Space Transportation Technical Committee
Meeting Minutes – 14 September 2009
The committee met on 14 September, the day prior to the Space 2009 conference. On Thursday the 17th, the committee also hosted another excellent Greybeard session, featuring Mr. John Casani, Mr. Chuck Lowry, and Mr. Will Swan.
Attendees:
§ Peter Montgomery§ Carl Ehrlich
§ Randy Kendall
§ Chuck Larsen
§ Tony Williams
§ Marshall Kaplan
§ Bob Richards
§ Tim Bulk
§ Susan Elrod
§ Doug Stanley
§ Don Sauvageau
§ Jason Hundley
§ Bob Tarn
§ Josh Hopkins (by telecon) / § Janet Karika
§ Suzy Cunningham
§ Jim Knauf
§ Bernard Kutter
§ Tony Taylor
§ Robert Conger
§ Connie Bilzing
§ Mike Popp
§ Allison Zuniga
§ Mark Benton
§ Drew Hays
§ Trevor Sorensen
§ Jonathan Oliver
§ Leo Daniel
o Wakeup Stories – Carl Ehrlich – Airplanes and Razorbacks
o Previous meeting minutes were read back by Josh Hopkins and approved by committee.
o Mr. Randy Kendall was nominated for and accepted as the new Secretary for the STTC.
o Space Exploration Subcommittee report (Tony Taylor) – very little activity but John Mankins is having a panel during this meeting and Tony plans to talk to him. Original concept was that the SE Program Committee had been set up and was espousing some controversial things. The STTC wanted to be aware of the activities of that PC, so a subcommittee was stood up, but then the PC has not done much the last several years. As Tony moves into TC Chair position in the future he will look for someone to replace him as chair of the SE subcommittee.
o Publications Subcommittee (Carl Ehrlich) –
§ Year in Review article – Carl has gotten lots of suggestions and comments. Tough job to narrow things down to only 600 words. Carl passed out the article to participants with request to review during the day and provide comments by end of day. Word count to stay the same.
§ Web site - New Webmaster - Susan Elrod has volunteered to be new webmaster.
§ Launch Guide Update (Josh Hopkins) – The project has been on hold for a year or so due to lack of resources. Josh is hopeful to get some funding to work on it soon.
§ Wind Tunnel Database – No change from JPC report. The Beta version is working well. Hoping to get a new version working by end of year. AIAA may be willing to host it on their server.
o Treasurer ‘s Report(Carl Ehrlich) – No change in account balance. We have not spent any of this money in a while.
o Special Presentation - Peter Montgomery presented Awards to Suzie Cunningham and Janet Karika for their hard work organizing an excellent STTC meeting at KSC/Cape Canaveral in March.
o Augustine Committee Discussion – led by Jason Hundley discussing his insights his on the AC work based on the work that his company has been doing for NASA/ESMD on architecture, budget, and programmatics. Contrary to some opinions, his sense is that this report was not predetermined, and in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. The public deliberations seen on NASA TV were the actual deliberations of the full committee, not just a media show. There were only a few times the full committee met. The charter was to develop options for human spaceflight, given the current budget guidance from OSTP. The FY10 budget guidance was ~30% lower than the original envisioned budget at the beginning of the program (~30-40 billion shortfall). Primary recommendations were: the need to budget to fly out shuttle in FY11, and full utilization of ISS through 2020; also NASA needs to spend more money on emerging technology development focused on supporting space exploration. After that, it all depends on the budget. Augustine and other NASA officials will be testifying before Congress this week. The struggle is that exploration is not going to look as “cool” as the space shuttle, so it won’t keep the public excited enough to justify larger expenditures of money. Jason’s observation is that only about 1200 people care deeply about Space Exploration, and the other 300 million don’t care. The big question is: “How do we get the general public excited about spaceflight?” Lots of good discussion followed. Another big question: “Does NASA stay in the launch business or do they rely on commercial launch services?”
