| Thursday,
April 21, 2005
On Spam, Robert Bruce Thompson says:
Subject: The spam problem
It's solved now, as far as I'm concerned. There are
probably several thousand spams a day directed at my various email
addresses. I see perhaps only two or three of those in an average day.
For me to see a spam message, it has to make it past
three filters, each of which is probably 90% to 95% effective:
o First, the great bulk of incoming traffic is
blackholed before it ever gets near my inboxes. Greg or Brian could give you
an exact figure, but I'd guess probably 90% of the inbound messages are
trashed this way, which probably accounts for 95% or more of the spam before
the server ever sees it.
o Second, of the 10% of messages that get past the
first filter, SpamAssassin running on the mail server eliminates probably
90% to 95% of those that are spam.
o Third, of the few spams that get past the first two
filter, Mozilla Mail's spam filtering kills probably 90% to 95% of the
remaining spam messages.
So, if 5,000 spam message per day are sent to my
addresses, the server blackholes probably 4,650 of those, leaving only 350
to reach SpamAssassin. Of those 350, SpamAssassin deletes, say, 315, leaving
only 35 to reach my inbox. Of those 35, Mozilla Mail filters out 32, leaving
only 3 that actually end up in my inbox.
I can live with that.
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com
http://www.ttgnet.com/thisweek.html
http://forums.ttgnet.com/ikonboard.cgi
Note: Mr. Thompson and I use the
same ISP, and thus the first stage of his filter is the same for him and me.
EXCEPT: I still have an old Earthlink account. I use that for local access
when I am in dialup territory. I probably ought to arrange simply to have
all mail to me at my Earthlink address forwarded here, but I don't; and I am
not sure that forwarded mail will be subject to the same filters as regular
mail to Rocket/Mazin. Earthlink intercepts a lot of junk, but I have to look
at it because periodically it will try to filter out mail to me on some of
my conferences and backlists, and I have to tell it to let that through.
This takes considerable time but not more than once a week.
Second, to run SpamAssassin
on a mail server would mean running a Linux mail server here. I have thought
of that more than once, and it's partly sloth that keeps me from doing it.
One day I'll set something up, but note that SpamAssassin has already gone
over my mail and starred it; that with 5 or greater stars is simply deleted.
That with less gets through. I don't dare set that lower: unlike Bob
Thompson, I really need to get number of press releases and
spam-appearing announcements.
InBoxer is about as good as
Mozilla Mail for sorting out the final piles. Spam isn't that big a deal
with me UNTIL I AM ON THE ROAD: it is the endless stream of spam coming
through dialup connections, or even through high-speed connections but being
filtered by LiasBetta, the TabletPC, that enrages me. Much of my CPU time is
eaten while that goes on, and it is then I get dark thoughts of serving long
pig dinners to spammers. Eat some more stew. It's your son. Well, part
of him anyway.
This is one reason
I am contemplating (and in fact will almost certainly get) a very high speed
laptop of the desktop replacement/high speed gaming variety. Otherwise
LisaBetta is all the computer I need on the road.
===========
Once more
on China and hostile trade:
Jerry:
Some disjoint thoughts on Chinese political economy,
for what they’re worth. I’d organize them better, but I’m off in the morning
for a long-delayed camping trip and I need to finish packing things.
Chinese Government and the Masses
The Chinese Government and the General Populace seem
to have an informal contract: the government will deliver increasingly
higher standards of living and maintain close to full employment, and the
people will forego democratic input and remain peaceable. Depressing the
value of the RMB is one way to maintain full employment and importing
foreign technology is one way to raise the standard of living. For the
short-run this strategy seems to have been stable and may well be
sustainable for some time to come.
Inefficiencies and Inequality
Maintaining full employment in many provinces means
propping up state-run factories that a free enterprise system would shut
down. State support of inefficient enterprises, particularly of state-run
enterprises in the interior of China, creates all sorts of perverse
incentives and only postpones the inevitable. These factories are not
getting any more efficient while the burgeoning private sector is. In the
long-run these firms will be forced to shut down and if this happens all at
once (due to a fiscal collapse, for example) then huge numbers of workers
will be suddenly unemployed. The costal provinces in China were largely
ignored by Chinese central planners and had a much smaller state-owned
presence when the post-Mao reforms were begun. As a result the state-owned
sectors there are now quite small relative to the rest of China and the
threat of job loss from state-owned enterprises is small. In the interior
and the northwest the state-owned drag on economic growth is huge and this
has lead to huge differences in standards of living across China. Income
inequalities across Chinese provinces today are five times as big and the
income inequalities across US states or EU members. To put this in
perspective, if the US had similar regional inequalities and California
maintained the same standard of living it has today, then Mississippi would
have local economy like that of rural Mexico.
China and Technology
China can continue to grow rapidly by importing
technology for only so long. Eventually, the Chinese will run out of
technologies to copy and will be forced to discover new ones just like every
other technologically advanced country. This process is naturally much
slower and means that the government will be forced to renege on its
implicit agreement with the Chinese people. Given the huge inefficiencies
that still plague the Chinese economy, technological slowdown is likely to
occur well before standards of living come close to those of the US and
Western Europe. What happens then? The biggest fear for the government is
that this leads to widespread civil unrest and the worst case scenario (from
their point of view) would be the overthrow of the government. Surveys of
the population routinely find that they view the biggest problem facing
their country is corruption and this cannot bode well for those in power
should they lose it. What form a post-communist government in China would
take is anyone’s guess, but the rising nationalism one sees in China today
should give one pause. A nationalistic fascist China with a standard of
living equal to that of Mexico would command an economy larger than the US
and the EU combined. That is a scary thought.
