominal payment up front for this launch commitment. Payment would be due upon agreed milestones or on delivery of a cargo to the desired orbit. The Government would be entitled to call these contingent launches on short notice, as short as three days.
Secondly, tax incentives to make investment by private parties attractive. We believe in and support the application of the principle of zero taxes on zero gravity economic activities. We believe in and support a capital gains tax holiday for investments in qualified commercial space businesses for a defined period, say for seven years. A tax incentive has the added appeal of leaving the choice of winners and losers to the marketplace. Investors could realize a capital gains tax holiday only if the venture were to succeed and generate a return.
Thirdly, procurement reform. Kistler applauds Congress for requiring the procurement of launch services as a commercial item. Kistler supports full implementation of that statutory requirement. But to be effective, the U.S. Government needs to adopt commercial practices for buying its launch services.
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Why does the industry merit such consideration? In our view, RLVs will benefit the U.S. Government and advance national policy goals by reducing launch costs and increasing launch reliability to provide the Government with an additional emergency response tool. RLVs can be used to protect the safety of orbit crews and short notice national security launches, and to preserve valuable on-orbit assets in emergencies; to promote commercialization and innovative commercial procurement of launch services through launch options, liberal payment terms, and other commercial terms; to promote U.S. launch competitiveness by reducing the cost and enhancing the reliability of U.S. launch services; and finally, enhance U.S. national security by meeting price competition from Russian and Chinese ELVs.
These benefits are made possible by the unprecedented capabilities of the K–1 and the other RLVs. Let me take a moment to highlight the capabilities of our vehicle. My written statement describes thoroughly the configuration, operating profile, and capabilities of the K–1.
The K–1 is a two-stage aerospace vehicle. Each stage is fully recoverable and reusable. Each stage is fully autonomous and is controlled by redundant guidance systems. It is nine days from the time we land until the next launch. This short turnaround is made possible by our automated test philosophy and our vehicle health monitoring system.
Once on the launch stand, we fuel the K–1 in four hours using an automated propellant loading system. Roughly two minutes after lift-off, the first stage engines are shut down and the first and second stages separate. The first stage returns to the Kistler Spaceport, landing with parachutes and airbags. Meanwhile, the second stage engines propel the second stage to the customer prescribed orbit for payload deployment. Approximately twenty-four hours from launch the second stage will return and land with parachutes and airbags at the Kistler Spaceport. All of this completely autonomously. With five vehicles in operation, we can provide launch services on three days notice.
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I thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today. I welcome any questions.
[Dr. Mueller's prepared statement and attachments follow:]
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Dr. Mueller.
Next is a young and equally dedicated entrepreneur who left a major aerospace company to try out his ideas for a better RLV. Steve Wurst founded Space Access, a limited liability company, back in 1994. He probably never imagined that his toughest challenge would be convincing the bureaucracy to just act like a smart customer.
Steve, I am very interested to hear what you have to say. You are recognized for five minutes. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF STEVE WURST, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SPACE ACCESS, LLC
Mr. WURST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to discuss the development of the Space Access SA–1 Launch System and our recommendations on how the Federal Government could work with entrepreneur companies like ours to increase space launch capacity and competition.
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Today I will be addressing the launch market; the SA–1 Launch System design, its capabilities; the status of our development activity; the impact of commercial and Government actions on us; our ability to meet the nation's goals; and our recommendations.
Launch market revenue is driven by the most demanding missions. In 1998, 85 percent of the total expenditures on launch services were associated with human access, commercial GEO, and Government intermediate to heavy spacelift.
Only 15 percent of market expenditures were associated with medium to light spacelift, including LEO services. Hence, to capture a significant share of the market revenue, it is necessary to accommodate the more demanding missions.
Reliability and licensing are major considerations in capturing the more demanding missions. The FAA's Transport Aircraft Certification process protects passengers and cargo by regulating system reliability. Compliance is appropriate for manned-space missions and allows access to lower aviation-based insurance rates. Since rocket-based launch systems are not fuel efficient, they cannot afford to carry the extra weight associated with the provisions to increase system reliability. Therefore, to be reliable and to reduce costs, launch vehicles must be fuel efficient.
The SA–1 is a very efficient design featuring multiple interchangeable fully reusable stages. Two stages are used to transport payloads to and from LEO. An autonomous second stage is used for carrying cargo only, while a crewed version provides human access. The third stage provides access to GTO. Each stage uses tanks with circular cross-sections to efficiently carry the required propellants. Moreover, the first stage uses fuel efficient air-breathing engines and therefore requires much less propellant. The SA–1's volumetric and fuel efficiency enable it to comply with the FAA criteria for both launch vehicles and transports.
The three-stage SA–1 is designed to economically and reliably deploy the largest GEO payloads. The first stage takes off horizontally from a standard runway, powered by ejector ram-jet engines, accelerates to hypersonic speeds, climbs up out of the atmosphere, then deploys a second stage propelled by conventional rocket engines. The second stage lifts the third stage and its payload into LEO. The third stage then boosts the payload into GTO. Each of the stages autonomously accomplishes its mission and returns to land on a runway.
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The first and second stages can be used to deploy heavy payloads, measuring over 15 feet by 60 feet, into either LEO or mid-earth orbit. The same two-stage system can also deploy a fully loaded, full-sized multipurpose logistics module, or MPLM, to the International Space Station, the maximum payload the Space Shuttle can deliver.
The Space Access Shuttle, a variant of the second stage modified to include a crew compartment and closed payload bay, can transfer crew members to and from the Space Station and return a fully loaded MPLM. The Space Access Shuttle with its manipulator arm can also service satellites, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, while on orbit. The SA–1 can perform even the most demanding missions interchangeably with other launch vehicles without modification to those payloads.
We have completed proof of concept testing of all of our enabling technologies. Core ram-jet performance at hypersonic speeds was established back in the 1960s. Our patented ejector now enables efficient ram-jet operation even at static conditions. We have completed testing of our ejector ram-jet engines. It is ten times more fuel efficient than rockets, and 50 percent more efficient than turbine engines. A series of aeromechanics wind tunnel tests have been completed covering the flight regime from low speed through hypersonic speeds. The airframe is composed of FAA certified materials operating within their approved environments, including appropriate transport aircraft factors of safety.
Demand for commercial GEO satellite launch services continues to grow. Over 35 launches are required each year just to replenish the existing GEO assets. We plan to capture one-third of this GEO market, LEO and Government market capture serve as icing on the cake for us. Thus, recent prohibitions in the LEO and MEO market have had little effect on us. However, Government actions do have a significant effect on commercial firms such as ours.
In response to Government actions, the finance community has indicated that the Government must provide incentives to stimulate the commercial development of major new launch systems. Meanwhile, the Government continues to support existing systems and evolutionary modifications, and the Nation's capabilities continue to decline. Commercial financing is essentially on hold awaiting the Government's decisions on incentives. Delayed implementation is reinforcing the status quo, jeopardizing the vitality of the domestic launch industry.
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The SA–1 addresses each of the Nation's goals in space. It accommodates the gamut of missions, offering a tenfold reduction in operating costs and a hundredfold improvement in reliability, thus meeting cost-reduction goals and, moreover, enabling safe human access to space.
We recommend the Federal Government work with the emerging companies to encourage commercial investment for development and production of advanced launch systems. Specifically, we recommend implementation of loan guarantees and a tailored combination of incentives. Loan guarantees are an ideal means of invigorating the domestic launch industry. They have the potential of leveraging commercial investments to finance multiple competing RLVs, thus reducing risk and facilitating commercialization. However, with the timing of the implementation of loan guarantees uncertain, what is needed is a near-term incentive that leverages commercial finance immediately.
Hence, we recommend a tailored combination of incentives. The cooperative development of selective launch systems is suggested, starting immediately with the implementation of additional task orders under the existing competitively awarded NASA Space Transportation Architecture Contracts. We recommend the Government focus the efforts on the development of launch systems rather than the underlying technology. This assures top priority is given to the fielding of new operational systems. Furthermore, the Government should allow the private sector retention of intellectual property rights to encourage further commercial investment. The Government should consider accepting heavily discounted launch services in lieu of us transferring our rights. Moreover, provisions should be made to transition to loan guarantees when they become available.
These actions would minimize the total Government expenditure while expediting and maximizing the Government's savings. Your immediate attention and action is necessary to keep the entrepreneurial competition from going under.
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[Mr. Wurst's prepared statement follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much, Mr. Wurst.
Our next witness is Gary Hudson, who I believe has been before the committee before. He developed the first privately funded launch vehicle, which I understand exploded, and he designed the Phoenix, which later became the McDonnell-Douglas DC–X, a very innovative concept. He has led the team at Rotary Rocket which is developing the Roton. I guess he does not give up easily.
You are recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF GARY HUDSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ROTARY ROCKET COMPANY
Mr. HUDSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the members of the committee. It is always an honor to appear before you. In the interest of time, I would ask that my written remarks be included in the record. I will use a short three minute video to introduce my company.
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Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
[Video shown.]
Mr. HUDSON. I am now going to show you a clip of the third successful test flight of the approach and landing demonstrator, the Roton ATV, which occurred yesterday morning. It is raw footage and I will just have few remarks from my written remarks to go over the video.
The first thing that I could say to this committee and to the Congress is that it is very important that in legislation that you develop you do no harm. That is a good medical practice rule and it will be a good one for this emerging industry.
Number two, I think we need to provide incentives to investors. A tax credit pass-through, for example, such as the old R&D tax credit of the 1980s which made Orbital Sciences, Inc. successful would be very helpful. We also will consider supporting a modified version of the Breaux bill which does not pick winners and losers.
Three, we think we need to keep both NASA and FAA–ST focused on helping the emerging industry. They are doing a credible job of it but they need the support of this committee and the Congress.
Finally, we think that the current export control morass is one that will make it very difficult for the entire emerging industry to do business internationally from an insurance and an investment standpoint, and it needs to be fixed, and fixed quickly.
I think if we even accomplish a few of these goals, posterity will follow. Thank you. And I will be happy to answer questions.
[Mr. Hudson's prepared statement follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much, Gary.
Our next witness is Mitchell Burnside Clapp. He is another person who left a large bureaucracy, in this case the U.S. Air Force, to try his hand building space planes. He is the originator of the concept which evolved into Pioneer Rocketplane's Pathfinder RLV design. A co-founder of the company, he is now CEO and leader of the Pathfinder development effort.
Mr. Burnside Clapp, you may proceed. You are recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF MITCHELL BURNSIDE CLAPP, CEO, PIONEER ROCKETPLANE
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As my colleagues here, I would like to have my written remarks included for the record, if that is convenient.
Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. We would like to talk today about the space launch system that we developed, how it works, how we are doing, why it is hard to get a business like this going these days, what we can do for our country, and, in a quieter voice perhaps, what our country can do for us.
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Pioneer system, first and last, is based on risk mitigation. It is easy to get excited about the upside of a development like this—space access for everybody, tourism, created traffic, all sorts of exciting things. But at the end of the day, we have to avoid operational risks, avoid technical risks, avoid regulatory risks, market risks, and, financing risks. Only in this way can we really be successful. We will be judged on how well we mitigate our risks.
Pioneer does this by developing an operational concept based on in-flight transfer of propellant. The aircraft takes off under turbofan power in the conventional way, it rendezvous with a tanker from which it gets the bulk of the propellant it needs to go to space, in this case liquid oxygen. The aircraft disconnects from the tanker, flies outside the atmosphere under the power of a rocket engine, which up till now has not been operating, it deploys a small satellite with a smaller upper stage to take the satellite into orbit. Meanwhile, the aircraft reenters, turns its air-breathing engines back on, and eventually lands.
We have used liquid oxygen transfer because it is a well-precedented and well-understood activity, a minor evolution of current practices going back to 1926. We have moved liquid oxygen in-flight before, most particularly in the X–15 while on the B–52 carrier aircraft. And, of course, you do not need a trained technician to make a liquid oxygen connection or disconnection, that goes all the way back to the V–2.
Our vehicle as developed is really an airplane, first and last, and for a lot of the time in between. It has a two person crew, takes off from a runway, and many other aircraft-like features, although it does have a few rocket-like features, in particular, the rocket engine, the thermal protection system, rather like the Shuttle, an expendable upper stage, and little reaction jets to control the aircraft when there is not any atmosphere for its wings to work against. But what we have been able to do over our development since we began this effort is identify an astonishing number of not just off-the-shelf technologies, but off-the-shelf parts. This is a catalogue airplane almost exclusively, the basic airframe being the principal exception to that rule. We have got an operational pattern that will let us fly exclusively over water to minimize the risks of regulating land over-flight.
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Right now, we have developed a simple and traditional aircraft layout. We have accomplished an astonishing amount of wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics work, a lot of finite element analysis completed, so that we can characterize the thermal protection system design and the mass budget for the aircraft itself. We have a very highly developed level of accuracy on our mass estimates, our cost estimates, and so forth. And we do this, as I mentioned, to minimize the risk of this development and its uncertainty.
But things are getting more difficult, for a variety of reasons. Subsidized competition is one. Existing providers have a steady revenue stream and little incentive to alter the status quo. There is a case where the perceived risk of a space launch development is all out of proportion to the actual risk. We have the troubles of our satellite launch customers, and, because Pioneer is focusing on smaller satellites than many other people, that does hurt us in some respect. There are also challenges in raising institutional investment. None of us have raised significant quantities of institutional funding, and that is difficult. And then, of course, let us not ignore the inherent difficulty that flying things into space is hard. It is a difficult problem and we face some profound technical challenges. This is not easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
So what we can do when we get ourselves up and operating is deliver a lot of payload to orbit. Pathfinder's payload performance, as indicated here, Pathfinder is what we call our launch vehicle, to various orbital inclinations. I will point out the green line is the Space Station inclination, and we can get about 5500 pounds to the Space Station routinely, and that can carry an astonishing amount of the baseload for the Station's logistics needs. We can do it at a low cost, not just cost per pound, but also cost per flight, any inclination, any time. We can replace satellites on demand, allowing satellite operators to upgrade their products more rapidly and get the Moore's Law for satellites going—safer storage of replacement satellites on the ground rather than in space. We are willing to offer launch service options with in-kind services from NASA as the major element of the payment.
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And from NASA we would like some help. Enhancement of our credibility, assistance with technology and facilities, it is, frankly, embarrassing that the best wind tunnel access we were able to get was in South Africa, and opportunities to compete for business. Congress, of course, has legislative incentives of a variety of sorts that can be offered. And, of course, there is the insurance Catch-22 where the law requires us to go off shore for insurance because the insurance pool in this country is largely dated up, but the law prohibits us from transferring the information that underwriters need in order to accept the risks of insuring us.
In conclusion, we developed a straightforward launch system. We are making steady progress but it is harder than it used to be. We can offer unique capabilities to a variety of customers in and out of Government. And we could use some help, both from NASA and from the economic development practices of Earth to space. The NASA Administrator, I will mention, has already reached out to most of the people here at this table and some others besides, and we want to encourage his efforts in that regard. Thank you.
[Mr. Burnside Clapp's prepared statement follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much.
I think we have to do some wire changes here so that we can hook up the next laptop. While we are doing that, I will introduce Mr. Davis. Robert Davis is the president and CEO of Kelly Space and Technology, a former executive at Aerojet, and former Navy pilot. He joined Kelly last year and has managed their participation in NASA's space transportation architecture study.
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You are recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT M. DAVIS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, KELLY SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Mr. DAVIS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear here today.
I am Bob Davis, president and CEO of Kelly Space. I am the second CEO of the company. I would like to begin with an animation of our concept, and I will talk about what it does, and thereafter I will give you some comments on how we feel about the participation of the Government with companies such as ours and the others that are represented here today. I will talk over this concept and give you the highlights of it.
There are several points I would like to make as this proceeds. First, you will see that this is absent of a lot of the infrastructure that is typical of launching vehicles as we know them around the world today. You will also see that we use a 747 aircraft to supplement our thrust during takeoff, so the 747 provides us the excess power that is needed to take this aircraft off the ground. This is a large concept, this is about the size of an L–011. You will see that we put payloads in and out of the large cargo bay, the cargo bay being larger than that of the Shuttle, 18.5 feet in diameter and 45 feet long. We can take off from any 10,000 foot-long runway anywhere around the world, thereby servicing satellite constellations on any day.
This is a piloted, horizontal takeoff-horizontal landing vehicle. We pull it up to its launch site at 20,000 feet using gas turbine engines, regular jet engines, to supplement the climb to altitude. At 20,000 feet we now shift to rocket engine operation. The vehicle climbs ultimately to about 100 nautical miles in altitude. When out of the atmosphere, the nose comes open, and in the same fashion that we put payloads into the cargo bay, we also deploy them out of the cargo bag.
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The design calls initially for an expendable upper stage to take satellites that are on the order of those carried for low-earth orbit, medium-earth orbit, and selectively geosynchronous satellites to their destinations. The expendable upper stage is then deorbited, consumed as it reenters the atmosphere.
In the meanwhile, the Astroliner, as it is called, reenters the atmosphere much like the Shuttle does, except at a much lower velocity, about a third of that of Shuttle, with about one-eight of the heat loads. So, consequently, we are able to use off-the-shelf technologies for the entirety of this vehicle. Everything you see in the concept exists. It is a disruptive and unique architecture that allows us to dramatically reduce the cost of operation—elimination of ground infrastructure, and use of off-the-shelf capabilities.
The piloted vehicle comes back and lands. We then turn the vehicle around and are ready to go again in as few as three days. A highly reusable concept that uses off-the-shelf technologies.
If we were to carry bigger payloads such as to ISS, then we would have to upgrade some of the technologies. Those have been studied in conjunction with capabilities that would allow for transport of humans to and from the Station in support of those endeavors when they come on line.
A couple of comments. We have, like many others, been struggling to raise money. Why is that? In part, we compete with the Government everyday, and it is not just the United States Government, it is governments around the world. All the vehicles that are flying today in one form or another have been invested in by governments to bring them into routine operation.
The second thing that is confronting us is a convergence of technologies. These are all Information Highway Technologies. The point being that fiber optics and terrestrial cellular, wireless systems are encroaching upon what was a very popular concept as recently as several years ago. We are now seeing a declination, if you will, of urgency on the part of low-earth orbit, medium-earth orbit satellites, which is what we initially focused on. Now as I said, our vehicle is scaleable, so we can go down market, we can go up market, we can serve other aspects of the market when they may appear.
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As you look out ahead, there is no question that the demand for broadband band width is going to increase beyond the capacity, once again, of terrestrial systems. So as long as we are able to survive until that occurs, then there will be a need for us, and all the other companies that are represented here today with reusable vehicle concepts, to service, much less expensively and more frequently in terms of service, the needs of a lot of satellite owners and operators of the future.
A big problem we also have is there is such a mania for investment in Internet and e-commerce businesses because they offer extraordinarily high yields and very, very quick returns. That it is now thwarting the ability of all of us to raise institutional and even venture capital financing. All of us exist, by and large, on private angels, some of them substantial, others less so. We have raised in our existence a little more than $12 million, all of it from friends, family, private investors, and occasional very small institutions.
What do we recommend? We would like to see NASA continue to support the incubation of companies such as ours. We think that that ought to be focused on the emerging small companies. We would like to see flight demonstrations, technology advancement where necessary, and we would like to see also data mining of what has been accumulated by all Government agencies over the past thirty or forty years in terms of things that have taken place in space that could help create new markets. We would like to be sure that as payloads are designed in the future they are designed in such a way as to ensure that they do not drive unique and very narrow transportation devices, or designs if you will.
Finally, in terms of legislation, we are a strong supporter of tax incentives, reductions of capital gains on investments made in space. We need to find a way to induce people to put money into this industrial sector as opposed to just Internet and e-commerce activities. We do support loan guarantee legislation and have done a lot of work in trying to ensure that legislation talked about on the Senate side was not going to be written in such a way as to principally favor large companies. We think that small companies are the key to changing the architecture of cost, reliability, and safety in the future, and ask that any loan guarantee program be structured in such a way as to recognize the opportunity for small companies to prosper. Thank you.
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[Mr. Davis' prepared statement follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. I would like to thank each of our witnesses.
We will now proceed to the questioning phase of the hearing. I would like to kick it off with a question to each of you. Some of you, I realize are much further along than others in the process of bringing your concepts to the marketplace. But what is the total cost, estimated or actual in some cases, for getting your first production vehicle operational? I think, Dr. Mueller, you said you have invested about $500 million so far.
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Dr. MUELLER. We have spent about $500 million so far, and we owe a fair amount of that actually, and we expect to be spending something like $300 or $400 million beyond this time to get through our test program.
Mr. WELDON. And are you going to have some dummy payloads in the first mission or several missions, or are you going to launch a real payload the first time?
Dr. MUELLER. No. Actually, we will have instrumentation on the first flight and the second test flight, well, all the test flights. We will be carrying ballast on the first one, and then whatever payloads are available on the second flight.
Mr. WELDON. To the others, can you give us an estimate of what it will cost to bring your first vehicle to the marketplace?
Mr. WURST. Our estimate for the development of the Space Access launch system is over $5 billion.
Mr. WELDON. Five billion?
Mr. WURST. Yes.
Mr. WELDON. Okay.
Mr. HUDSON. We have spent $33 million to date, and we require something like $100 million more to get to first sub-orbital flights. And orbital missions are about a total of $150 to $200 million.
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Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. We have spent under $10 million so far. Our system will cost between $275 and $300 million, including its 37 flight test program, before there is revenue service. Fairly low uncertainty on that.
Mr. WELDON. Thirty-seven test flights?
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. That is right. Because it is an aircraft first and last, most of those test flights are atmospheric air-breathing engine operations, the sort of thing you do in a flight test program normally. Only the last eleven flights are rocket powered, and three of those are deployments from the payload bay, one of which will be a live payload, but that may turn out to be ballast. We have not scheduled an actual payload for it.
