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The space station program
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LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY FOCUS
THE SPACE STATION PROGRAM
The idea of people living and working in outerspace used to be found only in children's stories and science fiction books. But the prospect of a permanently staffed space structure is nearing realization. The United States, along with an international contingent including Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency, is working on a Space Station which will be the base for scientific and technological research. The Space Station will serve as a transportation point for space ventures, a facility for constructing and processing space structures and equipment as well as many other services, including commercial use. Robert Nelson is an Information Systems Analyst at the NASA Space Station Program Office in Reston, Virginia. He provides insight about NASA, its policies and projects, and specifically discusses the Space Station P r o g r a m - some of the highlights as well as problems with it in a question-and-answer format. Question 1: What are your views on commercialization or privatization of the space station or launching of satellites? Nelson: The space station project is an international endeavor. Recently, memoranda of understanding have been signed with Canada and with Japanese space agencies, so already we are seeing a lot of international participation. A steering committee has just recently been set up which is a commercialization steering group. They consider proposals from outside sources for commercialization. They would support commercial proposals and there are considerations as to how to handle them and what to respond to. When people think of the commercialization of the space station program, they may not realize that the space station is being produced by different commercial v e n d o r s major aerospace corporations in the U.S. and also in other countries. We have four different work packages in the space station program: work package one is a consortium led by Boeing out of Alabama, McDonnell Douglas is handled out of Huntington Beach, General Electric providing some of the platforms that go along with the manned space, and the fourth one is out of Cleveland for the power system--that's Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International. We have contracts with all these companies. Basically, the commercialization steering committee is involved more if outside proposals came in which were not solicited which wanted to do a particular experiment or provide a particular capability on the space station and would consider it. Question 2: What do you think is the future of NASA? TELEMATICS and INFORMATICS
Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 335-338, 1988 Copyright © 1988 Pergamon Press plc. Printed in the USA 0736-5853/88 $3.00 + .00
335
336
Legislative and Policy Focus
Nelson: The future of N A S A certainly is in some of the larger applications of space like space manufacturing, and also providing a space infrastructure in order to go and explore. For example, some people have been talking about joint missions to Mars with other countries. N A S A has been very strong in the unmanned programs which don't receive quite as much publicity in the p r e s s - - a lot of the deep space probes that have investigated the other planets and the earth probes that have done a lot to identify such things as the ozone depletion and magnetic field and m a n y other discoveries in science. There is always going to be a rollover in the civil space program because the military, of course, will not like to get together with other countries as we have done with the space station program. The information gathered by N A S A is made known through publication releases and presentations. There is a program to utilize space hardware in the private sector--that's called a spinoff program which has been in place for m a n y years. Question 3: What kinds of research and development are needed to keep N A S A as a leader in the space station project?
Nelson: There is a large program called Pathfinder which is a research program in the Office of Space Technology. I don't think the private sector has come up with a proposal for a manned space station or for interplanetary-travel and probes or whatever. So those areas would have to be led by the government environment. We have an office of exploration which looks at which missions should be considered next. One o f the manned missions they are looking at is a manned mission to Mars. Some people, like Timothy Leafy, would like to see that before the end of the century. We'd like to see the platform produced by the space station being an assembly point where we could go into a mode of exploring beyond our current limits. Question 4: What do you see is this country's space policy? What should it be? Nelson: In general, there is a role for the private sector and a role for the public sector. I think everyone should be free to make the suggestion as to where we should be going in space. I think we have advisory boards that have been dealing with the space station: the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and of course Congress is dealing with funding priorities and that's how I think the public can get involved in space priorities. We have the policy from the technical side and we need the support from the resources side. The part that has not gone that smoothly is the support from the resources side. There's quite a struggle for getting funding for the space station program for 1989. We have a certain number of programs going and in order to get the space station started we need an increment increase in the budget for NASA and that does not seem to be getting the support from the committees on Capitol Hill at this point. This is a make or break year. Some of the committees are essentially saying that they would like to wait for the next administration. Question 5: What kinds of international cooperation is there in the space station project?
