Jim Muncy is introducing Pete Worden (Ames Center Director), Rick Tumlinson, Jim Logan (NASA flight surgeon) for final session on “Where Do We Go From Here.”
Tumlinson: Not going to reach any conclusions today, will wait for Mr. Augustine who will tell us what to do…
Worden: His view has evolved over the last few years. The only purpose of the space program is to settle space. It is pretty clear that this government, and governments in general are not going to accomplish this. They can enable, but not do it. What is the role of government? Thinks that it’s what the NACA did, and considers his center to be the space NACA. Critical issue is technologies. Don’t develop propulsion technologies, but consider many Ames techs to be critical for living on Mars. Thinks that biotech could be very key, with self replication to spare the need to haul a lot of mass. Talking about Singularity University and that it’s an integral part. Need to follow the water. Know that it’s on Mars and asteroids, and think it’s at the lunar poles. Made a mistake in calling LCROSS a “bombing run,” and got in a little trouble. Can’t resist being a smart-ass. Did it in the context of a readiness review, and thought it was so cool that he put it on Twitter. People thought that Ames was going to start an interplanetary war. Have to enable the private sector with basic surveys and rocket technologies. Develop biotech, and think about getting ready initially by avoiding gravity wells. Also consider one-way missions, which the government will never be able to do, but may be the only way in the near term.
Jim Logan: Wants to echo what Pete said. Starting to hear biology, biology and biology. Have to not just use biotech, but make machines behave like they’re biological organisms. We have to assume that we are going out with the central goal of settlement, and if we’re not going to, then don’t send people. Have to learn how to “bioneer.” That’s what humans have been doing from the beginning of time. Taking the resources you find and use them for building blocks for plants and animals. We will have to take our own environment at least in the beginning, including gravity. Don’t expect people to adapt to the hazards, including weightlessness and radiation. Initially we have to build the first tool from non-terrestrial materials, even a lever or can opener, though we can’t do it in LEO. Have to rethink the skill set and mix in both NASA and the private sector if we’re focusing on biology. Need a lot more bioengineers, life scientists, geneticists. Machines have to act like organisms. Need cross-cultural flow. Engineering and life-science culture don’t mix well at NASA, but there has to be more cross fertilization. Engineers Newtonian, life science quantum mechanics. Neither is wrong, but have to use what is appropriate. This is year 48 of human spaceflight. We cannot do flags and footprints again. There was a good reason to do it the first time, but not a good reason the second time.
Tumlinson: Was asked (again) by a reporter what the destination should be. Told her it’s not about where we go, but why. It’s not about destination but motivation. Tried to give her the frontier philosophy on the air. Saw the article and read it. He wasn’t in there. The story was “moon, Mars, asteroids.” She was unable to comprehend a story that wasn’t about that. Until we can get the media to talk about why, we will continue to go in circles, and have programs that start and die, and will not see progress and potentially even the end of private activities, because it will be characterized as rich people and their toys. There has to be a drive that is understood by the people. Has talked to Hollywood and Kiwanis, and when he does so, they get it, but in the national dialogue and the media, they don’t get it. That has to change. Need to have “philosophical air cover” for when someone dies. How does panel recommend we begin changing the conversation?
Worden: Keep saying the wrong thing (settlements) until he gets fired (which will be fine, because he’ll make more money). NASA’s science has to be done with robots. Everything we discover shows that we know less than we thought, which is job security. Next decade will be biology. NASA does things to help the earth (uncovered the climate change issue). Starting to develop green airplanes. But the third thing that it has to do is settlement of the solar system. We may be triggering mass extinction so we need to have backup plans.
Tumlinson: Every NASA administration rolls out the space colony pictures, and have the rhetoric. Thinks that Bush really meant that we’re going to go and stay in space, but what NASA heard was “go build a vehicle.”
Worden: It’s like training a dog. Every time it comes up, we hit it again, and eventually it stops peeing on the furniture, and starts to hunt or whatever we want it to do. Can’t expect a right-angle turn, but right now we’ll make a little progress. We’re much closer now than we were twenty years ago, and will continue to get there slower than we like.