Mr. DAVIS. Our program requires an investment of $525 million. That produces two of the Astroliner aircraft that you saw in the animation, plus all the infrastructure that is necessary to support the operation, including development of the upper stage. The first one will cost about $400 million to put into revenue service, the remaining $125 million is to produce the second aircraft.
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Wurst, I assume the higher cost estimates for your concept is related to the throw weight or the heavy lift capability?
Mr. WURST. I think there are two factors, Mr. Chairman. First off, Dr. Mueller, next to me, has actually gone much further in the development of a launch system. If you actually have seen the concept, it is pretty straightforward. It uses mostly existing technology, existing engines, and it really just made them reusable. And he has already spent $500 million in the development of that system. I think he is doing it relatively efficient, because we have been around using a lot of the same subcontractors he is using.
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So, first off, you have to be realistic about how much something is going to cost. My own history, at a previous company, I was the lead engineer of a program called X–31, which was a subsonic demonstration aircraft, about the size of a small fighter aircraft. And after you add up all the costs of flight tests, and both the Government and the corporate's cost, it was about $200 million. So to say I am going to take something that size and make it go fifteen times the speed, be able to recover from orbit, and, oh, by the way, the second factor is this difference in payload.
The payloads that we are targeting are the size basically of a small school bus, if you want to envision it. They would not fit inside a 747 by themselves. The payloads cannot be hauled from their manufacturing location to the launch site in a 747. It has to either be done by ground or specialized aircraft that have bigger diameters than a 747. The development of just a 747 costs over $5 billion.
So, I think with a combination of the two, that it is basically a realistic estimate of what real development programs really cost because, I think the two of us, having been involved in them, and secondly, because the payload category it at the high end rather than the low end, that increases the costs even further.
Mr. WELDON. I believe my time has expired.
I would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Lampson, for five minutes.
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Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank Chairman Rohrabacher for calling this hearing today, allowing us the opportunity to hear from some of the boldest and most innovative young aerospace companies. I think we all admire the spirit that lives in these organizations, and we certainly admire their willingness to risk their own assets on their creative energies. They truly are blazing new paths in technology, developing concepts like nobody has seen before. Their energy, their innovation, their imagination make up a large part of what the Space Program at its best brings out in America.
The Space Industry is a growing segment of our economy. It is an area that we can significantly contribute to our national well-being in the next century, and we want to be in a good position to be competitive in space. These days with the budget for civil and military space now highly constrained, it is difficult to see where we will find the money for a new launch system. So the appearance of private capital in space transportation technology is a welcome development.
With that said, let me begin with a question for Dr. Mueller. On page 7 of your written testimony, you discuss the value of Federal launch contracts to potential commercial reusable launch vehicle providers. However, none of the potential commercial RLVs has yet demonstrated its viability. How should the Federal Government go about picking winners and losers among the RLV companies in such an environment?
Dr. MUELLER. You know, that is one of the more difficult things facing the Government is trying to avoid choosing winners and losers and providing a level playing field for all of us to compete in.
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I think that what we have been talking about are contingent contracts, with perhaps some small amount of money at the beginning for essentially a deposit or a payment for keeping a launch window available to you. It is essentially a downpayment, if you will, that gives you an opportunity to use this vehicle when and if it is created. It is not something that you can guarantee is going to happen. So you can only have a contingent-type contract on the part of the Government. And, as a matter of fact, it is the same contingent contract we have with Lorel. They are paying a small amount of money up front in order for them to have the opportunity to use, the option to use the follow on flights. They are not out any more money unless we actually fly.
Mr. LAMPSON. How many of those contracts might you see? I mean, how would we make the decisions of to whom to grant them?
Dr. MUELLER. That would have to be something that you either had to have a competition for, or you had a real requirement, and then you could have a competition for that particular need. On the other hand, you could also, for a relatively small amount of money, have contingent contracts with all of the RLV manufacturers.
Mr. LAMPSON. Anybody who comes up with a proposal?
Dr. MUELLER. Yes. Well, anybody who has some reasonable opportunity of actually carrying it through.
Mr. LAMPSON. Since the Federal Government has to protect the taxpayers' interests, why should it not select a proven expendable launch vehicle provider over an unproven reusable launch vehicle provider if the prices quoted are equivalent?
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Dr. MUELLER. So far, the Government has made that decision. I think it is a poor decision because it does not lead to ever getting space access costs down to something that you and I can afford. I really would like to fly into space some day.
Mr. LAMPSON. We want you to. I want to go with you.
Over time, and not right now because I do not have the time, but I would like to hear other of your thoughts in answers to those points, if you would not mind doing so.
Mr. Davis, on page 3 of your written testimony, you state that Kelly Space also supports Government loan guarantee legislation and programs, but only if they are structured to simulate market entry by small enterprise and do not merely perpetuate the dominance of large corporations in the industry. How would you propose structuring a loan guarantee program that would meet that criteria?
Mr. DAVIS. Well, that's an excellent question and one that is always difficult to deal with because we would prefer not to see the Government exercise preferential choices. On the other hand, one of the purposes of this hearing was to talk about how to stimulate competition in our industry in the United States and how to gain better, if you will, launch industry support across the world's space launch needs.
The challenge of a small company is to have enough, if you will, financial capacity to induce people to invest in any of these concepts, in these companies. Large companies that are well-established with lines of credit that are competitive with lines of credit or the cost of money from the Government already do not really necessarily need that help. For them, it is really a capital decision or an opportunity cost to capital for them to make a decision as to whether to invest in a large vehicle. We do not have that luxury. Our companies all live, if you will, almost hand-to-mouth in this current investment environment.
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So, if we really are interested as a Nation in investing or in creating a larger base of competition, and thereby getting the costs down and the reliability up and the safety up, then I think the Government can serve a useful purpose in incubating companies such as these.
Mr. LAMPSON. I see that my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Hopefully, there may be a second round. I would like to ask that my statement be entered into the record in its entirety.
Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
[Mr. Lampson's opening statement follows:]
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Mr. WELDON. I would like to now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Calvert.
Mr. CALVERT. I thank the Chairman. And I agree, this testimony today has been extremely interesting. We wish you all well and hope you all succeed in your efforts to build an affordable reusable launch vehicle.
I would also like to congratulate Mr. Davis, whose company is located in San Bernardino, California. We certainly want you to succeed also.
I have some questions regarding what the Government participation is and how they hurt or harm you, I suspect. Your testimony, Mr. Davis, and many of you have pointed on this, is that the Government is funding larger companies to improve launch systems and develop RLV concepts. What has been the impact of Government actions on your companies individually to help develop a commercial RLV, both positively and negatively? Why don't we just go right on down the line here.
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Dr. Mueller, do you want to start?
Dr. MUELLER. So far, we have avoided being helped by the Government.
Mr. CALVERT. And that's a good thing I guess.
Dr. MUELLER. But we are hoping that the Government will find a way of encouraging investment in our system.
Mr. CALVERT. And that is something I hear consistently through the whole panel. So, something? Capital gains, investment tax credit, whatever type of vehicle?
Dr. MUELLER. Exactly.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Wurst, any add on to that?
Mr. WURST. Well, if I understood your question correctly—could you please repeat it.
Mr. CALVERT. How is the Government helping you or hurting you in your efforts to put together a launch vehicle?
Mr. WURST. Okay. I did not know if you wanted to emphasize the past and where we have gotten to. But I think it was summarized pretty well. The Government already invests about $5 billion a year into the existing systems, so they have a cash flow and there is an interest on the part of those companies to continue that. It is not that they are bad. Basically, if you have that much revenue and you are making a profit on it, you do not want anything to disturb that. One of those companies is being pretty visionary in saying the future really is not in expendable launch vehicles, but it is really in reusable launch vehicles, as is our company and these here. We are pursing the development of reusable launch vehicles. But it is going to take a shift in the perception that the Government is going to protect the status quo.
If you are looking for a ten to one reduction in cost, in essence, look at what would happen to the revenue generated by those companies now in the business. That is going to go from a large number to a small number if you do not see a broadening of the market. I would compare that to the evolution of mainframe computers into PCs. It was not the companies that put forth mainframe computers that put forth the PCs, because they looked at it and said well, gee, are making all this money selling these huge mainframes, why should we build the smaller system. People might have gotten trained at those companies but they went other places and made it work. And I think that is what you are seeing here. There are five companies representing ten or twelve that are actually going out there knowing that there is a better way to do this. The real trick is to figure out how the Government can work with us to make that happen.
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Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Hudson.
Mr. HUDSON. In 1982, a NASA Associate Administrator told me I was in the wrong business because NASA was going to crush the competition. I think that is the past.
Currently, Administrator Golden and his team, Dan Tam and others, have gone that extra mile to try and dispel the credibility doubts that all of us have when we go into the financial market. I call it the brother-in-law problem. Essentially, if you go to an investor or an investment banker, they say interesting idea, let me ask my brother-in-law who worked on the Apollo program, or works at Boeing, or whatever. And, of course, they always say there is no way they can do it for that amount of money, or in that amount of time, or this, that, or the other thing. By having alliances with NASA, which can be at no cost, Commercial Space Act agreements and so on, we can go a long way to mitigating that particular problem.
But there still is a perception in the financial community—and please do not mistake Wall Street for the financial community, it is not. Wall Street are bookies; they make money on both sides of the deal. Investors are throughout this great country and they make the actual decisions about investment. If they see alliances with NASA, it does not even have to be contracts, in my view, it can be just cooperative agreements, that will go a very long way to making life easier for all of us at this table.
Mr. CALVERT. Great. I always refer to them as brokers myself.
Mr. Clapp, go ahead.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. Thanks. From Pioneer's point of view, we could probably say that Government involvement has been a slight net positive; some bad things, some good. Investment in other companies that have an interest in maintaining the status quo, that is a net bad. But we have received some help from NASA ourselves in terms of developing our thermal protection system and so forth, applying technologies that were developed on the public's nickel from NASA.
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We have the difficulty that everyone faces, the perceived risk and actual risk are not necessarily the same thing. We look forward to working with NASA in the future to mitigate that problem so that perceived risk and actual risk are the same thing.
Mr. CALVERT. Okay.
Finally, Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. On the positive side, we have been the benefactor of support from the Air Force and NASA both in the form of a flight demonstration. We have previously demonstrated the total launch concept using a C–141 and an F–106 out at Edwards Air Force Base at the Dryden Flight Research Center. That gave us great credibility. We were able to say to investors and to demonstrate to them that we had the ability to design an experiment and to put together representative pieces of equipment and to build simulations and give them some degree of assurance that we were not just a group of people who had a fanciful dream.
Secondly, we are exploiting, as I mentioned earlier, a vast armada of technologies and equipment that has been brought about by the whole industry over the last thirty or forty years. Today, we are the benefactor of a study looking at architectures of the future. Quite frankly, that study has been very important to us in terms of pure economic survival, and it also has allowed us to continue to flesh out, if you will, all of our concepts that will serve the broad market that was asked about in the questions that underlie the hearing today.
Also, I would like to applaud the efforts of the FAA. One of the biggest risks in this whole area, from the point of view of institutional investors, is the ability to license these vehicles. After all, it will be the first time that privately financed and commercial operators will not only leave the atmosphere, but also reenter and reuse these vehicles. One of the early observations that was impressed upon me by Wall Street or whoever was the inability to control how these vehicles would be regulated and licensed was a critical factor in any decision they might make to invest.
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On the challenging side, it is a fact that investors oftentimes want to know exactly who is the competition. And as we have talked about loan guarantees and will they influence the marketplace, contort it, if you will, in some cases, or will in fact I invest money in a company such as Kelly Space and Technology only to see the Government extend the use of Shuttle, or invest in a Venture Star, or invest in other programs like that. That would, in effect, impede the ability to be successful in the marketplace. So that uncertainty about how the Government might behave in the future is, in the eyes of some investors, an impediment.
Mr. CALVERT. I thank the gentlemen. I thank the Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER [presiding]. Thank you very much.
I would like to extend to all of you my apologies for being late. I was leading a major fight on the floor. Interestingly enough, the fight dealt with whether or not we should be subsidizing the building of factories overseas. I think it is rather ironic, which I was of course opposing the OPEC subsidy and guaranteeing of loans and business arrangements for the building of factories overseas, and I find it ironic that here we are in this hearing talking to some entrepreneurs who are begging to have their chance at some American capital to show their stuff, to create new technologies and new jobs here. But we can go through that later. Again, I apologize for having to be there on the floor and leading that fight.
I would suggest to the panelists and to our witnesses today that I am willing to spend at least ten, fifteen minutes with each one of you later on today or tomorrow to hear your case and to get your firsthand impressions of what is going on. And, again, I apologize. We didn't know, and the way things work, I would have given anything to be here.
And Mr. Larson is now next in line for questions.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question. Again, more of an amplification of a point that was made by Mr. Davis. I did not quite follow the connection the launching and monitoring of satellites and broad band width. What was the point that you were trying to make in that slide?
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Mr. DAVIS. Our company has over its six years designed six, or thereabout, different sizes of this Astroliner concept that was in the animation. It originally was targeted on very small scientific and research satellites. But the market for that is very, very thin. So over time, we have been induced to go, if you will, up market, because we saw real customers that were spending real dollars to have real satellites launched.
In the last five to ten years, we have seen the emergence of Low Earth Orbit and Medium Earth Orbit telecommunication satellite constellations. We are all witnesses to the experiences of Iridium and ICO Global in recent weeks, months, et cetera. That has had a pretty depressing effect, if you will, on the whole demand for companies such as ours, for those at least who are focused on that market. In part, that is because of execution. But also in part, it is because we have seen literally hundreds or thousands of miles of fiber optic cable laid very expediently and millions of cellular wireless towers put up that have served the market that was originally going to be served by these emerging satellites.
So the convergence of technology concept that I elaborated on is, in fact, that. Terrestrial communications means are competing with satellite communications. In the longer term, however, as one listens to the voices that have to do with the appreciation of the impact of Internet on the world, then the demand for broad band services, if you will, communications, will at some point once again take us back up to space as a means of accomplishing those connections. So that is the super highway reference that I was talking about.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you very much for that.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield back the balance of my time to my distinguished colleague from Texas, Mr. Lampson.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Larson, for yielding.
Mr. Wurst, you are an emerging company. What can we do in the near term to keep the momentum growing for companies like yours? And would you discuss your experience in going forward to seek financing from investors, and what led you to believe so strongly as you do about the benefits of loan guarantees?
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Mr. WURST. During our process of raising financing, we engaged Donaldson, Lefkin & Jenearette, they are one of the leading Wall Street firms in financing commercial space. They did a complete, very thorough due diligence. Passed with flying colors. One of the negatives that came up was the perception that the Government does not want to disturb the status quo and that there was a signal needed from the Federal Government that a change in the Government's approach is forthcoming.
There are several ways of implementing this, and I will just run through them quickly, the alternatives to this. A tax credit. When we were formed in 1994, we went around the different States and looked at what their tax laws were in those different States. At that point in time, Florida was a relatively progressive State. It had already introduced what was a limited liability company legislation that allows you to pass through losses each year, the investment in this launch vehicle development, as a tax deduction to your investors. So while tax credits would be of benefit, they would not be of as much benefit. The multipliers on them is on the order of 10 to 20 percent of the amount of funds invested in the tax credit.
Advance purchases without any deposit. We still have to go out and borrow the money or acquire the money that goes along with that advance purchase. And we are going to borrow that again at venture capital rates which are pretty significant. In the case of an advance purchase, it benefits big companies more because they have existing lines of credit in other businesses that they can go out and borrow money against that at a much more attractive rate than we as a small business can.
Advance purchase with deposit has a little bit different of an effect. I think that is the same thing George Mueller here discussed with respect to his program, that he would be interested in that, and that is the same kind of an arrangement he has with his commercial customers. It gives the Government an attractive return because you are going to give them a really discounted price for their launch service. It puts some teeth in the agreement and it is a good interim solution. The interesting thing is the reason I am not really that big of a backer of it is because it is only really applicable to vehicles like ours that are developing launch systems that are compatible with Government payloads. So in the long term, it may or may not be the right solution because of that. It is kind of an interesting twist to it, that in order to get a purchase of launch in advance, it would have to be a Government mission.
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So what happens is loan guarantees end up being good. Because the Government leverages a lot of commercial investment, it allows multiple recipients because of that, more than one company. And how the Government reduces its risk is by having not just one source, but multiple sources of suppliers providing launch services. And it does not have to be restricted to just Government payloads; it can be any type of payload as long as it is qualified for loan guarantee. In essence, the multiplier effect is huge. The Government funds that are put into it can be multiplied significantly. In return, we can get the cost of money of developing the program down significantly.
In our program, for every dollar we spend actually paying workers, we are going to end up having to spend with venture capital types of investment rates four to five times that amount to go back to those investors. With loan guarantees, that changes to one-to-one. So it changes the amount of the overall program cost by a factor of three. That is what allows you to either cut your price by a factor of three, or it allows you to use one-third of the same amount of business and still complete your market plan. Which would mean you could have three competitors going after the same market.
So for those reasons, the fact it gives the Government so much leverage, it allows competition, and is not restricted to just Government payloads but it could be either commercial or Government payloads.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Larson, for yielding me your time. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I now recognize Ms. Jackson-Lee.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank you again for holding hearings that are extremely informative to many of us. I do want to acknowledge that I was delayed as well and was not able to hear a good part of the testimony. But I will focus my questions in areas that I already have had interest and questions in. And just because the Chairman and I work together so well, I would just acknowledge to him that OPIC's work overseas, believe it or not, something that I do support, aids us in increasing the opportunity and development in places beyond our boundaries. So I must be equally interested in space commercialization here inside our boundaries.
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But I do raise several questions, and they are all dealing with finance. I happen to believe that the Government should be in the business of risk-taking. We have done it with respect to medical research, other forms of technology. For fear of getting a chuckle, we were at the cutting edge of the Internet, the Government was. And I might add, from my neck of the woods, we were at the cutting edge of a lot of research dealing with energy—oil and gas, solar, various other renewable fuels, et cetera.
But my question is, this is an enormous undertaking, requires a lot of capitalization, and I would like to hear, if you have already said it, I apologize, but anyone who wants to quickly summarize for me how you would raise the additional capital to keep yourself going.
Then the other issue that I have always raised in this committee, because everywhere we go we know that technology, space will be the work of the 21st century, will this be a business only for the high rollers, or what kind of opportunities will come about for small and minority-based businesses. Now many of you will say you are already small. But I am talking about smaller or those who do not have the general acumen, if you will, to have access to what I perceive to be the amount of capital that will be required of this.
So my first point would be, is this really pie in the sky? Steve, we have had long discussions, so you know my great interest in this area. But I need to get a sense that this is something that can be parlayed into a reasonable industry, maybe years into the 21st century, but still that can happen. But I am very curious about the capitalization of it, the continuity of the capitalization, which the Federal Government I guess cannot play that role, I would offer to say cannot play that role.
And Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit my opening statement in the record. I ask unanimous consent.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Without objection.
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Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you very much.
If the gentlemen would answer my questions.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. Thank you for your question. From the point of view of Pioneer Rocketplane, just one of the companies represented here today, we think that the bulk of the investment that we need to get ourselves over the goal line, so to speak, will be raised from private sources. But the Government plays a role in reducing the risk of that investment. Let me point out, please, that every existing launch vehicle system was developed with lavish Government support and money up front with no expectation that there was a certainty of success. So the Government has been, as you say, risk-taking for a very long time in this. We are asking in fact considerably less than Martin Marietta had in the development of the Titan, about around the time I was born actually, or that Boeing has in the development of its new systems.
The success that Pioneer will offer to the future will I think, develop in a number of ways. We expect to have significant amount of job creation due to the subsidiary industries and so forth that cluster around a thriving new industry. The number of Internet-related jobs and jobs downstream of the people actually pushing keys on a keyboard has been an enormous source of economic growth and vitality. From our point of view, we see the same thing happening. Most studies suggest that the demand for space launch services will increase exponentially once the cost of those services is reduced ten-to fifteenfold over its current level. And we think that our system offers a pretty story for doing that.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Can you answer the long-term capitalization?
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. Out of revenue, like any other successful transportation business.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. What about smaller entities being able to joint venture or to participate in this budding industry?
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Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. We have absolutely no objection whatsoever to doing that. It depends on the entities. We expect that most of our jobs for production of upper stages and so forth will probably wind up being unionized jobs. We expect that there will be the esoteric development of high expertise in things like very small machine shops which are typically fifteen to ten person type businesses and so forth. So small and minority run entities participating in the sort of economic robustness that we hope to be able to achieve is something that we expect would happen. In any other well-succeeding industry—that was a horrible phrase, excuse me—it is often that way.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Steve, or anyone else?
Mr. WURST. Ma'am, I think that it is already being the case. Companies like us have gone out and sought both the traditional aerospace suppliers roles, companies like Allied Signal, Pratt and Whitney are under contract to us now, but, in addition, there is over twenty small businesses, several of which are small and minority-owned businesses, that are our suppliers. And the reason for that is because they are naturally risk-takers. We have an agreement in place with McNabb to do the control of the satellites themselves, with IES in San Diego to do the development of the fuel system itself. So they might be considered niches, they are not here represented today, but certainly if I had a chart of who, the companies within our team include several of those already. And I do believe that is one way to get in.
I do believe another way to get in is through the electronics and telecommunications that we will be facilitating the development of. In other words, there is a direct role for the individuals that are part of our team, there is also the space industry itself, which is predominantly telecommunications, in which that type of company can thrive. Although ours is relatively financially intensive to get involved in, the telecommunications aspect is not. I will give you an example. The people who make our videos and stuff, which I did not show but there are others here, are relatively small businesses based in different places around L.A. and in the entertainment, several of which are small and minority-owned businesses.
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So I do believe there are at least two different paths to go through where it benefits not just the big businesses that you typically see, but also the full spectrum of businesses.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. George.
