Conference 7.286::space

542.0. "NASA Administrator Richard Truly" by RENOIR::KLAES (N = R*fgfpneflfifaL) Tue Jun 20 1989 15:34

Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Excerpts From Acting Administrator Truly's remarks at the 
         National Space Outlook Conference (Forwarded)
Date: 20 Jun 89 16:49:47 GMT
Reply-To: [email protected] (Peter E. Yee)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
 
          EXCERPTS FROM REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY:
  
                NATIONAL SPACE OUTLOOK CONFERENCE
  
               TYSON'S CORNER, VA.; JUNE 20, 1989 
 
                        RICHARD H. TRULY
  
                    NASA ACTING ADMINISTRATOR 
 
          EXCERPTS FROM REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY:
 
        NATIONAL SPACE OUTLOOK CONFERENCE; JUNE 20, 1989
  
     Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here this morning.
  
     While not yet confirmed by the Senate to be NASA Administrator,
I've been Acting Administrator for the past month or so.  It has been
a stimulating and exciting experience, and I look forward to the
challenges ahead ...and that's good, because there are plenty of them!
  
     But before I talk about those challenges, let me first talk about
the state of NASA.  The bottom line is ... NASA is in fine shape today
... stronger and better than ever.  Jim Fletcher and Dale Meyers
deserve the thanks of NASA and of the Nation.  They guided and
inspired thousands of men and women on the NASA/industry team -
including one Dick Truly - to give the best that is in them during the
past three years.  J.R. Thompson and I intend to build on their
achievements and move NASA and the nation forward in aeronautics and
in space. 
  
     We have some great challenges ahead of us in the civil space
arena.  Later today, you'll be hearing details about NASA's agenda for
the future.  For now, let me concentrate on that agenda's highlights,
as I see them. 
                               
     First and foremost,  we've got to keep the Shuttle fleet flying
... flying safely at a sustainable and reasonable flight rate.  And
with the hard work, followed by the successes we have enjoyed, I am
confident we can do that.  The Shuttle features improved hardware
safety margins, a strengthened and streamlined organization and a
maximum emphasis on safety, reliability and quality. 
  
     As for the flight schedule, our present plans call for four more
flights this calendar year, making a total of six for 1989; nine for
1990; and a gradual build-up to a dozen or so in the out-years.  The
new orbiter, Endeavour, is scheduled for delivery in May 1991, and
will make its first flight the following February.  During the next
several years, the Shuttle will be the workhorse for a stunning array
of scientific missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the
Gamma Ray Observatory; Galileo to the planet Jupiter and Ulysses to
investigate the Sun.  In 1995, the Shuttle will begin to haul into
orbit the people and materials to begin construction of Space Station
Freedom, as well. 
  
     This clearly introduces another major challenge ... to ensure
adequate funding to maintain the schedule for Space Station Freedom,
which, as you know, we plan to start operating in the mid-1990s. 
 
     Fiscal Year 1990 is a crucial year for NASA, and especially for
Space Station Freedom.  It's the year we must turn the corner in the
space station program and begin to move from concept to reality.  And
if we are ever to put the meat on the bones of a definitive design, as
planned, we will require not only an adequate budget, but a stable
budget, as well.  I am committed to continuing the fight for such a
budget, and to completing Space Station Freedom within it and on time!
  
     It is clear that Space Station Freedom represents our national
commitment to the United States' future in space.  It is the vital
link that joins the present to that future.  This project is the most
complex international technological endeavor in history. 
  
     We will build it and we will fly it!
  
     There are other important priorities for NASA in the civil space
arena.  I am personally committed to maintaining a balanced NASA
program across the board.  The manned space programs will be funded,
but not at the undue expense of our important space science programs
and other critical NASA priorities. 
 
     In addition, we aim to develop an Advanced Solid Rocket Motor; to
continue to support a revitalized Expendable Launch vehicle Program
with growing private sector involvement; to develop the advanced "Pathfinder' 
technologies to support human exploration of the solar system; and to 
continue our efforts to further the commercial uses of space. 
  
     And in that latter connection, I understand that you'll be
hearing later from Jim Rose about what NASA is doing to encourage
private sector investment and involvement in space.  So I'll use this
opportunity to make only one point and one I feel strongly about: 
Since its inception, NASA has been bending over backward to move the
private sector into space and to further the goal of space commerce. 
Clearly, then, I can't agree with those who say we've been dragging
our feet in this area. That simply is not the case. 
  
     Let me turn now to what I believe is our greatest challenge of
all.  That is to maintain the vision of our ultimate destiny in space.
 The Chinese have a saying:   "A journey of a thousand miles begins
with a single step."  We've taken a single step ... a most vital step,
by shaking off the bonds of gravity and moving off our home planet to
visit near-Earth orbit and the Moon.  But we've only begun our journey. 
 
     Space Station Freedom will transform us from visitors to
permanent residents of space.  Freedom will be the centerpiece of our
space infrastructure for decades.  From Space Station Freedom, we will
move out to realize our National Space Policy goal to expand the human
presence and activities into the solar system. 
  
     The United States also is investing in early technology for an
Aerospace Plane, and we have defined a heavy-lift launch vehicle,
based on Shuttle components, to move cargo into space more efficiently
and effectively. 
  
     Looking at Freedom, the Aerospace Plane and the heavy-lift launch
vehicle programs in light of the history of the space age, one might
have a feeling of "deja-vu".  As the philosopher George Santayana
wrote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it."  So let's look back in history and remember. 
  
