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Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #185

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 185

Today's Topics:
NASA Administrator Truly's remarks to the National Press Club (Forwarded)
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Date: 26 Oct 89 18:10:43 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: NASA Administrator Truly's remarks to the National Press Club (Forwarded)

[Fuel for the flames, I imagine. -PEY]

Richard H. Truly
NASA Administrator

Address to the National Press Club

October 26, 1989

     I am delighted to be invited to the National Press Club.  This
podium is sought after because of the unique forum it provides.  As
Eric Severeid noted when he said goodbye here in 1977, the National
Press Club has heard from presidents...from kings...from generals
and admirals...from dictators and candidates.

     Over these 80 plus years, this podium has also seen my
predecessors--those interested in aviation and space flight and
exploration...the heart and business of NASA.  Some of them spoke
to you even before your first weekly luncheon speaker appeared in
1932, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

     Orville Wright spoke to the National Press Club.  Charles
Lindbergh was here, too.  Oh, if only their words had been
preserved.  I'll bet they told exciting tales of the present...and
looked beyond the problems of the day into the crystal ball.

     Wright and Lindbergh remind us of NASA's origins; remember,
the first "A" in NASA stands for aeronautics.  NASA evolved from
the nation's aeronautical research organization...the National
Advisory Committee on Aeronautics...that the United States
created in Wright's time.  And to this day, this part of our
mission remains the same--basic research on the very cutting edge
of aeronautics.  I wonder what Orville might think today if he
visited a NASA aeronautics center where they are working on a
National Aero-Space Plane that someday will take off from a
runway, fly to orbit and land like a conventional plane?

     Simultaneously, we have revived research on a high-speed
civil transport which studies show will serve a large commercial
market, particularly in the Pacific Basin during the first
quarter of the next century.  Just as yesterday's NASA research
has led to today's quiet jet engines, our research in the 1990's
will lead to environmentally sound, supersonic travel for the
future.  And, I might add, provide American industry a
competitive edge to share in this marketplace.

     Perhaps nothing else that NASA and its predecessor agency,
NACA, have done have so benefitted the country as has this
aeronautics research.  The new technology we have developed over
the years has enabled the U.S. aerospace industry to maintain an
unqualified lead in world markets.  Aerospace industry sales and
services remain the brightest spot in our balance of trade
picture.

     Monday, I stood on a California desert lakebed and watched
the space shuttle "Atlantis" land.  I could not help but think
about the extraordinary progress of American technology that
has built a bridge so rapidly from the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk,
and Orville and Wilbur's fragile cloth and wood flyer, to this new
frontier of space that we now reach routinely with thunderous
and wondrous machines.

Space Science

     During the mission that ended Monday, our Atlantis men and
women took an important step along a road that leads to a new
golden age of space science.  They deployed into space the most
sophisticated robotic spacecraft ever built; Galileo will
eventually go into orbit around the giant planet Jupiter and also
drop a probe to learn the composition of its violent atmosphere.
our scientists believe they will find primordial material in its
clouds and learn something new about the origin of our solar
system.

     But even as Galileo was being deployed, Magellan was already
well on its way floating silently towards its mission to create a
radar map of the surface of the planet Venus, through its shroud
of clouds rich in sulfuric acid.  Meanwhile, further out, little
Voyager II, having finished its historic tour of the outer solar
system planets with the August encounter at Neptune, is on its
way to find the edge of our sun's influence--the very beginning
of interstellar space.

     In the next few weeks we will launch the Cosmic Background
Explorer on a mission to look for the "missing" parts of the
universe; this coming spring, the space shuttle Discovery will
deploy the first of our space-based great observatories, the
Hubble Space Telescope, which will allow us to peer back
virtually to the beginning of time.  Later next year, Ulysses
will set off to examine the poles of the sun, and the Mars
Observer, destined for the red planet, flies in 1992.  Later,
CRAF will fly with a comet and examine an asteroid.  Cassini will
finally go to orbit around Saturn, taking us on a journey of this
mysterious planet and its fascinating rings.

     Two more great observatories will join Hubble by 1995--the
Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility and the Gamma Ray
Observatory.  In all, four great observatories will fly in space
for several decades, providing designed quantum leaps in science
data to earth-based astronomers.  They will be periodically
tended by humans in space, in order to maintain them at maximum
capability.