Dr. MUELLER. The approach that we have used in trying to answer that particular question is to deal with many of the small companies and the universities which are producing small payloads. So that we have working agreements with the USRA, for example, and with the companies in Europe as well as the companies in this country that are building small payloads.
The thing that makes the difference, of course, is the cost of getting these payloads into orbit. We expect that once the cost comes down, there will be a proliferation of uses of space that we cannot begin to envision at the moment, although we can envision them, but you cannot sell them to our investing public until it happens. I think, as we have looked forward in time, that inevitably the lowering of costs to the levels at which we are all talking about will create a new market and a new world in which we are living.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. There is one witness who did not answer the question. Gary did not——
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, I would like to offer some observations. I agree with your observation about the Government having been, if you will, the creator of the Internet. I think it started in 1964, but I think the impetus behind it actually started in the 1940s with the first computer. And as we look at this computer here today sitting in front of me, it has many, many times the computing power of the computers that took the Apollo to the Moon and back. But it took us, what, thirty-five years to get to the point to where now we have computers on every desk and the Internet is catching fire and providing such an economic stimulus to the growth of the Nation.
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I think our industry to some extent is walking backwards into the future. For example, we started as ICBM folks, and we did that to protect the country. We spent a lot of money on expensive infrastructure, we invented a lot of the capability along the way. It was not necessarily done efficiently, as efficiently as a free market might have caused to be brought about. Today, we are trying to now back down, if you will, from other expensive robust set of capabilities that were designed around protection of the U.S. well-being. For example, in the study we are doing right now for NASA, we have a feature called ''Cost as a Technology.'' When we describe to established aerospace companies, such as Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Allied Signal, as was alluded to, the credibility of these companies is in question because we suggest that we can develop these systems for dramatically less cost than has been commonplace. But over time, the viewpoint of these large companies that are in the business today has grown in order to provide the multiplicity of different systems that we enjoy the use of across-the-board, whether it is in military, civil, or air transport circumstances.
You asked the question, how does this benefit small people, if you will. It is our viewpoint that done well we can put within the grasp of ordinary citizens the use of space affordably. So that is the mantra that makes this company go forward and fills us with the entrepreneurial spirit that says this is something that we ought to invest our lives and our investors' money in. If we do this right, then that lower end of the market that I alluded to earlier that was the original point of this company, which was to launch small payloads frequently with small vehicles, will become a reality. And when that is the case, then it will be within the realm of ordinary citizens and small companies to avail themselves of the benefits of near-space, near-Earth orbits and so forth.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And Mr. Hudson, do you have a comment to make on the question by Ms. Jackson-Lee?
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Mr. HUDSON. Just briefly. I would like to say the Government can really do two things. It can provide credibility or it can provide capital. In an era of tight budgets, providing capital, whether by guarantee or contract, is difficult. Providing credibility is a very low cost thing to do. I think we have gone a long way there with NASA's support in recent months. That credibility makes it easier for us to approach the public directly. If Internet companies can IPO with increasingly large losses in each year, presumably we could as well.
And finally on the subject of small businesses. One reason we have very low development costs is we do not use large companies; we use only small companies. For example, the Pegasus Launch Vehicle, which was largely developed through relatively small sized industries, cost only $50 to $60 million. The DC–X which used, for example, Scale Composites, Burt Rutan's company, cost only $60 million to develop. What we have done to date has cost only $30 million to develop. It is perfectly feasible to do things inexpensively, but you have to pick the right partners. If you go to the aerospace giants, you will not get inexpensive development. Thank you.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make sure, and I thank you for your indulgence, if I can get a yes or no from everyone, what I am hearing is that long-term financing can be private and out of revenues if this is done right. Can I just get everyone to say yes or no?
Dr. MUELLER. Yes.
Mr. WURST. Yes.
Mr. HUDSON. Absolutely.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. Yes.
Mr. DAVIS. Yes.
Dr. MUELLER. Unanimous.
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Ms. JACKSON-LEE. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, I am glad you asked that. When you say that you are interested in seeing little people in space, I hope you are not excluding people like Jim Muncy, my good friend here. [Laughter.]
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. The term was used in a far different manner, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. Jim reminds me that we are trying to get the cost per pound down. [Laughter.]
Anyway. Listen, I am sorry, again, that I was not here earlier. I appreciate the committee and the members being here today. I will give each one of you a chance to see me today or tomorrow with at least ten minutes so we can talk personally about your situation.
Let me just say that, as we move forward with the Station, I think that one of the answers and one of the things that we have to really fully examine are advanced contracts for Station supply and maintenance, and we also have to see that perhaps the structuring of resupply and maintenance for Station be done in a way that smaller companies can actually participate. It does not have to be one huge vehicle, it can be smaller vehicles in several different trips, as you have discussed that already today.
I do find it somewhat ironic that I was on the floor in this OPIC debate. You know more than anyone else that when we try to do things that give incentives for capital to flow outside the country to other projects that are outside the country, it is coming from that pot of capital that is available for investment in your projects. I am sure you understand that, but I hope that some of our friends on the floor of the House will understand that as we come to a vote today.
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As you are aware, I am very interested in changing the tax law, and I have discussed that with some of you personally. My zero gravity, zero tax has not been submitted yet, but I do plan to expand on that concept to include capital gains. That would be I think of great benefit to your type of operations, even more than just the corporate tax because you have got to make a profit to pay the corporate tax. But the lure of having no capital gains tax on an investment with a project that might be successful just may lure investors into what is a risky venture but one with perhaps a great payoff.
I remember Steve and I discussed the idea of some type of collateral that might be used. I would like to ask each one of you, as Ms. Jackson-Lee led the way, do you believe, in the projects that you are involved in, that you have developed or will soon be developing new technologies that you own, that you have patent rights to or some sort of ownership rights to that technology that would have some value that might be able to be used as collateral in some way as we explore that concept? Or, is it that your companies do not have technologies that have value other than your own project? Maybe if you could just say in fifteen seconds or whatever yes, no, or maybe.
Dr. MUELLER. Obviously, we are looking at all that we are doing to try to identify those things that are patentable. We have had a couple of patents issued so far. It takes years to get through that set of wickets, however.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. So do you think there is value to those particular technologies beyond your specific project?
Dr. MUELLER. Most of the value, as far as I can see, is preventing other people from doing the same thing that we are doing.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right.
Steve.
Mr. WURST. Well, sir, I believe that, yes, we absolutely do have already patented technologies that are very valuable that could be used as collateral for an investment.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. So if you are issued some sort of a contract or a guaranteed loan or something such as that, you would have some kind of collateral that, even if your company failed, that value could be used in some way so that the taxpayer or whoever would not be just left holding the whole bag?
Mr. WURST. Yes. Absolutely.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. So maybe we can talk about that as a concept with you.
Gary.
Mr. HUDSON. Short answer is, yes. Longer answer is, perhaps. The total value of those patents against the total cost of the project I think would actually be quite small. So perhaps 5 or 10 percent of the total value.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. Okay. But that is something.
Mr. HUDSON. It is better than nothing.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. We have specifically avoided developing new technologies because of the risk-mitigation issues involved. For us, the big value of our company is the arrangement of the existing technologies into a well-designed system.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. Got it.
Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. It is rather like you cannot patent the fiddle but you can copyright a piece of music. So here we have the orchestra, if you like, all put together from all these existing technologies, but what we have done is written a good piece of music to go with it.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I got it.
So it is, yes, yes, yes, no.
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Mr. BURNSIDE CLAPP. The answer is maybe. There are design patents, obviously.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay.
Mr. DAVIS. Our concept is already patented. It already serves as security for some loans we have. So it is leverageable in that regard, and we would expect that it would continue to be.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, thank you. I think that is an area we need to explore, the sooner the better. We need to explore every possibility of stimulating the flow of capital to you rather than the capital of setting up a mango factory overseas. How can that possibly affect jobs in the United States, which is the argument I was just presented on the floor.
Let me note this Chairman is mandating that there be a study done on the external tanks of the Shuttle. It seems to me that smaller companies, like your own, in the future just might come up with some ideas on how a huge pressurized container that is in space and available for you to use might actually be able to be put to some profitable use in connection with the technology that you are developing now. Who knows?
I was just in Budapest and it was a terrific, terrific experience. I met with a Hungarian astronaut and I gave a major speech there to the Hungarian Space Day. People say Hungary? How could it be involved in space? They are involved at this major university, the university of Hungary where Edward Teller and the guy from the Rubik's cube and all of these brilliant, brilliant individuals were involved in this university and technology development in Hungary. These people are involved in developing components that could be very, very useful to our space effort. And as I was talking to them, I suggested that we would have no idea what type of cooperation will be available, especially with smaller companies like yours.
But do you know what they are in tune with other there? They are in tune with the Net. They are in tune with the fact that they can talk directly to you. Now there must be some way of saying we need a part that does this and put it out on the Internet for every university, like the technical university in Budapest, to be able to say, hey, we can do that, or somebody else say we can do that, and come up with some ideas of offering your companies some solutions to a component problem that you may have. That is just a thought. They are anxious to talk with American entrepreneurs and American businessmen over there rather than simply going about the route of government-to-government contracts, which they, of course, have been under the heel of bureaucrats and politicians for their entire existence.
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I might add that I began my speech in Budapest talking about the two things that my generation of Americans think of when we think of Hungary. One is Edward Teller, and the other is the uprising against the communists in 1956. And so I was discussing with them freedom and technology, people who are engaged in freedom and technology. Those two issues go together. We will have a global economy and a global marketplace, but it may not be the type of thing that people have in mind. Space will be open to all people being involved, but it is not going to be something that we have guidelines and mandates and government direction to. Government is going to have to enable people rather than just organizing the effort itself. And they understood that very well in Budapest because they had had government trying to organize their lives for the last forty years.
And when I was done, and I will close on this, the president of the university and some of the leaders were there—and by the way, they are very involved with remote sensing, I got some briefings on that, and they are very involved in some of these things that we are involved in here—but they took me over to the side in this great indoor sort of a patio or courtyard-type area, and I did not know when I talked about the uprising whether or not I was stepping on somebody's toes because there might be some old Stalinists still around there, and the president of the university said, ''This is where it started. This is where the uprising in 1956 started, in our university. Our proudest achievement.''
So, with that, we look forward to a future with freedom and technology, and, as Ms. Jackson-Lee always insists, we are not talking about leaving anybody behind. We are trying to make sure that people are aware that this is an opportunity not just for the big guys, but for the little guys. And you, in particular, should know that because you are little guys struggling to be successful.
So we thank you very much. And this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:42 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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SAFETY AND PERFORMANCE UPGRADES TO NASA'S SPACE SHUTTLE
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1999
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I call this hearing to order. Today, the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics is holding the third in a series of four hearings on space transportation, and our topic this morning is Space Shuttle upgrades.
America's Space Shuttle fleet was designed and built in the 1970s using technology dating back to the 1960s. Even so, it is still the only American vehicle capable of putting humans into space and is, therefore, still the workhorse of NASA's space flight program. Just as we extend the life of older ships or planes by installing new electronics and overhauling engines, so, too, we are making prudent investments in the modernization of Shuttle.
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Our paramount goal here, of course, is to continue flying Shuttle as safely as possible. NASA and the United Space Alliance have made significant progress in meeting that goal, both in actual performance and according to analytical predictions.
But Shuttle upgrades sometimes are aimed at more than just safety. For example, we reduced the weight of the external tank in order to launch bigger payloads, and those payloads would be going to space station. We have improved the Shuttle's engines to make them more reliable and more operable. I am sure NASA and industry have a long list of changes that they would like to make in Shuttle, if only because they are smart people who want to make machines better.
Congress, however, has other priorities to consider. While we want to keep safety foremost, the reality is that we have limited money to invest, and I believe safety should be our highest priority in the funding of upgrades. But just as most of us cannot afford to drive a Humvee or some other car that has very little chance of risking your life if you got into an accident, we cannot afford to drive those cars to work every day, we cannot afford necessarily in the same way to take all the risk out of flying the Shuttle. There is a certain amount of risk that is always going to be there.
So beyond safety, our efforts are constrained by funding, and we recognize those funding constraints and are going to try to do our best within those constraints. They are also constrained by our desire not to unfairly compete with both large and small companies that are currently trying to develop their own new space transportation systems, and that has to be a factor, as well.
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For example, a few weeks ago, Lockheed Martin pointed out that they have invested approximately $300 million in X–33. Last week, Kistler Aerospace indicated that they have raised and spent nearly $500 million in developing their K–1, and that is why I have been a strong supporter of further privatization of the Shuttle.
Ultimately, it should be a business decision whether or not to upgrade an orbiter to make it more reliable, supportable, or capable. If an upgrade lowers the cost of operations enough to pay back the cost of doing the upgrade, then the United Space Alliance should fund the upgrade and keep the savings. But some people have been amazingly resistant to that idea. To paraphrase Werner von Braun, we can beat gravity, but, of course, bureaucracy is overwhelming.
We are now moving in the right direction, as far as I am concerned, with USA playing a greater role in planning upgrades and plowing its share of savings back into improving Shuttle, but the progress, however, I might add, has been slow.
Earlier this year, I supported a modest investment over several years to fund additional Shuttle upgrades to protect the safety of our astronauts and to keep the Shuttle workforce looking forward. Now, I expect NASA to speed up the transfer of control of the Shuttle to USA, along with greater responsibilities for funding additional future upgrades. The way for the Shuttle to fly beyond the next decade is not as the centerpiece of a government space program still stuck in low earth orbit, but as part of a new commercial space industry that liberates NASA to explore the moon and asteroids and perhaps one day even Mars.
I would now like to recognize my ranking member, Bart Gordon, for his opening statement.
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Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our guests as well as our witnesses to today's hearing.
As we all know, the Space Shuttle has been the mainstay of the U.S. Human Space Flight program for almost two decades. As the world's first reusable launch vehicle, it has proven to be a versatile and effective, although costly, space transportation system, and it will be critical for the assembly of the International Space Station. Nonetheless, the Administration and Congress have to look down the road and see what overall transportation architecture makes sense for the coming decade.
As we have heard in previous hearings, NASA is hard at work on research and development on advanced space transportation systems. In addition, last week, the Subcommittee heard from a number of private companies that are attempting to develop commercial reusable launch vehicles. Given all these activities, it is prudent for us to examine the role that the Shuttle should play in the nation's future space transportation system. Decisions on the role will help determine what Space Shuttle upgrades make sense under the limited funds available.
At today's hearing, I hope the witnesses will help the Subcommittee in its consideration of the following issues. What is the rationale for additional upgrades to the Shuttle? What specific upgrades does NASA propose to make and what will be the total and annual funding required? How would NASA prioritize those proposed upgrades and why? And finally, how confident is NASA that it fully understands the technical risk, cost, and schedule of its proposed upgrades?
The Shuttle is an important national asset. We want to ensure that it continues to fly safely. At the same time, we need to have a clear sense of which upgrades to the Shuttle are essential and which ones are just nice to have. We cannot do everything and the American taxpayers are going to expect us to make prudent choices. I think today's hearing will help us to make the right choices, and I again welcome our witnesses.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Without objection, the opening statements of other members will be made part of the record. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The statement of Mr. Weldon follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. The chair also asks unanimous consent for the authority to recess the hearing at any point. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
I also ask unanimous consent to insert at the appropriate place in the hearing record a background memorandum prepared by the majority staff for this hearing. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The memorandum follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Today, we are fortunate to have four distinguished witnesses with us to testify. We have a procedure we did not use prior to this Congress, but Chairman Sensenbrenner has a new procedure, so we swear in all of the witnesses. I would now ask you to stand and take the oath. Raise your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. READDY. I do.
Mr. WOOD. I do.
Mr. ALLEN. I do.
Dr. BOOK. I do.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. The reporter shall note that all the witnesses responded in the affirmative and you may be seated. How long does it last? It only lasts to the end of the hearing today. That is it. [Laughter.]
I guess it would be fair for them to swear us in, too, to tell you the truth. [Laughter.]
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Before we begin, I would like to remind all of you that we are really interested in getting to the questions and answers and getting to the heart of the matters at hand. If you could summarize your testimony to about five minutes and take the most important points and focus on those points, we would be very, very grateful for you to do that.
In the beginning, we did ask some questions, for example, of NASA beforehand, and at times, I have had some criticism that certain people have not gotten their testimony back to us and we have not had time to look at things, but I will say today that our first witness came through with detailed and forthright answers and we are very appreciative of that.
Bill Readdy is NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Flight and a three-time Shuttle veteran. Mr. Readdy, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM F. READDY, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR SPACE FLIGHT, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. READDY. Chairman Rohrabacher, Congressman Gordon, Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss Space Shuttle upgrades. NASA appreciates the signal that you sent with your increase to the Administration's request for Shuttle upgrades for safety, and I believe the support clearly expresses the level of interest here in the Congress today regarding the future of human space flight.
They say the past is prologue, and for a moment, let me take you back to the early 1970s. The proud accomplishments of the Apollo and the missions to the moon are fresh in everyone's mind. Then again, so are the incredible costs of access to space. Apollo 18, 19, and 20 were never flown. They were left to guard the gates at Marshall, Kennedy, and the Johnson Space Flight Center. I have to say that, driving past the Saturn V every day to work, you cannot help but think what we would not have given to have that capability today.
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In January of 1971, the decision was made to pursue the vision of safe, reliable, reusable space transportation, and the Space Shuttle was the result of years of design trades and technology development.
Moving forward a decade to April of 1981, after a hiatus in human space flight of almost 6 years. Columbia is poised on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center. That orbiter, as you said, contains the technologies of the 1960s and 1970s. As the countdown clock starts and as STS–1 lifts from the launch pad, NASA reenters human space flight. I think all of us remember the incredible feeling of pride and the tremendous accomplishment that the country felt, having seen the Columbia lift off that day. That represents the world's first foray into the era of reusable space transportation.
Finally, flashing ahead to this past July, the Columbia once again is poised on the launch pad. The average observer would only notice one difference external on the pad, and that is the change in the color from the pristine white on the external tank to the burnt orange color. But more importantly, underneath is aluminum lithium that gives us 7,000 more pounds to orbit.
But the changes to the Space Shuttle over the last 18 years are much deeper than just the color or the weight of the tank. Changing the external tank is just only an external manifestation of the many thousands of changes that have been incorporated into the Space Shuttle program. From nose detail, from the upgraded glass cockpit to the Shuttle Main Engines, from the new composite nose cap of the ET all the way down to the hold-down posts that fasten the solid rocket boosters to the launch pad, today's Space Shuttle is dramatically different.
I guess, parenthetically, the F–18s that I flew back in the early 1980s that are contemporaries of the Shuttle have also been upgraded over time and they remain the mainstay and the front-line fighter of today.
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We have increased the safety and reliability of the fleet from one in 78 to one in 438 through focused upgrades. We have reduced the cost of human space operations by a factor of 20 over the Apollo era. We continue to improve and evolve technologies and operations that pave the way for the next generation of reusable space transportation.
We have learned a tremendous amount as we transition from the expendable rocket culture to a reusable launch vehicle operation, but it is also worth noting that today, we are still flying and evolving the very first generation of reusable human rated space vehicles.
The Space Shuttle has completed 95 flights, 91 of which were labeled operational. By comparison, the F–22, which is the evolving front-line fighter of tomorrow, has completed over 200 test missions out of a test program that incorporates about 2,000 before it will be declared operational. Obviously, in reusable space transportation, we have much, much more to learn about our operations. The more we fly, the more we learn. The more we learn, the more we improve and make our vehicle safer, more reliable, and more affordable.
One thing is for certain, though. We have learned that there are still unknown unknowns in this business and space flight is inherently dangerous. Nearly two decades of Shuttle evolution—in those decades, we have transported over 100 major payloads and literally thousands of secondary payloads into space. To date, the Shuttle has transported over 200 astronauts to orbit and accomplished over ten million crew hours of research and operations. Impressive as those numbers may seem, they represent only about a quarter of the lifetime of the Space Shuttle fleet.
Flashing back to that Apollo example, just imagine not investing in that capability, not using that capability and how we might be judged a decade from now or two.
I am here today to answer your questions concerning the process by which NASA identifies and implements upgrades in the Space Shuttle program, defining the appropriate upgrades and resources necessary to ensure that we can safely and successfully use the over 300 missions remaining that we have in the Space Shuttle fleet, recognizing, of course, that the Space Shuttle is still the first generation vehicle and NASA and the country need to continue to invest in technology demonstration, as well.
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Make no mistake about it. Space flight is inherently hazardous. You all and the contractor team and NASA all struggle with the same question. How much safety is enough? We have already learned to our profound sorrow with Challenger that we must never get complacent and we must never err on the short side of safety. Where technology allows, we must continue to upgrade our Shuttle fleet. At NASA, safety is our first priority.
With regard to the Space Shuttle program, a robust upgrades program is not simply a desire, or even a requirement, it is an imperative. We have to put in place a process that assures safety of flight, not just for today, but also for tomorrow. The lives of the astronauts, the treasure invested by the American public, and hopes and dreams of human space flight for decades to come are what hang in the balance. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Readdy.
[The statement of Mr. Readdy follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Andy Allen is a former NASA astronaut and space flight official and he has recently joined United Space Alliance as the Director of Space Shuttle Development. Mr. Allen, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ANDREW M. ALLEN, DIRECTOR OF SPACE SHUTTLE DEVELOPMENT, UNITED SPACE ALLIANCE
Mr. ALLEN. Thank you very much. I have submitted a written statement for the record and I will briefly summarize that.
Chairman Rohrabacher, Congressman Gordon, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in your hearing on Space Shuttle upgrades. I am Andrew Allen, as introduced, Director of Space Shuttle Development for the United Space Alliance. USA is proud to operate the Space Shuttle fleet, as we all know, a vital and unique national asset. The United States, as Mr. Readdy has already mentioned, has only one vehicle capable of flying humans into space. Our goal is to fly it safely for as long as this nation needs it.
