This is a transcription of excerpts from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee commerce, justice, science and related agencies subcommittee on April 3, 2008:
” … I am concerned that our nation is now facing a silent Sputnik, [at] a moment when many other countries are racing for a new high ground of innovation.
“Space exploration is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those who are easily distracted.
“This year, all of us in the space community took a moment to recall where we were just five years ago when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana, and to reflect upon the ultimate sacrifice that our astronauts made while pursuing our nation’s endeavors in space. And we took cautious but sober pride in the progress that we’ve made in the short time since then.
“At great expense, and with considerable technical difficulty, we returned the space shuttle to flight …
“We have 10 more assembly and logistics missions ahead of us, plus one final shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope …
“Barring unforeseen circumstances, I believe we are well positioned to complete station assembly by 2010, and then [to] retire the shuttle [fleet] in accordance with thoughtful recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board [CAIB].
“It took a crisis, the Columbia tragedy, for our nation’s leaders in the White House and Congress to recognize the truth of the damning assessment of the CAIB.
[quoting the CAIB report] “‘The U.S. civilian space effort has moved forward for more than 30 years without a guiding vision.'”
“The president and Congress honored the sacrifice of the Columbia crew with a new civil space policy noteworthy for the logical progression of its goals and its clarity of purpose. We must not allow that clarity to fade with the passage of time. We must not let it just slip away.”
Griffin described the Constellation Program to develop and build the next-generation U.S. spaceship, the Orion crew exploration vehicle, a space capsule to carry astronauts, and the Ares rocket to propel Orion into space, at first to low Earth orbit, and then to the moon. However, in a half-decade gap from the space shuttles retiring in 2010 until Orion-Ares manned missions begin in 2015, the United States won’t be able to put even one astronaut, or one ton of cargo, into low Earth orbit.
He continued:
“It is my belief that other countries will want to join the United States in returning to the moon, exploring Mars, other planets and moons in our solar system, and discovering what lies beyond.
“There is little we can’t do, if we pursue this common vision together. However, please don’t confuse my desire for international collaboration with a willingness to rely on others for strategic capability. Today, we are dependent on the Russian Soyuz [spaceship].
“This dependence upon Russia for such a critical capability is not an option we would choose, but it is where we are today. In fact, we must seek an exception to the Iran-North Korea-Syria nonproliferation Act, because we have no immediate replacement for the shuttle, and no other recourse [but to pay Russia for Soyuz flights] if we wish to sustain the [International Space Station]. Since that is a fact, and I prefer to deal in facts, I’m glad that in today’s world, we have the option to avail ourselves of Russian transportation capabilities.
“But we did not get here by design. We got here by default.”
He again quoted the CAIB report:
“‘Previous attempts to develop a replacement vehicle for the aging shuttle represent a failure of national leadership.'”
“That failure has had and will have costs. The most important of those costs are not measured in money or in jobs, but … rather in terms of our nation’s posture and standing in the world. …
“While we have made significant progress in the past five years, the journey is not easy. It requires courage on the part of those who must carry it out, and commitment from those in leadership would see it succeed.
To reach this point in the aftermath of Columbia has required extraordinary self-sacrifice by everyone involved, and even more will be required in the years ahead. Transition from shuttle to Orion and Ares, the next generation of Constellation systems, while utilizing the space station with a six-person crew, sustaining it with U.S. aid and commercial and foreign transportation services, is NASA’s greatest management challenge.
“We must not make promises we can’t keep.
“We must carefully consider any new missions to assure that they are affordable. We must set priorities. We must focus on the next steps: finishing the [space] station, building a new space transportation system to replace [the] shuttle, and then venturing out again beyond low Earth orbit. We must keep always before us the real reasons why we explore this new frontier, and the consequences of [allowing] our hard-earned leadership on that frontier to slip away.
“None of this will be [finished] in a single year, a single presidential administration, a session of Congress, or even in the lifetime of anyone here today. It is a challenge for generations to come, but one which requires leadership on our part today on behalf of those generations to come.
“In the immortal words of President Kennedy, ‘Now is the time to take longer strides.'”