CONTENTS Beattie, Donald A., Deputy Assistant Administrator for Solar Geothermal and Advanced Systems, Energy Research and Development Administra-. tion, accompanied by Henry H. Marvin, Director, Division of Solar Energy; Dr. Leroy Furlong, Senior Technical Adviser to the Assistant Administrator for Fossil Energy; Dr. John A. Belding, Director, Division of Conservation, Research and Technology; Bernard J. Rock, Assistant Director for Space Applications, Division of Nuclear Research and Applications; and Robert A. Summers, Manager, Plans and Programs, Questions of the subcommittee and the answers thereto... Ginter, R. D., Assistant Administrator for Energy Programs, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; accompanied by Paul R. Miller, Acting Director, Energy Conversion Division; and Ralph I. La Rock, Kramer, Dr. James, J., Acting Associate Administrator, Office of Aero- nautics and Space Technology, National Aeronautics and Apace Ad- ministration; accompanied by Paul Holloway, Acting Deputy Associate Parker, Robert N., Acting Director, Defense Research and Engineering, Department of Defense: accompanied by Dr. R. A. Greenberg, Assistant Director, Space and Advance Systems; and Howard P. Bahcall, John, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton N.J.; accompanied 1691 Prepared statement__ 1694 Harford, James J., executive secretary of the American Institute of Aero- nautics and Astronautics; accompanied by Dr. Jerry Grey, administrator McElroy, Dr. Michael B., director, Center for Earth and Planetary Science, 1675 Simpson, John A., director, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago-- 1683 Downs, Hugh, president, National Space Institute.... 1758 Kurtz, Howard and Harriet, president and vice president, War Control 1772 Articles__. 1781 Von Kann, Clifton F., senior vice president, operations and airports, Air Transport Association of America; accompanied by Frank Bracy. ADDITIONAL ARTICLES, LETTERS, AND STATEMENTS Biegon, Bradford, statement.... 1787 Department of Defense Activities in Space and Aeronautics, Fiscal Year 1603 NASA's Role in Aeronautics-staff report of Senate Committee on Aero- 1474 Richards, Bill, article in the Washington Post-- 1680 Schemmer, Benjamin F., article in the Armed Forces Journal International. 1479 NASA AUTHORIZATION FOR FISCAL YEAR 1978 MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1977 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND SPACE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:15 a.m. in room 235 of the Russell Senate Office Building; Hon. Adlai Stevenson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Senator STEVENSON. This morning the subcommittee resumes its hearings on NASA authorization for fiscal year 1978. Our first witness is Dr. James J. Kramer, Acting Associate Administrator for Aeronautics and Space Technology. Dr. Kramer, I see you do have a lengthy statement. If you would prefer, and can summarize it, then I would be happy to enter it in the record. STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES J. KRAMER, ACTING ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF AERONAUTICS AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION; ACCOMPANIED BY PAUL HOLLOWAY, ACTING DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR Dr. KRAMER. Thank you. Senator STEVENSON. Without objection the statement will be entered in the record. Dr. KRAMER. I would like to introduce my deputy, Paul Holloway. His normal position is Director of Space at Langley Research Center, and he is serving temporarily as my deputy. He will assist me on any questions you might have at the end of the testimony. I do have a lengthy statement as you pointed out and we are prepared to summarize it. Since this is a summary, I thought it would be worthwhile to give you an overview of what OAST is all about, what things we have done, and what we are trying to do in the future. So I will depart, first of all, from the testimony and give you an overview of OAST. FIGURE 1.-OAST Missions Improve usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles. Preserve the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space technology. Support national defense by transfer of technology with military value or significance. (1373) We have three broadly characterize i missions. We are ring to improve the wel vrea, performance characteristics, and efficiency of aeronautica, and share verides, Br so doing we want to presente the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space We also perform the very important function of supporting national defense objective by the transfer of th teobro.62% with military tale or significance. We translate these missions into zoals and objectives and they are listed on the next chart. Basically, we seek to provide a solid technological basis in a variety of aeronautical and space disciplines, In some instances, in addition to provising the broad base of technology, we do carry out some proof-of-concept demonstrations in rather advanced systems and in certain, special cases, we build test vehicles which are for specific test purposes, and some which have rather generalized research purposes and could be referred to as flying facilities. I will talk about one or two of those in the course of my testimony this morning. FIGURE 3.-The OAST "Product": Technology. The end product of our activity is technology. And what I mean by technology is the know-how which leads to improved aeronautical or space venicles. We do not wind up delivering payloads to space or carrying out specific exploration missions. FIGURE 4.-Characteristics of aeronautical research and technology. Critical to U.S. leadership. Long leadtime: 10 to 20 years to application. Complex test facilities required. High leverage potential: Smali technical advances can yield large benefits. Most consider conflicting req irements: Such as safety, environment, eLergy, performance, cost and reliability. Rather, we deliver the technology to user organizations to accomplish those specific mission objectives. That leads to some characteristics of our aeronautical technology as shown on this slide. It is critical to C.. leadership and the US. position in aeronautical technology today is a result of the broadly based program for the development of technology supported through the years. Unfortunately, technology has the characteristic that it must be developed well in advance of its actual time of application. Hence, we are working 10 to 30 years in advance of requirements. In addition, our work is such that we require rather complex and unfortunately, rather expensive test facilities. However, it does have a high leverage potential in that small advances in technology can result in very major advances in system capability. We do get involved in tradeoff, for example, the tradeoffs between system performance, safety considerations and environmental impact. |