A Valedictory: NASA Administrator Mike Griffin Sums Up Challenges, Opportunities Facing Space Agency

NASA Can Create ‘New Options For Our Grandchildren’s Grandchildren, Or Leave That Privilege To Others’

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin spoke before the Space Transportation Association (STA) in room 2325 of the Rayburn House Office Building at 7:30 a.m. January 8, 2009. He was introduced by Rep. Ralph M. Hall of Texas, ranking member on the House Science and Technology Committee that oversees NASA. Griffin’s comments came after his wife, Rebecca, launched an email campaign urging President-elect Obama to retain Griffin as NASA administrator, much to his surprise and opposition. This transcription was made by Space & Missile Defense Report from a tape recording. "Mr. Hall, thank you. That’s about the nicest introduction I’ve received in the last four years [since Griffin became administrator April 14, 2005], and certainly the nicest thing that’s been said about me in the last month. [laughter] Before I get started, I just wanted to convey some apologies from my wife Rebecca, who couldn’t be here this morning. Her recent duties as my agent have used up all of her time, and she has just not been able to fit this in. [laughter] She conveys her regrets. Probably going to run just a bit long this morning. If anybody can’t stay, I certainly understand. I’m not offended. But had a number of things I wanted to cover, so let’s get to it.

I want to thank [STA President] Rich Coleman for this morning’s invitation [to speak]. Three years in a row, I’ve started the January [breakfast] program off by talking .. and I’ve enjoyed doing it."

Orion-Ares

"Last year I addressed the considerations that addressed the design of NASA’s Constellation [Program] architecture. Wanted to get on the record why the design is the way it is. From all the questions that are still out there, I guess I didn’t do a very good job. So I’m going to try again today. I’m going to try not to repeat what I said in prior speeches and testimonies. But I admit that in tackling these issues, I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth: ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends.’ With that said, Constellation was designed to implement the new civil space policy that we have, as articulated by [President Bush] in the aftermath of the [Space Shuttle] Columbia accident, and modified, extended and enhanced by both Republican congresses and Democratic congresses [in the] NASA Authorization Acts of ’05 and ’08. … Now at this point, after five years of discussion about it, I think it’s fair to say that the new policy and its principles provide a reasoned and reasonable consensus on goals for the American civil space program. Briefly, [the] policy says that the United States will meet domestic and international commitments by using the space shuttle [fleet] to finish the International Space Station [construction], after which [the fleet] will be retired and replaced by a new system to support space station crew transfer and logistics, enable human lunar return, and sustain lunar presence, and pave the way for future voyages to Mars and the near-Earth asteroids.

Other important points are captured in both policy and law, including especially the intent to foster the commercial development of space. But I believe that one sentence captures the essence of today’s policy direction for NASA.

Now, it’s not without practical concerns. We’re completing ISS and planning for shuttle retirement by the end of 2010. At the same time, the first Constellation elements — Ares I [rocket] and Orion [space capsule for crew exploration] — are being built. These elements were originally required to be in service not later than 2014, given the budgetary allocations then thought to be available. And we identified design alternatives that could have provided capability as early as 2011. But in waves of numerous administration budget reductions and two continuing [budget] resolutions [each of which freeze NASA funding in a new budget year at the former-year level], the initial operating capability for Ares and Orion is now projected for 2015. At issue are the implications of this timing for ISS support and utilization, and, frankly, the geopolitics of dependence upon Russia for five years for crew transportation to this facility. A multi-year gap between independent, guaranteed U.S. access to the space station whose development we led seems folly — a matter concerning which I’ve been on the record for four years now. However, as I continue to remind people, the gap, as it is called, is not a surprise. It’s a known feature inherent in the last four budget cycles. If, now that we’re almost upon it, it seems a bad feature, the question becomes, what can be done about it, and at what cost in terms of money, risk and foregone opportunities.

I will have more to say on this later, but for the moment let’s continue on with larger issues.

Policy mandates hard things. Returning the space shuttle safely to flight: I and others in this room can tell you how hard that was. Finish the [space] station: that’s harder yet. But we’re doing it. Even harder: retire the shuttle, a system we’ve been designing, building and flying for … years. It’s an American icon throughout the world. I’ve seen it on billboards in Beijing. But it’s also a system that — even if it’s operated to perfection — can’t take us where we want to go … out beyond low Earth orbit. And finally, hardest of all, we have to build a new human transportation system that can take us where we want to go — something we haven’t done in almost five decades now."

