| Space Shuttle Columbia:
Science & Government
With Dr. John H. Gibbons
Former Science & Technology Adviser to President Clinton
Monday, Feb. 3, 2003; 11 a.m. ET On Saturday the Space Shuttle Columbia, carrying six Americans and Israel's first astronaut, disintegrated in flames over Texas. Officials have not yet determined the cause of the tragedy -- in 42 years of U.S. human space flight, there has never been an accident during the descent to Earth or landing. On Jan. 28, 1986, space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff. What will the disaster mean for the future of NASA and the shuttle program? Dr. John H. Gibbons, former science and technology adviser to President Clinton, was online Monday, Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. ET, to discuss the intersection of science and government. While at the White House, Gibbons was active in defending research budgets; cessation of nuclear testing; supporting bilateral and multilateral cooperation in basic science and nuclear arms control; space; climate change; environment; and health. He was a key player in establishing Presidential initiatives, including the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Since leaving the White House, Dr. Gibbons has continued an active role in numerous public and private service activities. In July 2000 he was elected President of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. The transcript follows. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
washingtonpost.com: Dr. Gibbons, thank you for joining us this morning. Take us inside the office of the president's science adviser. How close is communication between the White House and NASA? What is the current science adviser likely doing in response to Saturday's loss of the shuttle Columbia? Dr. John H. Gibbons: The link between the White House and NASA, like the link between the White House and the Science foundation is not through the cabinet, because these are sub-cabinet.
One link is through the office of the science adviser. The second is through the office of Management and Budget. There are direct links on occasion. For example, when it was reported there may be some fossil remains in a meteorite found in Antarctica, Dan Goldin briefed the president personally on the matter.
I have not talked with Dr. Marburger, but I"m confident he's deeply involved in the setting up of the committees to investigate the accident.
Oklahoma City, Okla.: Assume the majority of the American public wants NASA properly funded and wants an ongoing space program. What budget amount is actually necessary to fully fund NASA to safely explore within the bounds of our technology, and to reasonably and rationally push the bounds of our technology? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I don't want to try to give a number, but I'd say that the biggest problem I see with respect to the shuttle and our space exploration is the great hurdle we must take to develop technologies for a brand new generation of launch vehicles. We must get the cost of putting a pound into orbit down by a factor of five or 10.
There have been attempts to do this, but so far they have failed, and the cost is dear. So the question is the relevant priority of getting a quantum jump down in cost in a time of many other competing priorities. So the conclusion up to now is that we should continue to use and upgrade the shuttle fleet, although very expensive.
Sunnyvale, Calif.: What are the problems any government faces when allocating the budgets for any science projects and specially NASA and space programs? Why do NASA's needs rely on contractors on mission critical projects where zero fault tolerance is not acceptable? Thanks. Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well, the Congress the president and the American people have a constant challenge to make the optimum use of our public resources. And the demands for those resources changes over time. One thing, since the Constitution was written, was that the American people want to invest as a people in exploration and discovery -- to do things we can do together, but not separately. The Lewis and Clark expedition is one example. That still continues.
So, how do you divide it among the various directions -- space is but one of many ways to investigate. There's inner space (cells, molecules, atoms) as well as outer space. That's a constant challenge to optimize the use of these funds. The Congress and the president spend a lot of time on those trade-offs.
We've decided we should put a minimum amount of money into basic science and leave to the private sector those areas of applied science where there's potential for profit. But what do you do between those two?
NASA's program is both science and applied engineering. And that's where things get complicated. For example, all the shuttle missions as well as the space station contain both science as well as technology and politics and international relations. And the sum of it, I believe, is very worthwhile.
Dr. John H. Gibbons: WHen I was early in office with Clinton, two of the first projects I worked on were the Superconducter in Texas and the Space Station. Both of these had begun long before Clinton was in office, and Bush I. Our challenge was to say what do we do with these projects in the face of new budget concerns? IN the case of the superconducting supercollider, we knew there were fundamental problems with cost and a very minimal public support for the project. On the other hand, with the ISS, we knew that the end of the Cold War was upon us and there'd be a great deal of downward pressure on aerospace expenditures. At the same time, as the president said, it's no fault of that industry that world events would reduce the resources.
So for things like the space station, we have an opportunity to continue technical challenges an make it easier to re-adjust. So we continued on the grounds that it was an industrial area impacted by the end of the Cold War.
We also had an opportunity to use the ISS to pull the world's nations together and to internationalize the space station. So, the president agreed to that idea and we established a commission chaired by the president of MIT and they studied a major redesign of the station to make it less expense, secondly, besides being internationalized, that we would change the fundamental orbit so that it would go over Russia at a high enough latitude that both American and Russian rockets could reach the station. So this enabled Russia and the U.S. being engaged and working together.