Kerk Phillips
kerk@pomosa.com
The Chinese nomenklatura have
powerful motives for staying in power: what else would they do for a good
living?
I am not convinced by the
notion of eternal progress; but it is pretty clear that the dismal science
of economics is influenced by technologies we already have: there is enough
to eat worldwide. Distribution is another matter. So is storage and
preservation. And didn't I say all that in Strategy of Technology in 1978?
Sigh.
And see
Steve Stirling on this below
============
Subject: Global warming...
Hi Jerry,
Elizabeth Kolbert wrote the first of a three part
series appearing in The New Yorker. She says there is now a consensus among
scientists that global warming is not only for real, but the consequences
will be dire in the coming decades. The following is an interview with
Kolbert about this series:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050425on_onlineonly01
Cheers,
don
Don Barker, Senior Editor
PC AI Magazine
I have not read this yet
but I will wager that:
1. The consensus is among
theorists, and leaves out a great number of people with perfectly good
credentials who don't agree;
2. The consensus doesn't
include the cause or the remedy;
3. There is a wide disparity
if you look for the mechanisms of dire consequences.
I'll read it when
I get a moment.
====================
From Burt
Rutan
[This is very long, but I
include it for obvious reasons]
I had a very interesting private meeting with Mike
Griffin yesterday.
Anyone interested in how NASA might be run under the
new administrator should definitely read the information below. Very good
stuff herein.
Look for some very big early changes at NASA….the
building was on fire as I arrived……really!
burt
Prepared Statement of Dr. Michael D. Griffin:
"The Future of Human Space Flight"
Testimony of Michael D. Griffin
Hearing on the Future of Human Space Flight
Committee on Science
Rayburn House Office Building Room 2318 16 Oct
2003
Abstract
Justification for the human space flight
program is discussed in terms of the importance of U.S. leadership in this
historically inevitable expansion. The need for a steady funding and a
long-term commitment to the space flight enterprise is discussed. Technology
hurdles and suggested intermediate milestones are identified.
Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the
committee in this rare opportunity to discuss the vision, the goals, and the
future of human space flight.
Allow me to begin, if I might, with some "truth
in advertising". I am an unabashed supporter of space exploration in
general, and of human space flight in particular. I believe that the human
space flight program is in the long run possibly the most significant
activity in which our nation is engaged. For what, today, do we recall
renaissance Spain, King Ferdinand, and Queen Isabella? Unless one is a
professional historian, the memory which is evoked is their sponsorship of
Columbus in his voyages of discovery. For what, in five hundred years, will
our era be recalled? We will never know, but I believe it will be for the
Apollo lunar landings if for anything at all. And this is entirely
appropriate. Human expansion into space is a continuation of the ancient
human imperative to explore, to exploit, to settle new territory when and as
it becomes possible to do so. This imperative will surely be satisfied, by
others if not by us.
We know this, if not with our logic then with
our intuition. We are all the descendants of people who left known and
familiar places to strike out for the risky promise of better places, in an
unbroken chain going back to a small corner of east Africa. Concerning the
settlement of the American West, it has been said that "the cowards never
started, and the weaklings died on the way." But this has been true of every
human migration; we are all the descendants of those who chose to explore
and to settle new lands, and who survived the experience.
The late Carl Sagan, and others, have argued
that this biological imperative is soundly rooted in evolutionary biology.
The divergence of a species throughout the broadest possible environmental
range is a form of insurance against a local catastrophe. Sagan argued that
human expansion into the solar system is the important next step in
protecting the human species from known and unknown catastrophes on a
planetary scale. The fossil record which has been unearthed in recent
decades certainly gives credence to this view, revealing evidence of
multiple large scale "extinction events" throughout the history of life on
Earth.
However, to be important is not necessarily to
be urgent, and it may be argued that we have many difficult problems in
greater need of immediate attention and resources than is human space
flight. But even recognizing this reality, space flight is sparingly funded.
In round numbers, FY2003 U.S. budget outlays were approximately $2.1
trillion, while the U.S. population is just under 300 million, yielding an
average liability of $7000 per person, or about $20 per day for each man,
woman, and child in the nation. With the NASA budget at $15 B/year, the
civil space program costs each person in the nation about $50/year, or less
than 14 cents per day. A really robust space effort could be had for a mere
twenty cents per day from each person! I spend more than that on chewing
gum. We as a nation quite literally spend more on pizza than we do on space
exploration. So I don't think we are overspending on space. As wealthy as
the United States may be, it is certainly true that we can allocate only a
very small fraction of that wealth to the development of human space flight.
But we must allocate that fraction, and we must spend it wisely. I don't
think we are doing enough of either.