No Retreat From Space

"This is a time of seminal change at NASA, and while change is difficult, it was needed. In my opinion, we now have the best policy direction NASA has received in decades. We have clear goals, which follow logically from choices that — considered one by one — are simple. To wit: either we will have a human space flight program, or not. We will, because for the United States to cede leadership on the frontier of human action will spell the end of who and what we are as a people. History is not the story of those who stay behind. As President Kennedy said so eloquently, ‘The exploration of space will go ahead whether we join in it or not. It’s one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.’

So if we are to have a human space flight program, it will either venture outward, or not. If not, then again we will be in retreat. The exploitation of low Earth orbit is vitally important to a spacefaring society, but it is no longer the frontier. When John Glenn flew into orbit the first time, it was. Today, we’ve had international crews working and living in space on the International Space Station [ISS] for more than eight years. We have a lot to learn. But the frontier status of low Earth orbit [LEO] is waning. We need to expand on the knowledge we’ve gained, but also press on to new frontiers. So if we are not to be in retreat, if we are to venture outward again, where do we go? Well, the moon, near-Earth asteroids and Mars. These are the destinations we can reach, with the technology that we possess today, or that we can reasonably foresee."

Our Grandchildren’s Grandchildren

"These are the destinations that can and will occupy us completely, for the remainder of this century. These are the places where we will create new options for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, or leave that privilege to others.

So in my view, we have the right policy, not least because it directs us to follow the geography of the solar system in which we live, as we go about rebuilding our spacefaring capabilities. We must surely do things right. But it is even more important to do the right things. And in this policy, we are. So I caution against changes in the broad direction of our program, because I believe that today, we are expending our resources in pursuit of the right goals. We must not allow indecision and uncertainty to cause, again, the waste of billions of dollars already invested, and the loss of any momentum we might have hoped to achieve. We have seen this in far too many NASA human space flight programs over the years, a situation which the Columbia Accident Investigation Board justifiably called ‘a failure of national leadership.’ Those of us in the space community must ask, do we want to repeat that? Constellation architecture offers a system to meet the goals of today’s space policy. It is fundamentally designed to return Americans and our international partners to the moon, to allow but not require sustained lunar presence, and to provide maximum utility of the near-term elements for later voyages to Mars and the near-Earth asteroids. Constellation is also designed to support the International Space Station. But as clearly stated from the outset, only if commercial service fails to materialize. Constellation is not focused on, nor designed for, maximum efficiency in LEO operations. Our goal is to establish a market niche for commercial cargo and, later, crew transportation to ISS a niche in which government systems ought not to be cost-competitive with commercial systems designed efficient LEO access. Basically, if you can’t do it better than government, you don’t have a right to our business. Shouldn’t be that tough. The programmatic implementation of the Constellation architecture fits within NASA’s budget projections. Further, it is designed to accommodate funding reductions, which have already totaled nearly $12 billion future dollars over just the last four years [of budget deliberations], by slipping schedules, rather than making technical compromises with which our successors will have to cope for decades.

If we learn nothing else from the early history of early space shuttle development compromises that were forced by budgetary considerations, I hope it is this: late is ugly until you launch, but wrong is ugly forever."