That enabled the Soyuz rescue vehicle to operate, so both Russian and U.S. assets.
Washington, D.C.: Now that there are three shuttles left: Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, will they retrieve the shuttle Enterprise from the Dulles airport Annex of the Smithsonian? Will they upgrade, modify, modernize Enterprise so that it can fill in the gap now left by Columbia? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I'm not sure. SOmetimes it's more expensive to refurbish a vehicle than build another one. NASA will have to address that.
Temple Hills, Md.: Are we preoccupied with getting the space lab completed and supplies and equipment up there that we have over looked safety for our transports? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I don't think we're preoccupied. Safety has always been the number one concern and we are obviously heavily occupied in getting the space station assembled and it will get more complicated with one less shuttle. But I don't think we're ignoring safety. I think as the cost and complications of the world's largest international technology challenge that it is expensive and what they've had to do, unfortunately, is to cut back on the amount of money going into science and the number of astronauts going on board.
The three on the ISS now are almost constantly maintaining the thing, not working on experiments. So, how do we enable them to do the kind of work we know they could.
Dan Goldin, much as he loved watching these things take off, he never went down to a launch because he thought that might distract people from the job they had to do.
I went to Cape Kennedy in 1980 to watch a launch of an unmanned satellite. And I looked very closely at Columbia and impressed with the design of the heat tiles, but it also gave me shivers because they were very lightweight, which meant you could punch your fingernails through them.
Corpus Christi, Tex.: Dr.Gibbons,
Following the Challenger disaster, NASA suspended the Teacher in Space program. Do you think the same thing will likely occur with this year's scheduled flight of a teacher, considering NASA's obligation to the ISS?
Thank you. Dr. John H. Gibbons: This is always a puzzle, you know. NO one should think that space flight is like taking a hike out in the front yard. It is very dangerous because you're operating close to the edge. The thought of sending a teacher into space is appealing, because people the teacher interacts with later, will have a more direct involvement in space. But there's no question about the danger involved and people have always faced these dangers when exploring. Only seven percent of the people on Magellan's voyage got back.
We should not take people up there unnecessarily. It should be for a purpose. Astronauts go to make it work and do experiments. There's a strong argument too that people who can translate that experiment to the rest of us should go.
So we should continue to think about enabling others to go.
Washington, D.C.: Several commentators over the past two days have indicated that the space program, specifically the shuttle program, was badly in need of a redesign. Is that a widely held view? If so, I presume that the combination of funding, politics and international relations that you have been talking about has not allowed that to take place. Or are there other factors that mitigate against a redesign? Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well, the shuttles are constantly being upgraded and I think that form of redesign -- upgrading computers, etc. -- should continue to be part of the plan. But the shuttle fundamentally is a very expensive way to go and we've tried several approaches within NASA on devising a mechanism for takeoff and landing of a craft that would take off from an airport and come back and land and cut costs. So far, those have failed.
And that's part of the attempt to get the costs down.
Unquestionably, we should continue the incremental upgrades of the shuttles. We do the same with aircraft carriers.
Chicago, Ill.: Dr. Gibbons, I love the space program as much as anyone, and I think it's essential that the U.S. remains a leader in this field. However, wouldn't you agree that the Columbia disaster really shines a spotlight on the fact that the shuttle program, and NASA's manned spaceflight program generally, really is a program in search of a purpose right now? What are we doing with this program? Where are we going with it? It seems like we're sort of just going into low earth orbit for lack of anything better to do. Thanks. Dr. John H. Gibbons: My response to that is that it is in low earth orbit that most interesting things happen. There are lots of people who want to explore the stars, but learn some physics first.
Think of the Hubble telescope. When I went into office the Hubble went up and they found out it needed a pair of glasses, so we devised a set of correcting lenses, but it took a shuttle and astronauts to put it together again. That , to me, underscores the utility of being able to have a human presence in space.
To me, that presence and it's value is in earth orbit. And I think the challenge of going beyond earth orbit does properly reside with unmanned or teleoperated vehicles, such as those extraordinary probes, like Galileo, Cassini, Pathfinder, Mars Rover. That kind of technology, operating with onboard artificial intelligence, increases productivity here on earth. And it's cheaper to send up transistors than cornfed machines called human.
Washington, D.C.: Since everyone loves humans in space, even though non-human flight is safer, cheaper, and advances robotics research, why do we have to economize with everything under NASA administration. Why not have several, competing space exploration organizations? Dr. John H. Gibbons: In a way there are. There's the stuff we do, the Russians do, the Chinese do. Rather than in a militaristic competitive way, we do it in a cooperative competitive way. It's also important to have competitive enterprises in the private sector bidding for these operations.