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Since being awarded the Shuttle flight operations contract, SFOC, as we call it, in 1996, USA, in partnership with NASA, has improved the overall performance of the Shuttle system as indicated, and I would like to show some charts.
This first chart indicates a 57 percent lower frequency in ground operations incidents, which directly contributes to improved safety.
This next chart demonstrates the improvement in reliability as measured by the decrease in system-related launch delays. All at the same time, this improvement was achieved despite smaller launch windows.
The next chart I have shows the improvement to Shuttle performance driven by the Phase One and Phase Two upgrades. Those upgrades have also led to a 71 percent increase in lift capability to the International Space Station.
This next chart illustrates USA's performance on cost savings.
I want you to know that the Phase One and Two upgrades discussed by Mr. Readdy contributed to these program improvements. We strongly believe that additional upgrades will lead to even greater increases in safety, reliability, and supportability.
On behalf of all the employees at NASA, I want to thank this Committee for having the foresight to authorize additional funds for support for additional Space Shuttle upgrades. USA, in partnership with NASA, is developing a road map of upgrades for the Shuttle fleet and its supporting infrastructure. The ongoing NASA–USA study, in cooperation with our industry teammates, is still in progress. We expect to define the appropriate and affordable upgrades in a prioritized manner and input them into the fiscal year 2001 budget request.
As many of you know, each orbiter was designed to operate for 100 missions over a period of ten to 20 years. As of today, the orbiter airframes have used only 25 percent of their design life. With more than 75 percent of their design life remaining, we believe it would maximize the return of our nation's investment to upgrade many of the internal components. Those components are reaching the end of their design life, as measured in years and availability.
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Safety is the main driver for the Shuttle upgrades road map. Examples of safety improvements proposed for additional future funding are the electric APU and the Space Shuttle Main Engine advanced health management system that your Committee had authorized in its NASA bill.
This next chart shows the investments in Shuttle upgrades that have increased the safety of this program, and these are candidate upgrades that we have looked at because it is a very complex process as we go through.
The investments that have been made and the increase that has been made allow us to decrease and mitigate some of the risks that we take during the ascent and overall mission phases of the flight. Safety improvements also address workforce and processing procedures that could inadvertently lead to a flight safety hazard.
For example, the damage of wiring that led to our recent Shuttle shutdown period could be avoided in the future through improved procedures and inclusion of upgrades that minimize the opportunity for inadvertent maintenance-induced damage.
This next chart shows the safety risk assessment top-down methodology that we have been using for Space Shuttle. Since funding was limited, our study looked for the highest risk factors. Then we investigated the best benefit versus cost efficiencies. Orbiter now shows the highest risk factor. This is due, in part, to the fact that it has risk for ascent and entry, not just ascent. Also, orbiter has many systems with original or close to original technologies.
A supportability team, co-led by NASA and USA, is currently evaluating potential supportability upgrades, in addition to the additional safety upgrades. We expect to have those update candidates prioritized by the end of this calendar year. The team is working to ensure that ground operations processing, test and checkout are efficient and thorough and that they contribute to ground or flight safety. The supportability team is also addressing and prioritizing the facility improvements that are needed to support the Space Shuttle operation through 2012.
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USA hopes that you agree that its performance under the SFOC has been excellent. USA is making good progress towards consolidation and streamlining. Safety and performance measures indicate that the experiment called the SFOC has been highly successful. Flight anomalies have diminished substantially, as shown by the charts attached to this statement and that I previously have shown, and we are working to achieve even greater improvements.
We are working with all the Shuttle contractors to ensure the upgrades road map includes upgrades to the parts of the program not yet included in the SFOC, such as the SSME, about which Boeing will testify. We are confident that the planned upgrades will further enable USA to succeed in achieving the original goal of the SFOC, as approved by this Committee in 1996.
The Space Shuttle upgrades program has been delayed and underfunded for years. I think it is imperative that NASA continue upgrading the only reusable launch vehicle in the world to ensure that safety, productivity, and maintainability issues do not jeopardize our nation's human space flight program. We very much appreciate the additional funds authorized by your Committee to fund Shuttle upgrades. Your foresight will allow and improve the Shuttle fleet to support NASA's space programs in the 21st century.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify, and I am complete. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Mr. Allen, we had some sort of little space ship going over that screen as you were talking.
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Mr. ALLEN. I did not see that on the monitor. That is very interesting. [Laughter.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I think that was a mouse there. Thank you, Mr. Allen.
[The statement of Mr. Allen follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Byron Wood is the Vice President and General Manager of Boeing's Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power Company in Canoga Park, California. We are looking forward to your testimony, Mr. Wood. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF BYRON K. WOOD, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, BOEING ROCKETDYNE PROPULSION AND POWER
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Mr. WOOD. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, please accept my written statement for the record. On behalf of more than 4,000 employees of the Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power business of the Boeing Company, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to report on the current status of the Space Shuttle Main Engine and the future outlook for a product in which we take tremendous pride.
The Space Shuttle Main Engine, designed and built by Boeing Rocketdyne, is still the world's only operational, reusable, liquid fuel booster engine used for human flight. I am here today to address SSME upgrades.
In the 1970s, the Space Shuttle Main Engine was designed to meet the desired operational objectives using the best technologies, processes, and methods available at the time. Since then, advances in materials, processing, and the benefit of operational experience opened the door for upgrades that directly leverage the safety and reliability of the original design.
Since the early 1980s, four significant engine upgrade initiatives have been instituted. The first upgrade configuration accumulated a perfect record of 57 flights before the engines were retired this year.
The next upgrade started in the mid-1980s and included the use of advanced manufacturing techniques and fabrication and the high-pressure oxidizer turbopump was developed with advance castings and bearing material breakthroughs.
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In 1998, the third upgrade configuration made its debut. This upgrade included a simplified main combustion chamber with a larger throat, allowing modification of the engine operating environment to double the reliability margin. It also included a simplified high-pressure fuel turbine, eliminating sheet metal welding. It included upgraded control and monitoring software that improves monitoring logic and provides for increased monitoring and redundancy, and improved sensors that increase sensor reliability. With four equivalent flights behind it, this upgraded engine is the only configuration that we are flying in the current orbiter fleet.
Currently in progress and approaching certification for a planned launch date in the year 2000 is the fourth upgrade configuration. Advances in castings and materials will extend the life and reliability of the high-pressure fuel turbopump.
In sum, a program with nearly 900,000 seconds of operation behind it is distinguished by the excellence of our design, manufacturing, test, and support teams. That is about 575 equivalent missions. This has resulted in 100 percent mission success for 95 shuttle launches. That is 285 SSME launches.
This record of performance is positive proof that the program of continual upgrades that began in the early 1980s and continues to this day has resulted in a safer, more reliable Space Shuttle Main Engine.
Where do we go from here? Future upgrades—as we look to the near term, proposed upgrades are focused on advanced health management systems that will be essential to providing the next step forward in engine safety, ascent flight management, and informed ground maintenance. Upgrades include a real-time linear engine model that will provide high confidence and detailed knowledge of the engine performance during ascent for early detection of problems and a health management computer that will integrate all engine data into a multi-parameter assessment, providing engine advisories to flight controllers and the crew.
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Commitment to success—Boeing Rocketdyne remains firm in our commitment that flight safety is our number one priority, but we recognize that cost considerations must be a factor in the planning and implementation of all future engine upgrades. We have implemented new design tools, advanced material technology, and leading edge manufacturing practices to reduce cost and cycle time while maintaining safety and reliability. These factors have resulted in fabrication cycle time reductions between 40 and 60 percent in the most recent SSME upgrades. Personnel have been reduced 60 percent over the last eight years, and at the same time, safety has been improved.
Let me emphasize just a few points. Since return to flight in 1988, SSME in-flight anomalies have dropped by a factor of eight. There have been no SSME-related launch delays or abort during over the last 23 flights. Engine reliability has increased 150 percent. Future upgrades under study are anticipated to provide additional reliability improvement, in line with NASA's space transportation goals.
At Boeing Rocketdyne, we work toward improved safety and reliability every day. We are prepared to take the next Space Shuttle Main Engine upgrade steps toward the future. Thank you again for this opportunity to address you today.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Wood follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Finally, our last witness is Dr. Stephen Book, who is an aerospace economist who served on the National Research Council's Committee on Space Shuttle Upgrades. They produced an excellent report earlier this year recommending several changes in NASA's upgrade activities, many of which have already been implemented. Dr. Book, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN A. BOOK, MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON SPACE SHUTTLE UPGRADES, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Dr. BOOK. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gordon, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am a member of the National Research Council's Committee on Space Shuttle Upgrades, and George Sutton is also here from the Committee. I hold a regular position as Distinguished Engineer at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California.
As you know, the National Research Council is the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, chartered by Congress in 1863 to advise the government on matters of science and technology. I would like to briefly summarize the NRC Committee's findings on Space Shuttle upgrades.
NASA has, in fact, been making safety and performance upgrades to the shuttle program beginning even before the vehicles themselves began flying. An especially intense period of safety fixes and enhancements followed the 1986 Challenger failure. Since 1997, NASA has been allocating $100 million per year to the upgrades program from Shuttle program reserves. A number of upgrades are already in progress and the NRC Committee was asked to assess, looking both backward and forward, where the upgrades program should go from here.
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At a meeting in Houston in June 1998, 37 candidate upgrades were presented to the NRC Committee by managers and staff of several offices located at various NASA facilities. While all proposed candidate upgrades had merit, funding them all would be impossible within the constraints of the $100 million allocation. Therefore, it was necessary for the Committee to investigate criteria appropriate for making choices among them.
Of the original 37, the NRC Committee prioritized 11 proposed upgrades that are judged especially worthy of more detailed study and consideration. The Committee based its prioritization on the criteria of safety, performance, cost, time criticality, and probable technical feasibility within the time period required.
In addition, the Committee compiled a list of 25 recommendations dealing with various technical, programmatic, and decision making issues associated with the upgrades program. Details of these 11 prioritized candidate upgrades and the 25 recommendations are provided in my written testimony and a full discussion is available in the NRC's final report released in January 1999.
The challenge faced by the NRC Committee, and more generally by NASA program management, I believe, is to find the logical process of prioritization that resolves the tension between two considerations that dominate everyone's thinking about the upgrades program, that safety is the number one consideration governing NASA's human flight program, and that the limited amount of resources allocated for upgrades makes it impossible to do everything that we would all like to do.
In recommending ways of keeping safety uppermost while dealing with the problem of scarce resources, the NRC Committee sought a mix of candidate upgrades that were consistent among themselves and appeared to be doable within the budget available.
Candidate upgrades are not isolated from one another. It might be inefficient, for example, to spend $30 million to upgrade one subsystem from Class C to Class A, say, while ignoring two related systems that are also at the Class C stage. A better strategy might be to spend $10 million on each of the three subsystems and upgrade them all to Class B.
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The NRC Committee recommended that NASA pursue upgrades that work well in combination and whose joint contribution to the Shuttle program would be worth more than the sum of their individual contributions.
The NRC Committee also cautioned against spending significant resources on candidate upgrades that might involve beyond-state-of-the-art technology and, therefore, whose successful implementation could not be foreseen in a reasonable amount of time. This is important because the $100 million annually assigned by NASA to the Space Shuttle upgrade program is taken out of program reserves, which in theory could at any time be required for a more pressing purpose and would, therefore, be unavailable to the upgrade program.
I will be pleased to try to answer in more detail any specific questions about the NRC Committee's report that the Subcommittee may have. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Dr. Book follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. I think we will now proceed to questions. Dr. Book, in my statement, I suggested that beyond safety issues, we should try to make decisions about Shuttle upgrades based on sound business rationale. How can Congress work better with NASA to create that kind of decision making environment? Do you have some specific suggestions on that? Is privatization the answer, and how will that affect safety, et cetera?
Dr. BOOK. Privatization, it is a tough issues because companies are in business basically to make money and they are not going to make charitable donations to the government or the country without being compensated. Even if the engineers want to do it, as I am sure we all do, the stockholders will not allow it.
So we have to get a reasonable way of compensating, for example, United Space Alliance, for making their own investments in the program. There are some problems with the way the incentives work now. They do not really work adequately. The Committee noticed, for example, that the way the contract is currently written, if USA spends its own money to make an investment that the payoff extends over many, many years, after the current contract expires, they do not get any return. There has to be some program of royalties where they get money back, even if it shows up five years from now, six years from now, after the contract has run out.
The problem with that is that if they do not get the follow-on contract, you are going to have a lot of lawsuits between the current contract holder and the previous one over who was responsible for the cost savings.
So while it is a good idea in theory and I personally fully support it and so did the Committee report, there are some details that have to be worked out before the private companies are properly incentivized.
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As far as your other question on the safety and the performance upgrades and how we choose, there is, of course, no hard and fast way to do that. There is not a linear ranking of which one is best and second best. They are best in combination. They are best depending on what the goals are. We have to look ahead to see what the goals of the Shuttle program are in general.
The Shuttle is adequate to do what it does now, because it has been doing it for many years, but we want to do more with it and we have to define, and that is more or less a policy issue that the NRC Committee did not take a position on.
Aside from supporting the International Space Station, there do not appear to be any specific defined roles for the Shuttle beyond that. So I think we have to decide on a national policy of what we want the Shuttle to do before we can come up with definite rankings of the upgrades.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. All right. It is the intention of the chair to finish at least this five-minute segment of my questions and then to break for ten minutes so that members can vote and then to reassume the hearing.
Mr. Allen, was not the Shuttle designed to do too many things? When it comes down to some of the problems and challenges you face, the Shuttle sort of encompassed many different and sometimes maybe even contradictory missions in one piece of technology. How does that fit into the challenges that you face today?
Mr. ALLEN. I think the first part of that answer is the fact that the Shuttle is used for a lot more things, as you correctly stated, than it was originally designed for, even including such things just as simple as how much payload it will carry into orbit or bring down and land, return back to earth.
Part of that really shows the flexibility and capability of the vehicle and the design accomplishment that was made in making that vehicle happen, to put something together and then realize how much more capability it really has in your design process, and that part of it is good.
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What we have utilized over the years and what we will continue to utilize is we are coming upon more increased requirements as far as using the capabilities that we have been afforded by the Space Shuttle. The best example really is the assembly of a very complex space platform. There is not a vehicle that I know of in development, nor a vehicle that I have talked to anyone about, that can have that capability of making that type of space platform assembly.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. So the missions, when we proceed in whatever follows the Space Shuttle, we might be thinking about, and we are thinking about vehicles that do part of what the Shuttle does and, thus, we would have different type of vehicles in order to achieve all of what the Shuttle accomplishes today, is that correct?
Mr. ALLEN. Very much so, sir. I am not an authority on all the other options for RLVs, but all the ones that I do know of and have seen can do a portion of what the space shuttle can do. I have yet to see one that can do all of what space shuttle can do.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. One last thought and then we will break. Mr. Readdy, you might want to comment on this. We have a Space Shuttle that has these many capabilities, and at some point, we are going to have other vehicles that are developed. But the Space Shuttle will still have certain capabilities.
For example, there is the idea floating around that the Space Shuttle could itself be used as a space platform, even though it might not be a space delivery system. Is this something that you think would be beneficial? We could rent it out as a space platform, almost like a space station. Just as long as we did not rent it to the Communist Chinese, it would be okay with me.
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Mr. READDY. Well, the Space Shuttle is a very, very versatile vehicle and I think that is a tribute to the fact that it had a very sound basic design. Just like there are a variety of airliners in use today, depending on the particular mission, whether it is long range, short range, many, many passengers or very few, there will be room in the future for many vehicles to provide us access to space. I think for the next decade or two, we will be space lift poor, not only in this country but in the world. So the Space Shuttle, I think, will continue to play a very vital role.
My first mission, as an example, was a space lab mission where we had basically an on-orbit research capability. In addition to International Space Station, I think there will be a continued role for the Space Shuttle to play to do the shake-down, if you will, of experiments that are perhaps not worthy of the sophisticated facilities on board space station or the extended durations that space station would afford.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I hope we are going to have some customers for that service.
I now would recess this hearing for ten minutes—make it 15 minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. This hearing is called to order. Before we go to Bart Gordon, let me just note that we have the picture of Chairman Brown and Chairman Sensenbrenner watching over us today, and Chairman Brown has passed away. Many times, he would come to these hearings in situations like this and give us the benefit of his long view of how this program and other space programs had developed and we certainly appreciated the fact that he had an institutional memory and that he did so much for America's space program. We are sorry that we miss him now and are sorry that he is not with us today.
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But we do have Ralph Hall with us, who will also be participating. We gave him a chance to jump the line, but he decided to just participate as a member. We do appreciate when people like Mr. Hall and, of course, Mr. Brown when he was with us joined us and helped us with their expertise and their long-term view of some of the questions before the Committee.
I now yield to Mr. Gordon.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to yield to Mr. Hall.
Mr. HALL. I thank you and I will be very brief. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have had the pleasure of meeting with some of you, and I want to certainly thank all of you for the time that you have given us today and for the knowledge that you bring, for the risks that some of you, probably all four of you, have undergone and the accomplishments that you have rendered to us, and I thank you for that and I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing.
SHUTTLE ANOMALIES
I have one question, Andy Allen, that I might ask you about the Space Shuttle upgrades program. In your testimony, you talked about it being underfunded for years. I think Mr. Lampson is going to have a question in a little bit that would dramatically portray the truth of that, the substance of that statement. But I would ask you as to whether or not any of the anomalies that you have experienced over the past few years, whether or not they could have been prevented if the upgrades program had been given more attention, as well as more funding, because that is what it is all about.
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Mr. ALLEN. Yes, sir, and thank you for the question. The answer really is absolutely. If we take one of the recent——
Mr. HALL. And how much funding, if you think you need more, it would take to maximize effectiveness.
Mr. ALLEN. Okay, sir. On the upgrades themselves, I guess I would give you an example of an answer. The recent challenge that we have had has been with wiring. We have got the Shuttle fleet standing down right now because of wiring. As you go through an analysis of that and try to find out why it was that we have those problems with wiring, it comes from a few different sources, but really, it is working in a confined area where the maintenance personnel have to go in and out and do performance on test and checkout as well as repair, and it is a maintenance induced inadvertent type damage. They do not mean to go in there and do that, but because of the area they are working in, they do that.
When we go and look at the methodology of trying to fix that, we will fix all the damaged wires as a given, but we will try to go in and we will also try to go in and look at what could we do to minimize and mitigate that risk, and that is anything from reducing the repair time requirements of people having to go in and out of these spaces, which upgrades would certainly make a major contribution for, and at the same time look at the procedures and things that we can do to try to help minimize that traffic pattern of people in and out of those areas.
That is one example of where it could have helped us, and there are other examples that I could go on, but I do not want to do it in the time frame that we have.
Mr. HALL. You might put them in the record for us. If you will submit them, I will ask the Chairman for unanimous consent to put them in the record, and I thank you and I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Gordon.
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Mr. GORDON. Certainly, and reclaiming the remainder of my time, Mr. Readdy, is it your opinion that the Shuttle, once these wiring changes are completed, is safe enough to fly?
Mr. READDY. Absolutely, and we will go through a very detailed review of that in our Flight Readiness Review and flight readiness certification process coming up.
Mr. GORDON. As was reflected in one of the charts we saw today, in 1998, NASA estimated the probability of losing a Shuttle mission was one in 245. What is the purpose of these upgrades, to maintain that level or to improve that level?
Mr. READDY. Our objective, obviously, is to increase the reliability and safety of the vehicle that we operate.
Mr. GORDON. So what is your goal? I mean, to what level do you want to bring that in terms of percentage? If it is at one in 245, where do you want to take it?
Mr. READDY. We want to make it the best we possibly can within the technologies that are available to us, and the technologies, of course, evolve, and those have been implemented in the Space Shuttle fleet over time.
Mr. GORDON. So what would be your goal?
Mr. READDY. As I said, it is pretty hard to pin down because we want to make it the best we possibly can. We cannot afford to err on the short side.
Mr. GORDON. With the money that you have, what is your goal?
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Mr. READDY. We have undertaken a quantitative risk analysis of the Space Shuttle systems and looked at causes of vehicle failure around the world, and what we have done is looked at what is feasible within the Space Shuttle program. The next upgrade that we have planned to implement early next year is the block two main engine, which includes the fuel turbopump. That will increase our safety up to one in 483. We are hoping with some of these other upgrades that we are studying at this point that we can almost double that to one in 735.
Mr. GORDON. In your written statement, you were a little more specific than in your oral statement concerning the priorities and the cost. When do you think that you can, time-wise, you can be specific with us as to what are your priorities within the dollars that are available?
Mr. READDY. Well, sir, I apologize. In the limited time available for the oral statement, we really could not go into the detail that we could in our written submission.
Mr. GORDON. Sure.
Mr. READDY. We have been working on the Space Shuttle upgrade program and prioritizing within the different categories. One is the safety and performance upgrades that were necessary to build the space station, to increase the performance, to increase the safety.
The second phase is the supportability and maintainability upgrades that are required just to continue operating the system that we have.
Then beyond that, I think that is the area that we are really talking about. Are those upgrades that are feasible for the Space Shuttle system that require additional investment and additional technologies? So we are trying to pin down the cost for that, sir, and we will get back to you as soon as we do.
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Mr. GORDON. So when would you expect that we would be able to see those priorities and the criteria and the cost?
Mr. READDY. We are working on that right now and I think we intend to have that in our 2001 submission, sir.
Mr. GORDON. And when is that submitted?
Mr. READDY. That will be in January.
Mr. GORDON. January of this coming year?
Mr. READDY. Yes, sir.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, sir.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Gordon.
Mr. Weldon—Dr. Weldon?
RANGE UPGRADES
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now that it appears that a replacement for the Space Shuttle is not due on the horizon for some time, I think it is very important to look at making further safety and performance enhancements in the Shuttle. Therefore, it is very appropriate that we as the Committee look at this issue because it will require the necessary funding and authorization to accomplish that goal.