"This new ocean" - to use John F. Kennedy's
famous phrase - has recently become accessible to us, albeit at great cost
and difficulty. But despite the difficulty, it will be explored and
exploited, it will be settled, by humans. The only questions are, "Which
humans?", and "When?" While the answer to the first question will eventually
be "all humans", I am parochial enough to believe that those from our nation
should be in the vanguard.
Much in the news lately is the budding Chinese
space program, which came of age yesterday with its first manned launch. The
United States required only eight years to progress from our first manned
space flight to the first lunar landing, and that while simultaneously
developing the technology to do it. A committed nation could now achieve
such a goal much more expeditiously. How are we going to feel when one of
the Apollo lunar landing flags is returned to Earth and displayed in a
museum - in Beijing? Do we really want a world in which the human space
flight programs of other nations are on the rise, while ours is in decline?
We are the sole factor in determining whether such a future comes about. No
other nation can surpass us in human space flight unless we allow it to
happen.
So, recognizing that others may differ, for me
the single overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of
the solar system, and eventually beyond. I can think of no lesser purpose
sufficient to justify the difficulty of the enterprise, and no greater
purpose is possible.
With these thoughts in mind, I offer the
following in response to the questions posed by this committee in its formal
invitation to appear.
* What option should NASA pursue in human space
flight?
Accepting my premise that the proper goal of a
publicly-funded space program is to enable the human settlement of the solar
system, it becomes immediately clear that the relevant possibilities are few
in number, and that we have not recently pursued any of them.
The geography of the solar system shows us the
way. Suitable and useful destinations for humans are limited in the near
term, given technologies reasonably foreseeable in the next several
generations. They include the moon, Mars, and certain near-Earth and
main-belt asteroids. That's about it. Certain waypoints or "parking places"
- not physical destinations but features of the orbital geography of the
solar system - are also useful, including low Earth orbit (LEO),
geostationary orbit (GEO), and possibly the lunar Lagrange points. We, and
our grandchildren's grandchildren, will be fully and gainfully occupied
learning to reach, survive in, and exploit these places to our benefit.
It has been drolly observed that, "if God had
wanted us to have a space program, he would have given us a moon", and I
believe the truth underlying this witticism is correct. Development of
permanent lunar bases on the moon, only three days away, will teach us much
of what we need to know to press on to Mars. And in the slightly longer run,
I believe the asteroids will be found to have immense value as a source of
raw materials, as well as being of great scientific interest.
So, to me, the proper sequence for exploration
is the moon, then Mars, and then the asteroids. It must be recognized, of
course, that any such sequence is for initial program planning only. Once
begun, exploration and exploitation of the moon will continue for centuries
or millennia, just as it will for Mars and beyond.
The waypoints - LEO, GEO, and others - should
be developed as necessary to enable the exploration of the moon, Mars, and
asteroids, and not as programmatic goals in and of themselves. For example,
a LEO space station such as the present International Space Station (ISS) is
of very little use in developing a lunar base, especially during the early
phases of such development. Thus, in a human space flight program focused on
"settling the solar system", construction of a LEO space station would not
be an early priority.
Similarly, there has been considerable
discussion concerning the utility of the lunar Lagrange points as
transportation nodes for a lunar base. While I think the idea has
considerable merit, it is merit that attaches mostly to the longer term,
when a fairly robust space infrastructure has been put in place. In the
early years, the best way to get to the moon is as directly as possible, and
similarly for Mars.
* What is the U.S. likely to gain by pursuing
this option, and why can such gains not be obtained in other way?
Specifically, please describe why these gains could not be achieved by means
of unmanned missions. What are the implications of the option you suggest
for the future of the unmanned program?
One may search in vain for an argument
justifying, in any immediate way, the danger, difficulty, and expense of
human space exploration. I believe we have all heard enough about
technological "spinoffs", stimulating education, maintaining the high-tech
industrial base, conducting astronomical or geological research, developing
space-based power systems, harvesting space resources, and so on ad nauseam.
Such arguments are most annoying because, while they are true - the claimed
benefit does exist - they are irrelevant. No thinking individual would
undertake a multi-generation program of human space flight to achieve any of
these objectives, or any other similar collateral benefit. Any such goal can
and should be achieved more directly and efficaciously merely by allocating
to it the resources judged to be necessary for its accomplishment. We do not
need a human space flight program to stimulate our children's education, or
for any similar reason. A more global rationale is needed for an enterprise
that will occupy our attention for generations to come.
What the U.S. gains from a robust, focused
program of human space exploration is the opportunity to carry the
principles and values of western philosophy and culture along with the
inevitable outward migration of humanity into the solar system. Is this
valuable? The answer must depend on one's worldview, I suppose. But consider
a map of the world today, and notice the range of nations in which English
is spoken as a primary language, and in which variations on British systems
of justice, politics, culture, and economics thrive today. Was the
centuries-long development of the British Empire, based upon Britain's
primacy in the maritime arts, a misguided use of resources? I believe not.
Consider also that Great Britain's influence,
achieved through its mastery of the oceans, was not restricted merely to
affairs in the colonies, the new lands. By virtue of its nautical
superiority, Britain wielded a dominant influence in the Old World as well,
an influence hugely out of proportion to its size and other resources.