Nelson: We have three fellows from the Japanese space agency here who are cooperating in our requirements baseline which we are doing for the space station at this point. We have been having a program requirements review and all of our international partners have been involved. We have Japanese, European representation, Canadian as
Legislative and Policy Focus
337
well. In fact, the total amount of money that will be spent by the internationals to produce segments of the space station is $7 billion. Part of the embarrassment which we are getting ourselves into is that we are getting good support from all of the internationals but we are not getting the congressional support. Question 6: How will the cutback in Congressional approval of requested funds by N A S A affect the space station project? Nelson: One option is to just use any funds on a subsistence level so that we don't have to lay off people for October to January. The only other option would be to terminate existing work package contracts and that would mean we would have to restart the program at a future date. The other countries could continue without N A S A but they would have to modify their plans. We are providing the transportation syst e m - the s h u t t l e - for launching the units and that would have to be worked out differently. Also, the U.S. has been providing the long transverse b o o m structure and the power system, the habitation module. Their investment would have to increase and then the U.S. would have to negotiate later about using their space station. If we don't cooperatively make a c o m m i t m e n t , they may go without us although they may not do it right away since they would have to turn around their priorities and space budgets. The Japanese are really pushing high-tech technologies. They see the benefits in a lot of space processing and they would probably pursue that in one way or another to get a hold in space. Our competitive advantage in the private sector is certainly going to be a problem. Question 7: W h a t are the m a j o r benefits of the space station project? Nelson: The basic benefit is that it is a permanently manned structure. The Russians have had a permanently manned space station for some time now. The types of things that will be applied there give us the advantage of being able to test people in space to see what the effects are of long periods of time which would be required for exploration of other planets. There are a lot of different commercial applications, for example, m a n u f a c t u r i n g - - h a v i n g zero gravity producing very highly accurate computer chips technology. There are a number of other applications that are planned. Question 8: What technological barriers need to be overcome to make the space station project a success? Nelson: One of the problems that we see is getting the resource e n v e l o p e - g e t t i n g everything up there in Shuttle increments. It is going to take 19 Shuttle flights. One of the technological challenges is to do that in increments where you can go up and put in a section and make sure that everything hangs together while you are doing i t - b e t w e e n flights. So it's a logistics problem. Also, with the number of experiments being proposed, the resources from the power side are something that are somewhat constrained. We would hope to have h u m a n habitation up there in about 1995. However, this would require the larger funding. Question 9: What advanced technologies will the space station use? Nelson: A lot of the technology is already in hand that the space station can use. We have tried to push the automation of the robotics area. A lot of the space station assembly would have to be done in the manual mode. We have several projects where we
338
Legislative and Policy Focus
are doing automation of t h a t - - f o r example, we have a telerobotic flight servicer that will use expert systems and robotic arms to be able to perform some tasks in developing the structure of the space station and also for the future to assist in the logistics from unmanned platforms that are serviced through the space station. O f course, managing the software and providing all the capabilities that we need, is an important area under development.
LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY FOCUS
THE SPACE STATION PROGRAM
The idea of people living and working in outerspace used to be found only in children's stories and science fiction books. But the prospect of a permanently staffed space structure is nearing realization. The United States, along with an international contingent including Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency, is working on a Space Station which will be the base for scientific and technological research. The Space Station will serve as a transportation point for space ventures, a facility for constructing and processing space structures and equipment as well as many other services, including commercial use. Robert Nelson is an Information Systems Analyst at the NASA Space Station Program Office in Reston, Virginia. He provides insight about NASA, its policies and projects, and specifically discusses the Space Station P r o g r a m - some of the highlights as well as problems with it in a question-and-answer format. Question 1: What are your views on commercialization or privatization of the space station or launching of satellites? Nelson: The space station project is an international endeavor. Recently, memoranda of understanding have been signed with Canada and with Japanese space agencies, so already we are seeing a lot of international participation. A steering committee has just recently been set up which is a commercialization steering group. They consider proposals from outside sources for commercialization. They would support commercial proposals and there are considerations as to how to handle them and what to respond to. When people think of the commercialization of the space station program, they may not realize that the space station is being produced by different commercial v e n d o r s major aerospace corporations in the U.S. and also in other countries. We have four different work packages in the space station program: work package one is a consortium led by Boeing out of Alabama, McDonnell Douglas is handled out of Huntington Beach, General Electric providing some of the platforms that go along with the manned space, and the fourth one is out of Cleveland for the power system--that's Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International. We have contracts with all these companies. Basically, the commercialization steering committee is involved more if outside proposals came in which were not solicited which wanted to do a particular experiment or provide a particular capability on the space station and would consider it. Question 2: What do you think is the future of NASA? TELEMATICS and INFORMATICS
Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 335-338, 1988 Copyright © 1988 Pergamon Press plc. Printed in the USA 0736-5853/88 $3.00 + .00
335
336
Legislative and Policy Focus
Nelson: The future of N A S A certainly is in some of the larger applications of space like space manufacturing, and also providing a space infrastructure in order to go and explore. For example, some people have been talking about joint missions to Mars with other countries. N A S A has been very strong in the unmanned programs which don't receive quite as much publicity in the p r e s s - - a lot of the deep space probes that have investigated the other planets and the earth probes that have done a lot to identify such things as the ozone depletion and magnetic field and m a n y other discoveries in science. There is always going to be a rollover in the civil space program because the military, of course, will not like to get together with other countries as we have done with the space station program. The information gathered by N A S A is made known through publication releases and presentations. There is a program to utilize space hardware in the private sector--that's called a spinoff program which has been in place for m a n y years. Question 3: What kinds of research and development are needed to keep N A S A as a leader in the space station project?