When I talk to the people back home who process and launch the Shuttles at Kennedy Space Center, I sometimes get a slightly different story on shuttle upgrades. When I think of Shuttle upgrades, I think of the Shuttle and upgrading the engines and the power units and the electronic systems, but people back at Kennedy Space Center are telling me that a lot of the infrastructure there dates all the way back to the Apollo era and that actually upgrading some of it has some bearing on safety and performance.
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Could you, either Mr. Allen or Mr. Readdy, elaborate on that a little bit for me? What are some of the problems that we have with the old infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center and how can it impact safety?
Mr. ALLEN. Okay, sir. I guess I would, for a little bit of the process of what we are doing right now, we are doing two things with the teams that are looking at it. Some of the charts that I showed earlier, if we looked at the charts, they had logos from NASA, USA, Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Thiokol on those charts, which really meant that we put an integrated team together to try to come out with a product in a prioritized fashion of what we wanted and what we think is the right thing to do.
We had done a study for the safety aspects and we brought that study forward and that is being analyzed right now. We also are in the process and should be done in about a month or so on the supportability side, which include a lot of the KSC, the Kennedy Space Center, type elements.
On the supportability side, there are things that will be added onto the safety list because, like we had our lesson in the wiring, there are supportability issues that have a direct impact on safety. We also have to look at all the ground processing procedures. We also have to take a look at the hazards of processing the vehicles when they undergo their period of three or four months or whatever it takes in between flights.
We had the Kennedy Space Center personnel very involved in our team, so they are part of the effort in making the list come out as a prioritized list so we get together as a team.
At the same time, we had to take a look at the facilities and we have an infrastructure that is there that falls under the preservation of our assets, where we got a pretty good scare a little while ago when Hurricane Floyd was bearing down on Florida. And in some of the areas where we thought we had some of the best protection, we actually had some relative damage to those areas, like the vertical assembly building.
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So as we go in and investigate that, we have to take a look at what it is going to take for us to keep our assets preserved and protected over the next ten or 12 years or however long the nation wants the Space Shuttle program to go, and they have been relatively neglected and underfunded for a period of time.
We have got communication and power cables that go throughout the center—that is about 800 miles worth of cable—that is pre-Apollo-type cable and it has been there for a variety of time and its trending is going in a bad direction. In the next, probably, few years, it would not be unlikely that we would have a power failure or communication data failure from the launch control center to the pad at a critical time, and it is one of the things that we had to go look at, help prioritize, and understand what the fix would really be as we go through this process.
Mr. READDY. Dr. Weldon, if I may, I think you have hit on a very, very important point and it is kind of what is below the surface of the water and the iceberg that has to do with the Space Shuttle operations, and that is everyone pays attention from liftoff to wheel stop. But in reality, 90 percent of the time, those vehicles are being processed and so it is actually wheel stop to liftoff that the people in the facilities are involved in processing those vehicles.
As someone who has had a chance to fly on them and visit with the people that actually maintain them, we have an awful lot of work to do to continue to make the vehicles more maintainable. The anomalies that we have had in auxiliary power units and fuel cells and things like that cause the workers to have to access very restricted areas and they do collateral damage. We need to make sure that they have the facilities and that the subsystems are reliable enough that they do not wind up having to access those routinely.
The infrastructure, we continue to focus on, and as Mr. Allen said, we had kind of a wake-up call when Hurricane Floyd rolled up the East Coast and we saw some damage to the vehicle assembly building. We saw some water intrusion in places. But, clearly, that is part of the Apollo legacy that we continue to operate in. We need to invest in those facilities.
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Mr. WELDON. I just want to follow up with one quick question related to a point somebody else brought up, and that is the lack of an incentive for USA to make the investments. Is it possible to go back into that contract at this point and put in a clause or renegotiate a clause to allow for engineering enhancements to be made in such a way that the contractor is incentivized to do that?
Mr. READDY. That was one of the issues that the NRC raised when they did their study and it was obvious to us, it was obvious to our contractor that that was really a gap in the existing contract that we had. We put in place what is called a value engineering clause to ensure that what the contractor invested in that spanned the initial period of performance of the contract, which would be 2002, that they would be compensated for that if they invested in things that persisted beyond that and they were not the selected contractor.
Mr. WELDON. Dr. Book, do you want to add anything to that?
Dr. BOOK. Well, I was not aware of that. As you know, our report came out in January 1999 and I have not been involved in the upgrades program past that time, so whatever Mr. Readdy says has happened since then, you know, I have to defer to him on that.
Mr. READDY. And, in fact, that was in our written response to the NRC report.
Mr. WELDON. Okay.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Dr. Weldon.
Mr. Lampson?
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I again welcome our guests. We appreciate very much you being here.
Mr. Hall alluded a while ago to the fact that I was going to ask a question. I want to make a comment that I have learned about the changes in NASA's budget over time. Mr. Readdy so eloquently talked about Apollo in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the amount of money that we were putting into it. NASA during that time had a budget that was right at four percent of the national budget. Today, it falls at about one percent of the budget and is less than half of the resources that existed back then.
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Obviously, with that significant change, it has got to impact safety. It has got to impact everything, even the buildings that we use to work within our design as well as construction and everything else.
But let me ask first this question to Mr. Allen. United Space Alliance has historically functioned as a safety-first organization. Of the four or so specific upgrades that are proposed by USA, how many are directed toward the safe operation of the Shuttle, and what are they and how will they work?
SAFETY UPGRADE PRIORITIZATION
Mr. ALLEN. We are still continuing that process, but there are two that come out—actually, probably three that come out that are very high on the list that I am sure will be talked about quite a bit as time goes on.
The first one, as I think I talked about it a little bit earlier, was electric APU that we talked about a little earlier, the electric APU. The 1960s and 1970s technologies on auxiliary power units, the best the technology had to offer for the volume, the weight, and the power requirements of the hydraulic system in the Space Shuttles to fly meant that we had to go to very highly toxic explosive fuel called hydrazine. That accounts for almost probably close to 30 percent of the risk that we have on the orbiter itself, between the APUs on ascent and the APUs getting restarted for entry.
Something simple, like going to electric APU, which allows us to use batteries instead of hydrazine, allows us to use 1980s and 1990s technologies to almost make a major impact, and that risk level now, of the APUs with that incorporated with it, is almost not measurable.
The advanced health management system that Mr. Wood talked about is probably another example.
And probably the third critical thing is avionics, within the world of electronics. Even though we have a vehicle that has had 25 percent of its design life and is doing very well, probably even better than predicted and has a long way it can go as an airframe, the components, the systems, most especially the electronic systems, are not built to have a design life that goes over a 30-year period or a 20-year period. They are built more into the five- to ten-year period of time, and we have to go back and we have to work with some of those.
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The electronics we have on board, with the computer capability we have on board, which is pretty low compared to what is available nowadays, as well as what we call the crew safety aspects, which are the crew tasks, since they are getting more complicated and since we do have major tasks ahead of us like International Space Station, the assembly process is very complex. With the rendezvous and with the assembly and the extra vehicular activity requirements we have, we need some situational displays on board that can actually handle those requirements, as well as if we did have a failure, could we still safely accomplish the on-orbit mission, which is often forgotten because we concentrate so much on ascent.
So those are probably some of the three key categories of things we are looking at that we talked about a lot. The supportability team, when it finishes up its study, will be bringing some more things forward. But those are probably the three most significant items.
Mr. LAMPSON. In comparison to a civilian or military aircraft, which constantly gets upgrades, are we in line with our own upgrades, of the normal things that need changing?
Mr. ALLEN. We are working towards that goal. This is the first time ever in the space program, of human space flight, that we have had a vehicle of such long term. We have always had shorter-term vehicles in human space flight. The commercial world, the commercial aviation industry and the military aviation are very adept in understanding of how you have a long-term program and keep it fully functional and fully operational and safe and meet all its requirements, and even at the same time where you are bringing along the follow-on program.
So it is kind of a new learning curve for us to go through. We are going through that. We have put together what we call a best practices team under our supportability team, which is made up of both NASA, but especially the large defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to go into and try to absorb some of the ways that they do it and the lessons learned that they do it, to help us do a better job of a predictive analysis type of methods that they use.
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Mr. LAMPSON. In the seconds that I have left, let me just mention that I have seen over some time the deterioration of buildings at some of our facilities. I do not think that we are addressing or giving adequate resources to them. Is there an effect, for either Mr. Readdy or Andy, is that having an adverse effect on the work that is being done to keep our Shuttle properly prepared? Should we address it at some point in time, and how quickly?
Mr. READDY. Absolutely. Absolutely, is the short answer. I would like to echo what Mr. Allen had to say, though, about the upgrades and the criticality of those three in particular.
But I would also like to say that it is tempting to pigeon-hole those into safety upgrades, but if you think about the APU, for example, the fact that the technicians have to access the aft part of the vehicle and it is very tough to operate in there and they may do collateral damage to wiring, that becomes something that is a supportability issue. If you can eliminate the requirement to do maintenance on the APU each and every time it goes through the orbiter processing facility, that becomes very attractive. If you eliminate the need to remove the main engines to do maintenance on them each and every time we go through the orbiter processing facility, that, in addition to being a safety upgrade, is also something that enhances supportability.
Finally, in the world of fuel cells, electrical power generation, where we have to access those and, in fact, not just use connectors because of the hydrogen gas that is so leak-prone, we have to unbraze connections in order to gain access to fuel cells and things like that. That becomes, in addition to a safety upgrade, that is a supportability upgrade.
Ultimately, as we attack those things in the supportability area and the best practices, we make the vehicle more maintainable and reduce the cost and make it more attractive to privatization.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Lampson.
We now turn to Mr. Ehlers, Dr. Ehlers, I should say.
ORBITER DESIGN LIFE
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was surprised the first time I was inside the Shuttle simulator, which I assume is a fairly accurate replica of the Shuttle, and perhaps I should not have been because the Shuttle is quite old, but I was very surprised at how outdated the avionics and electronics are. I think, just in the interest of efficiency, better function, and safety, the sooner that can be updated, the better.
A couple of questions relating to that, though, if you are going to that major trouble and expense, is the longevity of the ships. What do you estimate to be the lifetime of the airframe? What kind of shape is that in? Obviously, it makes very few flights, so from that standpoint it should last a long time, but at the same time, when it does fly, it is subject to a lot of stress, both going up and coming down. How is that shaping up in terms of the lifetime of the airframe?
Mr. READDY. Well, Dr. Ehlers, as you say, it's a very extreme environment and it's very violent, the eight-and-a-half minutes that you go to orbit. The vacuum of space with the temperature extremes is a very tough environment, and then the hypersonic glider that it is for an hour, when it slams into the atmosphere and you get several thousand degrees on the surface, are extreme.
But the vehicle was designed with that in mind. As a matter of fact, Columbia is out at the Palmdale facility undergoing its depot maintenance availability right now. Each and every time we have done structural inspections of the vehicles, we have found that the structure is sound. The basic design is sound. We have not found anything that would indict the 100-mission lifetime of those vehicles.
So it seems prudent to invest in upgrading the avionics. I guess the old outdated cockpit that you saw is not the cockpit of the future, certainly. NASA had a big hand in developing the glass cockpit back in the 1970s, which is now virtually the standard for all modern fighter aircraft and commercial aircraft, and we are going to field that next year in the Space Shuttle Atlantis. That is where we get the real leverage, is modernizing the onboard systems, and that is analogous to fleet updates in the F-16, the F-18, and in the commercial world.
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Mr. EHLERS. But you see no metal fatigue of any sort in your airframe?
Mr. READDY. No, sir. That is the thing, is it was intended for 100 missions, which meant that in the original certification, they were actually looking at a factor of four for such things as the pressure vessel that the crew rides in.
Anecdotally here, the last thing I did in the Navy, I was flying off the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, which was down the waves during World War II, flying the A-6 Intruder, which was 30-some years old, neither of which had the benefit of the tender loving care that the orbiters get each and every time they go through the orbiter processing facility and when they go out to Palmdale. So there is no reason to expect that those orbiters will not last 100 missions apiece.
Mr. EHLERS. What is it going to cost to really upgrade each one? If you really wanted to bring it up to where it should be today, do you have any estimate of the cost, any one of you?
Mr. READDY. Well, that is what we are struggling with right now, is to really nail down the cost. We are going to attempt to do that here for the 2001 submittal.
Mr. EHLERS. One final question. Unless you add a lot of new features, you should save some money with the new avionics and electronics because it is going to be lighter weight, more functional, not as clunky. How much does that save you per pound by reducing the weight of the Shuttle?
Mr. ALLEN. What we have seen so far in some of the initial studies is really only going to amount to probably hundreds of pounds. What we have which will actually be a significant impact for us, and it is a little more of a complex issue, because if we lighten up the avionics in the forward end of the vehicle, it allows us to take out ballast in the back end of the vehicle, because right now, we have a little over 1,000 pounds of ballast to try to help our center of gravity to stay within the limits we want to keep it in.
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So it should help us in the hundreds of pounds, at least. I am not sure it will get up into the thousands of pounds. It depends on how intense we go in there and how much of the wiring, or if we bring in fiber optics versus hard wires, those kinds of things, and we have yet to resolve those issues, but there should be some significant help.
Mr. EHLERS. This figure we throw around of $1,000 per pound to get into orbit, does that apply to every pound of the Shuttle, or is that just every pound of payload?
Mr. READDY. I think what you are referring to there is the goal of achieving $1,000 per pound to orbit. Right now, if you were to talk about Titan IV, for example, the cost would be somewhere around $8,000 per pound, $10,000 per pound, and, of course, all pounds are not created equal, depending on whether you go due east or whether you attempt to go to a space station-like orbit of high altitude and high inclination. So order of magnitude, they frequently talk about going from $10,000 per pound down to $1,000 per pound. The Shuttle would be right now somewhere around $6,000 to $8,000 per pound to orbit.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Ehlers, I want to thank you for taking the time to look into the Shuttle with your expertise. Frankly, this is the first time I have heard that we have 1,000 pounds of ballast in there, and at $10,000 a pound, I calculate that as $10 million a flight. So if we can balance that off with some new technology up in the cockpit, I think that would be very profitable for USA and for the taxpayers.
Dr. Weldon, did you have something you wanted to add?
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, I just have one quick additional question I wanted to ask.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. With unanimous consent, yes. Go right ahead.
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UPGRADE FUNDING TIMELINESS
Mr. WELDON. Could either of you gentlemen comment, Mr. Allen or Mr. Readdy, on the funding curve for upgrades? It would occur to me that if you want to get the benefits in terms of reduced costs and enhanced safety, you are better off doing as much of the upgrade process as you can early, because if you did retire the Shuttle in 2012, you would not certainly want to be making upgrade investments in 2011, that we would want to do most of this relatively soon and then the savings in terms of the reduced costs and enhanced performance would be later. Is that correct?
Mr. ALLEN. Yes, sir. I will take a stab at that one. Basically, if we go from the back forward, or go from the forward back, I guess is a better way to do it, if we are going to fly until 2012, which is the target date that we have been looking at in our analysis and processing, then we are going to want to implement those upgrades probably in the 2005, 2006 time frame to allow them some time to be on the vehicles themselves.
When you back that up with probably the average of a three-year design development, testing, and evaluation period, the qualifications and certification period, what it really means is that we have to make some decisions here probably within the next—certainly well within the next year, if not within the next eight months or so, on what the upgrades are going to be and what the funding levels are going to be.
When you look at a development program, usually, it is very front-loaded, meaning the funding is aggressive in the front because once you get into production, it is really where the tail-off and lower costs will come in. So you want to get the funding done prior to production so you can go through the change requirements and go through the qualifications and the certification.
So my guess would be, and we have not gone through the final analysis yet to work it all out, so I do not know what the values are, but my guess would be that we would probably try to put 60 percent—with that profile in mind, you would probably try to put about 60 percent of the funding in probably in the 2001 to 2003 years, that time frame.
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Mr. WELDON. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Mr. Gordon, do you have anything else?
Mr. GORDON. No.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Let me just close this hearing by saying that, early on, I was a critic of the Shuttle program, and you all remember that, and talking about how expensive it was. Let me just say that I am very proud of the job that you are doing and it behooves me as an early critic to now be someone who offers praise for people who are trying their best to save the taxpayers money and trying to operate this great engineering feat that we have in the Shuttle and use it for the benefit of our country and try to do so in the most cost effective manner.
I am very impressed with the changes that have taken place, both in management and in the technological improvements in this project. It was from the beginning a great engineering feat, and the fact that we are now being so serious about utilizing this asset to its greatest degree for our country and for the cause of human exploration of space, utilization of space, I think it is very admirable.
So I want to thank the witnesses that we have had today for the good job you are doing and for the testimony you have given us. Today was the third in a series of four hearings we are holding on the future of earth-to-orbit space transportation. Next week, we will discuss NASA's industry-led space transportation architecture studies.
Again, I would like to thank our witnesses. Be advised that Subcommittee members may request additional information for the record. I would ask other Members who are going to submit written questions to do so within one week of the date of this hearing.
That concludes our hearing and we are now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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SPACE TRANSPORTATION ARCHITECTURE STUDIES: THE FUTURE OF EARTH-TO-ORBIT SPACEFLIGHT
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1999
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. We will call this meeting of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee to order.
Today is the fourth in a series of hearings on the future of Earth to Orbit Space Flight. We will hear from NASA, 3 industry witnesses and an independent expert about where America may be headed over the next decade in developing better, safer, cheaper access to space for human beings and for cargo.
When the Administration first proposed funding, what became the Space Transportation Architect studies, I was less than enthusiastic. For one thing, I was skeptical of paying multi-billion companies to write proposals for cost-plus NASA development contracts. I also told Mr. Goldin that NASA needed to include smaller companies as well as its two largest contractors.
Finally, I expressed serious concern that this process would go astray if it did not focus on achieving commercial space transportation service solutions to NASA's requirements as mandated by both the original Large Services Purchase Act of 1990 and later the Commercial Space Act of 1998.
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I am happy to say that my first two worries were addressed by Dan Mulville's leadership in managing these studies. And I hope that today NASA and industry will deal with my third concern.
After 11 years of serving on this Committee, I can safely say that I have learned that technological breakthroughs are not by themselves sufficient to achieving cheap access to space. What is necessary and possibly sufficient is Government encouragement of a free and competitive marketplace in human as well as cargo space flight. Our challenges are more a matter of economics and finance and politics than they are simply a matter of engineering.
And I think we have the technology, now we've got to make sure we have the right policy. And that is good, because Congress has some expertise on those former issues, and very little on the latter, I might add.
I will let all of you in on a secret: Congress is probably isn't, I would say Congress probably isn't especially qualified to decide what space transportation architecture makes the most sense in meeting NASA and commercial market requirements. That's perhaps not our place, that's not where we excel in making such decisions. But I would argue that NASA, too, is less than expert at necessarily judging a company's commercial skills, let alone the specific business plans that a company might have. After all, NASA is part of the bureaucracy.
So we've got a bureaucracy, we've got politicians, and we've got businessmen at play here. And whether it's the NASA or Congress, both institutions have a dangerous habit of paying attention to other factors beside economic efficiency.
Today we should learn more about what the role of Government can and should play, and what role we should play in shaping the future of Earth to orbit space flight. But we should all remember that the laws of economics apply in space just as they do on the Earth. In general, free and competitive markets, shaped and stimulated by appropriate Government policies and investments, will lower costs and improve quality faster than any Government plan that I know of.
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And not to say Government doesn't have a role, but we can't just ignore these economic laws and say Government can write a new law and that's what's going to happen. The more we can allow decisions to be made by business people, investing private dollars to address public and private needs, the more competitive and prosperous America's space transportation industry will be. And as far as that, in that way, when someone comes in to lobby us on their latest rocket ship proposal, and when someone is suggesting this idea or that idea to me, as a member of Congress, my first question always is, show me the money.
And that's what private sector is all about, is fixing responsibility and coming up with the resources that are necessary, and when the money is made available, there will be fixed responsibility in the private sector. And that's not always true in the public sector.
I would now like to recognize my Ranking Member, Bart Gordon of Tennessee, for his opening statement.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I want to welcome our witnesses and our visitors to today's hearing.
The topic of today's hearing is an important one: namely, what do we need to do to meet the Nation's future space transportation requirements. I think the Administration is to be commended for asking NASA to undertake the Space Transportation Architecture studies. Those studies, which include important input from the commercial sector, should help to clarify the issues and provide some options for Congress and the White House to consider.
I don't want to minimize the challenge that we face. We are asking an approach or seeking an approach that meets the Government's legitimate requirements, seeks convergence whenever possible with commercial market and commercial space transportation capabilities, looks for cost sharing with industry whenever appropriate, and protects the interests of the American taxpayer. Doing all that will be difficult, but it's important that we try.
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In that regard, I will restate a point I made in last week's shuttle upgrade hearings. As NASA develops its requirements for the future space transportation systems, we will need to know which of the proposed vehicle capabilities are essential and which are simply nice to have. There are not unlimited Federal funds for new space transportation systems, and we will have to make prudent choices.
In addition, we run the very real risk of never achieving the desire cost reductions or reaping the benefits of commercial competition if we force the next generation of vehicles to do all things for all missions. Therefore, I would hope that today's witnesses can help the Subcommittee determine what a realistic set of requirements should consist of.
In addition, I would hope that this hearing will address some of the other issues we are grappling with: namely, what does the Federal Government need to do to advance the development of lower cost space transportation vehicles; what should the private sector be willing to contribute to that effort; how can we ensure that there will be sufficient competition in whatever approach is taken to meet the Government's space transportation requirements; and finally, what role should NASA, NASA's existing assets, such as the Space Shuttle, play in meeting the space agency's future requirements.
