Mission/planets: Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune Jupiter/Saturn/Pluto* Jupiter/Uranus/Neptune* Jupiter/Saturn Jupiter/Uranus Next opportunity 2155 2076 2155 1996 1992 1992 1989 *Proposed missions. The only close competitor to the proposed three-planet Grand Tours from the standpoint of scientific return per dollar is the four-planet Jupiter/Saturn/ Uranus/Neptune Grand Tour opportunity. However, it suffers from requiring almost twice the trip time of the three-planet missions and surveys only four instead of all five of the known outer planets. As is seen, two-planet Jupiter swingby opportunities also exist in the late 1970's but are far less productive in scientific return per launch. Two-planet opportunities using Saturn instead of Jupiter for the initial swingby will become available in the 1980's, but these are relatively high-energy missions that would require additional launch vehicle capability. The adopted approach is to use the rare three-planet opportunities to accomplish the initial survey of the outer solar system. The more frequently occurring two-planet opportunities (every 14 to 20 years) which recur in the 1990's can then be used for second-generation investigations of just those outer planets determined from the results of the initial Grand Tour survey missions to have high scientific priority. I would point out, this is a unique opportunity. These three-planet opportunities are best. Other opportunities would take additional spacecraft than this program we have outlined would require. Mr. KARTH. Are there any further questions? Thank you, Dr. Naugle, very much. I want to submit these questions to you and also for the record, and if you would, provide your answers for the record. Thank you very much for your testimony this afternoon. As I understand it, a substitute for Dr. Naugle will be here with the committee on Monday morning at 10 a.m.? Dr. NAUGLE. I have to appear before the appropriations subcommittee. Mr. Johnson will be here to carry on. Mr. KARTH. I wish you the very best of luck, and we will be happy to have Mr. Johnson with us at 10 o'clock on Monday morning. The committee stands adjourned. (Whereupon, at 4 p.m., the committee was adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Monday, March 22, 1971.) 1972 NASA AUTHORIZATION MONDAY, MARCH 22, 1971 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10a.m. in room 2325, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joseph E. Karth, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding. Mr. KARTH. The committee will come to order. This morning, since Dr. Naugle is appearing before the Appropriations Subcommittee, Mr. Vincent L. Johnson, Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of Space Science and Applications, will be our witness. Dr. Naugle was to have made a very lengthy and comprehensive statement on the subject of space applications before the subcommittee this morning. I have asked Mr. Johnson to go through it and paraphrase and summarize each of the items in the program so that the subcommittee will have time to ask questions and hopefully conclude the hearings with this morning's session. 1 Mr. Johnson, would you proceed, please? STATEMENT OF VINCENT L. JOHNSON, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OSSA Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I start, I would like to introduce the other witnesses at the table. On my left is Mr. Leonard Jaffe, the Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Space Science and Applications, and on my right Dr. Richard Marsten, the director of the communications program. With your permission, I would like to read the introduction to the communications program section, and then I will paraphrase the individual items of that program and try to get through it as quickly as possible. Mr. KARTH. Please proceed. Mr. JOHNSON. I will now turn to the applications program and begin with a discussion of communications where my principal topic will be the status of the applications technology satellites (ATS F&G) and the air traffic control satellite. The objectives of our communications program are to develop the concepts and demonstrate the technology required for more effective and efficient telecommunication systems. There are two paths through which we evolve our communications programs. Both are based on the needs of society for services. These needs form the basis for new system concepts. In some cases systems will depend on new techniques and technology developed through flight experiments which provide the technology base for operational service missions and develop user experience. In other cases, user experiments already conducted lead directly to prototype satellite flight programs, the precursors of operational systems which will serve user needs directly. By the year 2000, demand for communications capacity in the United States is expected to exceed today's by a factor of 100 to 200. Similar situations may be visualized for the other nations of the world. In addition to the increasing needs to transfer information around the world, people and cargo must be transferred as well. Air traffic over the North Atlantic Ocean is estimated to grow more than twofold over the next 10 years. The skies are already overcrowded, and the situation is getting steadily worse. Present traffic requires assignment of lanes and altitudes to insure flight safety, which makes many routes diverge