Just having more people, just doesn't mean it's safer. Dan Goldin once determined one shuttle launch had 80 sign off on it, which he thought meant no one was taking personal responsibility.
Washington, D.C.: NASA Administrator Dan Goldin made a big point of touring every NASA facility and telling the senior management they were "too male, pale [i.e., white] and stale." Then they were removed. Did Goldin cause a brain drain at NASA? And why was his behavior condoned? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I don't think he caused a brain drain at NASA. I think that's a bum rap for Dan Goldin. He strongly encouraged science at NASA. He saw the opportunity for great savings in the way NASA was doing things. Any time in a bureaucracy you suggest cuts, you're bound to have resistance.
Dr. John H. Gibbons: IF anyone wants to know more about me, they can look at JohnGibbons.org.
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.: What can the average citizen do to help NASA recover from this tragedy and further its mission of space exploration? Dr. John H. Gibbons: One is to follow the dialogue about public investment in science and exploration. And support the notion that is old as our country is -- that we should do this work as a partnership of all the people for great national purposes. We can make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. We can do things together that are impossible to do separately.
Make the support a politically popular thing to do. My own experience was in the 104th Congress they just wanted to cut everything in government and of course that was a disaster.
For the public to understand and applaud people who are willing to put their lives on the line for a higher purpose -- and it's not just the astronauts, but the families. The astronauts are okay now, they're gone, but the families must live on and we must be as caring as we can for those left behind.
The last, would be to understand and encourage the support of NASA in its work for increased international cooperation in science. Especially, increased knowledge of our great commons, known as planet earth and how to sustain it and protect it.
Washington, D.C.: Dr. Gibbons: When you headed the Office of Technology Assessment, were there any reports created on shuttle safety and the space program in general? Do you think a disaster like this will spur Congress and the administration to rethink the role of science advising and recreate a congressional version of OSTP? Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well, OTA did a number of studies about space programs -- including one on space station. I don't remember the Web site now, but on the archive of OTA studies there is one accessible through Princeton. I'm sorry my feeble senior mind doesn't recall. The keyword would be "OTA."
Now, in 1994 or 1995, after I left OTA, Mr. Gingrich and others wiped out OTA which was bipartisan. There is still a fervor to reestablish something like OTA -- an ability for Congress to reach out and gather national wisdom on technical issues and provide that information to Congress in a timely and meaningful way. Supporters include both Republicans and Democrats. But reestablishing an office in a time when we're doing a lot of deficit spending is not going to be a very popular idea, despite the fact that it'd save a lot of money.
Fairfax, Va.: The Office of Science and Technology (OST) was eliminated in the early 90's as a budget-cutting measure, to my great dismay. Where were its functions distributed? How was it involved in the space program? Would such a separate entity be useful in, for example, quality or mission oversight with the shuttle program? Dr. John H. Gibbons: The office of Technology Assessment, that Congress created, was zeroed out on the budget. There are some really extraordinary people in Congress working to try to reestablish that, like Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey, Congressman Sherry Bolers of New York and similar people on the Senate side.
The attempt to distribute some of the functions to the Congressional Research Service and what I call the "Generous Accounting Office." The success of OTA depended on its enormous outreach activities, to gather national wisdom and winnow the arguments down into a useful form.
They stopped the work at the CRS -- there's no longer even a science division there. The General Accounting Office is trying to do some of these things. The National Academies are trying to do some of this and have made some impressive headway, but they operate in a different way -- the broad public involvement is not replicated.
Indianapolis, Ind.: Dr. Gibbons, are there any preliminary plans for the safe return of the three Astronauts on the Space Station? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I don't believe there's a concern there because they already have up there a Soyuz return vehicle and it's not at all certain that they believe they'll need to use it. So I don't think that's a matter of current concern -- thanks to preparation of having the Russians involved.
Washington, D.C.: The shuttle disaster is such a tragedy. Can someone explain to me what NASA, tips to space, shuttle explorations actually do for the American public? Couldn't we use the hundreds of billions of dollars on something worthwhile? Have we learned anything from landing on the moon? So it's a planet with craters on it -- big deal. Imagine if that money went to cancer or AIDS research! Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well, there are always arguments about priorities, but I think if we sit back and consider the implications of our ability to get beyond the earth's atmosphere, then we will understand things like our weather satellites, our earth observing systems, which are critical in the understanding of global climate change and of the changing levels of the ocean.