     In all, 37 extraordinary space science missions in the next
five years!  We expect that when the five years is done we will
have launched not merely 37 space missions; we will have
initiated an era of scientific exploration that will radically
change our understanding, not only of the universe but also of
ourselves.

Earth Science

     While the robots are on their way to the far solar system or
to take up their posts to search for quasars, neutron stars and
black holes, a comparable effort to look back at earth from
space will be gathering momentum.  Mounting concern about the
global environment caused by reports of ozone depletion, global
warming, destruction of the rain forests, expanding deserts...and
all the rest...has spurred our nation to act.

     Until the space age, we could view our planet only in
fragments, much like the story of the blind men trying to
describe the elephant by feel.  From space, with superior new
instruments, we can take a comprehensive look at the lands,
oceans and ice.  In other words, we finally have the capability
to examine the entire global system.

     An international program to do just this is taking shape.
NASA's part of it is called "Mission to Planet Earth," and, when
it is in full flower, the data gathered will be coordinated in a
decades-long effort to better understand our fragile earth.

Men and Women in Space

     There is a close relationship between the men and women of
the space program and the robots they take to and maintain in
space--whether to look up to the stars or back to earth.

     Humans bring to space qualities that computers and remote
sensors will never provide:

     - insight.

     - the ability to make leaps of inference.

     - the ability to turn obstacles into triumphs of the
       intellect.


The Space Shuttle Program

     Nowhere is a proper mix of men, women, and robots more
evident than in the space shuttle program.

     With six successful flights under our belt since the return
to flight, I am pleased and proud.  We are highly confident and
moving with determination toward safely building our flight rate.
The shuttle is unquestionably a far safer and much more reliable
vehicle than before the Challenger accident.

     But, remember, space flight, like aviation, is inherently
risky business.  We cannot totally remove that risk except by
staying timidly on the ground.  That is simply not our nature.
we choose to assess the risk, then take it, because of the
achievements that stand on the other side.

     The space shuttle continues to be key to our access to
space.  It is our workhorse, our conestoga wagon.

     It allows us to launch, retrieve, and service sophisticated
payloads.

     It provides a platform for microgravity and life sciences
investigations.

     It is critical in the construction of Space Station Freedom.

     We continue to invest in product improvements to the
shuttle, to enhance its safety, its performance, its quality.
today, these improvements take the shape of the Advanced Solid
Rocket Motor which will be safer and give us more lift; an
extended duration orbiter to give us more time in space; and we
are studying the Shuttle-C ("C" stands for cargo), a freighter
version to give us heavy lift capability in an unmanned mode.

     Meanwhile, we are depending heavily on America's commercial
sector to provide launch services to us, using expendable rockets
for cargos that do not require human intervention.

Space Station Freedom

     All the things I have talked about so far are things we do
today, and you should take great satisfaction in them.  But we
must not allow ourselves to become content.  If we do that, we
will find ourselves stuck on a plateau.  It is time to continue
America's advance--to establish a permanent manned presence in
space with an American initiative that embraces a multitude of
international partners.

     Space Station Freedom is the cornerstone to our future in
space.

     Without it, the future we dream of will never become the
present we experience.

     No doubt, you remember America's 1970's experiment with our
first space station called Skylab.  And you have read about the
Soviet's Mir.  These efforts pale in comparison to the size and
capabilities of Space Station Freedom.  Freedom's working
quarters will be 5 times the size of accommodations on the Mir,
and will produce 10 times as much electrical power as Skylab,
allowing the pursuit of peaceful scientific and technology
endeavors never before possible.  Other countries will attach
sizable laboratories and contribute sophisticated equipment.
Together with our partners in Canada, Europe and Japan, we are
embarked on the largest international cooperative space project
ever undertaken.

     Space station will provide us the first large facility in
space for long-term, highly advanced activities.  Using it, we
will be able to continue our advances in research and to remain
an international leader in space-derived work.  Our scientists
will be able to search for:

     - new medicines to fight the world's diseases;

     - new extra strong and very lightweight alloys; and

     - large advances in telerobotic operations.