from the optimum. This results in higher operating costs and delayed flights. These standards could be reduced through the use of satellite systems such as those studied by NASA together with the Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the European Space Research Organization (ESRO). In attempting to refine and quantize these broadly recognized needs we depend on information developed and provided by other Government and public agencies to answer such questions as: What will requirements be for two-way information transfer in the 1980's? What will needs be for radio and television broadcast services from satellites? What will be future needs for traffic control systems? What needs can be satisfied by already developed terrestrial systems, and what needs require satellites? We would prefer the eventual user, for example, doctor, lawyer, shopkeeper, schoolteacher, or law enforcement official, to make known what television, voice, data, and facsimile service he needs, what quality he needs, and how much he is prepared to pay for it. But most users are unprepared to address the details of their requirements. We therefore must work, through cooperative programs with user organizations, to develop satisfactory "subscriber desires" data bases for systems development. I will now describe some cooperative studies of this sort which are underway. One potential application for communications satellites is extension of domestic services to remote villages and rural regions. Population sparseness, dispersion, and rugged terrain and climate tend to impede growth of terrestrial system services in many regions, precluding basic development of a communication service capability. Satellite systems potentially could improve the coverage to such areas as Alaska, the Rocky Mountain region, the Northwest and Southwest States, Appalachia, the Pacific Basin, and the trust territories. Alaska was chosen for our first study, recognizing that many of the approaches used in this study will be applicable to other regions. Because we found information on the needs of Alaska incomplete, we are consulting with cognizant State officials. They are studying their communications needs and the options available to satisfy them in cooperation with NASA and other agencies of the Government. We have performed a preliminary evaluation of technical and cost factors which are important in an Alaskan satellite system design. Limiting our consideration to systems in orbit or under development, we believe that a communications satellite capable of meeting Alaska's communications needs is now technically feasible, using well-developed technology with low-risk system elements. We did not address the questions of institutional and financial feasibility of the systems, nor did we fully address the intercity and intracity communications requirements. Our study concentrated on communications to remote bush villages where regular commercial services are marginal or nonexistent. We have also studied information networks that could serve educational, instructional, and specialized information transfer needs. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) plays a key role in these studies, with NASA providing technical expertise. In cooperation with the Office of Education (OE) of HEW, we are planning a two-phase study to determine the potential, feasibility, costs, and consequences of using network technologies to meet educational needs in remote regions. This study is concentrating on the educational needs of Alaska, recognizing its applicability to other regions. The first phase under Office of Education direction will assess requirements and will determine the effects of topographic, demographic, sociological, and cultural factors on education requirements. The second phase under NASA direction will provide a technical and economic assessment of information networks using satellite and terrestrial services. Another cooperative study typical of information networking is the biomedical communications network (BCN) of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications at the National Library of Medicine. Development and implementation of effective information network structures to support health care services could provide users with demand access to major teaching hospitals, computer files, and libraries. The BCN will provide coverage both between urban centers and rural regions. User requirements models are being formulated and network concepts based on these models are being developed. The type of information network technology which may be required for this network provides the basis for studies like ATS-H mission studies, which I will describe later. The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in the Department of Justice is interested in a possible cooperative program for development of a national law enforcement information network to provide communications facilities needed to search the criminal record data in any State's computer memory. Of specific interest in this study is the possibility of high data rate fingerprint facsimile transmission via satellite to reduce identification processing time. A series of user experiments involving Sacramento, Calif., the FBI's National Crime Center in Washington, and ATS 1 and 3 is under consideration. We continue to study satellite air traffic control technology as applicable to overland traffic management. Satellite systems potentially |