Again, I want to welcome our witnesses. I am in the middle of electric deregulation markup and may have to miss some of the questions later, but I will be reviewing that in the record, and I thank you again for joining us today.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Without objection, the opening statements of other members will be made part of the record. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
The Chair also asks for unanimous consent for authority to recess this hearing at any point. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
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I would also ask unanimous consent to insert in the appropriate place in the hearing record a background memorandum prepared by majority staff for this hearing. Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The material to be inserted follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Today we have five excellent witnesses, and I would ask you please to stand so I might administer the oath.
[Witnesses stand.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, you may be seated. The reporter shall note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative.
And before we begin, I would like to ask all of you to summarize, if possible, if you could take it down to 5 minutes. And your written testimony will be part of the record, of course. And if you could summarize, that will help us get to the point where we can actually have a little dialogue here.
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First off to bat we have Dr. Dan Mulville. And he's NASA's Chief Engineer and the Chairman of its Space Transportation Council. He's had a very tough job in negotiating the political obstacles in the process. But I believe he's done a commendable job meeting this challenge.
So Dan, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL MULVILLE, CHIEF ENGINEER, OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Dr. MULVILLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before the Subcommittee today to discuss NASA's plans for development of future space transportation systems.
NASA spends a substantial portion of its annual budget to meet its launch needs. To lower these costs, the 1994 Space Transportation Policy called for Government and private sector decisions by the end of this decade on the development of an operational next generation reusable launch systems. To support these decisions, NASA undertook industry-led future launch studies to identify private sector options for reducing NASA's launch costs. These studies incorporated separate efforts underway by NASA, the Department of Defense and Industry, including our Space Shuttle safety upgrades, the X–33 and other technology programs, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, and future launch studies conducted by industry and the crew return vehicles for the International Space Station.
Within the framework of the Future Launch Studies effort just described, NASA pursued a set of evaluative efforts referred to as the Space Transportation Architecture Studies. The space studies involved contracts with five industry teams, to understand how commercial architectures could meet NASA's mission requirements at lower cost. NASA's objectives are shown in this chart.
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The first is a focus on safety, reliability, cost, and NASA mission requirements, while making maximum use of the U.S. aerospace industry's capabilities and commercial market leverage. I would like to focus for a minute on the safety. Our objective is to have a probability of less than 1 in 1,000 for loss of vehicle and 1 in 10,000 for the loss of crew, and to ensure crew survivability during all phases of launch.
The second objective is to enable competition at an acceptable level of risk for the second generation reusable launch vehicle by the 2005 time frame, which could include a derived shuttle system, as well as a variety of new RLV design concepts. The third is to assure that we have NASA's investment and third generation RLV technologies for the future. This would focus on the 2020, 2025 time frame. And finally, to assure continued safe access to space through the space shuttle safety upgrades, until a replacement alternative has been demonstrated.
NASA's partnering with industry is based on the realization that the future success of the agency's reusable launch vehicle initiatives depends directly on the synergy between NASA and the aerospace industry. The agency values the industry's position and is working toward increasing industry leadership role in the development and operation of future systems.
In order to obtain industry's perspective, NASA solicited inputs from five industry partners and integrated them with the NASA team. NASA's partners included Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences, Kelly Aerospace and Space Access. These teams included several other contractors representing both large established and small emerging launch vehicle developers. This diverse group has provided a broad and comprehensive view of the future of space transportation and has allowed NASA to consider all aspects of industry opinion. More specifically, NASA's collaboration with industry has confirmed that second generation reusable launch vehicles have the potential to dramatically improve safety, reliability and affordability over current systems.
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Industry participants have also indicated that the current commercial market and the current state of technology are not sufficiently favorable to enable private sector development of second generation reusable launch vehicles without Government cost sharing or involvement. Additional Government investment will clearly be required to further reduce technical and programmatic risks to levels more conducive to exclusively private sector initiatives.
NASA provided that preliminary set of requirements to industry as guidelines for their architecture development activities. These requirements represent NASA's goals of safety, reliability, affordability and mission objectives. The requirements and guidelines emphasize first and foremost improvements in crew safety. Other important requirements are to reduce the annual cost of operations by an order of magnitude to approximately $1,000 per pound; to perform all relevant Earth-to-orbit and orbital operations necessary to support NASA's robotic and human space missions into the second and third decades of the next century; to support military and commercial applications to the fullest extent possible; to develop and utilize enabling technologies which would support the development of new space transportation architectures by the 2005 time period; and to encourage to the fullest extent possible private investment in and operation of future space transportation architectures.
In response to the space transportation architecture requirements, the industry teams have generated a diverse set of preliminary architecture options that are capable of meeting NASA requirements, but would be largely developed and operated by industry. These architectures are shown on the next set of charts.
This chart shows options for a shuttle derived second generation reusable launch vehicle. And I will just point out a couple of issues here. They include reusable fly-back boosters and a crew escape system that would enhance safety and reliability.
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The next chart shows concepts that were provided for a new reusable launch vehicle that include both two-stage and single-stage orbit systems. An integrated space transportation plan, developed as part of the 2001 budget plan, encompasses the decisions, some near term and some far term, required to significantly increase safety and reliability, and to meet an end date goal of transitioning NASA's role to that of purchaser of low cost space transportation services from private sector providers for NASA launch needs.
The plan scheduled for development of a second generation reusable launch vehicle is shown in the next chart. This is a little difficult to read, but it shows the inputs required in order to provide options for a second generation reusable launch vehicle, both a shuttle derived system, and a new reusable launch vehicle as well as the technology development required for competition to go into a full scale development program in 2005 with an initial operating capability in the 2008–2012 time frame.
The integration of industry-NASA contributions enabled the formulation of a comprehensive plan focused on meeting NASA requirements, while maximizing opportunity for development of commercial systems. The integrated space transportation plan contains detailed technical investment options that encompass what industry participants have indicated is necessary to close their business cases as well as investments required to meet NASA-unique missions for decades to come, with the overall objective of reducing the risk of space travel by orders of magnitude within the next decade. As that objective is achieved, the cost of space travel will commensurately decrease.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
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[The prepared statement of Dr. Mulville follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
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Next we have Dr. Michael Griffin, and I believe he used to hold Dr. Mulville's job, as well as having fun in the SDI program, as well. And that's when SDI was involved with reusable launch vehicle efforts of their own.
And now you are in private industry in the Orbital Sciences Corporation, and I know Dr. Griffin has some very interesting things to tell us, and you may proceed, Mike.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL GRIFFIN, CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER, ORBITAL SCIENCES CORPORATION
Dr. GRIFFIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be back.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss our mutual goals of reducing the cost of space transportation and maximizing the Government's use of commercial launch services. At Orbital, we believe that the interests of NASA and the U.S. aerospace industry are best served when NASA uses commercial services to the maximum extent possible. This Subcommittee's formulation and passage of important legislation, such as the Commercial Space Act of 1998, is making an important contribution toward supporting the U.S. commercial launch industry, which is currently threatened by subsidized foreign competition.
In my position as chief technical officer at Orbital Sciences Corporation, I am currently serving as the principal investigator for our efforts under NASA's Space Transportation Architecture studies. We commend the Administration and NASA for having the foresight to initiative these studies, and for inviting Orbital and other members of industry to participate. As a part of these studies, we have examined and evaluated a large number of vehicles and architectures.
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Orbital's recommended architecture, described in more detail in my full testimony, includes a small, multifunctional crew and cargo transfer vehicle, the CCTV, referred to as a space taxi. This could serve as a two-way human space transportation system, a small cargo delivery and return vehicle, an emergency crew return vehicle for the International Space Station, a passenger module for a future reusable launch vehicle. The space taxi could initially be launched on a heavy lift, evolved expendable launch vehicle, the EELV, currently under development by U.S. industry and the Air Force.
Together with a small cargo carrier located behind the space taxi, this system could be used to meet future International Space Station servicing requirements. Later, a two-stage commercially developed RLV, understudied by Orbital, would replace the EELV in launching the space taxi system at significantly lower cost.
This RLV system will provide NASA and other customers with unprecedented reductions in costs and improvements in reliability, safety and performance. We project that full implementation of this architecture could save NASA over $1.5 billion per year in launch costs, and provide an order of magnitude improvement in human safety.
In the development of our recommended architecture, we have attempted to merge NASA's and industry's needs to the maximum extent possible. The vast majority of NASA's needs, to launch science and technology payloads, can be met and are being met successfully by commercial launch vehicles and satellite platforms. However, a major difference between NASA's needs and those of industry will remain, because of the existence of a Government-owned and operated International Space Station, Government-owned and operated space observatories, and the potential Government-run human exploration program for the moon and Mars.
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Unfortunately, there are no near term commercial requirements for transporting humans to and from space, or for returning significant amounts of cargo. Orbital space taxi approach maximizes NASA's commonality with commercial launch systems, while meeting NASA's unique requirements at a minimum cost.
We envision the space taxi to be industry-owned and operated. However, the cost of development, production and operation of the space taxi would be largely paid for out of Government funds, because it satisfies NASA's unique needs that are not currently aligned with those of commercial industry. The launching of the space taxi system, however, could be competed among commercial RLV or EELV suppliers that meet the cost and safety requirements.
These future RLVs would be commercially developed with private capital and would be commercially owned and operated. Their development will be enabled by NASA's current and planned future investments in RLV technologies and could be enhanced by Government-backed financial incentives such as tax credits, loan guarantees, or advance purchase agreements.
Once a truly commercial space station becomes operation, or the current space station becomes sufficiently commercialized, NASA and industry launch needs will be in almost complete alignment. And a completely commercial space taxi may become a viable business opportunity.
We strongly believe that industry ownership of the space taxi from initial operation is critical to enable the eventual development of such a commercial space station. I believe, Mr. Chairman, we both dream of the day when astronauts aboard a commercial space station could be commercially employed and wear Orbital badges. Or perhaps even badges from Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
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Mr. Chairman, thanks to your farsighted efforts and the efforts of others on the Subcommittee, we are in the enviable position of discussing today how and when to implement reusable launch vehicles which could significantly reduce launch costs and improve human safety relative to the current space shuttle. Your efforts in initiating and consistently supporting the DCX program, both in SDIO and in NASA, and NASA's RLV technology program, are allowing the demonstration of the technologies that could make Orbital's recommended space transportation architecture a reality.
Thank you for your time and attention. I would request my full testimony be submitted for the record. I am now pleased to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Griffin follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
And we will be getting back to you with questions after the panel, but I will be asking you about more specific figures in terms of cost estimates when we get back to that question and answer period. Because I heard significant this, and you know, the word significant, I want to know what that means.
Dr. GRIFFIN. I'll do my best.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Especially with the various, how much it would cost with the various launch systems, and how much they cost to develop, etc. I will be getting back to that during the question and answer period.
Next we have with us Rick Stephens, who is both friend, but is also now a constituent, during the day, at least, he's a constituent, in Huntington Beach. Rick heads Boeing's Reusable Space Systems division, which includes everything from the Shuttle to the military space plane. And we certainly are happy to have you here, Rick, to share your expertise and some of your vision for the future with us.
So you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD D. STEPHENS, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, REUSABLE SPACE SYSTEMS, THE BOEING COMPANY
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Mr. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss Boeing's effort on the Space Transportation Architecture studies. Over the past year, Boeing and a number of companies with both private and Government resources have conducted detailed analyses of space transportation options to meet future Government and market-driven requirements. Fundamental questions requiring answering are, one, what is the best investment plan and policy for the Government regarding human space flight, and the Nation's space transportation infrastructure; two, what are the appropriate investment decisions the U.S. Government should make concerning the Space Shuttle, particularly since those decisions will have significant long-term impact on space transportation; and finally, three, what systems should industry invest in in order to meet both Government and commercial space transportation market requirements.
From an investment company and commercial company view, investment in and development of a next generation launch system is fundamentally a decision that must balance 3 key variables. First, the market need; second, the investment necessary to meet market need or demand; and third, market or company expectations regarding rate of return on investment.
Can I have the chart, please? The figure that's on the screen illustrates the relationship between those 3 key variables. Based on the rate of return using market size projections, we can calculate the level investment a particular project or program warrants. Conversely, looking from an investment standpoint, the particular investment requires a certain market size.
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The chart shows an area called the investment gap. The gap is the difference between the level investment required to meet a market need and the level of industry a company is willing to make to meet that need. The gap can be closed in one of three ways. First, reduce the internal rate of return which in most cases the capital market, either venture, bond or stockholders, is not willing to do. Second, reduce the level investment, which typically requires new technology and/or processes, or three, grow the market.
During the space transportation phase 2 study, Boeing explored alternative approaches for the Nation to satisfy its known human space flight needs through 2020. As part of the integrated space transportation plan, or phase 3, the time frame moved out to 2030. We have looked at both maintaining the current Shuttle fleet with incremental improvements and continued emphasis on commercially focused management structure and replacing it with a new, safer, more advanced next generation launch system.
We have a handful of NGLS options, ranging from shuttle derived vehicles to clean sheet two stage orbit systems. Our recommendations from the study include, one, NASA should fund high-risk technologies that maximize downstream opportunities for competition; and second, NASA should commitment to shuttle operations through at least 2010.
Driven by the business imperatives I discussed previously, industry will only commit to a full scale development of a next generation RLV system or fleet when there is a promise of adequate return. As I stated earlier, there is an investment gap between the need and what commercial markets will invest.
The approach to closing the investment gap is something we believe industry and Government must work together to address. I would like to now focus on how best to address this issue.
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Reducing development costs and development risks can contribute to closing the investment gap, and provides the best opportunity for industry and Government to work together in a partnership. After a series of studies, both in STAS phase 2 and phase 3, Boeing has identified four key areas of technology development to enable tn RLV system that meets future safety, cost, reliability and operability requirements to enable new markets.
They are, one, a safer and more reliable low-cost propulsion system. Second, integrated vehicle health management. Third, large scale structures. And fourth, innovative crew escape systems. A joint industry-Government technology development program focused in these areas will enable a next generation launch system to provide safe, low-cost, reliable aircraft-like operability to meet anticipated future market requirements.
These technologies can be developed and proven through a combination of ground tests and flight demonstrations. These technologies have multiple applicability and address both NASA and DOD requirements, as well as commercial requirements. Boeing has invested and will continue to invest in technologies and process through advanced vehicle launch technology. We have developed concepts for both second and third generation launch vehicles.
To ensure we are ready for the market, our plan includes, one, continue with internal-funded studies of reusable launch vehicles focusing on both near-term and long-term market solutions. Second, continue to invest in key programs like X–33, X–37, hyper-X and advanced propulsion technology development. Third, recognize that the Shuttle, the only operational RLV today, provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate both near and long-term new technologies. And four, a next generation RLV derived from our experience on Shuttle, which could greatly reduce risk, substantially reduce operating costs, and help close the gap for an NGLS.
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NASA investment should focus on advanced launch vehicle technology development that is high-risk but has the potential for high payoff. We believe that any new launch vehicle should be privately owned and operated to achieve low-cost launch goals, allowing NASA to transition budget and personnel resources away from operations and towards high leverage R&D activities.
In conclusion, we believe the primary driver to close the investment gap is continued Government investment in high-risk technology development. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stephens follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
Next we have Mike Coats, and he is a distinguished former astronaut who now leads Lockheed Martin's Reusable Transportation efforts. Mr. Coats, you may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL L. COATS, VICE PRESIDENT, REUSABLE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, LOCKHEED MARTIN ASTRONAUTICS
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Mr. COATS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you to discuss the Space Transportation Architecture study that Lockheed Martin is performing for NASA.
We at Lockheed Martin are privileged to be not only a primary provider of Government and commercial expendable launch vehicles for the last 40 years, but also a significant provider and partner on the Space Shuttle and primary partner with the U.S. Government on the X–33/VentureStar Program, which is a program designed to achieve dramatically improved safety, higher reliability and an order of magnitude reduction in launch costs.
We have developed a logical road map to meet NASA's requirements, and at the same time maximize synergy with our commercial initiatives, leverage current assets and preserve options to minimize risk. This architecture will deliver improved safety and will provide the best opportunity to deliver the first $1,000 a pound to orbit commercial launch vehicle in the next decade.
As a former Space Shuttle Commander and veteran of three Shuttle flights, I have personally had the privilege to experience the first generation reusable launch system. It is a truly remarkable system with wonderful capabilities. Our architecture recognizes that the Space Shuttle plays a key role in the years to come for human space transportation and exploration, and should be considered in any future decision. We must not give up on any of the capability that the Space Shuttle provides the United States until a viable alternative is proven. We support NASA's priorities and plans to continue to upgrade the Shuttle through 2005 to ensure safer missions, and if possible, at lower cost.
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I cannot emphasize safety enough. That is why we have recommended to NASA that a crew escape system definition and demonstration be a high priority over the next 5 years in any launch vehicle architecture. The X–33/VentureStar program forms the primary architecture and road map for our Space Transportation Architecture Study to achieve this Nation's goals in space. A decision to proceed with VentureStar is scheduled after successful test flight of the X–33. That decision will be based on the performance of the X–33 and its key components, the lessons learned and progress on cutting edge technologies, such as lighter-weight engines, micro-avionics and any additional technologies that help launch vehicles streamline operations and reduce life cycle costs.
With the growing reliance on space and the importance of space to our economy, assured access or alternate access to space must be a high priority. Current systems, even given today's technology, are not impervious to operational issues. Just this year, many expendable launch vehicles, along with the Space Shuttle, have been grounded. When the International Space Station becomes fully operational, there needs to be a guaranteed means for crew and cargo access to and from the Space Station.
To that end, we have recommended that the X–38 crew return vehicle program may need to be accelerated to ensure on-orbit crew rescue, as well as enable full operational research capability of the International Space Station as soon as possible. We also recommend that a crew transfer vehicle be studied, building on the lessons learned from the X–38 and CRV.
The Space Transportation Architecture Studies have been a tremendously useful effort in helping NASA and ourselves address these and other important space transportation issues. We have all benefitted from better understanding through architecture refinement, broader NASA and industry participation, greater emphasis on safety, and focusing on the prioritization of technology development investments over the next 5 years. We recommend that these studies continue until final decisions are made for the next generation reusable launch system.
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In closing, I want to reemphasize that in order for the Government to improve safety and lower costs, we need creative methods to finance the next generation of commercially developed reusable launch vehicles to facilitate the transition from Government development to commercial development. We need to stay the course on the VentureStar industry-Government partnership, and we need to implement the STAS phase 3 recommendations.
Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to answer any questions you or members of the Subcommittee have later. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coats follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. And we will get back to talk about X–38 with some more specifics on that as well.
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Finally, we have Tom Rogers, who is an old friend of this committee and perhaps one of the strongest advocates that we have had over a long period of time for cheap access to space. And he is here today offering his vision and his criticism to this debate. And we welcome his input. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS F. ROGERS, THE SOPHRON FOUNDATION
Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, colleagues, for inviting me here this morning.
We must achieve sharply increased safety and reliability and sharply lower unit cost of surface-space transportation. Seeing fully reusable vehicles acquired by our private sector and operated by it in airline-like fashion is the most promising way to do so. To this end, public programs and private business activities have been striving to improve and/or demonstrate space transportation technology.
But now we face a serious problem. We cannot foresee with confidence that sufficient private financing will be made available to allow such vehicles to be produced and used. This is so because some potential vehicle producers are asking for a very large private sum in an unsettled space financing era. Because the vehicles will utilize technologies in a novel fashion which raises questions regarding Federal approval of their use, and because it is not clear that the market is of such a character and size that serving it will be financially attractive.
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What can be done? Some financial suggestions have already been made, and some are under study in the Congress, particularly this committee. I would emphasize the following. One, we should appreciate that having the International Space Station will allow the first generation of fully reusable vehicles to have less capability than the Shuttle. And the less capable the vehicle, the lesser the private investment needed for its acquisition.
Two, the GAO estimates that——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Could you just repeat what you just said?
Mr. ROGERS. We should appreciate that having the International Space Station will allow first generation fully reusable vehicles to have less capability than the Shuttle. And the less capable the vehicle, the lesser the private investment required for its acquisition.
Two, the GAO estimates that $25 billion will be required for Shuttle support of the ISS over its planned 10-year lifetime. This potential transitional market is of such a size and character that its serving could allow the cost of at least one first generation vehicle to be profitably paid down.
Three, therefore NASA should announce very soon that it wishes to receive competitive bids for the first years of ISS operations. And the FAA should also announce very soon that it will work closely with potential vehicle producer and financing interests, as vehicle plans are drawn and due diligence studies are conducted. The new vehicles would be phased into operation so as to meet both Shuttle safety and ISS schedule needs.
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Sixth, because of the private sector's financial risk level, and the maintenance of today's Shuttle and ISS risk level, budget scoring of the new vehicle service costs would be that of annual appropriations. Seven, during the due diligence interval, NASA should speak with our investment community privately about the adequacy of the transitional market terms and of how other suggested Federal fiscal measures would affect service price.
If we succeed, Mr. Chairman, in this space transportation modernization venture, we would avoid a large public cost. And a much larger and more diverse use of space would be encouraged to our Nation's economic, national security and cultural gain.
But what if we fail? We will have lost 2 to 3 billion dollars in private and public R&D expenditures, they would have failed as investments. NASA would be expected to cease such R&D efforts, since their results cannot be effectively used.
We will spend some $20 billion more in public funds through 2015 than we need to. And sharp criticism thereof certainly can be expected. We would fail to make much greater use of space, possibly, to our national loss. And other countries then, smarter than we, would modernize space transportation, again, to our national loss.
A final observation, Mr. Chairman. As we move to improve the productivity of surface-space transportation, the inevitable final years of Shuttle operations can be foreseen. Therefore, it is not too soon to give attention to the future of those who have seen to its long and extraordinary success. Our country should see their professional abilities and experience used in other important space ventures.
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Let me close by thanking you all for the Space Commercialization Act of 1998. Its effects can already be seen, and I trust that my suggestions will further the attainment of its basic objectives.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers follows:]
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Tom.