Constellation: A Good Design

"Constellation is a specific [formulation] of a system designed to address stated policy goals. Others are certainly possible. It is almost never true in engineering that there is only one way to do something. It’s reasonable to ask whether — given the goals and constraints that guided the Constellation design — another approach would produce superior performance, or could be realized in less time or at lower cost. Now, requirements can be altered, policies can be changed, decisions, plans, architectures can be reviewed, reversed, altered. However, such actions come with a price tag. In fact, merely asking questions carries a cost. It is a truism of economic theory: information is costly. It takes a good deal of time and money, consequential damages, if you will, for the legal minds among us, to conduct an effective technical review. If it is to be of value, an engineering review must be done carefully and thoroughly, with enormous attention to the ground rules and assumptions, in order to produce a valid apples-to-apples comparison. Further, the game must be worth the candle. To undertake a review with the idea of effecting serious change, there must be a reason to suppose that a significant gain is possible. And there must be a healthy skepticism as to the likelihood of attaining such a gain. It is bad engineering practice to churn a system design merely because you can. In this vein, I call your attention to a book called The Rickover Effect, How One Man Made a Difference, About Adm. Hyman Rickover and his stewardship of the nuclear Navy. There is a great story about the early days of reactor development, when Rickover’s personal future and that of the Nautilus [nuclear submarine] and the nuclear Navy were very much in doubt. Rickover offered an interesting definition of the difference between a paper reactor and a real reactor. A paper reactor has the following characteristics: it is simple, small, cheap, lightweight, and can be built very quickly. Very little development is required, because it will use off-the-shelf components. That reactor is in the study phase. A real reactor has the following characteristics: complicated, large, heavy. It is being built now, behind schedule. Requires an immense amount of development for apparently trivial items. Takes a long time to build, because of its engineering development problems. Any of that sound familiar to people in the space business? [laughter]

Moving on, it’s possible to produce a different design result by changing policy goals and constraints that guide the design. Many of the suggestions offered to me with the intent of improving Constellation take this form. The offeror neglects a particular requirement that is disliked, and with that omission is able to provide an improved approach to the goals which remain.

Political transitions provide the best opportunity for reconsideration of broad policy goals, if that’s thought to be necessary. The other occasions upon which we typically do so are, sadly, in the wake of tragedies, as we saw after both [Space Shuttles] Challenger and Columbia [were destroyed]."

EELV: Inadequate And Costly

"So with that said, and with this being a time of political transition, let’s consider some of the ideas that have been offered as to how our present space policy could be better implemented than with the Constellation architecture, or how a better result could be attained by alternate policy guidelines. And since this is my speech, allow me to offer my views as to the wisdom of some of these ideas.

Now every week, I think, it seems we hear that NASA should be directed to halt development of Ares I [the rocket to launch the Orion crew-carrying space capsule into orbit], and pay industry to develop a human-rated EELV [Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, Atlas V and Delta IV rockets provided by a United Launch Alliance venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] and The Boeing Co. [BA] that are used by the military] to fly the Orion crew vehicle, and focus [NASA] efforts on the Ares V [heavy lifter rocket] and … Altair [moon lander].

Now, while a smaller Orion crew vehicle on a human-rated EELV could cost less in the short term to develop, it would only be capable of supporting the International Space Station. The lunar mission is more difficult. We’re trying to go beyond Apollo [the type of spaceship that went to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s], not just repeat it. Our goal is to develop the option for sustained human lunar presence, at a minimal level, of an international crew of four, rotating on six months [missions]. Existing EELVs, even leaving aside the issue of human ratings, can’t lift a lunar-capable Orion without substantially compromising what is meant by ‘lunar capable.’ Now, if using EELV doesn’t really mean using an existing EELV, but instead using an upgraded EELV sufficient to carry a lunar-capable Orion, then I have to note that this will require a lot more than a few tweaks, as some have suggested."

Reinventing The Wheel

"We would have to modify the first stage to carry a heavier loads, and for human rating, among many other things, and then design, develop and build a human-rated second stage. That’s exactly what we’re doing with Ares I. We’re modifying an existing first stage, and building a new second stage. Why is this a good thing to do with EELV, and a bad thing to do for Ares? Further, it’s crucial to recall that we’re designing an architecture — a family of space vehicles with synergistic commonality. We are not trying to optimize a single mission. Our analysis shows that for the complete architecture, development cost savings for the Ares family are huge: about 25 percent lower than for an EELV-derived family, because of the commonality Ares I systems that [go] on Ares V. In fact, given that we have to develop Ares V for the lunar mission and later Mars, the additional development costs for Ares I is $2.7 billion. I want to repeat that. If you commit to lunar exploration and beyond with Ares V, then for an additional $2.7 billion, you also get the new, human-rated crew transportation system mandated by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Now, aside from the upper-stage tank structure, almost everything on Ares I — most elements of the five-segment solid [rocket], the J2X upper stage, the upper stage main propulsion system, the guidance-navigation-flight control systems — all of that is common to Ares V.