Nelson: There is a large program called Pathfinder which is a research program in the Office of Space Technology. I don't think the private sector has come up with a proposal for a manned space station or for interplanetary-travel and probes or whatever. So those areas would have to be led by the government environment. We have an office of exploration which looks at which missions should be considered next. One o f the manned missions they are looking at is a manned mission to Mars. Some people, like Timothy Leafy, would like to see that before the end of the century. We'd like to see the platform produced by the space station being an assembly point where we could go into a mode of exploring beyond our current limits. Question 4: What do you see is this country's space policy? What should it be? Nelson: In general, there is a role for the private sector and a role for the public sector. I think everyone should be free to make the suggestion as to where we should be going in space. I think we have advisory boards that have been dealing with the space station: the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and of course Congress is dealing with funding priorities and that's how I think the public can get involved in space priorities. We have the policy from the technical side and we need the support from the resources side. The part that has not gone that smoothly is the support from the resources side. There's quite a struggle for getting funding for the space station program for 1989. We have a certain number of programs going and in order to get the space station started we need an increment increase in the budget for NASA and that does not seem to be getting the support from the committees on Capitol Hill at this point. This is a make or break year. Some of the committees are essentially saying that they would like to wait for the next administration. Question 5: What kinds of international cooperation is there in the space station project?
Nelson: We have three fellows from the Japanese space agency here who are cooperating in our requirements baseline which we are doing for the space station at this point. We have been having a program requirements review and all of our international partners have been involved. We have Japanese, European representation, Canadian as
Legislative and Policy Focus
337
well. In fact, the total amount of money that will be spent by the internationals to produce segments of the space station is $7 billion. Part of the embarrassment which we are getting ourselves into is that we are getting good support from all of the internationals but we are not getting the congressional support. Question 6: How will the cutback in Congressional approval of requested funds by N A S A affect the space station project? Nelson: One option is to just use any funds on a subsistence level so that we don't have to lay off people for October to January. The only other option would be to terminate existing work package contracts and that would mean we would have to restart the program at a future date. The other countries could continue without N A S A but they would have to modify their plans. We are providing the transportation syst e m - the s h u t t l e - for launching the units and that would have to be worked out differently. Also, the U.S. has been providing the long transverse b o o m structure and the power system, the habitation module. Their investment would have to increase and then the U.S. would have to negotiate later about using their space station. If we don't cooperatively make a c o m m i t m e n t , they may go without us although they may not do it right away since they would have to turn around their priorities and space budgets. The Japanese are really pushing high-tech technologies. They see the benefits in a lot of space processing and they would probably pursue that in one way or another to get a hold in space. Our competitive advantage in the private sector is certainly going to be a problem. Question 7: W h a t are the m a j o r benefits of the space station project? Nelson: The basic benefit is that it is a permanently manned structure. The Russians have had a permanently manned space station for some time now. The types of things that will be applied there give us the advantage of being able to test people in space to see what the effects are of long periods of time which would be required for exploration of other planets. There are a lot of different commercial applications, for example, m a n u f a c t u r i n g - - h a v i n g zero gravity producing very highly accurate computer chips technology. There are a number of other applications that are planned. Question 8: What technological barriers need to be overcome to make the space station project a success? Nelson: One of the problems that we see is getting the resource e n v e l o p e - g e t t i n g everything up there in Shuttle increments. It is going to take 19 Shuttle flights. One of the technological challenges is to do that in increments where you can go up and put in a section and make sure that everything hangs together while you are doing i t - b e t w e e n flights. So it's a logistics problem. Also, with the number of experiments being proposed, the resources from the power side are something that are somewhat constrained. We would hope to have h u m a n habitation up there in about 1995. However, this would require the larger funding. Question 9: What advanced technologies will the space station use? Nelson: A lot of the technology is already in hand that the space station can use. We have tried to push the automation of the robotics area. A lot of the space station assembly would have to be done in the manual mode. We have several projects where we
338
Legislative and Policy Focus
are doing automation of t h a t - - f o r example, we have a telerobotic flight servicer that will use expert systems and robotic arms to be able to perform some tasks in developing the structure of the space station and also for the future to assist in the logistics from unmanned platforms that are serviced through the space station. O f course, managing the software and providing all the capabilities that we need, is an important area under development.