Scott Hubbard
Langdon Morris
Good morning everyone. My name is Langdon Morris and we have been invited
to facilitate this meeting. The folder on your seat contains a series
of worksheets we want you to fill out this morning. There should be one
sheet for each of the presentations. We need to educate everyone and bring
everyone up to speed so we can do some critical thinking. Then in the
afternoon we will engage your creative mind to assess some of the ideas
you've heard. Then at the middle of the day tomorrow we will work on a
business case. We'll start this morning with the presentations.
Lynn Harper
Welcome. This began in the late 90s when we were putting together the
astrobiology program. The story was very surprising in how we take terrestrial
life beyond earth. It started with a lot of hype so the program director
asked for a fair assessment. We saw surprising potential. But not all
of the pieces were there at the time. Recently a lot of the pieces have
come together. So we took another look at it and had it reviewed by several
groups. Many groups become cautiously excited by the potential. Nobel
laureates looked at it and became cautiously excited. Then we had it looked
at by our internal people and they too were cautiously excited. Over time
we brought in a wide range of people to look at this. This work has been
built by Ames and JSC and many folks outside of NASA. After consultation
with Alan Marty from JP Morgan we decided we'd bring together people to
see how good the case is. We also want to peer review this. Now I will
introduce our center director, Scott Hubbard. I've worked with Scott for
a while, we were together when the Mars Pathfinder concept was first introduced.
Scott has won five NASA medals, that's just a small number of the awards
he has received. And he got all of his awards the old fashioned way, he
earned them.
Scott Hubbard
Thank you Lynn. About 10 or 12 years ago astrobiology started with a seminal
workshop. We at Ames thought we could facilitate this and we brought together
a diverse group of people. Many people and resources have been put into
this field because it is strong and vibrant and robust and answers a lot
of fundamental questions about life. Now there are many things intersecting
in the sciences that can help us move forward. When we look back five
or ten years from now this will have a significant place in history. I
bring you greetings on the behalf of Mike Griffin. We started thinking
about this a long time ago but the pieces have only recently gelled. When
Mike Griffin visited Ames I gave him the bare bones of what we are doing
and Mike got very excited. As you know we have a new organizational model,
now the Center Directors report to the administrators in the new organizational
system. I sent Mike a note that we were holding the workshop starting
Tuesday and he gave his full support of entrepreneurial utilization of
the space station and the need to work up the business case. We want to
bring about a new era in space utilization and commercialization.
I became Center Director in 2002. Ames was founded in 1939 as the aeronautical laboratory, since that time Silicon Valley has grown up around it. It's the Silicon Valley Center -- we're bringing together entrepreneurial concepts and advanced technologies.
The Triangle Model
Here's our triangle model. The triangle is made up of, the Biotech Industry,
the Entrepreneurial Space Industry, and the Commercial Customer-centric
Space Station. Mike said that he never imagined the words "customer-centric" associated with the space station. But it is needed for revolutionary
utilization. This means if you're going to use the station commercially
you need rapid turnaround and a friendly front-door for the customers.
Data and samples have to come back quickly to the customers. In the world
of the entrepreneur it's critical that things happen rapidly. The front-door
gives access to the enormous engineering feats that have been conducted
so far, the leaders of the JSC have constructed an engineering marvel
and we want to maximize its utilization.
The Entrepreneurial Space Industry is all about
access -- access to service the needs of the space station. The shuttles
future will end around 2010. We need to reduce cargo by 10,000 per pound
down to 1,000 per pound. That's a huge challenge. The mail-route of the
21st century is what I'm calling this, and coincidentally, Mike Griffin
is calling it this too. The idea is to do for space what was done for
railroads and the aviation industry. We want to make space a place to
go and do business. The government gave the railroads away to the commercial
sector and that became the foundation of a great industry in the 19th
century. In the 20th century part of the reason aviation grew was because
the government gave support to commercial mail routes. We want to create
a logistics service that will engage the emerging space industry. At the
apex of the triangle are the emerging scientific discoveries that are
the foundation for the entrepreneurial biological interest. There have
been three so far: gene expression of gravity; lignin from plants being
reduced. These represent the scientific foundation that an entrepreneurial
biological industry would want to invest in. All three legs of this stool
are interdependent. They all have to succeed together. We need the right
front-door for entrepreneurs; we need to get samples up and down quickly
and in a cost effective manner; and finally the biotechnology industry
itself has to produce discoveries. Then we can see the building of something
truly brand new.
So welcome from the Ames Research Center and from the administrator. Let's find a permanent reason to explore space. If we're going to establish exploration as an ongoing effort there must be a trailing edge of commercial development. We don't just want a high water mark like the pyramids, we want a foundation built. We have the ability to do this and capitalize on this opportunity for an extraordinary future.