Page 3 - Augustine Committee News Today

Transform nasa, so i wonder if you can start with why in your view did nasa need to be transformed . Thanks chris. Its a great to be here with you too. I have been at nasa in the 1990s working under the nasa administrator at the time dan golden who was actively and successfully in many ways working to transform nasa. I had previous to that worked for a grassroots organization. That was really interested in returning human space flight to more than just a handful of astronauts and nasa had sort o...

(Archived document, may contain errors) 826 April 25,1991 I A1MERICA'S SPACE POHCX COu"ToMAJORREFoRMs INTRODUCTION The special Presidential Advisory Committee on the future of the U.S. Space Program, chaired by Norman Augustine, Chief Executive Officer of Martin Marietta Corporation, last December issued its Report that correctly identifies a number of the serious problems with America's space program As important as what it said is what it omitted. It failed to recommend substant...

In one of our recent articles about NASA's current Artemis Moon mission program, we showed you how it was essentially birthed from the rib of the de...

Nasa jobs will be lost. the johnson space center employs i think its nearly 3300 people, 14,000 contractors. what is your biggest concern about the presidents new plan going forward? >> well, i would agree with jay that the continuity is not there. i think its important to keep that talented work force at kennedy space center and the johnson center available for these new programs. if you are going to be operating the space station through 2020 and beyond you really need the space shuttle to ope...

Chinese are developing a heavy lift vehicle. the french, the ariana and the russian vehicles will be some of the only vehicles available. >> brian: that is a huge gap in our capabilities, isnt it? >> it is. and that is one of the things we worried about on the committee is the gap between the space shuttle and another vehicle to bring astronauts into orbit. the only way to close the gap would be to extend the shuttle and keep it flying. we wouldnt be able to shorten that gap from the right-side ...

Elements of it to come back. >> brian: what elements do you think will survive? >> well, the idea that we put forward on the augustine committee was that we needed nasa to focus on exploration. nasa should be developing a crew exploration vehicle that will go below lower earth or bit. >> brian: lets talk about the lower earth orbit and lift capability. we really dont have anything to follow on and now seems the only folks that can do heavy lift into low earth orbit are the russians? >> thats tru...

Maybe mars but not on the transportation, the money that goes into the vehicles and the transportation of astronauts into space, but, in fact, hand that over to private companies. is this viable and logical? >> well, i wouldnt say its a deplete hand over to the private industry. what it is is an effort to stimulate the industry and give it a chance to succeed. transportation so far has been through government assets, namely the space shuttle over the last almost 30 years. and you know, now the t...