| Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: decwrl!purdue!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!cfa!
Subject: Fletcher Speech
Posted: 19 Jan 89 19:11:33 GMT
Organization: Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Following is the prepared text of a speech by NASA Administrator
James Fletcher. The text came from the NASA news service and is
posted here in its entirety. Please note that the remarks are
Fletcher's and NOT mine; I am merely reporting and not expressing
either agreement or disagreement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
James W. McCulla January 17, l989
Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Immediate Release
(Phone: 202/453-8398)
REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY:
EXPLORERS CLUB, NEW YORK CITY
JANUARY 17, 1989
DR. JAMES C. FLETCHER
NASA ADMINISTRATOR
INTRODUCTION
I consider it a great privilege - and a great opportunity - to be
able to address you this evening. A privilege, because this august
body holds dear so many of the values that energize the Nation's
activities in space and it is good to share ideals among those on both
side of the public-private fence. An opportunity, because I feel the
currents of history are rapidly taking us toward a decisive fork, an
irreversible set of choices that will determine for our lifetimes the
role and position to which the US can aspire in carrying forward man's
destiny beyond the frontiers of Earth.
If this sounds a bit ominous, a little disturbing, it is meant
to. As a nation, I believe we have become a bit apathetic, a bit
disinterested in the substance of the great decisions and focused more
on our immediate and personal horizons. We really do leave a
shockingly large percentage of our critical decisions up to others
without that intellectual involvement so necessary to a true national
consensus, a true long-term commitment to a course of action for a
significant purpose.
As the United States moves from this Administration to its
successor, a hundred special interests are preparing to take sides in
fierce contention for some piece of the Federal budget and some
portion of the President's attention. It should be of serious concern
to everyone, not that there are so many needs and interests in
conflict, but that the standards of decision among them seem to favor
immediacy over futurity. One of the great issues in the developing
debate is that of our Nation's stake-- and probably our civilization's
stake--in the exploration of the Universe. And a significant element
in the outcome of that debate is that the real issue is seldom
confronted and made explicit by the executive, the legislature, or the
media upon which so many of us must rely for informed opinion.
This evening I hope to put some flesh and sinew onto the bare
bones of the argument for space.
IMPERATIVES
Perhaps the most compelling imperative in history has been the
human demand to explore, to experience, to know, and eventually to
control the totality of the available environment. Early man's epic
treks have taken him to every continent and across every ocean. Some
mechanistic models of human history assign the causes of our
ancestors' expansive migrations to factors of climate and resources
and competition; I think we cannot overlook the intrinsic factors that
lie deep within us all and motivate us to seek knowledge and
experience, to explore and tame the unknown.
We need only to look about us to see the great lessons and relics
of history: societies that recognize the nature of the human
challenge build and grow and prosper. Those that lose vitality, that
lose the sense of adventure and risk, that trade investment for immediacy
become frozen in time and today are only fading legends and curiosities.
But we must wonder at the performance of our predecessor
civilizations--the great intellectual and physical works that
characterize these nations and empires of the past remain alive today
as the foundations of our own sciences, technologies, and
philosophies. We see the evidence of enormous engineering skills in
the roads and highways and aqueducts and canals that tied together the
early empires of Asia and Europe and South America. We rely every day
on the structure of abstract thought and the discipline of logic that
has given us the tools of art and science. What will we leave as
valuable and as permanent to those inheritor civilizations we will
count as our inheritors?
CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE
There is a well-known phrase, indelicate but pithy, that says,
"root hog, or die." It applies to societies as it does to individuals.
It means that the ultimate price of complacency is extinction, that the
reward of investment is the survival of our heirs.
The space program represents, in one small nutshell, all that we
can say about challenge and response, about the quest for greatness
and the penalties of failure. It is widely accepted that there are
extremely powerful economic consequences stemming from the exploration
of space. New technologies developed in response to the space
challenge energize the whole of our industrial society with new
capabilities, new products new employment. Space systems are so
integral to our daily life as to have become invisible--operational
telecommunication, navigation, and environmental monitoring space
services are embedded in our civilization. The children of today
learn a cosmology far different--and far more excitingly
accurate--than we could teach even one short generation ago; space
exploration has opened windows into the physical Universe that will
never close. Even the games of children rely on computers commonplace
today but that only twenty years ago had not yet been invented for our
first tentative Apollo expeditions to the Moon. The character of
space exploration, whether by machines or men, has allowed us to leave
strife behind and make the reaches beyond our planet a lasting symbol
of peace dedicated to the benefit of all mankind. The nature of space
systems makes them particularly suited to the study and investigation
of our own planetary processes; it is from space that we have gotten
our earliest warnings of the possible growing crisis of climate and it
is only from space that we will be able to fix upon and understand the
real extent and direction of environmental change. Above all, space
has posed a challenge to the nation in terms of physical and
intellectual unknowns to overcome. With success has come a sense of
national satisfaction and pride, and a position of earned leadership
in the world.