Can America, through its mastery of human space
flight, have a similar influence on the cultures and societies of the
future, those yet to evolve in the solar system as well as those here on
Earth? I think so, and I think our descendants will consider it to have been
worth twenty cents per day.
In the process of developing and extending
human space flight into the solar system, we will also collect all of the
ancillary benefits mentioned above, and many more. But I cannot imagine that
these benefits can be attained solely through the use of unmanned scientific
and exploration spacecraft. While such efforts are incredibly valuable - and
I have personally spent the majority of my career in the engineering
development of unmanned space systems - it is not credible to believe that
they can substitute for human presence in the larger context that I have
outlined here. Perhaps the most concise rationale on this point was provided
by Norm Augustine in his 1990 "Report of the Advisory Committee on the
Future of the U.S. Space Program". In that document, Mr. Augustine points
out that "there is a difference between Hillary reaching the top of Everest
and merely using a rocket to loft an instrument package to the summit". It
cannot be said better, and again, I believe this difference is worth a few
cents per day. Others may differ, but that is my view.
To this point, there is no inherent conflict
between manned and unmanned space programs, save that deliberately
promulgated by those seeking to play a difficult and ugly zero-sum game. But
that is not the game at hand. In the context of a civil space program
justified primarily in terms of the expansion of humanity into the solar
system, it must be understood that "primarily" does not mean "entirely".
Certain unmanned space systems having little connection with human space
flight will be supported - as they are today - because of their inherent
scientific or utilitarian value. Who today wants to return to life without
weather satellites, global navigation, instantaneous worldwide
communication, or high resolution overhead imaging? Similarly, that portion
of our nation's scientific research devoted to using space assets to improve
our understanding of Earth's environment, our solar system, and the cosmos
beyond, will always, and should always, receive due attention in the
allocation of resources. I personally worked, as a much younger engineer
among thousands of others, on the Hubble Space Telescope, and will always be
proud of having done so.
Human space flight advocates are not making a
case that such programs should be deferred in favor of manned programs. On
the contrary, the necessary requirements of human expansion into the solar
system cannot be met without a greatly increased program of unmanned
scientific exploration. This can only be seen as a "win-win" for all those
involved in any aspect of space exploration. In the end, it comes down to
letting robots and humans each do what they do best.
* What is your estimate of the costs of
pursuing the selected option?
The cost cannot be easily estimated, because
the task is so open-ended. A better way to think of the space enterprise is
as an investment that will yield some benefits in the near term, but which
cannot fully mature for generations. The appropriate fiscal policy for such
an investment is to allocate to it an amount consistent with both its
ultimate value and the sobering reality that it will be a long time before
this value is returned. Our present assessment, as a nation, seems to be
that the space enterprise is worth about $15 B per year, or as I indicated
earlier, about 14 cents per person per day. I think we could spend a little
more without wasting the money.
The nation's space program, and in particular
its human space flight program, is not presently focused along the lines I
have suggested here. We are burdened with a history of several decades of,
in my view, misguided policy decisions, the legacy of which cannot be easily
or quickly undone. For example, though I struggle to find value in the
effort to match its cost, the international faith and credibility of the
United States is tied, in part, to the orderly completion of the ISS. We
must complete its construction, to include the original seven-man crew
capability, and establish a utilization plan for the facility that returns
as much value as possible. Yet, we must not mortgage our future to ISS,
losing the next two decades as we have lost the last two. If no additional
funding can be made available, it will be very difficult to complete ISS
and, at the same time, embark on the development of those other systems that
are required for a truly valuable and exciting human space flight program.
I would like to see an allocation of about $20
B per year to the U.S. civil space program. This would enable us to begin
crucially needed programs to develop reusable space transportation systems,
heavy lift launch, crew transfer vehicles, life support technology, and
space power and propulsion systems that are needed to establish bases on the
moon and Mars.
* How long will it take to achieve the
specified goals of your option?
Again, the program I have outlined is not a
"goal", it is a way of life, an essentially permanent part of our nation's
technical, cultural, political and, yes, budgetary landscape. We will
achieve important intermediate milestones, such as a return to the moon, the
first landing on Mars, and many other uplifting events. But one has only to
fly over the United States from coast to coast to realize that, in a very
real sense, the "settlement" of the America is hardly complete, even after
five hundred years of European presence in the Americas. The settlement of
the solar system can be expected to take a bit longer.
The required time to achieve the intermediate
milestones is irrevocably tied to funding constraints. If no new funding can
be provided, we will spend the next several years - probably a decade -
working our way out of the Space Shuttle and International Space Station
dilemmas, even proceeding as expeditiously as possible. It will be
difficult, likely impossible, to begin development of (for example) heavy
lift launch vehicles and space nuclear power systems while restricting NASA
to today's budget levels and simultaneously respecting current obligations
to ISS. Yet, these technologies and others are crucial to any permanent step
beyond LEO. There is a lot of ground to be made up, but with a $5 B annual
funding increase for NASA, I believe one could expect to see the first lunar
base within a decade.
What is needed is a different view of
spaceflight in the affairs of men and nations than we have so far seen.
Space programs in the United States have so far have been just that -
programs. They are justified individually, each on its own merits, and have
defined goals, funding, start dates and, it is hoped, completion dates.
