Message-ID: <gYcp5vK00UkV8INU4V@andrew.cmu.edu>
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To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 89 05:16:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #509

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 9 : Issue 509

Today's Topics:
Excerpts From Acting Administrator Truly's remarks at the National Space Outlook Conference (Forwarded)
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Date: 20 Jun 89 16:49:47 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Excerpts From Acting Administrator Truly's remarks at the National Space Outlook Conference (Forwarded)


          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.


                               -2-


     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.


                               -3-


     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.


                               -4-


     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. 


                               -5-


     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.


                               -6-


     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.


                               -7-


     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.


                               -8-


     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.


                               -9-


     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?


                              -10-


     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.

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V9 #509
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