Mr.
Chairman and members of the commission:
On
behalf of the Space Transportation
Association and its member companies
thank-you for this opportunity to give
our vision for the next half-century of
space development. I shall also be
submitting more detailed written
testimony for the record.
Visions
are relatively easy to formulate,
particularly this far into the future.
Few of us will still be around to see
how accurate our predictions were. But
clearly the space program of 2050 should
be one of expanding human presence in
space and full exploitation of the space
environment for our national economic
and security needs. The world of that
distant time, like our own world today,
will depend on space assets and activity
to sustain a growing economy and
superior technological advance.
Superiority is the key word to describe
that space effort of 2050.
Superiority in space science, in
exploration, in commercial development,
and in defense.
Superiority in the development and use
of space technology in the service of
our nation's national interests. Our
roadmap to that destination would
include the routine operation of
advanced cargo vehicles, piloted and
autonomous spaceships flying regularly
from a multitude of inland and coastal
spaceports, full industrial and
scientific exploitation of low Earth
orbit, research and scientific
installations on both the Lunar surface
and the Red Planet, all supported by a
fleet of space stations at varying
orbital locations.
Does
this roadmap sound familiar? Well, it
should.
It was
published in the pages of a popular
magazine- in 1952, some fifty years ago.
But
Wernher Von Braun's vision of space
which electrified the world when
published in Collier's magazine has yet
to be fully achieved.
Not
because we have had a lack of vision.
Far from it. We've had more than enough
vision and visionaries. What we have
lacked has been the commitment and
purpose to achieve those visions.
If we
want, as a nation, to grow to see that
expanding space program of 2050, we must
start today to lay its foundation. To
sustain that commitment will require
more money, and making space a higher
national priority, than our leaders have
done in the past decade.
Visions
are cheap to formulate.
But not
easy to achieve.
Here
are four key steps that the Space
Transportation Association believes
would set us on the path to space
superiority in 2050 if started today:
- A
sustained national program of
technological research that
addresses the challenges of living
and working in space
- An
expansion of the human spaceflight
program organized around a central
goal
- A
healthy U.S. aerospace industrial
base and modernized space facilities
-
Affordable, reliable, and safe
access to space made possible by a
mature reusable launch vehicle fleet
To
return Americans to the Moon and prepare
them for flight beyond Earth orbit will
require investments in research and
development far greater than those we
make today. They will approach the
levels spent on space research when the
Space Age began in 1957. Yet NASA's R&D
spending today is but a small fraction
of its earlier levels. In fact, the
entire NASA budget today adjusted for
inflation, is less than half of what it
was in 1993, less than a decade ago. The
current budget for fiscal year 2003 is
called "flat". I call it a
going-out-of-business budget for any
hope of advanced space goals. Therefore
STA is working with members of Congress
to increase the NASA topline by $500
million beginning this year and
sustaining that growth for the next ten
years. You cannot build a first class
space program on the cheap, and it's
time we stopped trying.
Second,
our human spaceflight program needs,
well a destination. We have become too
focused on the financial issues facing
the International Space Station and have
ignored the need for the project to have
a central purpose. A central organizing
purpose that can rally our people,
inspire new educational energies, and
make the best use of those facilities
aboard the ISS that are already planned.
I believe that we should establish as a
national goal the focus of the
International Space Station over its
first decade-and-a-half to addressing
the barriers to human spaceflight beyond
Earth orbit with a goal of sustaining
the first research expedition of a human
crew to Mars by the end of the next
decade.
Third,
rebuilding our existing space
infrastructure should be an urgent
short-term priority. Crumbling launch
facilities, obsolete technology, and a
dwindling workforce will serve to keep
us Earthbound more than any elusive
technological goal. Repairing
infrastructure and the modernizing of
our spaceports should be near the top of
our space agenda over the next
half-decade.
Fourth,
and finally, if we do not substantially
lower the cost of access to space we
won't be going anywhere. Beyond the
current completion of the Space Launch
Initiative in 2006 there is no specific
development or funding plan for actually
building a new reusable launcher.
Building a fully-reusable second
generation launch vehicle to follow the
space shuttle should be a national goal
stated and set in motion today. A
vehicle whose cost will not be cheap,
but who can only be built by the federal
government. Such a system should have
characteristics that make it as
commercially viable as possible while
servicing the civil, military, and
commercial space markets. This RLV must
reduce the cost of routine space flight
over today's $6,000 to $10,000 per pound
to $1,000 per pound, or less. And once
such a vehicle has been flown and
tested, it should be operated by private
industry not the U.S. government.
We at
STA believe that RLV development, as
well as safe upgrades to the existing
shuttle fleet, are the keys to
sustaining U.S. leadership in human
spaceflight. And if we do not undertake
these goals today, we will not be
leading in 2050. It's just that simple.
All of
the goals I have outlined today cannot
be achieved by another report of another
government commission. They can only be
reached if those who lead America make
space activities a national priority
again. The blunt truth is that unless we
convince our leaders that space is
essential to our nation's well being, we
are engaging in fantasy to think we can
ever hope to bring these visions into
reality.
President Kennedy framed the idea of a
peaceful global competition with the
Soviet Union with the commitment to send
humans to the Moon. President Reagan
believed a permanent space station was
the natural extension of the capability
demonstrated by the space shuttles.
Now we
have new leaders, and it is their time
to not just frame a new vision of space,
but to lay down the commitment in
dollars and determination .
Let us
once again sail the sea of space with a
clear purpose and a national focus.
That's not just a vision- it can also be
our destiny.
Thank-you.
The
Space Transportation Association
P.O. Box 25027
Arlington, Va. 22202