If we think about the Hubble, which has opened our eyes in a way that absolutely overwhelms everything we'd done before, and our understanding of the origins and development of the solar system and the features and history of Mars and Venus, we come to understand our place in the solar system, and I think that's a very noble and worthwhile investment.
You can overdo anything, but I think the kinds of technology -- what Chuck at MIT said -- was as far as he was concerned, you could justify the space station activities with the incredible pull it has on technology. It causes people to innovate and be ingenious, which has implications for telecommunications, automation, a long list of things.
Alexandria, Va.: This may be out of your area of expertise, but perhaps you could shed some light on why this detail hasn't been addressed. The NASA officials have repeatedly said that the crew had no way of looking at the underside of the orbiter while in space to see if there was any tile damage, and that even if they could see damage, there was nothing they could do. Accepting the second part of that statement, I still don't understand why an astronaut couldn't have used one of the jet packs to go on the underside of the orbiter. If extensive damage was found, I find it hard to believe that an emergency contingency (like sending another orbiter up to rescue the crew) couldn't have been implemented. The issue of a jet pack has never, to my knowledge, been raised by the press. Dr. John H. Gibbons: It's a valid question. The short answer is that there is no mechanism to enable people to go outside and around and look at the underside. They didn't have any tethering devices. They wouldn't have risked it without clear evidence of a problem.
More interestingly, would be an unmanned little robot that could go inspect, but that's something I'm sure will be considered as a future option.
I don't believe there was any significant concern about that left wing until it was too late. We've lost a tile here and there every now and then, but my personal guess is that the damage done on liftoff to have loosened enough tiles that you had a cascading effect when they reentered the atmosphere. They couldn't have known it until reentry. It's a chance you take.
Prince Frederick, Md.: Dr.Gibbons, Do you believe that either now, or in the next decade, that NASA will be integrated into the U.S. Air Force? What would be some of the advantages and disadvantages of this? Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well, I hope they aren't. Because the Air Force is an organization that is designed to kill. I don't mean to be unfair to the Air Force, but it has a very different mission.
The idea of NASA was to push technology for aviation and space and serve non-military research needs and advance. The Air Force and NASA work closely together. When I was in office, we developed a new partnership and we merged the U.S. and military satellite systems. We accommodated the opportunity for improved productivity, but at the same time had the very different mission goals followed.
Leslaw Ochota , Wroclaw, Poland: Do you think, is it possible now to increase co-operation between USA and Russia in space and to revitalize Russian project, actually on hold, named “MAKS” -- air launched space shuttle. The project is quite well advanced. It is exactly as proposed by NASA Orbital Space Plane. Dr. John H. Gibbons: I hardly see how we could be in much closer cooperation with Russia, but I would encourage sustaining that cooperation. Russians are extremely clever engineers and I think we should together, explore all the options for upgrading our capability to go to and return from space.
Dr. John H. Gibbons: It is interesting that a Russia resupply rocket went up to the space station today. It's like a truck that goes up and docks.
Hershey, Pa.: Dr. Gibbons,
Considering that the Shuttle program is over 20 years old why are we still utilizing the same shield technology (20k+ individual tiles)? It appears to me that these tiles are too "delicate" and the process of "care and installation" too labor intensive (read 'prone to error')to be able to perform their required mission ... protection of crew and cargo from high temperatures. Why can't we utilize a type of shield used on the Apollo re-entry craft? Or a some other new technology? Dr. John H. Gibbons: Well the Apollo re-entry was an ablation shield, where the heat of reentering the atmosphere evaporated off the surface of the capsule, not to be used again.
The attempt on the shuttle is to have a reusable vehicle. The theory was to use the most advanced capabilities of ceramic materials that would radiate heatwaves instead of evaporating.
Whether or not we can improve on the tile thing is a moot question.
Frederick, Md.: Can you identify any areas of space research -- such as new forms of propulsion -- that have been held back by political wrangling? Also, are we close to any breakthroughs that would change the way we travel in, and explore, space? Dr. John H. Gibbons: I can't think of anything that's been held back. That's almost inconceivable to me.
Well, there are ideas of hypersonic jets, or rockets -- a ramjet, that is a way of getting up to many times the speed of sound so that you could take off and land with a vehicle. The problem is that it is very far-edge technology and very expensive. In terms of other things, I don't think there's anything dramatic -- there are many science fiction ways to go, but the problem is it doesn't work.
Dr. John H. Gibbons: There have been a nice variety of questions that reflects the serious attention being given this tragedy by the American people. That's very refreshing. They reflect a collective feeling of participation as well as agony, and a fervent hope that the technologies we employ continue to move toward perfection.
We must never, though, think of technology as perfect.
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