Space activities so far have been largely episodic, when in fact they need
to become, again, a way of life.
NASA and the space community generally, whether
civil or DoD, receive frequent criticism for the high cost of what we do,
the cumbersome pace at which it often seems to proceed, and the not
infrequent failures which occur. This may not be entirely unfair; it is my
own belief that the nation is entitled to expect a higher standard of
performance on space projects than has often been the case in recent years.
But we in the space community - the engineers who must execute a multiyear
vision one budget year at a time - are, I think, entitled to expect a higher
and more consistent standard of commitment by the nation, through its
policymakers, to that vision.
As an example of the mindset I advocate, I note
that the United States has a Navy, which institution in fact predates our
present form of constitutional government. Even in difficult times, we do
not debate whether or not the United States will continue to have a Navy. We
do not debate the Navy's function; by common understanding, it is the Navy's
purpose to provide mastery and control of the high seas for the benefit of
the nation. We may debate ways and means of achieving this, but withdrawal
from the basic enterprise would be unthinkable. So it must be with human
space flight. We are not yet to that point.
* What technical hurdles must be overcome in
pursuing the option, and what steps that must be taken to overcome those
hurdles? Are there intermediate program goals, and when might these be
achieved?
I will comment on specific technical issues
below, but before so doing I feel compelled to note that the technical
challenge does not seem to me to be the biggest problem we have. We did not
retreat from the moon because of technical difficulties, we did not fail to
go to Mars because of technical problems, and we have not taken twenty years
to put a space station in orbit because of technical matters. In each case
the issues are matters of politics and leadership. Without a bipartisan,
leadership-driven consensus that a vigorous space exploration program is
essential to America's future, we will not have such a program, whether or
not there are technical challenges to be overcome. It has been forty years
since a Chief Executive has propounded such a vision, and no Congress has
ever taken the initiative to do so. If the nation's leaders cannot say that
space exploration is important, and why, it will not occur.
And technical challenges do exist. They include
both human and engineering elements. We have considerable experience in the
microgravity environment, and some practical and effective countermeasures
have shown promise in minimizing bone loss, though more work is clearly
needed. The most practical long-term microgravity countermeasure may well be
to design our spaceships to supply artificial gravity by spinning them to
generate a centrifugal force. Planetary surfaces are another matter. We have
at present no clear understanding of how the human organism will respond and
adapt to fractional gravitational environments such as will be experienced
on the moon and Mars. The most difficult issue is likely to be that of
cosmic heavy-ion radiation. The human effects of and countermeasures for
heavy ion radiation, encountered in deep space but not in the LEO
environment of the ISS, have received little attention thus far.
On the engineering side, the first order of
business is largely to restore capabilities that we once had, and then to
make them more reliable and cost effective. It may not be impossible to
consider returning to the moon, or going to Mars, without a robust
heavy-lift launch capability, but it is certainly silly. Our last Saturn V
was launched thirty years ago, and while I do not necessarily advocate
resurrecting an outdated design, this is the class of capability which is
needed for the human space flight enterprise.
At the same time, much cargo (including humans)
does not need to be launched in very large packages. We desperately need
much more cost effective Earth-to-LEO transportation for payloads in the
size range from a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of pounds. In my
judgment, this is our most pressing need, for it controls a major portion of
the cost of everything else that we do in space. Yet, no active U.S.
government program of which I am aware has this as its goal.
As I have tried to indicate earlier, it is very
difficult to comment on the nature and timing of intermediate program goals
and milestones without reference to funding constraints.
For interplanetary flight, something more than
chemical propulsion is clearly needed for other than return to the moon or,
possibly, the first expeditions to Mars. Nuclear propulsion makes the most
sense to me; several options are available, including both nuclear-thermal
and nuclear-electric concepts. We once had an operating, ground-tested
(though not flight-tested) nuclear-thermal upper stage intended for use on
the Saturn V. The program was cancelled thirty years ago, when it became
clear that a Mars mission was not in the nation's immediate future. Numerous
nuclear fusion concepts potentially applicable to space propulsion exist,
most notably those involving electrostatic confinement of the nuclear core,
but none of these is receiving more than token funding. There also exist a
number of promising approaches to electric propulsion, notably the Vasimir
engine concept. In the long run, some form of nuclear-electric propulsion is
likely to offer the best combination of efficiency and packaging capability
for interplanetary flight.
* What is the implication of this option for
the current human space flight program? To what degree does the current
human space flight program contribute to or impede the option you suggest?
What recommendations do you have for the Space Shuttle and International
Space Station programs?
I have alluded above to some of the technical
hurdles that we face in a commitment to a permanent program of human space
exploration. Broadly, the tools necessary for this enterprise include:
* Heavy-lift launch capability, in the 100
metric ton to LEO class or greater.
* Reliable, efficient, and cost effective
transportation to LEO for moderate size payloads.
* Compact space qualified nuclear power
systems.
* Nuclear and nuclear-electric upper stage
vehicles for application to interplanetary flight.
* Space and planetary surface habitat and human
suit technology.
* Technology and systems for utilizing the in
situ resources of the moon, Mars, and asteroids.
* Reliable and routine Earth-to-LEO crew
transfer systems.