     In the longer-term, an evolved space station is the first
essential step toward moving again beyond earth orbit into the
solar system.  It will provide us new insights into the human
body and psyche as we cope with longer durations of space flight.
It will also allow us to test exploration technologies and
assemble and service space vehicles.

 The President's Initiative

     For centuries, people of many civilizations have dreamed of
extending human presence beyond the earth, of journeying to other
planets and beyond.

     Reaching out to the planets is no longer just a dream.  It
is an objective of the United States government and is reflected
in our national space policy.  Adopted in early 1988, and recently
affirmed by the National Space Council, this space policy sets
forth goals and objectives to guide U.S. efforts in space.  One of
the goals is crystal clear:  we will "expand human presence and
activity beyond earth orbit into the solar system."

     President Bush has taken the all-important next step.
Speaking on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, the
President announced a commitment to human activity beyond Earth
orbit.  With words that I believe will stand the test of time,
the President said:

    "I am proposing a long-range, continuing commitment.
     first, for the coming decade...for the 1990's...Space Station
     Freedom...our critical next step in all our space endeavors.
     And next...for the new century...back to the moon.  Back to
     the future.  And this time, back to stay.
     And then...a journey into tomorrow...a journey to another
     planet...a manned mission to Mars."

     With these words, the President has charted our course.  He
has answered the question, "where is our space program going?"
First, we are developing Space Station Freedom as a foundation
for all that follows.  Then we are going back to the moon and
then we are going to Mars.

     In addition to committing to a return to the moon and
subsequent journey to Mars, President Bush asked the Vice
President to lead the National Space Council in determining what
is needed for this next round of space exploration.  Under the
leadership of the Vice President, the council will be exploring
the requirements for people, material, and money.  Realistic
timetables and milestones will be assessed.

     NASA is hard at work to support Vice President Quayle and
the Space Council.

     Part of the discussion most certainly will deal with the
subject of international cooperation.  The U.S. has many
spacefaring partners, and our friends abroad have developed
highly capable space systems that would mesh well with our own
in cooperative endeavors directed at the moon and Mars.

     The work is proceeding exceptionally well and, while the
expeditions will be technically demanding and not without risk,
they are well within our reach.

     We are going to return to the moon and journey to Mars
because we must, because the United States needs to challenge
itself in order to be ready for the new world of the 21st
century, now just over 10 years away.

     These expeditions will stimulate new technologies and
enhance our nation's long-term economic productivity.  They will
improve national competitiveness.  They will advance scientific
knowledge and lead to discoveries about our solar system, earth,
and life itself.

     And they will spur science and engineering education in
America, as our youth are both challenged and inspired by the
adventure of exploration and by new knowledge of our home
planet.  A few weeks ago, I attended the President's education
summit with the governors at Charlottesville.  There is a new
determination across our land to improve our educational system.
I feel strongly that NASA has a special responsibility in
education for a very simple reason.  Our programs...airplanes,
spaceships, moon, Mars, and astronauts...can get to kids.  Ghosts
can do it, dinosaurs can do it, and space can do it.  I predict that
no other benefit of this endeavor will loom so large.

     The value to our nation of this remarkable program of human
exploration will be enormous; it will far outstrip the benefits
we can imagine today.  The total value, perhaps, will never be
measured, for how can one measure knowledge, success, and pride?
Benefits cannot always be quantified.  How do we calculate the
cost/benefits of a decision in the future by a bright student to
pursue a career in science that leads to a discovery that impacts
millions?

     Equally important, future missions to the moon and to Mars
will continue the remarkable American journey of exploration into
flight, begun over 80 years ago at Kitty Hawk.  Space
exploration, both manned and unmanned, is an endeavor in which
our country excels; our flag still flies on the moon, and
photographs of Neptune are ours forever.  Exploration is a human
imperative, one deeply rooted in American history.  This new
commitment responds to that imperative.  Worthy of our heritage,
the return to the moon and journey to Mars signal an America
whose people retain the vision, courage, and skills essential to
national well being in the 21st century.

     Each time we go to the frontier and beyond, we bring back
more than we hoped for.  This time we have the chance to bring
back more than we can imagine.

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

End of SPACE Digest V10 #185
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