I would point out that the accomplishments of the past and the
continuing promises of the future have come at an astronishing low
price for the values received--this year, for example, the entire NASA
space and aeronautics program represents less than 1% of the Federal
budget. One might suspect that the prior record alone would suffice
to assure continuing support from the two halves of the our
government, from both sides of the political aisle, and from every
part of the American public. I believe I can speak to that last
point: the civil space program is overwhelmingly popular in this
country. It carries virtually no downside implications and everyone
can share in its victories over obstinate nature, its revelations of
new knowledge and capabilities, its expansion of our horizons, its
adventure and sense of wonder and elevation of the human spirit. The
public EXPECTS a first-class program performance. I know that, in his
final budget submitted only ten days ago, President Reagan recognized
the values of the NASA programs and requested nearly all the resources
we need to fulfill these key commitments already made and expected.
The new President is another unequivocal and outspoken proponent of
civil space and its contributions. The Congress, without regard to
partisanship, has steadfastly funded and supported a strong civil
space effort-- perhaps not always identical in detail with the one
requested but by and large the one representing a national consensus
on what we should do and where we should go.
THE TASK AHEAD
If the civil space record is so good and our supporters so
steadfast, why is there reason for such keen concern? I assure you
that the concern is real. The program we are trying so hard to bring
to fruition is an integral, interdependent whole--and, therefore,
vulnerable to serious dislocation in the face of even small
perturbations. The funds being requested do not permit us the luxury
of backups, of alternatives, of programmatic robustness. Virtually
every element of the program is being pursued on a success
schedule--and we know in advance that there will be unforeseen
technical problems to solve and dilemmas to face which will require
internal adjustments and constraints. After nearly three years of
extremely hard work, the most visible part of NASA is once again in
operation. The Shuttle is successfully flying crews and payloads.
But we have only flown twice, and there is a critical backlog of
payloads waiting for transportation to space. We have planned
fourteen flights over the next two years, trying to balance the demand
for launch services with the necessary care and prudence we must
observe in the inevitably risky business of manned space flight.
We must launch our third tracking and data satellite next month
to complete the global network that supports all the free world's
space explorations. Two months later, we will launch the long-delayed
Magellan spacecraft to map Venus. We will then launch the Galileo
mission on a complex gravity-assisted trajectory that will eventually
take it to Jupiter. At the end of the year, we expect to carefully
place in Earth orbit the Hubble Space Telescope which will permit
astronomers to explore our Universe out almost to its edges and back
almost to its origins. The gamma ray astronomical observatory will be
in space the following year, as will the international cooperative
Ulysses mission to monitor solar activity at the sun's previously
unseen poles. Manned Spacelab missions will investigate many physical
and life processes in the yet little understood low gravity
environment of space. The Shuttle is integral to our manned and
instrumented exploration programs; we dare let nothing interrupt our
steady recovery and return to reliable flight operations. The Shuttle
is our principal means of reaching space and our only piloted space
vehicle capable of flexible space operations-- manned experiments,
revisits, or retrievals. About a third of our total effort is focused
on keeping the Space Shuttle program moving usefully forward, and half
again as much goes to the science and applications experiments that
are steadily expanding the sphere of human knowledge. We have worked
long and hard to bring the shuttle back into safe operation. Truly
significant and exciting payloads are waiting to fly. We still have
many modifications to make on the shuttle.to make it as safe and
reliable as it needs to be. The time to move ahead is now.
The other side of this coin is Space Station Freedom, promising
us the first real step away from Earth on the way to the future. The
free world has made a strong beginning here; the concern of all of us
is the follow-through. Station Freedom has been designed and
redesigned by experts and amateurs and enthusiasts and critics. The
configuration we are building today with a top industrial team is the
RIGHT station--I dare say the ONLY right station--for the tasks ahead.
We know we and our international partners will be conducting a
bewildering variety of exciting experiments, ranging in scope from
microchemistry to macrophysics. We will be using the station as a
shirt-sleeve laboratory in space allowing easy interaction the
research with his equipment. We expect a flow of important
exploratory discoveries and the development of technological insights
directly applicable to our society's needs on the surface. But the
larger reason for Station Freedom is reflected in its very name. The
Space Station is our gateway to freedom, freedom to live away from
Earth, freedom to visit, to explore, to settle elsewhere in the solar
system. Space Station Freedom will simultaneously teach us how to
live and work and relax in a new environment and how to build the
structures and habitats that will make human exploration a realistic
as well as a spirit- lifting adventure. Whether we go sooner or
later, whether we go directly or first to an extraterrestrial base on
the moon, man will go to Mars and beyond. And the vehicles man will
use will be the technological descendants of a space station.