These are the things we would be working on,
and would have been working on for decades, had we a consensus that the
primary purpose of the nation's human space flight program was to begin the
exploration of the solar system. The fact that we are largely not allocating
the human space flight portion of the NASA budget to these tasks illustrates
more plainly than any rhetoric that our space flight programs are directed
to no useful end.
I will repeat only briefly my remarks above
concerning ISS; we should do what is necessary to bring the program to an
orderly completion while respecting our international partnership
agreements, obtaining where possible as much scientific value as we can from
the enterprise while accommodating ourselves to the fact that such value is
inevitably limited.
Regarding the Space Shuttle, I have previously
offered my opinion to this Committee that we should move to replace this
system with all deliberate speed. While the Shuttle's capabilities are
extensive and varied, it has proven to be extremely expensive to use,
unreliable in its logistics, and operationally fragile. It is extremely
risky for the crews who fly it because, while its mission reliability is no
worse than other launch vehicles, there is seldom any possibility of crew
escape in the event of an anomaly. The shuttle has met none of its original
goals, despite the best efforts of some of our nation's best engineers to
achieve those goals. Neither NASA nor the nation as a whole saw, or could
see, these problems looking forward in 1972, when the shuttle program was
approved. But, three decades later, I think we must admit to ourselves that
it is time to move on.
Witness Biography
Michael D. Griffin is President and Chief
Operating Officer of In-Q-Tel, the independent, nonprofit venture group
chartered to identify and invest in cutting-edge commercial technologies for
CIA and other intelligence community applications.
Mike was previously CEO of the Magellan Systems
Division of Orbital Sciences Corporation, and also served as General Manager
of Orbital's Space Systems Group and as the company's Executive Vice
President/Chief Technical Officer. Prior to joining Orbital, he was Senior
Vice President for Program Development at Space Industries International,
and General Manager of the Space Industries Division in Houston.
Mike has served as both the Chief Engineer and
the Associate Administrator for Exploration at NASA, and as the Deputy for
Technology of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. Before joining
SDIO, he played a leading role in numerous space missions while employed at
the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and Computer Sciences Corporation.
Mike holds seven degrees in the fields of
Physics, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Engineering,
and Business Administration, and has been an Adjunct Professor at the George
Washington University, the Johns Hopkins University, and the University of
Maryland. He is the lead author of over two dozen technical papers and the
textbook Space Vehicle Design. He is a recipient of the NASA Exceptional
Achievement Medal, the AIAA Space Systems Medal, and the DoD Distinguished
Public Service Medal, and is a Fellow of the AIAA and the AAS. He is also a
Registered Professional Engineer in Maryland and California, and a Certified
Flight Instructor with instrument and multiengine ratings.
Prepared Statement by Michael Griffin 8 May
2003 (part 1)
Testimony of Michael D. Griffin Hearing on the
NASA Orbital Space Plane Program Subcommitee on Space and Aeronautics
Committee on Science Rayburn House Office Building Room 2318 8 May 2003
Abstract
Requirements for NASA's proposed Orbital Space
Plane (OSP) and its place in the new Integrated Space Technology Plan (ISTP)
are discussed. Consideration and adoption of appropriate top-level goals for
the nation's space transportation architecture is advocated. The role of OSP
relative to the Space Shuttle in support of International Space Station
(ISS) is treated. Key OSP design features, especially the issue of a winged
vs. semiballistic vehicle design, are discussed. OSP programmatic
assumptions are examined, with attention to cost, schedule, and technology
development requirements.
Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for inviting me to appear before this
committee to discuss this most important issue, that of the NASA Orbital
Space Plane (OSP) program, and its relationship to the new NASA Integrated
Space Transportation Plan (ISTP).
I will open by noting that, in my opinion, this
is not only a most important topic for discussion, it is the single most
important subject to be addressed by the nation's leaders in connection with
our nation's future in astronautics.
In aeronautics, the air is merely a medium
through which one must transit in order to reach a desired destination. In
astronautics, both air and space become navigable media, but space also
becomes much more: It is itself a destination, a region offering access to
an enhanced vantage point, hard vacuum, microgravity, advantageous
positioning, and new sources of energy and materials.
But to use these assets we must first reach the
destination. The physics of Earth's gravity well are such that once we reach
low Earth orbit (LEO) we are, in Arthur C. Clarke's famous turn of phrase,
"halfway to anywhere". This hearing, one of many such discussions on the
topic, is prima facie evidence that despite the passage of sixty years since
the invention of the first vehicles capable of reaching space, the task of
reaching LEO -- reliably, routinely, and cost-effectively -- continues to
elude us. We are still having trouble taking Clarke's first half-step.
The task is difficult. To reach LEO, we must
package the energy required for an intercontinental aircraft flight in a
container with the volumetric efficiency of an eggshell, yet which is tough
enough to withstand high inertial, thermal, and aerodynamic loads. The
stored energy must be expended within a few minutes, and prevented from
being expended in a few seconds. Each launch of an expendable vehicle is its
maiden flight, an event performed under only the most carefully controlled
and limited conditions in aeronautics, yet which in astronautics must be a
maximum-performance event. A reusable vehicle must survive a return through
an atmospheric flight regime so rigorous it cannot be simulated in even the
highest performance wind tunnels; such a vehicle can be fully tested only by
flying it "for real".
