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Hearing Transcript The President’s Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy PUBLIC HEARING Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology 250 14th Street, NW Atlanta, GA Wednesday, March 24, and Thursday, March 25, 2004 Pete Aldridge Well, good afternoon. I’m Pete Aldridge, I’m the Chairman of the President’s Commission on the Implementation of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy, or as I have shortened it, the “President’s Commission on the Moon, Mars, and Beyond.” I was delighted when I learned that Monica Scarbrough, the Director of Development, invited us here. The Georgia Institute of Technology is in fact my alma mater, and it’s generally great to be back on campus. I’m looking forward to looking around at some of the old haunts that I spent many hours on. The Commission is here to explore ways to achieve the President’s vision of going back to the Moon and on to Mars and beyond. We have listened, we’ve talked to experts at two previous hearings—in Washington, D.C., and in Dayton, Ohio. We’ve talked among ourselves and we realized this vision provides a focus not just for NASA, but a focus that can revitalize U.S. space capability and have a significant impact upon our nation’s industrial base and academia. As you can see from our agenda, we are talking with experts from many, many disciplines, including those outside the traditional aerospace arena. Before I go any further, let me introduce my fellow Commissioners. And begin on the audience’s right, Carly Fiorina. Carly serves as the chairwoman and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard, which she joined in July of 1999. Her roots are deep in technology and she has served in senior executive leadership positions at AT&T and Lucent Technologies. Michael Jackson is the Senior Vice President for AECOM Technology Corporation. He is a former U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary and was instrumental in the early formation of the Transportation Safety Agency. Dr. Laurie Leshin, who will join us a little later, is the Director of Arizona State University Center of Meteorite Studies and the Dee and John Whiteman Dean Distinguished Professor of Geological Science at the University of Arizona. General Les Lyles—General Lyles was in the Air Force for more than 35 years, rising from the Air Force ROTC program to become a four-star general and commander of the Air Force Materiel Command. In that pre-retirement position, General Lyles was responsible for the U.S. Air Force research and development community and an expert at space, I would say. 1 Dr. Paul Spudis—Paul is a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside of Baltimore, Maryland. His specialty is in the geology of the Moon. He has also studied the geology of Mars, Mercury, and many other worlds. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson—Neil is an astrophysicist and the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. He recently served on the President’s Aerospace Commission, which made recommendations to Congress and related government agencies on how to improve the health and future of this industry in the interest of the American economy and national security. Retired Congressman Robert Walker—Bob is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, a firm specializing in telecommunications and technology issues. Bob served in the U.S. Congress from 1977 to 1997, representing his home state of Pennsylvania. While in Congress he was a Chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee with NASA oversight. He also served on the recent Aerospace Commission as its chair. Dr. Maria Zuber—Maria Zuber is the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and leads the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Maria has been involved in more than a half a dozen NASA planetary missions aimed at mapping the Moon, Mars, Mercury and several asteroids. Steve Schmidt—next to Maria is Steve Schmidt, our Commission’s Executive Director. Steve is a Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator and our federally designated official for this advisory committee. It is important, I think, to review the process this Commission will follow. We’ve been appointed by the President to make recommendations on how to implement the space vision set up on January 14th of this year. It is our job now to recommend the most import strategies or steps to accomplish this vision. This is a sustained journey; more than 10 or more presidential terms are covered by this vision. We are listening to experts and the public along with drawing upon our own expertise to generate this plan. I envision that we will select maybe 8 to 10 key strategies to recommend what we believe will lead to putting us back on the Moon, on to Mars and beyond. In addition to experts, we are listening to the American public, the ultimate customer for this vision. Through our website we are accepting comments from people around the world who want to be heard on this subject, and lots of folks want to be heard. We’ve already received 4,700 written responses through our feedback opportunity on the Web. And literally millions more people are accessing the web page. As of early today we’ve received more than 3 million hits on our web page from 60 countries. Now, I want you to know that every input is being read. We’re listening. You may be interested to know that about 75 percent of those contacting us through the Web are in favor of our sustained journey. I am delighted with those findings. Many of those who expressed their concerns about the process do so because of cost. As we approach this task as a Commission, we’re looking at it through four themes or approaches. We see that we must make recommendations that are affordable and therefore sustainable over several decades. I emphasize this not a—this a journey, this is not a race. 2 Management of such a large project and maintaining its affordability are crucial elements of our endeavor. Also, we recognize the need to inspire our nation’s young people and encourage literacy in science and math and engineering. We need those skills to maintain our leadership position in the world. We’ve been chartered to lay out the science agenda for the next several decades. What should we be pursuing? What makes the best use of our investment? Finally, we’re looking at the strategies that will ensure our nation’s competitiveness and promote prosperity. After Atlanta, the Commission will hold hearings in San Francisco and then in New York City. Then we will write our report and give it to the President, just 120 days after our first meeting, as he directed. We had many a distinguished guest, some of whom come to testify today, and you will meet each of them in turn. On behalf of the Commission I want to acknowledge our Atlanta host, Monica Scarbrough. Monica, where are you? Way in the back. Thanks for inviting us. I’m delighted to be here. Dr. Wayne Clough, President of Georgia Tech. Wayne, thanks very much for providing the facilities for us here. Nikil Jayant, Executive Director of the GCATT, I guess you would call it. The Georgia Communications, yeah, there you go … [laughs] GCATT [Georgia Centers for Advanced Telecommunications Technology] [laughs], I can’t remember all of the names. We appreciate the use of the facilities and all the support of your excellent staff, and thanks to all for the Southern hospitality shown by everyone here; it’s very typical of Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you very much. Our first panel today is made up of space entrepreneurs and purveyors of technology. Here in this communications capital we will be talking to Mr. Elon Musk via videoconference of Los Angeles. I don’t think he’s on yet, so we’ll go back to him in a few minutes. Joining Mr. Musk at the Atlanta witness table is Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, which is offering a $10 million prize for private space flight innovation. Dr. Diamandis is also the CEO of ZeroGravity, a commercial space company in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that is developing FAA-certified parabolic flights. Jeff Greason is the CEO of XCOR Aerospace, also joins us today. Mr. Greason will share his experience as a space entrepreneur in the area of long-life highly reusable rocket engines. He was named one of the inventors of the year in 2001 by Time magazine, and we’re eager to hear about the XCOR EZ-Rocket, and welcome, Jeff, to have you here. We are going to have an audible change here because of the time constraints. We are going to start off with Dr. Peter Diamandis first, and then we’ll go on to Mr. Musk when he comes on at about 1:15. Peter, welcome, and the floor is yours. Peter Diamandis I’m glad to be here, Mr. Chairman. Can you guys hear me okay? It’s my pleasure to be here. I want to speak on three subjects: X Prize itself, space entrepreneurship, and risk. There is a large and vibrant marketplace for space, public space flight, and space tourism. Consistently over 60% of the U.S. public surveyed said they want to go. Recent studies done by Futron say there’s a billion-plus-dollar market per year over the next 20 years for people getting a chance to fly into space.
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