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We will now proceed with some questions. And let me begin by saying that I think we are behind the curve. And we're, Space Station is already going up, and we are still talking about developing the vehicles that will be used to service Space Station. We're behind the curve here.
And I, first of all, Rick, let me ask you this. How much does it cost now per Shuttle flight? What are we talking about?
Mr. STEPHENS. That's a question probably better addressed by NASA in terms of what the total costs are.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, well, Dr. Mulville?
Dr. MULVILLE. I'd be glad to respond to that. Our current budget is notionally, approximately $2.4 billion per year for approximately 8 Shuttle launches. So this is approximately $300 million per launch.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And that's down, of course?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's correct.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Because of the job USA is doing and the reforms that we've appreciated these last few years.
This cost will be reduced to what in the next 10 years?
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Dr. MULVILLE. Well, we have set a goal to have a significant reduction of the overall costs. We don't know precisely what the level would be. Our hope would be that we would be able to achieve approximately $1 billion per year reduction in the launch operation costs for the agency.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. And with this new technology that we have coming in, we can expect—now, Mr. Rogers' point is that we shouldn't expect to have the same capability from these new systems as the Shuttle has in terms of what, the payload capabilities. But they should at least be able to do certain jobs in space.
But even though they can't do as much as Shuttle, it's going to cost a lot less. When you're looking at these, at the various options that we have, Dr. Mulville, what do you expect us to have 10 years from now? Let's say if we need payloads of what would be half of what the Shuttle can put up, how much are we going to be paying then? We are paying $300 million a flight now. So how much would it cost then? How much do you really expect us to be able to achieve?
Dr. MULVILLE. Well, that's a complicated question. When we see the responses back from industry, there were, as I showed, a whole range of vehicle concepts.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Right.
Dr. MULVILLE. Each of them has a different business case and different assumptions in terms of market share, and so the cost per launch of each of those vehicles varies. And so it's difficult for us to predict at this point in time what the actual costs would be.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, I know our goal is to say it's $1,000 a pound. And do you think we're going to have 2 or 3 vehicles out there, rather than just one? And what do you, I mean, if it costs $300 million a flight now, what do you expect 10 years from now?
Dr. MULVILLE. Well, the range that we have received back from industry is from on the order of $75 million per flight up to approximately $125 million per flight. And that, as I said, is based on market share assumptions and how they would amortize the development costs of the Government support in terms of guaranteed loans, tax incentives and other issues that would really support their business cases. And industry may be able to give you a better estimate.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, well, let's take a look at that. Dr. Griffin, you were talking about the space taxi. Now, the taxi handles just a small amount of cargo, is that right, but it's mainly aimed at human beings?
Dr. GRIFFIN. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. The space taxi by itself is primarily aimed at transporting crew back and forth. In its basic version it can carry a few thousand pounds of cargo. It has an expendable, if you will, caboose on the back that can be used to carry larger amounts of cargo, if that's desired. But that attached module would not be returned and re-used.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Is this the same, Mr. Coats, is that the same concept in terms of your X–38? Is that mainly people and a little bit of cargo?
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Mr. COATS. No, sir. The X–38 is simply a crew return vehicle prototype. So it's simply to bring crew back from the——
Chairman ROHRABACHER. So it wouldn't have any cargo?
Mr. COATS. No.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay. So we have a little cargo here and no cargo there.
Well, I can see where these things, and again, I think that we are so behind the curve, I think that we should be holding a hearing right now to be discussing what type of vehicles we should be designing to service the colony on the moon rather than how we're going to service Space Station, which is already in the process of being built, for Pete's sake.
Rick, do you have a comment on that?
Mr. STEPHENS. Let me comment, if I might, Mr. Chairman, on the sense that we've talked about specific configurations. Our sense is that there is really going to be a number of configurations that are going to support space transportation, particularly if we look at NASA needs, the Department of Defense requirements, as well as commercial needs.
And we envision something that's in the, I'll say the SMV size, the space maneuvering vehicle, that the Department of Defense is working on, that NASA also has the X–37 vehicle. About that size. That provides a smaller payload and some unique capability to meet both those requirements. We also see commercial applicability of that.
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And that's in the 5,000 pound class of vehicle size.
Mr. TAUZIN. And these all could, could these three systems that we just talked about be competing for that service contract that we, Mr. Rogers is talking about, having a year's contract of servicing the Space Station?
Mr. STEPHENS. I think at least from a Boeing perspective, if one looks at something like an SMV, X–37 class, then one looks at an X–38 class or a crew rescue vehicle, then one looks at something larger, of I'll say a Shuttle class, our sense is it's really going to take all three of those to be able to service the market requirements.
And the challenge that we see is how best to get those into orbit, which is the biggest issue, that's the propulsion systems. And when we can drive the propulsion system costs down, then the cost of getting those systems into space will in fact dramatically reduce.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. The Russians may well have some help for us in this, I think. Mr. Rogers, do you have a comment on what we've just heard?
Mr. ROGERS. We should recall why we have a Space Station. There are several reasons for it, but I was central to that debate, I conducted the Congressional study on Space Station in the early 1980s. One of the reasons that was very important, that is important today, is that when you have a Space Station and you have professionals there, and you have the infrastructure there, you can then build anything that you want to build in space, of any size and any character, essentially independent of the weight carrying and volume carrying capabilities of the vehicle. That's one of the fundamental reasons for having the Space Station.
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And the second reason that we don't need a Shuttle-like vehicle, once we have a Space Station, is that the Shuttle is a laboratory. The Space Station then will be the laboratory.
So I can only repeat that we need not have nearly as capable vehicles servicing the Space Station. Therefore, they can be produced with less difficulty and cost less.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Let me, if you will permit me to have one—thank you. So Mr. Rogers, you would foresee, and let me just throw this out to the panel, you could have some of the, in a non-reusable or even reusable rocket, but an unmanned rocket carrying up large payloads, but you would then have these types of small crew return type vehicles, or space taxis, that could bring people up to then construct, if we have major engineering projects in space, is that what you envision? So it would be two-pronged, we wouldn't have to go up in just one vehicle?
Mr. ROGERS. That's correct.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, well, thank you very much.
Mr. Lampson, you may proceed.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I guess before we get too immersed in the details of various proposals, I think maybe we need to get an idea of how much it's going to cost to develop a next generation space transportation system. So what do you estimate the most likely cost to develop a next generation vehicle that can meet the Government's requirements, and over what kind of years, how many years will that cost be spread?
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Could we start with that, Dr. Mulville?
Dr. MULVILLE. The results that we had back from the architecture studies indicated a wide range of expected costs. And as was indicated by Mr. Stephens, there is an element of that that would be a Government investment and an element that would be an industry investment. The range of development costs are anywhere from 5 to 8 billion dollars, notionally, to develop a system. And that includes the technology development to reduce the risks to bring the vehicle to the point where you had an operational system, and then the production of the vehicles to go through a certification and qualification process.
Mr. LAMPSON. Lower bound, $5 billion or so, upper bound, $8 billion or so?
Dr. MULVILLE. Notionally, in that order, yes.
Mr. LAMPSON. Do you see the industry helping cover some of that cost? What burden will they carry?
Dr. MULVILLE. Well, we certainly do. In fact, we would encourage them to make a substantial investment, because we would like this to be a commercially owned and operated system. We see the Government's role to support the technology risk reduction, and to the extent that there may be some incentives to enable the industry to bring forward a commercial system, that would be something we would support as well.
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Mr. LAMPSON. What amount? Fifty percent, 20 percent?
Dr. MULVILLE. Well, it depends to a certain extent on what the market would support. In a strong, viable market where there was a commercial marketplace, we would expect industry to commit more resources. In a condensed market, where there were less commercial opportunities, we would see the Government perhaps providing a larger share. I would say notionally, there may be a 50–50 sharing today, but hopefully with a broader commercial market in the future, there would be less Government investment required.
Mr. LAMPSON. Would others of you comment on that, those several questions?
Mr. ROGERS. I would make one observation, Mr. Lampson. You had four or five witnesses here last week from the non-classical aerospace industry. They were speaking about their aspirations in providing vehicles. None of them, to my knowledge are talking about numbers such as Dan has advanced. They are talking about much lower numbers than $5 billion.
Now, I will not go beyond that, because it's private. But that is what they are saying.
Mr. LAMPSON. Michael. Both Michaels. Whoever wants to go first.
Dr. GRIFFIN. I really can't comment on what we think the development costs for the system would be in this forum, because we consider that the RLV would be developed largely with commercial money and therefore that that's proprietary for the moment. But they're in the range that Dr. Mulville was considering.
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However, in answer to your question about the appropriate split between commercial and Government funding, I think it's important to observe that the RLV that industry would build by itself would probably loft a substantial smaller payload than the RLV which would be designed to meet both Government and commercial needs. And I think in paying respect to that fact, we could then, as we go downstream, allocate an appropriate share of Government funding to the development of such a vehicle versus commercial funding.
Mr. LAMPSON. Do you want to make a comment?
Mr. COATS. The VentureStar plan, announced plan, I think, most people are aware of, is roughly $5 billion to develop and produce a VentureStar over about a 4 year period. That obviously would get us to a commercial application of payloads to low-Earth orbit. If we're talking about human capability, then, that would be on top of the $5 billion. And if we developed a crew carrier, CTV of some type, that would go on VentureStar, that would be on top of the $5 billion.
Mr. LAMPSON. The requirements, we all know that requirements can drive costs. We also know that NASA's budget is limited. Dr. Mulville, in setting the specific requirements, are you taking into account the costs to satisfy each requirement? If so, how, and if not, why not?
Dr. MULVILLE. We actually have thought about that quite a bit. During the architecture study, we provided an initial set of requirements that were just focused on supporting the Space Station and considered other missions as excursions, the baseline missions for the agency. And industry came back with a very thorough and I believe well analyzed set of options.
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We then had a next phase of the architecture study that looked at a broader range of missions that would enable us to support the Space Station but also to do satellite servicing, such as we do with the Hubble Space Telescope today, to provide opportunities for in-space assembly and construction of science platforms, to look at opportunities for crew rescue, perhaps beyond the crew rescue vehicle, in the event that we had a crew situation in space and needed to have access to a particular system to provide a rescue, and opportunities for robotics and exploration missions.
And those were a preliminary set of requirements that we provided to industry to ask them to look at the systems they had initially developed and see to what extent those systems could support these additional requirements and what if anything would be needed to do to enable them to support NASA missions. The real intent is to look to the future, 20 to 30 years from now, to see what should NASA be doing, what are the things we think are important to do, how will NASA's missions be enabled by the space transportation systems, and to be sure that industry provides the best solution today to support those needs.
Mr. LAMPSON. Just changing this a little bit, out of curiosity, what do you estimate it costs the Russians to put a pound of payload in orbit? Anybody know?
dr. MULVILLE. I'm not sure I can comment on that. I can probably get back to you on that one.
Mr. LAMPSON. Anybody want to hazard a guess?
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Dr. GRIFFIN. That's got to be the hardest question in the aerospace industry to try to answer.
Mr. LAMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Your last response is kind of interesting. Because here we are, you know, again facing Space Station and the needs to service the Space Station, and you're saying we also have to take into account what's going to be happening 20 years and 30 years from now with the same development. That's phenomenal.
Mr. Cook.
Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I very much appreciate Tom Rogers' point that with a functioning Space Station, with new transportation systems and different architectures, we don't necessary have to have the capabilities into those systems that we might have in Space Shuttle. But over the next 5, 10 or I think even 20 years, I think it's important that we understand both some issues of timing and how much, what the capability differences are between what we have now as a functioning system and what we might be phasing into.
So I guess my first question, to Dr. Mulville, would be, in these studies, what are the assumptions relative to when any form of reusable launch vehicle would be available for routine flights?
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Dr. MULVILLE. We have indicated, and I showed in the charts that we are looking at an opportunity for a competitive selection in the 2005 time frame that might have an initial operational capability in the 2008 to 2012 window. We would hope that that would occur sooner. And some of the developers have indicated that they may be able to bring their vehicles forward in an earlier point in time.
Mr. COOK. Okay, but it would probably be a pretty safe assumption to think we have at least 10 years before we have some kind of a routine flight capability with one of those new vehicles?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's approximately correct. And that would be the point in time by which we would have a human rating for the system, and it would have gone through a qualification and certification process.
Mr. COOK. Okay, and then just take the case of an initial reusable launch vehicle. What would be the payload capability of that, of the initial, of the likely initial vehicle, and how does that compare with the current Shuttle?
Dr. MULVILLE. There are, as I showed in the graphic picture, a range of vehicle systems that have a range of payloads. We've provided in our requirements notional payloads that would support the Space Station. But we're also looking at payloads that would support science missions.
You've heard today from some of the major industry supporters and developers of launch vehicles. But I think there's been a previous testimony to the committee from some of the smaller launch vehicle developers that have systems that could support a range of payloads that would go from systems that would provide satellites up to systems that could support the Space Station.
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So we see a mix of RLVs that could provide services to NASA over a range of payloads.
Mr. COOK. Compared to say, a 20,000 pound capability for the Shuttle, could you give me some pound number?
Dr. MULVILLE. Sure. We have in our requirements provided opportunities for some of the science platforms that might be on the order of up to 40,000 pounds to approximately, to a geo-orbit, as one of the criteria. That would be one of our largest science payloads. But we provided that as preliminary requirements. And there may be opportunities for industry to come back and say, provide to us, what are the implications of a large payload compared to their commercial system.
As Dr. Griffin mentioned, the companies have commercial systems that they intend to address the commercial market. NASA's requirements may drive them to systems that would be somewhat larger from a payload perspective. And those are the things that we've asked them to look at in the architecture studies.
Mr. COOK. And there's no assumption that an initial vehicle would be human rated, I take it? So could you comment on when that might be available, a human-rated reusable launch vehicle?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's a very important issue. Much of the commercial market, of course, was focused on cargo, commercial satellites in both leo and geo-orbits. NASA's unique requirements for human access to space adds some additional NASA-unique, if you like, vehicle systems that would be integrated with a core capability developed to support the commercial sector.
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We envision many of these systems to be first demonstrated as cargo-carrying vehicles that would evolve to carrying human crew as part of their vehicle system.
Mr. COOK. You're talking about 10 to 20 years, maybe?
Dr. MULVILLE. No, I actually believe that we could have an initial capability for cargo systems probably in the——
Mr. COOK. I'm talking about the human.
Dr. MULVILLE. Okay. The human system, I believe, will probably be in about the 2008 time frame. I think the cargo systems may come on somewhat earlier than that, 2006, 2007, perhaps, depending upon the market systems and what the industry——
Mr. COOK. I guess my question relates more to what I said initially, the routine flight capability. I think you indicated 10 years for the first vehicle cargo, human would be another 5 to 10 years after that, I take it?
Dr. MULVILLE. I think——
Mr. COOK. In terms of routine flight.
Dr. MULVILLE. Okay. Well, let me clarify that. The initial operational capability for a human carrying system would be in the 2008 to 2012 time frame. I believe that that would be a transition period, where we would phase down the existing Shuttle and go to a Shuttle-derived or new system, so routine access to support the Space Station would be in that time period.
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Mr. COOK. Well, if I could just ask one final question. Based on this expectation, and of course, I'm a great champion of reusable launch vehicle capabilities, but in the short term, and I mean 5, 10 or even 20 years, what portion of the budget for this needs to be devoted, in your opinion, to the upgrades on the current system, the Shuttle system, as against the costs, which you've already indicated are about $8 billion, just for the development of the reusable systems?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's correct, for the reusable system. I believe that Mr. Reedy testified before the committee on Shuttle upgrade plans. There currently are within the budget, within the Space Shuttle budget, resources allocated to perform safety and supportability upgrades through the 2005 time period. That's—I'm trying to think of—a small percentage of the total budget that's less than $100 million a year, I believe, is what is in the budget for the Shuttle upgrades.
Mr. COOK. Thank you very much.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Just $100 million. That's all. [Laughter.]
Ms. Jackson Lee, you may proceed.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing, and the gentlemen that are appearing here this morning.
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I think my dates may be crossing each other, but let me pursue this line of questioning. I might come from a different perspective than my previous colleague who has just asked some questions regarding the CCTV. I understand that the briefings that staff has received have presented some innovative proposals pursuant to the request by NASA regarding commercially developed space transportation systems, suggesting that NASA's needs could be more effectively utilized with these vehicles as opposed to extending life extending upgrades to the Space Shuttle.
One of the issues that I would be concerned with would be exploring this whole idea of such vehicles being able to carry a human crew and cargo as well. Would these planes, with the representation of how efficient and small they are, actually be able to in reality carry human crew and as well cargo, and how diminished would our ability to send cargo be, with the size, ability of the particular reusables that would have to invariably be smaller? Would the gentlemen answer that for me, please?
Dr. MULVILLE. I think the industry probably can give you a better estimate of what their expectations are for that.
Dr. GRIFFIN. The architecture recommended by Orbital allows the International Space Station crew and cargo servicing requirements to be met with 6 flights per year of the system that we were proposing. So 6 flights per year will carry all of the people, all of the crew rotation, all of the crew rotation, all of the cargo resupply that is required.
Mr. STEPHENS. Based on the Boeing study, our recommendation was not supportive of the CCTV because of an understanding of NASA's requirements for both up and down load mass, as well as the capability to provide service to things other than Station. As an example, the Hubble Space Telescope, which the servicing mission is for this next month. And we felt that the uniqueness associated with a vehicle of that size would not be justified from a cost investment standpoint versus the returns that one would get out of it from the investment.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Coats.
Mr. COATS. Our studies indicate that we like the idea of a CTV, if you will, a crew transfer vehicle, to take crew up as well as bring them down. We've also looked at adding cargo capability to that crew transfer vehicle, so it would be a crew and cargo transfer vehicle capability, but we're not talking huge amounts of cargo for something like that.
We believe that if we're going to human-rate a vehicle, that needs to be the emphasis, is safety in taking the crew up and down. Same thing with a crew rescue vehicle, it needs to worry about getting the crew down safely from the Space Station. And if you're talking about an orbital transfer vehicle, or a space taxi, as both Boeing and OSC have talked about, you'll have a small cargo capability, but obviously it would have to have some crew on board that as well.
So we're anxious not to confuse, we'd like not to have a crew necessary to take cargo to orbit. That seems like a shame to have to require a crewman there just to take cargo to orbit. We can do that remotely with automated vehicles, which VentureStar is supposed to be, initially.
So that's our emphasis, that there will be a number of vehicles necessary, we think, will be necessary, crew rescue vehicle, crew transfer vehicle, orbit transfer vehicle. But then your primary means of getting cargo to space should be something like a VentureStar or Shuttle derivative, something like that.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. When do you think that one of the values of human crew in space, even if it is to be your UPS/Federal Express deliverer, with which I have great respect, since they do a lot of delivering for American businesses, isn't it the value of continually being able to assess the human experience in space? And so when you talk about these reusable vehicles, which deny or diminish the participation of humans in space, that you lose that element of research that's so very important? The variables are so different, and there are so many changes in terms of humans' involvement in space, that we lose that research component. We go totally to robot, totally to non-human participation.
Mr. COATS. Well, as a former crewman, obviously I'm biased toward crew capabilities.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. So is Johnson in Texas.
Mr. COATS. Right. I really believe that humans have a unique capability to do research and to make real time decisions that we could never program computers to do. And I think humans ought to be placed in positions like the Space Station, where they're doing research, or on vehicles like OTVs, where they can go service things like space telescopes and so forth.
I've been a Shuttle commander, so I know what it's like to drive that truck up and down. There's really no reason we couldn't automate the features of driving things up and down. It's not like driving a truck down a highway where you have to have somebody driving it. We can automate that very easily, just to take cargoes up and down.
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I'd like to, my personal preference is, humans ought to be used where humans are uniquely needed and very valuable, which is doing research and doing the things that a man in the loop or a woman in the loop has to be there for.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Dr. Mulville, may I just follow up quickly on a question? And I'd like to give Mr. Rogers a chance to answer that question, but my follow up is, how soon is NASA trying to pull the plug on the Space Shuttle? And what are you, it looks like the clock is moving up faster, and I hope that is not the case. I notice the expansion of the research that you've asked this team to engage in, which is to add the various trips to Mars.
How does that play into human space opportunities to Mars? And I guess my question is, how soon are you trying to pull the plug?
Dr. MULVILLE. I'm not sure I would characterize it as pulling the plug.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I'm delighted that you would not.
Dr. MULVILLE. I appreciate your point.
Our intent is to be sure that we have a system that can provide, to meet NASA requirements and can provide the safety and reliability and cost objectives that we've laid out. Our intention is to not define a specific date, but to define objectives. And our expectation is in the 2008 to 2012 time frame is when we would phase out the current Shuttle and replace that with a new system.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Give me those years again.
Dr. MULVILLE. 2008 to 2012.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Rogers, did you want to conclude on the question I had asked earlier?
Mr. ROGERS. I would say two things. First, it is my judgement that this is not the way to get there from here. It is now appropriate and indeed, fundamentally important, for NASA to say, we want to have the private sector providing services to the Space Station. We're willing to pay you to do that. Here's the amount of money we can think about putting on the line. What would you charge us to carry up so many people and so many pounds to service the Space Station by when?
I was a technology developer. There's a time when you stop talking amongst technology developers and you start talking as though you are a businessman. And you say, the country is spending far too much on space transportation. The public funds are too much. And we will be spending much too much to support the Space Station if we use the Shuttle the way we're talking about.
So I would turn to the entire United States aerospace interest and say, we want you to provide the services. What's your price? And see the debate carried out that way.
Your second point about people, we should stop thinking of people going to space just to apply needle-nosed pliers and tin snips to something up there. The most important role for people, in my judgment, is to be there. We are the world's greatest democracy. Whatever else we do in space, to see it opened up to our people as an end in itself is probably one of the most important things that we could think of doing.
