Accepting the Challenge Before Us

1 Mr. Augustine, members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for inviting me to testify here today on the future of the U.S. human spaceflight program. Since many of you may be unfamiliar with me, I hope you will forgive me if I take a few seconds to establish my credentials. I am an engineer with a masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics, a doctorate in nuclear engineering, and over two decades of aerospace industry experience. I currently lead my own company, Pioneer Astronautics, which has successfully completed some forty NASA contracts over the past thirteen years. I am the author or co-author of over two hundred papers, nine patents granted or pending, and five books related to the field, and am the head of an international non-profit organization known as the Mars Society which has, among other projects, built and run a human Mars exploration operations research station on Devon Island, nine hundred miles from the North Pole. My remarks today will address four areas. First, I will discuss why NASA’s human spaceflight program has been floundering, and what fundamental change in method of operation needs to be undertaken if the space agency is to be made effective again—and in particular, why an overarching goal must be adopted if that is to occur. Second, I will explain what that goal should be. Third, I will present a plan for a pioneering space program that would allow NASA fulfill its promise and achieve that goal within ten years. Finally, I will make a specific recommendation as to what needs to be done now in order to put the space program on the right track.