Logan: NASA doesn’t do visions. It does vehicles, and that’s how it’s organized. Life Sciences at JSC tried to reorganize itself to the Vision, and Human Resources didn’t allow it. Most people are pro-space, but some segments of society (particularly young people) are actually hostile to space, because they don’t get it, because it hasn’t been presented it to them in a way that they can relate to, because NASA is uncomfortable in doing it. Shuttle has had a program office for almost forty years, but the program has been a failure by its own goals. Fear is that we’re starting another twenty-year program in which the justification becomes the vehicle. The goal for ISS became “finish the ISS.” “We don’t get fooled again.” Angry that his youth was taken away from him by marching in step. Not nearly as far along in 2009 as he thought we would or should be.
Worden: Stop talking about rockets and start talking about why we’re building them.
Tumlinson: The generation that is supposedly anti-technology just made a blockbuster out of the new Star Trek movie. Same generation that is twittering is hungry to see something exciting, and they’re seeing it in the private sector ventures, but what would you say to NASA to excite this generation.
Worden: Need to restate that the only one purpose of sending people into space is settlement. The president needs to tell people that we are going to space to live there, and not worry about what the rocket looks like.
Logan: Young people are not excited because no American astronaut has been any further from the earth in the last thirty-five years than the distance from San Francisco to Santa Barbara. Stop calling going to LEO “exploration.” Where is the world-class science that was supposed to come from the Shuttle and Station? He doesn’t see it. It’s a self-licking ice-cream cone. He likes ice cream, but not when it licks itself. When he got to JSC in the early eighties, he sought out Apollo veterans, and got the sense that it was a lot different. At the end of Apollo they felt very lucky, and had almost gone a bridge too far, and were grateful that they had gotten by unscathed and were ready to take a deep breath and come back down to earth orbit.
Audience question: 19-25 generation guy wants to know what NASA should do to motivate him. They motivate the scientist in him, but not the explorer or entrepreneur in him. That inspiration is all coming from X-Prize, Armadillo, entrepreneurs, but not from NASA.
Worden: NASA needs to be NACA and midwife new industry (which Ames probably does more than any other center). The entrepreneurs come here for testing in wind tunnels, etc. NASA shouldn’t be building the systems. He thinks that NASA should be doing more, smaller things, like LCROSS.
Logan thinks that opens source contests are important (to applause). Who can send a robot to the moon and make a tool?
Tumlinson: Get into the game. It’s not the government’s job to provide that sort of excitement. Believes in the Lewis and Clark model, because he doesn’t know how to put together a business plan for that sort of thing that won’t get laughed out of the board room.
Logan: What never fails to get people involved is mining the asteroids or mining the sky scenario. Everyone is totally wowed by that concept. Giving kudos to John Lewis, whose book he carries in his briefcase. Always excites people when he talks about it.
Worden is optimistic after three years at NASA. Thinks a lot of cool things are going on.
Logan was on operations task force to go around to centers that transitioning from Shuttle to station that they would have to do things differently. But all they wanted to know was how to change the charge code from Shuttle to station with the same staff and facilities.
Tumlinson: Have to get out there and talk to people about motivation, that there is something bigger, greater going on, and that Branson and others is about more than rich people.
Muncy at end of discussion. Presenting General Worden with Pioneer of NewSpace award. Only given it to entrepreneurs in the past (David Hannah, Tom Rogers) and gave it to people who were doing these things before anyone knew what NewSpace was. No one working for the government more entrepreneurial than Pete Worden. Has led more teams to more results for less money than anyone else, many of which we will probably never even know about. Was pioneering this way of doing things long before the foundation existed. Both DC-X and Clementine one won other foundation awards. Getting standing ovation from the audience.
Another, not-so-pleasant award. Gary Barnhard awards him a “frog a day” calendar to the sound of the Darth Vader theme (an inside joke that I’ll have to explain later — someone remind me).
Bob Werb presenting a “Service to the Frontier” award to Jack Kennedy (in absentia in China) for his work in Virginia with “Zero-Gee, Zero-Tax” and liability limitation for spaceports. Got Megan Seals on a Zero-G flight. He’s not trying to get government to design or build anything, he’s trying to get government to set good rules and use its purchasing power. Megan Seals coming up to accept on his behalf.
One more award to Bob Werb’s wife for putting up with all of this craziness for so many years, and the conference is over, except for tonight’s black-tie gala. No, I’m not going, except perhaps to take notes in the back, sans tux.