But while the task is difficult, we have
allowed ourselves to make it more difficult than it need be. We have
sometimes concentrated so heavily on particular details and "point designs"
that we have failed to appreciate that each such design must blend into, and
be part of, a broader architecture. We have sometimes become enamored of
specific requirements, to the exclusion of broader goals. We have at times
over-valued the role of government while failing to pay due attention to the
skill and expertise residing in our industrial base. At other times we have
done the opposite, leaving too much to the discretion of contractors who,
after all, bear no final responsibility for the success or failure of any
government enterprise. In some cases we have stayed too long with proven but
inefficient technology. In other cases we have designated as "operational"
those things which were, at best, operating at the very edge of the state of
the art, and possibly beyond it. We accept, without serious objection, a
"cost of doing business" in government space endeavors that should shame us
all were it to be examined on any sort of rational basis.
We have made most of the mistakes that can be
made, mistakes which would have put any commercial enterprise mercifully out
of its misery, in favor of a competitor with a better approach. But because
the development of space launch vehicles has been almost exclusively a
government enterprise, and because the few and only competitors have been
other governments, normal market mechanisms are absent, and we continue to
muddle along. This does not mean that all of our problems would be solved if
we merely turned space launch over to industry, and restricted the
government's role to supervising the purchase of tonnage per year to orbit.
The contrary fact is true; the government's role in sponsoring appropriate
technology and systems development is crucial, if effective launch vehicle
technologies and an efficient free market in space transportation are ever
to exist. We simply need to do it better than we have so far demonstrated.
In the wake of the Columbia accident, some have
argued for restricting, once again, the frequency and purposes of manned
spaceflight, or of restricting shuttle launches to orbits compatible with
the International Space Station (ISS). One hears it said that manned
spaceflight should be restricted to those occasions when human presence is
"needed". I cringe when I hear or read such views. Since there was no human
spaceflight at all prior to 1961, it is plain to see that we do not "need"
to do it. We do it from a fundamental desire, inherent in our genes and in
our culture, to explore our environment and expand our presence within that
environment. We do it, according to John F. Kennedy's ringing quote, "not
because it is easy, but because it is hard". Bearing this in mind, I submit
that NASA's role is not to figure out how to do less manned spaceflight;
NASA's role is to figure out how to do more of it.
With these thoughts in mind, I offer the
following in response to the questions posed by this committee in its formal
invitation to appear.
* What key factors should be considered when
evaluating human space transportation architectures? Is the proposed ISTP an
overly optimistic or overly conservative approach to meeting NASA's needs?
What areas of the proposed approach pose the greatest risk? What
recommendations do you have to reduce these risks?
The key element of any system architecture is
that it be responsive to an overarching framework of goals. When a system
architecture - or a specific vehicle - is designed without reference to such
top-level goals, the result is a point design that is unlikely to blend
smoothly into any larger picture. Rather than being designed to meet a
higher purpose, the purpose becomes merely that set of tasks the system can
accomplish.
The proposed ISTP seems to lack the required
global framework, the desired broader view. Three elements are specified -
the Space Shuttle, a new Orbital Space Plane, and a reusable launch vehicle.
This latter element, potentially the most important of the three, is hardly
a factor in the present discussion because it is being deferred for some
unspecified period. What, then, are the questions being asked, for which
these three architectural elements are the answers? This discussion is
nowhere to be found in the proposed ISTP.
NASA should lead the debate to define and
enunciate the nation's goals in space, and following from them, our goals in
the development of space transportation - goals which will guide us for at
least a generation. These goals should be embraced within the
Administration, and shared and supported by the Congress, for in this matter
there is no conceivable partisan interest. Properly chosen goals will be
shared by the majority of informed stakeholders, and will be broad enough to
accommodate the flexibility of timing and funding that future
Administrations and Congresses will need and want, without sacrificing their
essence.
While others may certainly have their own ideas
as to the appropriate goals for the nation in space transportation, I
believe they should include at least the following:
* Robust and economical small, medium, large,
and heavy lift capability to LEO, to the 100 metric ton level or greater.
* Dependable, available crew transport to and
from LEO.
* Crew escape capability from ISS and other
space stations yet to be built in other places.
* Reliable cargo transport to LEO, including
the capability for automated rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking
with pre-existing assets.
* The option, but not the requirement, to
combine crew and cargo transport as needed for a particular mission.
* LEO-to-higher-orbit transfer capability.
* Efficient lunar and interplanetary transfer
capability for both unmanned and manned missions.
If I may be permitted an imperfect but possibly
useful analogy, NASA is the entity in the U.S. government charged with, and
best suited to, creating the "interstate highway" to space. This highway
needs to be designed to handle shipments both large and small, on known and
reliable schedules, safely and economically. The highway is needed because
the existing patchwork of separately developed roads is inadequate to serve
the future we can envision. Industry can and must share in the design, and
must perform the actual construction. But only NASA can enunciate the goals
and architect the system.