Station Freedom is the first step toward being able to call
ourselves a space-faring nation. Just as those earlier nations that
conquered the ocean barriers to exploration and expansion became great
in response to the challenge, so will latter-day nations that
recognize the nature of today's response to challenge have the
opportunity to flourish. The other half of the analogy holds as well:
historical extinction awaits the cultures unwilling to risk the
voyage, afraid to wet their feet.
It is a paradox, I feel, that this so simple point is so hard to
make when we talk about the Space Station. The governmental process,
both in the executive and legislative branches, discovered the notion
of "options and alternatives" a few years ago, and now doesn't know
how to stop asking the question, "Why not some other way?" Of course
the motivation behind the questions is legitimate: are we embarked
upon the right course for the right reasons aimed at the right goals?
Restudy after restudy simply reinforces the conclusion that Station
Freedom is well conceived and well managed but very sparingly
financed. There is simply no room for further trimming or shaping or
cutting. We either are going to build it-- and build it right--or not
build it at all. And this binary consequence of under-budgeting and
micro-management must be brought home to all who have an interest in
the outcome.
The total budget for NASA the President has laid before the
Congress and that the incoming President must evaluate has already
been severely "edited"--some might say overly so--during its
development. The level of assurance that we can deliver a first-class
performance to America teeters in the balance with every constraint
imposed, whether dollars or people or time or policy. I am more than
usually concerned this year because the overall financial affairs of
the country are not at their healthiest, and long-term investments are
always an easier political target than are deliveries of current
services. In the complicated debate that will range about the issues
of deficit financing, debt management, trade imbalances, and our
responsibilities to those in need, I worry that the small shining
light of future hope fueled by the civil space program may be dimmed.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF IRRESOLUTION
In truth, the moment is coming when the nation chooses to
lead--or to follow. I want to be as certain as I can that that choice
is made knowingly and not by default. I cannot in good conscience
return to private life without one last public service, trying to
assure that the whole of American society be engaged in the decisions
about its future strength, even its future survival. The thinly
stretched space program before the country today cannot be taken as
the banker for the Federal budget, or even for the smaller element
termed "discretionary." Flesh and sinew are as taut as possible; even
a nick can mean organic rupture and collapse.
We have always held that under a democracy the nation receives
what it deserves. What I believe the nation deserves above all is a
forthright understanding of the implications of those great decisions
being made in the name of the republic. I believe the truth should be
cast in as stark terms as possible, especially during a time when bad
news is routinely disguised and even the most dedicated defenders of
the public interest find it hard to find an audience.
Failure to meet the challenge would be a failure of political
will. It would mean relinquishing for good the banner of leadership
we have carried so proudly even during the darkest times of technical
adversity. And the price of forfeiture is one paid by our children
and their descendants. Without investment now there simply cannot be
a future return; if we falter, if we are irresolute, if we cannot
balance sacrifice with promise, then we have stolen the birthright of
our successor generations.
Among the great gifts of Rome's cultural genius were the
organizing principles of an integrated transportation network, a
universal language, and a system of valued citizenship under law.
Scholars will argue endless about why the Roman imperial enterprise
fell upon evil days; however, no one will seriously argue with
Santayana's observation on who may be condemned to repeat an
uncomfortable history. We have great virtues in our republic and I
have great faith in the commom sense of its citizens. I have even
greater faith in the power of great challenges--when so recognized--to
elicit noble responses. That is where we as a nation stand in space
today, and that is why I am so appreciative of the chance to address
this audience.
I would leave you with one thought. Earlier I said that, sooner
or later, mankind would reach the planets. I firmly believe that is
true. But a terrible question remains unanswered: what language, what
culture, what values will shape the ethos of the first human
settlement on Mars? I do not know the answer, but I hope you and all
who share with you a dedication to our cardinal national beliefs can
help share an answer of which we and our heirs will be proud. There
really can be no second-best place in the judgment of history.
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123 Bitnet: willner@cfa
60 Garden St. FTS: 830-7123 UUCP: willner@cfa
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Internet: [email protected]
"It is fine to budget grand space programs, but if we do not get
on with educating the manpower, these programs will not be doable at
any cost."
- U.S. Vice President Daniel Quayle, "The Other Space Race: Space
Science Education", JOURNAL OF DEFENSE AND DIPLOMACY, October 1988
"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the
time he will pick himself up and continue." - Winston Churchill
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