That’s the Constellation [benefit]. A space system designed for a single task — like, say, Earth to LEO or Earth to moon — can be optimized for that one task. And in a [fantasy] world where NASA has a lot more money, it would absolutely be desirable to build and optimize different systems for different missions. Now, we’re not in that world. I think if we’re lucky, we’re going to get one human space vehicle to follow the shuttle. Does anybody here think Congress is going to provide funding for more than one new vehicle? Anybody? Raise your hand. [No hands are raised.] I didn’t actually think so. All right, and if that’s the case, then I think it would be a mistake to optimize that one vehicle for access to low Earth orbit. If we want to be a spacefaring nation, we have to be able to go to more than one place, and do more than one thing. And we’re going to have to sacrifice optimal performance on any single mission for versatility across an array of missions. That’s why we have to think architecture, and not point design."

Ares I Twice As Safe As EELV

"Beyond the costs involved, our probabilistic risk assessment for loss of crew on Ares I show it to be twice as safe. Now, I want to repeat that: twice as safe as a human-rated EELV-derived vehicle.

This figure of merit was a significant factor in our decision to go with a shuttle-derived Ares I. Yet it is ignored by almost everyone suggesting that we make a change. I can’t responsibly ignore it, for reasons having nothing to do with money. If to someone else it is just about the money, then the cost of unreliability must be considered.

If we were to incur even one additional accident through the use of a less reliable system, we would wipe out all the hypothetical savings of a hypothetically cheaper vehicle.

We ought to be willing to pay more for a safer vehicle."

Let NASA, Not Contractors, Decide

And, by the way, in what world is that decision anyone’s but NASA’s?

So, while I’m truly concerned about the moribund state of the U.S. commercial launch industry, and about the rising cost of the EELV to NASA as a result, our task was to develop a plan for human space exploration, not to buttress the EELV industrial base. We absolutely don’t have the resources to do both. I wish we did. But even if we did, exactly what is it that makes the EELV industrial base more important to support than the shuttle industrial base? I remind everyone that with the Ares family, we are retiring the shuttle orbiter [vehicle], but we’re preserving many other segments of the shuttle industrial base. Why is it, exactly, that in this time of transition at NASA, in our space flight systems, we ought to be making decisions to augment existing Atlas and Delta workforce, while completely decimating the shuttle workforce? Why is that?

Now, as I say, I am concerned … the rising cost for expendables will impact our ability to carry out our robotic science missions. We’re seeing that. In accordance with the Commercial Space Launch Act and national policy, EELV will continue to be the foundation [to] launch NASA’s robotic missions, and we’ll use it to the maximum extent possible.

We’re also considering emerging commercial offerings, like [Space Exploration Technologies Corp.] SpaceX’s Falcon 9 [rocket] and Orbital [Sciences Corp.]’s Taurus II. When reliably flown, they will compete on a level playing field for NASA contracts. We are supporting the commercial launch industry, where we can reasonably do it.

Now let me turn to the proposal that we should [hand] ISS support to U.S. commercial providers, when and as they materialize, and through international systems in the meantime. And that NASA should not even design Ares I and Orion with the capability to support the space station. With this approach, there would never be a government transportation system to support ISS. All I can say about this is, if you like the present gap in U.S. government access to LEO, you’ll love this one. Contrary to what has been asserted in some quarters, I am the very last person in this business to view commercial launch alternatives as ‘a threat’ to NASA. I have stated on innumerable occasions, and will do it again, that I would love to see commercial capability for placing astronauts in LEO and supporting the space station. I said, and will say again, that we as a nation should establish and embrace policy incentives to do just that. At NASA, we’ve backed those thoughts with money. We put $500 million toward the development and demonstration of nascent COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems) capabilities. And billions more are now payable on commercial resupply contracts to provide logistics to the International Space Station after the shuttle [fleet] is retired. Bill Gerstenmaier [the NASA associate administrator for space operations] made those selections just the other day. With present NASA funding constraints, I can’t recommend doing more, absent demonstrated progress by the commercial space sector. If commercial companies want to and can develop crew transportation capabilities, then I applaud it. And we would be legally bound to make use of their services, [under] the NASA 2008 Authorization Act. But when we use the term ‘commercial,’ it implies an arms-length transaction for an existing product or service. It does not mean giving me enough front money so that I can become another prime contractor."