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Upon occasion I'm asked, would you like to take a trip to space? And I say absolutely, of course. And they say, why? It's none of your business. [Laughter.]
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome that very unique and special perspective, which will keep us debating this issue for at least until 2004.
Might I ask that my statement be submitted, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Certainly, with no objection.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. And Ms. Jackson Lee, I imagine you will be here then. [Laughter.]
I may not. I think I'll be surfing in California.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Who knows? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Dr. Weldon, would you like to proceed?
Dr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Mulville, I've had the pleasure of sitting here and listening to all your presentations and listening to the Q&A. It would seem to me, from what I'm hearing, that a big part of what needs to be decided is, where do we want to go after the Space Station to help us make the decision on what the new human-rated vehicle will look like. It's obvious there are lots of different ways to skin the cat. But one of the things that I heard from the last hearing that we had is that we can make further upgrades to the Shuttle that can further reduce its cost of operation, and that we can easily use the Shuttle throughout the service period of the Space Station.
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Now, granted, the costs are high, and the proposal that Tom was putting forward could possibly work, where we just turn to industry and offer bids on how to further support the Space Station, at least in the out years. We can't do anything in the near term, the next 3 or 4 years, we have to rely on the Shuttle. But if industry or if the Government makes the investment in a new vehicle, you're going to want a vehicle that is going to be there for a while, presumably beyond the life span of the Space Station.
Though I personally believe the Space Station is going to last more than 10 years. I don't know why this 10 year figure is always being thrown around. I'm hoping, for the amount of money that we've invested in that thing, I'm hoping we can get more than 10 years out of it.
But I think the real question is, where do we go beyond the Space Station? Isn't that correct?
Dr. MULVILLE. That is correct. And I agree with you in terms of your hope that the Space Station would certainly have a life longer than 10 years. When we embarked on the architecture study, we were looking out through 2020 as the time frame to support NASA's needs. And clearly, a system that we believe coming on-line in the 2008, 2010 time frame would be expected to have a life expectancy of 10 to 20 years at least. That's our experience with the Shuttle today.
So we would want to be sure that the system that we focus on today to support NASA's needs in the future, would be of capability to enable not only the Space Station support and some of the science missions, but also to support future robotics and human exploration missions. Clearly, there, we don't know today some of the things that we'll be doing in 2020 or 2030. And we don't want to miss an opportunity to provide for a facility and a launch system that could support those needs. But on the other hand, we don't want to try to do something that is more than is really necessary.
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So the intent is to focus on a system that supports NASA's needs, provides opportunities in the future for the things we envision as being part of NASA's mission, and is done so in a commercial way that we can take advantage of the commercial sector to do that.
Dr. WELDON. But the bottom line here that I'm alluding to, NASA needs, with appropriate political leadership, presumably from the White House, to make a decision if they're going to go back to the moon, at some point, with a permanent astronomical observatory, or if they are going to have a human mission to Mars. And then this new transportation architecture needs to be incorporated in that long-term mission. You wouldn't want to build a new man-rated vehicle that is not going to have any applicable to the next step, and then have to go back and come up with a new vehicle to support that next mission, correct?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's correct.
Dr. WELDON. A related question to the cost estimates that are thrown around, what would the costs, and you can give it to me either in 1970s dollars or in inflation-adjusted dollars for the R&D and the actual production for the first four Shuttles? Do you know that off-hand? I would imagine Tom probably knows that.
Dr. MULVILLE. Tom probably knows it better than I do. But I can tell you, the estimate based on fiscal year 2000 dollars was on the order of $40 billion or so.
Dr. WELDON. Forty billion. Okay. Now, my question really to all of you gentlemen is, why did it cost $40 billion back then, and why are we talking about $6 billion? Obviously, the concern that I have as somebody entrusted with the responsibility of managing the Nation's taxpayer dollars, is can you really build these new vehicles for the dollar amounts being quoted, if the Shuttle actually cost $40 billion. How is that, you can now build one for $4 billion or $6 billion?
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Dr. MULVILLE. Well, that's fiscal year 2000 dollars, inflation-adjusted for the time period.
Dr. WELDON. Right. As I understand, it was $15 billion back then, in the 1970s, roughly?
Dr. GRIFFIN. Well, if I could comment on that. Probably the most significant variable in any aerospace costing exercise, given that it's aerospace, is to first ask what it weighs. The Shuttle has a dry weight on the order of 200,000 pounds. The vehicles currently being proposed for CCTV crew and cargo transfer vehicle functions, have a dry weight on the order of 30,000 pounds. So right there, even if we were not smarter, in a technology sense, we would expect to see something like a 5 or 6 fold reduction in development costs, recognizing that there are certain dis-economies of scale to cope with.
And the second thing of course is that we do have a level of technology today, 30 years later, that is quite different and more advanced than what we had when the Shuttle was being developed.
Mr. STEPHENS. If I could comment on that, I think what we're seeing in the Boeing Company across the board is really taking tremendous advantage and leveraging the technologies available to us today in terms of computer design, 3–D graphics, the simulations, being able to go through assembly on the computer prior to actually putting things together. Our experience on 777, first-time assembly, what we're seeing on joint strike fighter, first-time assembly, all going together correctly I think is one area where we in industry expect to see some dramatic reductions in cost.
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I think the NASA program of X vehicles, whether it's X–33, X–34, X–37, is also a great opportunity to build a little, fly a little. And I think the experience that we see out of those is going to give us a much greater sense of the realities of the numbers that we in industry are proposing. And so I believe watching the performance on the X vehicles will give us a much better handle on our ability to forecast the numbers that were talked about earlier for next general launch system.
Mr. COATS. I for one appreciate every penny that was spent on the Space Shuttle. I think it was money well spent. And I think you have to remember that that was really cutting edge technology. We didn't have a reusable human vehicle at that point.
And now we're building off of that experience and those technologies. We still have technologies to develop for our second generation, and that's what we're hoping we invest in. But we've learned an awful lot from the Shuttle.
I think an analogy is the Mars robotic programs, the Viking spacecraft, for example, cost $1.5 billion. Now we're building Mars spacecraft for $125 million. So we've had a tremendous improvement. And I think we'll see the same thing with the second generation reusable launch vehicles.
Dr. GRIFFIN. One additional comment, if I might, in answer to your question, is that there's a pretty well established history that Government sponsored development programs are indeed programs that will produce development costs on the close order of $75,000, $80,000 per pound, per pound of vehicle. Commercial development programs, Boeing 777 or other examples, will be approximately a factor of 3 lower than that.
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That's one of the reasons why in our testimony we strongly emphasized that the CCTV needs to be commercially developed and operated.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you very much.
Mr. ROGERS. If I could make two observations. One, the decisions that involved the Shuttle development were made in the 1970s. At that time the country was in effect at war. It was a cold war with the Soviet Union, but it was war. And there's an expression in the Department of Defense, when the bodies are piling up like cordwood on the beachhead, don't call the accountants.
That's why things cost what they did in those days. We were driving national security imperatives at that time.
The second thing to keep in mind is this: In 1960 or so, we began to think in space of doing primarily two things. It elaborated subsequently. One, get people up and then eventually on to the moon and back alive. Secondly, to start our satellite communications business. The history was completely different. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the human space flight area, and to date, there is for all practical purposes no user of human beings in space but the Federal Government. Hundreds of billions in investment, no economic return.
The first days of the satellite communications business, we had AT&T and the Bell Telephone Laboratories, IT&T and the Nutley Laboratories, big pockets, commercial technology expert. We had a Federal Communications Commission. We already had a market served by shortwave, which if we could serve with microwaves and satellites, reliability, cost would drop. There is no such institutional arrangement in the human space flight area today at all.
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So the Chairman's opening remarks are dead on. The questions are no longer primarily scientific, technical, R&D. They are institutional, they are financial, and we must move in that direction.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Before I make any comment, Mr. Etheridge, you may proceed.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me thank you for your comments. And in keeping with the dialogue we were just covering, let me ask one additional question of all the panelists. We have been talking about requirements and cost and finite budgets and all those things.
Which of NASA's requirements add the most to the cost of the next generation vehicle? How much and why?
Dr. GRIFFIN. Our assessments of those requirements, of course, are still going on for the phase 3 architecture studies. But at this point, I believe what we have seen is that the cargo return requirements would probably be said to add the most to the system. The reason, of course, is that if one wishes to, if one wishes to put up a space telescope class instrument, while we can do that fairly routinely with expendable vehicles on a one-shot basis, and it's not required to have a reusable vehicle with a high flight rate to do that.
But if you want to return a space telescope size instrument, whether it be DOD or NASA, observatory and they're fundamentally the same technology, if you want to return that, then there is no substitute for a cargo bay sufficiently large to do it. That implies either a larger reusable vehicle and hence, larger development in operational costs, both of which scale with mass. Or—well, I'll just leave that there. It requires a larger vehicle with larger development and operations cost.
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The concern we have with that requirement, if it is fully accepted going forward, is that to date, we don't have any need for or experience with bringing back large cargo items from space. In fact, most of our effort is developed at taking them up and getting them up there, and bringing them back has not been a major concern.
One payload which was an exception to that was the Long Duration Exposure Facility returned in, I think, 1990. But had the larger Shuttle cargo bay not been available for that, we could have done it in smaller increments, the LDEF could have flown and been returned in smaller increments.
So we would see at this point that we have not been able to justify a large down cargo requirement. And that requirement is the one which potentially adds the most cost to a future system.
Mr. COATS. I would agree with Mike about the down mass capability certainly is the driver. But I think another major driver is the order of magnitude improvement in safety, crew safety, if you will. That's certainly a worthy goal that I heartily endorse, but it's not going to be an easy one.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Next, let me ask a question, this was touched on earlier, but I would like to follow up on it. Is 2005 the date by which the upgrade will be incorporated into the Shuttle fleet, or is it the date that the last upgrades will be initiated?
Dr. MULVILLE. Our plan is, and this really focuses on the safety upgrades, as Mr. Reedy provided information to this committee earlier, is that the safety upgrades that we've identified would be completed by the 2005 time frame. And these are primarily the electric auxiliary power units and the integrated health monitoring and the situational awareness to support the Shuttle operations.
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We're currently looking at some safety issues in terms of studies. We have not committed to or identified all of those things that would be possible candidates. But the objective, really, is to complete the safety upgrades by the 2005 time frame.
There may be some additional supportability requirements, depending upon how long the Shuttle continues to operate. And these are things that would be required because of obsolescence of parts or environmental protection issues that we would have to comply with. But the intent is to complete our safety upgrades by the 2005 time frame.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. The question was raised a little earlier about looking beyond some of the things we are talking about now. Let me go back to that for just a moment, if I may. Because outside the servicing of the Space Station with people, which we're talking about moving, and the supplies that they'll need, how much thought has been given, or what is the hope, I should say, to be accomplished by the future of the space transportation as we look beyond those needs, out, it was mentioned earlier, 10, 15, but I would say probably 25, 30 years. Because I'm sure that thought has been going on.
And will the upgraded Shuttle for transport craft, and this gets back to the point that was raised, meet those needs?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's a very good question. Because we've been trying to focus on NASA's vision for the future, and what are the missions that we believe are the ones that we think are appropriate to conduct during that time period.
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Clearly, the systems that are being evolved today by private industry we would hope would be the ones that we could rely on to support those needs. That they would have a core capability and that NASA could provide Government-unique features that could be integrated into those systems to support a wide range of needs, including science missions, robotics and human exploration.
We would hope that 20 or more years from now, there would be a robust space industry that would include not only the commercial use for satellite systems, but also a broader human access requirement beyond just for NASA. And then we could certainly capitalize on that and take advantage of that capability.
Certainly NASA has an interest in exploration. And we share the interest of the Chairman of the committee in terms of our future exploration missions. And we're considering those as options.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you.
And finally, we have Dr. Roscoe Bartlett, who adds a great deal to this committee. We have a medical doctor in Dr. Weldon, but we've got a Ph.D. who understands some of the scientific basic theories that are at play here. So we always appreciate Roscoe's input and his being able to talk to people at their own level.
So Roscoe, you may proceed.
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Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
Mr. Etheridge asked the panel what in their judgement was the big cost driver in NASA's requirements. And Dr. Griffin responded, it was the need to return large payloads. Neither commercial industry nor the Department of Defense currently requires return of large payloads from orbit.
Why does NASA need this capability in the future if it's the major cost driver? And have you done studies to show that returning large payloads can be economically justified?
Dr. MULVILLE. To answer that question, we've not conducted studies that look at the trades associated with returning payloads. We've presented that from two points of view. One is that there may be systems that could benefit from a return, to perhaps things that could not be serviced on orbit that we might want to include in terms of upgrading the science capability.
The other issue is that we could have a situation where we took a payload up, were prepared to deploy it, and for whatever reason, were unable to do so, that there was some problem associated with the deployment, and that we would like to be in a position to be able to return that, so that we could take advantage of a system that would enable us that level of flexibility.
But we have not gone through a detailed analysis of the science mission requirements and what the pros and cons of returning payload would be.
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Mr. BARTLETT. Your final decision, I gather, will be cost driven, you'll make that final judgment on the basis of whether or not it's economically justifiable?
Dr. MULVILLE. That's correct.
Mr. BARTLETT. Okay, thank you very much.
Commercial industry and the Department of Defense currently don't require the servicing of satellites in orbit, either. They consider it cheaper to put another one up rather than to send a vehicle and men up there to service the one that's up there. Why does NASA need this capability in the future? And have you done studies to show that servicing can be economically justified in the future?
Dr. MULVILLE. Well, our experience with the Hubble Space Telescope shows us that if we were unable to provide a servicing mission, we would never have the capability that we have today. Just because of the initial design flaw and our ability to correct that, that enabled that to be one of the world's greatest observatories. We see opportunities in the future to provide that flexibility to the science missions, so that we might enable them to upgrade their science instruments and provide a long duration facility to do science exploration.
The other issue is that in many cases, spacecraft have consumables that limit their life. There may be some advantage in being able to supply cryogens or fuel or other assets that potentially could extend their life. And depending on the cost of access to space, if that were low enough, that might be a cost effective way of conducting our science missions.
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Many of these things are things that we envision for the future, 10, 20, 30 years from now. And we'd like to be sure that we look at those options as we go forward.
Mr. BARTLETT. The Hubble telescope was a rather unique situation. Hopefully, that's a once in a lifetime kind or problem. We don't need more than one of those in a lifetime.
Your ultimate decision will again be cost driven, dollar driven, you will decide whether or not this is a needed capability on the basis of economics?
Dr. MULVILLE. Correct. It's an economic decision.
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, sir, Mr. Rogers.
Mr. ROGERS. I grew up in the satellite communications business. And I would suggest that it's a very difficult thing to turn to the space transportation people and say, what would you do, and the satellite communications people, what would you do if you could go up and service the satellites for the following reason. If we had known at any time that we could go to the satellite and work with it, we would never have designed them the way they're designed today. You'd start all over again. You'd say, now we can get it. Does that help?
Mr. BARTLETT. Yes, sir, thank you very much.
I have a quick question for Dr. Griffin. What in your judgment should be the next step in the STAS studies?
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Dr. GRIFFIN. Well, we think continuation of phase 3 in those studies, where we are addressing the servicing requirements, and the down cargo requirements and the cost trades in order to meet those, we think that's important. But what's really crucial is to go forward with the crew, and the overall crew and cargo transfer vehicle definition, establish what it's going to take to develop that vehicle, what it's going to cost, how long it's going to be, what its capabilities will be and what the broad range of mission roles that it can satisfy will be, so that we can make an early, a timely and an appropriate decision going forward to both for servicing of International Space Station, as well as meeting requirements for what comes after Space Station that so many members have addressed.
I think it's crucial to remember that as fine a record as the Shuttle has had, and it has had a fine record, it really cannot go, even in principle, cannot go beyond low-Earth orbit. And so no matter what we do for a next generation transportation system, it will have to be something more than the Shuttle differently architected than the Shuttle if we want to go beyond low-Earth orbit, back to the moon, on to Mars.
And also, respecting Mike Coats' concerns, quite appropriate concerns, about crew safety, if we want to get that next level of reliability, that factor of 10 improvement over today's reliability, we really have to have a new kind of vehicle. We can only make our systems, we can only make our single string systems so reliable. And I think we've probably reached that limit with the Shuttle.
If you want a system reliability or a crew survival reliability higher than what we have today, you have to look, as Rick Stephens mentioned, and as our architecture shows, you have to look at crew escape pods. You have to look at the ability to get the crew off the vehicle in the case of an emergency. And with that means, you can get that additional reliability that NASA is seeking.
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So for those two things, if you want to go beyond low-Earth orbit, we need a new kind of system. If you want higher reliability, we need a new kind of system.
Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to return—thank you very much. It was very helpful.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to return for just a moment to Mr. Rogers' answer to my previous question. I gather, sir, that if we had the capability of servicing satellites in space that we wouldn't be designing them like we're designing them now. We're designing them now as if there is going to be no repair in space. Which would mean if NASA's going to do this study, wouldn't we have to have a broad-based look at how we would design satellites?
Mr. ROGERS. Yes. Do you know of any place else in the world where you take a very sophisticated asset, worth $100 million or more, put it hundreds of thousands of miles away, and leave it to itself? Unbelievable.
Mr. BARTLETT. Of course, there's no place else in the world where it costs this much, it costs as much to get it up there as it costs to build it.
Mr. ROGERS. That's true. They go together.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, I'd like to thank the witnesses. And Mr. Lampson, do you have something, would you like to summarize some final thoughts?
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Mr. LAMPSON. Well, one point, perhaps. Hopefully we won't need to go up too very often, they're going to be very reliable in their operations, with many of those things that we do put up. It's fascinating, as all of these conversations always are. This particular meeting has been helpful in showing the amount of money that we're looking at. And it's a lot to expect the public to come up with. But as long as there's a hope for a return and we believe that return is always going to be significantly greater than what we're investing, then in my opinion it's something always hoping and seeking for.
Hopefully, we can see ways to meet the Government's needs with the private needs and expectations and hopes, so that both can be accomplished and save more and more dollars for the American taxpayer. That's certainly our goal, so that we can continue to attempt to reach those lofty goals that we have of living and learning in space.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought it was a good meeting. I look forward to the future ones.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Okay, thank you.
Just in summary, I think that we are entering a new era in human history, and it will be a new era for space. Hopefully it will be better era for humankind here on this planet. I think at the end of the Cold War has unleased resources that affords space and these type of enterprises that were before only reserved for national defense and trying to stop and prevent a hot war from breaking out in the cold war.
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And I'm very optimistic about the future. But it's going to be a different future. And things have to be configured in a different way. We've got new technological capabilities that are beyond imagination of only 20 years ago. I think Mr. Rogers' observation that up until now, there really hasn't been a market-driven demand for human beings in space, I think that's about to change.
And I think that the very point that we talked about with the satellites, the fact that they've designed satellites that cost, the reason satellites cost as much as they do is because they've been designed for no servicing, which is the point that you're making.
But if we develop a crew transfer vehicle, or a crew return vehicle, space taxi, call it whatever you call it, that can go up and serve as low cost ways of servicing satellites, I think the cost of the satellite will come down. Because it will be designed differently, which is what Mr. Rogers has in mind. And that cost of bringing down the cost of satellite will itself be part of the pool of the money that we're talking about that goes into the whole space, mankind's ascent into space. That's saving money, if you can build a satellite that will be compartmentalized, if a part wears out, you can just bring one on whatever is designed as a crew return vehicle or transfer vehicle, can now go up and shove those different components into a satellite.
We also have expertise that we are going to be developing and are developing right now that we didn't have 10 years ago and 20 years ago. And that expertise, which again Mr. Rogers pointed out is, we now will have the ability to build great engineering projects in space. Because the Space Station is going to teach us how to do that. And when we get that type of expertise and we have that capability, it's different than what it has been for 20 years, then. We now can build things in space that may well have a market potential, something which those deep pockets who invested in those communication satellites may then be willing to put the money out. Because we can build these things.
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For example, I don't want to again kick a dead horse or push something that's my own project, but obviously I've been talking about exploring the idea of having a space grid that would help us transfer energy to various parts of the world, but also potentially could collect solar power from some major engineering project that would have cost a lot more based on technology of 30 years ago. But now, a huge solar collecting system might well be within our reach.
And as the price of oil goes up to $20 a barrel, which it is today, it was at $10 a barrel just 2 years ago, we realize that price of that barrel of oil may go up to $50 a barrel. In fact, it's predictable that the price of oil will be up to $50 a barrel. And when that happens, these engineering projects that will help us get energy transferred from one place to another, or have energy generated from the Sun and brought to us through these space projects, could make a lot of sense.
That is within the time frame of what we're talking about here, in terms of developing this next generation of space vehicles. So what we're doing can't be just a short run. It can't be done just, how we can develop something that will just be the servicing for the Space Station. It has to be something that can meet some of these needs in the future as well.
Again, there's a down side to this, which requires a lot more than these types of discussions. The down side is, which was the down side of Shuttle, if you build something that does everything for everybody, perhaps it's going to be more costly to do it that way. So we've got some decisions to make, we've got a lot more talking to do.
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I think this has been a very productive hearing, and you know, I don't know who's going to be on this panel 10 years from now or 20 years from now. Ms. Jackson Lee may well be the Chairman when we're discussing some of these things, and most of us may be gone by then. In fact, my guess is we'll have a whole different set of players in this room, a whole different group of people.
But they're going to be Americans and they're going to be part of this effort, they're going to be part of this ongoing ascent of mankind into space, and Americans are going to lead the way. And that's what this is all about.
So thank you very much, and I might add, I would like to thank the witnesses again, of course. And be advised that subcommittee members may request additional information for the record. And I would ask all members who are going to do so to submit questions within one week of the date of this hearing.
And I would say then, that concludes this hearing, and the meeting is now adjourned.
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[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]