PROFILES IN INNOVATION
One on One continues
partners will be using these capabilities–opening up an entire new segment of our economy that will be a jobs engine for years to come.
NASA has also begun the process of evaluating its needs for a heavy lift rocket. We recently gave awards to 13 companies for negotiations leading to potential contract awards to conduct sys- tems analysis and trade studies for evaluating heavy-lift launch vehicle system concepts, propulsion technologies, and afford- ability. This is the rocket that could potentially launch humans on missions beyond low-Earth orbit. We’d like to visit a variety of destinations—eventually orbiting Mars with humans and then landing on it—but the president has first established an asteroid as a priority mission for humans by 2025.
USBE&IT: Speaking of misunderstandings, what did you mean to convey when you told an interviewer that reaching out to Muslim nations would be one of your top priorities at NASA? Bolden: My top priority
at NASA is focusing on our core mission of exploration, from pushing the boundaries of known space to breakthrough innovations in science and technology here at home. Without question, that work in- cludes collaboration with other nations who share our goals. However, the most impor-
“Fortunately, the future for human spaceflight is bright...” — NASA Adminstrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
tant challenges we face are here at home—safely flying out the shuttle, trying to ease the workforce transition issues associated with this and promoting the commercial space industry, where the aerospace jobs of tomorrow will be created.
USBE&IT: What are the risks and benefits of priva- tizing the design of spacecraft and rockets that NASA will use in the future? Bolden: Sending humans to space is a risky business and always will be. NASA obviously has the world’s most extensive track record in doing this, and we will be providing oversight to companies we work with who will be sending astronauts to orbit in the future. However, we’ve always done this in partnership with the private sector. President Obama has concluded that we need to shift the paradigm, encourage innovation and incentivize the private sector to take the lead. NASA will provide oversight to all commercial companies working on this capability, but no longer needs to own the systems themselves. The bottom line is that no one will fly until we are convinced all safety criteria have been met.
10 USBE&IT I WINTER 2011
USBE&IT: What do you tell people who criticize the $15 billion or so a year that goes into NASA as an unaffordable luxury amid hard times? Bolden: Most people fail to acknowledge advances in aeronautics and science that come through our annual projects and programs here at NASA. We continue to apply the precious funds appropriated by the Congress to needs that benefit life here on Earth for not just U.S. citizens, but also for people of other nations. The fact is that space exploration–whether human or robotic–has made huge contributions to all of the problems we face as a planet, and the costs of these efforts represents less than one-half of one percent of the entire federal budget. Technology like [what] we use in our water processing systems on the International Space Station (ISS), for instance, is helping people in remote areas get access to water. ISS research has helped us learn more about Salmonella and has led to a can- didate vaccine, and we’re also studying other pathogens. Many of the tools and technologies we take for granted came about as a result of exploration. And you need only look at the partnership between 15 nations–including our former Cold War rival, Russia–that created the International Space Station to see how exploration brings our world together.
USBE&IT: What kind of
contributions, in R&D and other areas, does NASA make that, perhaps, most people are unaware of? Bolden: Certainly you have our marquee missions like the shuttle flights and the Mars rovers and the Hubble Space Tele- scope, but literally millions around the world are also [thrilled to see] the latest images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has developed the most detailed maps of the moon ever; the incredible images of Saturn and its moons from Cassini; and the cosmos-spanning discoveries of the Chandra X-ray Observa- tory and the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. NASA Earth-observing satellites are monitoring the oceans, the polar ice sheets, and our atmosphere. Just this past year, NASA Earth science satellites provided invaluable data to disas- ter managers in crises such as the Haiti earthquake, the Iceland volcano, and the BP Gulf oil spill. Our NASA technology and medical science experience from the International Space Station played a key role in the rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. The Solar Dynamics Observatory has been sending astound- ing images of the sun that are helping us to understand how it af- fects our planet. I think people would like to know that aeronau-
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