Against this larger backdrop, the proposed ISTP
can only be seen as far too conservative. It is not so much wrong, as it is
incomplete. If fully realized, it would leave us with little more capability
than we have today to go beyond Earth orbit. It would do nothing soon to
reduce the cost of space access. It would saddle us for the next two decades
with continued primary reliance on the Shuttle, which is by any reasoned
measure the riskiest element in the system. Surely we can do better.
* How might the OSP alter NASA's reliance on,
and the flight rate of, the Space Shuttle? Should crew and cargo delivery be
addressed by separate systems? If the OSP and a separate cargo delivery
capability for logistics re-supply were developed, would it be necessary to
continue to fly the Space Shuttle? If so, what missions could not be
accomplished without the Space Shuttle? If the Shuttle is required for the
duration of the Space Station, is an OSP that performs both crew rescue and
crew transportation required?
Given the existing Leve1 1 requirements and
their interpretation, the OSP is unlikely to alter substantially NASA's
reliance on the Space Shuttle.
The OSP program is specified solely in terms of
its requirements to "support" the International Space Station (ISS), where
"support" is defined as "supplementing" the existing capabilities of Shuttle
and Soyuz. It must support ISS crew rotation on 4-6 month intervals, and
system is to be designed to have minimum life-cycle cost. These constraining
assumptions, offered without reference to a set of higher goals such as
articulated above, will have profound consequences in the generation to
come. To see where these assumptions can lead, let us consider the following
train of thought.
If the purpose of OSP is to "support" ISS
operations by "supplementing" the capabilities of the Shuttle, and ignoring
Soyuz for the moment, then clearly the Shuttle must be kept flying, in
accordance with the proposed ISTP. Estimates vary, but it is accepted that a
viable Shuttle program requires a minimum of several - let us say three or
four - launches per year. Thus, in the normal course of events, Shuttle
alone can easily accommodate ISS requirements. OSP would then fly only a
couple of times per year - if that - to maintain operational currency, or to
rotate the vehicle(s) docked at ISS for purposes of emergency crew return.
Under these assumptions, OSP is thus needed only when - as at present - the
Shuttle is grounded. The OSP system thus needs to be designed to accommodate
a peak rate of possibly four flights per year for short periods, and much
less on average.
With such assumptions, it will be almost
guaranteed that the lowest-life-cycle-cost design is a simple (probably
expendable) vehicle with the least capability consistent with completing the
tasks envisioned today. A basic semiballistic capsule designed for a few
days of independent flight could easily suffice. By choosing this path - and
it is inevitable if we accept the Level 1 OSP requirements as written - we
accept the requirement to maintain the inherently high cost Shuttle program.
Worse, we have as our only Earth-to-LEO transportation systems two designs
(Shuttle and OSP) which are wholly incapable of being adapted to the needs
of lunar return or Mars exploration, ventures which should certainly be of
interest over the intended design life of the OSP. Considered in such a
broader context, radically different design choices might be made for OSP.
But they are not possible given the requirements as written.
It scarcely needs to be said that it will be
extremely hard to justify the development of such a vehicle, at a cost of
several billion dollars, for such a limited purpose as OSP will have, given
the requirements envisioned for it today. And, indeed, such development
makes little sense economically. One could likely obtain several replacement
Shuttle orbiters in a "block buy" for the same cost as a new OSP. Further
thought in this direction would likely show that the most economical crew
return vehicle for ISS would be the Shuttle itself - modified for a 60-to-90
day stay - with four to six crew rotation missions peryear. Following this
logic, it becomes difficult to see the path by which reliance on the Shuttle
can be ended.
To me, the likeliest result of accepting the
OSP Level 1 requirements as written is that a sober analysis will show the
OSP to be wholly unjustifiable in economic terms, and the program will
subsequently be cancelled in favor of continued use of the Shuttle. Since
the Shuttle is not capable of supporting the larger goals that I have
enunciated above, or any similarly broad set of goals, I would consider this
outcome to be another setback for NASA and the nation.
With regard to separation of crew and cargo,
the issue is not "should" they be separated, but "can" they be separated
when it is advantageous to do so, as is so often the case. With the Shuttle,
they cannot. While the Shuttle's large cargo bay is its most impressive
feature, it is also the feature which, in my opinion, results in the
greatest increment of risk to the astronauts who fly it. With the cargo bay
attached to the crew cabin, the Shuttle orbiter is inherently so large that
only a sidemount configuration is possible, leaving the crew with no escape
path in the event of a launch malfunction, as with the Challenger failure,
and vulnerable to falling debris, possibly including ice, as with the
Columbia accident.
If the Shuttle system had been designed with a
smaller manned vehicle atop an expendable cargo pod, the overall system
would have been much safer. A simple escape rocket would have sufficed to
separate the crew vehicle from the launch system in the event of a
malfunction, which is of course ultimately inevitable, given a sufficient
number of flights. The crew vehicle could have been launched, by itself, on
a smaller vehicle or vehicles when no cargo was required. The only lost
capability would have been the ability to handle "down cargo", the
least-used feature of the Shuttle system. My own view on the value of "down
cargo" is somewhat simplistic: It is so difficult and expensive to get
payloads to space that, having done it, we ought by and large to leave them
there, and design them for that! But, if necessary, I believe that the
design of a reusable cargo pod capable of executing an autonomous reentry
and landing would pose little challenge.
Comments invited.
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