Commercial Rockets Good But Limited

"So, while you just won’t find more of a true believer than I about the importance of providing incentives for developing commercial space endeavors, I’m also a realist. It is my considered judgment that the risk of relying for ISS support solely upon not-yet-existing commercial products is just too great. We need a better plan than that to support a facility in which our nation has invested [billions of dollars, and other nations have invested billions more], and which is the centerpiece of the international human space flight program. I believe that it would be reckless for the United States to leave the ISS hostage to fortune, its utility contingent upon the international partner capability, and the hope that eventually, commercial systems will be available. Hope is not a management tool.

Human access to low orbit cannot be a commercial set-aside. A government system offering independent, guaranteed LEO access — even if it’s not as efficient as it could be if designed solely for that purpose — is necessary. It is necessary for ISS support. It is necessary as a control on the price we’re willing to pay for commercial or international substitutes. And it is necessary if we want to imagine ever doing anything else in low Earth orbit that goes beyond merely flying back and forth to the space station. You want to do another Hubble [Space Telescope] servicing mission [in addition to the Space Shuttle Atlantis servicing mission now set for May 12], or something else like it?

You want to do something else in the future that you haven’t thought of today? If so, you’re going to need something more than basic commercial transportation.

Human space flight is a strategic capability pioneered by our nation. We must treat it like the important thing that it is. We must not make decisions today that would cause a future NASA administrator to be forced to ask the Congress, as I was last year, for legislative relief from [a law barring purchase of space flights from certain nations such as Russia], and the privilege of using U.S. taxpayer funds to pay Russian aerospace engineers. This situation is unseemly in the extreme, but it is where we are. This is, precisely, the failure of national leadership to which the Columbia Accident Investigation Board spoke so damningly. Let’s not do it again.

It has been proposed that we should continue flying shuttle until and unless commercial systems come into being, again with the proviso that no new government system for access to LEO should be built. Now, I don’t need to reiterate my disagreement with the second part of this proposal. I just did it. But the first part, continuing shuttle flights, deserves renewed consideration. We at NASA have recently updated our estimates of the cost to do it, and the bottom line is this: for $3 billion a year, we could continue to fly shuttle twice a year, from 2011 to 2015, for ISS crew transfer and cargo logistics."

Shuttles: 1-In-8 Chance Disaster

"We would have about a one-in-eight chance of losing a crew on one of those 10 flights, if you believe our current [assessment of probabilities and risks]. So it can be done. Whether it ought to be done is another question. I will offer two perspectives. First, as an engineer and program manager, my immediate thought is that I’ve got better uses for $3 billion a year than flying the shuttle to reduce, but not eliminate, dependence upon [the Russian spaceship] Soyuz. Everyone here, I think, understands that we still need Soyuz for crew rescue capability [for space station crews if a threatening problem arises on the station]. Russia has been a reliable partner on the International Space Station. Without equivocation, I am glad to be working with them. I like them. While partnership should not be confused with dependency, and while I do think it is unwise for the United States to be dependent on others for crew and cargo access to the International Space Station, I can accept it for a few years in the context of ISS partnership, as well as the price of — frankly — poor decisions made in the past. We can accept it for a time, if it allows us to move forward with the development of new systems. And I would do that. However, from a purely geopolitical perspective, a different conclusion could be reached. One could argue that America’s international standing will suffer as a result of demonstrated inability to provide transportation to the space station we built. Is it worth $3 billion a year and the risk of additional shuttle flights to prevent this loss of stature, image and clear preeminence in space flight? It might be.

If the decisions were made at the highest levels of government to continue flying shuttle to preserve American preeminence, by guaranteeing uninterrupted access to [the space] station, I could support that decision, as long as we all clearly understood why we were doing it, and what the risks were."

Fully Fund Shuttle Extension

"But I must be very clear: in my opinion, continuing to fly shuttle without the extra money to do it would be unwise strategically shortsighted. If the required funds are taken from NASA’s existing appropriations, we cannot close the gap. We merely postpone it, until inevitably the shuttle [is flown no more]. Existing appropriations are insufficient to fly shuttle and at the same time develop new systems. In the bluntest of terms — who was it who said I was blunt? Candor? Or whatever? — in the bluntest of terms, preserving our nation’s preeminence in space by eliminating the gap might be worth $3 billion a year and the attendant risk of life. Spending that money and taking those risks to postpone a gap is not.