     Yes, once we had a Space Station.  It was called Skylab, and was
launched in 1973.  Skylab was occupied by three successive crews ...
the last spent 84 days in space.  After that, Skylab's orbit began to
decay.  The problem was to have been solved by a Space Shuttle flight.
 As you know, that flight never took place because budget cuts delayed
the Shuttle's development. Instead, Skylab re-entered and burned up in
the Earth's atmosphere in July 1979. 
 
     Yes, once we had an experimental aerospace plane, as well. It was
called the X-15.  This hypersonic, rocket-powered research aircraft
set speed and altitude records.  It culminated a series of Air Force -
NASA experimental aircraft with a very solid base of aerodynamic data.
  
     But the X-15 soared into history and earlier this month, NASA
celebrated the 30th anniversary of its first flight.  Its potential
successor would be the X-30, of the National Aerospace Plane Program.
But because of budget problems, the X-30 may never get built.  Indeed,
the future of the NASP program is by no means secure. 
  
     And, of course, once we had a heavy-lift launch vehicle.  It was
called Saturn V.  It lofted seven American astronaut crews, beginning
with Apollo 8, to the Moon and its vicinity. 
  
     To digress for a moment, let me say that I still envy those
astronauts.  As one who has been lucky enough to have flown in space,
I envy them for having flown beyond near Earth orbit ... some quarter
of a million miles beyond.  But I'm especially in awe of the crew of
Apollo 8 - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.  They were the
first to fly into that virtually unknown, unexplored envelope, and the
first crew to sit on a Saturn V. 
 
     The three-stage Saturn V was enormous.  As you may know, with its
payload, it was as tall as a 36-story building.  The combined thrust
of its five engines was seven and a half million pounds.  And thanks
to a careful and extensive ground-testing program, Saturn was
reliable.  There were 32 Saturn launches in all, including launches of
the smaller Saturn 1 and Saturn 1B rockets.  All 32 were successful. 
  
     After the Apollo program, the Saturn V's production lines were
closed down. Records pertaining to Saturn were stored in the Federal
Records Center in East Point, Georgia.  Today, it is not at all clear
whether we have all the plans and documentation to build a Saturn V
even if we wanted to.  
 
     But even if we had all the documentation needed to build the
rocket, we still could not do so right away. We would have to start
basically from scratch because the technology ... including the plants
and the machine tools ... no longer exists. 
  
     Today, three Saturn V rockets sit like dinosaur skeletons on the
grounds of three NASA centers:  Johnson, Kennedy and Marshall.  Like
Skylab and the X-15, the giant rocket's fate was sealed by a stringent
budget climate. 
 
     Next month we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of man's first
landing on the Moon.  The Apollo 11 lunar landing will always rank as
one of mankind's greatest voyages of discovery ... along with the
journeys of Columbus, Magellan, Captain Cook and Lewis and Clark. 
  
     Apollo at its peak consumed nearly four per cent of the Federal
budget. For every dollar invested in Apollo, the program returned
seven to eight dollars to our economy. 
  
     Today, many of our most able thinkers believe that budget
economies may well have spelled false economies for the nation's space
program.  They say that if NASA's budget had been held at about four
per cent of the Federal budget following Apollo that the United States
would have completed a Space Shuttle, a permanently manned Space
Station, a manned lunar base, and a manned mission to Mars - all
before 1990.  That view is bolstered by an analysis included in a plan
for the nation's future space program, published by the
Presidentially-appointed National Space Task Force in 1969. 
  
     I have no way of knowing whether that would indeed be the case
today.  But the facts speak for themselves. 
  
     Fact Number One:  Six months before the end of the decade of the
eighties, the United States has attained only one of those four
objectives - the Space Shuttle. 
 
     Fact Number Two:  Following peak funding in 1965, the NASA budget
gradually dropped to below one per cent of the national budget and
stayed there from Fiscal Year 1973 to Fiscal Year 1988. 
  
     Today, NASA's budget is up to one per cent of the national
budget.  But it will have to increase significantly again when we
adopt a specific program of human exploration of the solar system. 
Such a program will be the logical extension of both our space policy
goals and of our singular nature as humans. That nature drives us ever
forward to know the unknown. 
  
     At a time of budgetary contraction, and growing concern over
domestic problems at home, it would be relatively easy for Americans
to let their dream of exploring and expanding the space frontier slip
away forever. 
  
     Those who would have us become a second or a third rate power in
space would slow down or cancel Space Station Freedom. They would slow
down or cancel the National Aerospace Plane program. And they would
oppose the development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle and the advanced
"Pathfinder" technologies so necessary to build our future in space. 
  
     To those who ask whether this country can afford to move forward
in space, I say:  Can we afford not to? 
 
     To those who view the awesome challenges we face and turn aside
because they fear the future, I say:  We can prevail if we work
together to rekindle the American spirit. 
 
     In challenging the nation with a manned lunar mission, President
Kennedy said:  "The exploration of space will go ahead whether we join
in or not.... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade, and do all
the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." 
 
     President Kennedy didn't promise us the Moon. He challenged us to get 
there.  It ___ hard. But we accepted the challenge and rose to greatness. 
  
     So here at this National Space Outlook Conference, I say that the
outlook is an uplook.  NASA is poising itself to rise to greatness
again.  Working together, with the will to achieve and a sustained
national commitment, we can move forward ...  with all who share our
values and our goals and want to join us to build a golden age of
unlimited progress in space and here on Earth for all mankind. 
  
     Thank you very much.