Yet another proposal is that Ares I should be canceled …

Lunar missions should be carried out by means of a dual Ares V launch sequence.

And ISS should be accomplished by some combination of shuttle extension and continued use of Soyuz, until reliable commercial space transportation is available.

Now, again, I don’t need to reiterate my thoughts as to the wisdom of eliminating government access to LEO or shuttle extension. However, dual Ares V lunar mission concept makes sense, if the budget is available to support it. It costs about a third more per mission than Ares I and V baseline, but it offers about 69-70 percent more payload to the moon, so on a marginal cost basis, it’s a good deal — if you can afford it.

We considered it as a growth option during the exploration systems architecture study, and this is one of the main reasons why I directed very early on that the design of Ares V should not include any feature that would need to be redesigned to allow future human ratings. And that is still true.

But having a growth option to fly lunar missions using two Ares V launches does not mean canceling Ares I makes sense.

As I stated above, if we’re going to develop Ares V to go to the moon and beyond, then spending $2.7 billion more to get a human-rated launcher that can put 23 metric tons in ISS orbit is a bargain. If we think that a government system for human access to low Earth orbit is important, and I do, then this is absolutely the cheapest way that you’ll ever get it.

Now let me turn to some of the reports in the press that ‘technical troubles have dogged the design process for Ares I’ or that ‘weight issues have required redesign to both capsule and rocket.’ Now, the plain fact is that we haven’t yet finished the design of Ares I and Orion, let alone needing to redesign them. The design isn’t done until we pass critical design review [CDR], at which point we can begin manufacturing. Every engineer knows that. That’s why we have these milestone reviews. CDR for Orion is toward the end of 2010, and for Ares 1 it’s in early 2011. You can’t go faster, not because of technical troubles or weight issues, but because we don’t have the money, until after the shuttle retires. In fact, as things stand today, the critical path on Orion includes the purchase of long lead parts that are needed, irrespective of the design details. You can’t buy the parts yet. We don’t have the money.

Specifically, with regard to weight issues, I have never, ever worked on a space project that didn’t have weight issues, unless I ran out of volume or power first. That’s a good reason why system engineers are conservative with the margins that we hold for these quantities. Quite simply, there is no upmass problem for Ares I and Orion on ISS missions, and a decade before we actually have to do it the lunar mission mass closes to within a hundred kilograms out of 70 metric tons, or so, to trans-lunar injection. We’re closed to within a few hundred kilograms [100 kilograms is 220.5 pounds]. Our pencil’s not that sharp. The actual mass problem for Orion is the return weight on the parachutes. And, yeah, we’re working it. And we will resolve it.

Now, as for the always enjoyable topic of thrust oscillation in the Ares I first-stage motor, we did not in fact see any of that at detrimental levels on the most recent shuttle flight, the first in decades in which we were able to instrument the SRBs [solid rocket boosters] to measure it. If it occurs in flight on Ares I, we expect about five seconds of exposure to vibration levels that might effectively prevent the crew from taking necessary actions during or after the exposure event. Now we need to make sure that the first and second stage [of the Ares I rocket] don’t resonate at the same frequency, and we’ll do that. But that’s it. We want to get any vibration down to the 0.25 g level that we set in 1962 for Gemini [space capsule missions]. And at the same time we want to understand how crew performance degrades with intensity and duration of exposure. And we’re working that.

These sorts of concerns are not new for NASA, nor to anybody in the rocket business. If you really want to scare yourself, read ‘NASA Experience With … And Human Space Flight Vehicles,’ by NASA tech fellow Curt Larsen (?). Curt summarized – a great technical memorandum — Curt summarizes the history of flight experience with an engineering mitigation of liquid rocket thrust oscillation. …

In today’s environment, we’re doing engineering design in public. There’s almost no such thing any more as an internal meeting, and it isn’t going to change. So I believe that those of us who care deeply about the future our nation’s space program must consider how we can better communicate technical matters to non-engineers. We are simply going to have to learn how to explain better what it is we do, to go from a sketch on a piece of paper to a flying machine.

I have said that I believe the fundamental direction that the president and Congress have given us is the proper unifying vision for space exploration that was called for by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. To that end, I have advocated that our nation’s policymakers a constancy of purpose for NASA. This has recently come back to haunt me. Some have taken it to mean that I’m opposed to any change at all in our nation’s civil space program. Hardly so. I think the plan we have today is the best we can produce, given our budget. But there are many things that could be improved or enhanced if more funds were made available. When I say that we need constancy of purpose, it’s because — while we’re making tremendous progress in the design and development of these systems — they take a long time to build. Any changes in direction must be carefully considered if we’re ever going to produce anything beyond studies or canceled programs. … [The 2008 NASA reauthorization act] offers exactly the constancy of purpose which I’m talking about, and which is essential to meeting the strategic objectives that have been set forth for us. The fundamental goals of [reauthorizations] provide a foundation for the agency. Other goals could be added. One of the goals might be to utilize fully and aggressively the space station we’ve built. It’s going to be around for a long time, if we take care of it. Right now, we have very little commitment to ISS past 2015, other than to ‘take no action to preclude its continued operation.’ Talk about damnation with faint praise. [laughter] That’s not much for a facility that’s been in design and development for a quarter-century. Or we might consider reestablishing a significant technology development program not tied to existing mission requirements. At one time we spent 10 percent of the NASA budget on that, and it paid dividends. We could consider augmenting the Earth observation program to restore the climate-sensing capability that was once planned to be done by NPOESS (the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System). … Or we might want to consider whether the aeronautics program is accomplishing all that it could. But any goals we add should be adopted only if the resources are provided to achieve them in credible fashion.

Now, four years ago, in preparation for my Senate confirmation in the spring of ’05, every member of Congress who I visited told me, and in some cases quite sternly, that NASA was lagging in its response to the new space policy direction (President Bush’s vision of voyages to the moon, Mars and beyond), and that we needed to put together a credible, execute-able plan to carry it out. I hope I’ve been clear in my testimony to Congress, and in various other speeches over the years, that the projected schedule for delivery of Constellation systems is far from perfect. But it’s the best plan that we can offer with the resources that we’re projected to receive in the years ahead. I’m always open to suggestions as to how better to implement our policy direction. There really is no pride of authorship for good ideas, and there is no not-invented-here attitude at NASA. If you have a better idea, then, after careful consideration, we’d be happy to implement it. But no matter what decisions we make, we can’t make everybody happy. Most decisions are going to produce an unhappy outcome for somebody. This is not a symptom of incompetence, bad intentions or lack of integrity on our part, as some have concluded."

Eisenhower, Kennedy

Allocation of public funds to any particular alternative invariably leaves behind aggrieved parties who don’t receive those funds. In this vein, and especially at this time, concerns which President Eisenhower raised in his farewell address 50 years ago speak to our nation today. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous use of misplaced power exists, and will remain." To guard against this, what we — what the taxpaying public and its elected representatives — can and do expect of NASA can be summarized in two words: objective expertise. Making strategic decisions about the expenditure of public funds is a core government function. It’s not reasonable to suppose that responsible managers can make decisions pleasing to all interested parties.

In conclusion, I’d like to remind us all that we have something to celebrate this year: the 40th anniversary of the first human footprint on a world other than our own. It’s time for us to look back on what worked right, and to look back at what didn’t. Going forward, it’s also time to recommit ourselves to taking the next steps. I’ve said that we need to learn to communicate better: why we explore space and the challenges we face when we do. No one was better at that than President Kennedy. I never fail to marvel at how his words speak to us across the decades. So I’d like to leave you with his thoughts from San Antonio on Nov. 21, 1963, the day before he was assassinated. "For more than three years, I’ve spoken about the new frontier. This is not a partisan term. It’s not the exclusive property of Republicans or Democrats. It refers, instead, to this nation’s place in history, to the fact that we do stand on the edge of a new era filled with crisis and opportunity, an era characterized by achievement and challenge. It is an era which calls for action, and for the best efforts of all those who would test the unknown and uncertainty in every phase of human endeavor. It is a time for pathfinders and pioneers.

We have a long way to go. Many weeks and months and years of long tedious work lie ahead. There will be setbacks and frustrations and disappointments. There will be, as there always are, pressures in this country to do less in this area, as in so many others. The temptation to do something else that is perhaps easier. But this research here must go on. This space effort must go on. The conquest of space must and will go ahead. That much we know. That much we can say with confidence and conviction."

Thank you. … I’m sorry this speech ran so long.

The audience gave him lengthy applause.