Proposed as part new great debate topic – What else can the committee be doing to get the general public excited spaceflight?
o Membership Subcommittee (Janet Karika and Suzy Cunningham) – 2 new members, 4 new members-in-waiting. Janet and Suzie volunteered to help people upgrade their AIAA membership level. The TC would like to look at further diversifying membership with potential participants from Asia, Russia, S. America, Academia, Legislative, DoD. Several actions documented in action item section at the end of the minutes.
o Education and Awards Subcommittee (Allison Zuniga/Chuck Larsen) – George M. Low Space Transportation Award nominations – have not received any nominations yet. Allison is heading up the committee again. We need to have at least 3 candidates to even do the awards. Prior nominees are still in the hopper. Elon Musk won last time. The other two non-selected nominees should be eligible. The nomination form is on the AIAA website.
o Conferences Subcommittee (Allison Zuniga for Leo Daniel) – Allison presented slides for Leo. We are all set for Space 2009. We have 12 sessions, still have a couple dropped papers we need to fill. Space 2010 – Chuck Larsen will be track chair, Tim Bulk is volunteering as track co-chair. Peter Montgomery is overall Technical Chair. It will be in Anaheim for the first time, 28-30 September. Responsive Space 8 - 2010 – will have one session on space transportation. Bob Conger will be track chair, still need a co-chair. JPC 2010 – Mark Benton will be co-chair for the track, Jason Hundley is volunteering to be the Track chair. Call for papers is out. JPC 2011 needs co-chair. Space 2011 needs chair and co-chair.
o Tony Williams – thoughts on how STTC can get more involved in other activities 65 TCs and ~12 PCs. TAC (Technical Activities Committee) organizes TCs into groups, STTC is part of the Space and Missiles Group of TCs. Each Group has a Director and cumulatively they form the board of directors of AIAA. Tony’s role is member services, membership, awards, communications, etc. Recently he has been looking at demographics - how do we map to the communities we are supposed to be representing? Also looking at awards, education, and how do the different committees interface? What should be STTC’s role as an integrating function of other TCs? Looking to initiate dialogue at the functional levels? There was a discussion of whether we should continue to have one of our yearly meetings at the JPC, but no actions to formally consider changing anything. Also discussion of whether we need to be paying more attention to emerging/entrepreneurial systems.
o Student Design Contest Winners (Brian Bjelde) – The winner will be announced at the awards this year. We need to be thinking about an abstract for the 2010-11 contest. Brian will be sending out an email soon. Need to send out the abstract by March.
o Special Presentation - Space Launch Services: Demand vs. Availability (Josh Hopkins) – The number of launch systems is actually decreasing for first time in history. The number of satellites to be launched is less, however the utility that each satellite delivers is significantly greater and they last a lot longer. Josh’s conclusion – it’s difficult to justify developing a new launch vehicle under current market conditions. This was a very interesting presentation and prompted a lot of good discussion within the TC. Consensus is that we need more missions and more markets to drive demand for launch systems. Demand appears to be fairly inelastic at least at the top end of the market - for example: the entry of Proton at a significantly lower price after fall of the USSR did not result in much increase in demand. Question: How low does price need to go to enable new markets? Suggestion for STTC to get more involved in looking at markets and market development.
o Trevor Sorenson – Welcome from AIAA S&MG group Director.
o Orbital COTS efforts (Bob Richards) – Excellent summary slide presentation from Bob on all of the Orbital activities and COTS/CRS in particular.
o Great Debate: Space Transportation Technical Excellence - Training the Next Generation (Peter Montgomery) – The problem is a steady decline in technical workforce competency across the industry. Lots of thoughts from the group: Top organizational leadership involvement is critical for success. Need to back it up with resources. Need to be able to measure results and apply lessons learned. NASA gives freshouts OJT projects they have to do on their own, but need to work with experienced engineers and outbrief to top management. Need to give younger engineers experience with real ‘meaty’ projects, not just oversight and paper pushing. Consider holding lessons learned short courses to transfer knowledge. Videotaping them and posting them on the web has big leverage. Aerospace is instituting a formal mentoring program to match up experienced engineers with freshouts. Acknowledge mentoring as part of job responsibilities. Others have had problems with experienced engineers not wanting to share knowledge with younger engineers. Part of retention has to do with non-technical issues, such as not creating an environment that is satisfying to younger people.
o Review of New Actions:
· Action: Tony Taylor to define vision for what the SE subcommittee should be doing besides monitoring the inactive SE PC. Bernard and others to have a discussion over a beer tonight.
· Action: Membership actions to Knauf and Kendall to talk to Col. Gary Henry about joining. Janet will work on Col. Tom Steele. Someone from AFRL? Invite someone from RLV PC? Bernard Kutter knows someone from Japan that wants to join. Doug Stanley also will pursue Asian contact as well as student advisors to design competition. Note to all the applications need to be input through the AIAA system.
· Action: All members need to be thinking of appropriate nominations for George M. Low Space Transportation Award to be submitted to AIAA.
· Action: Tony Williams will chase down whoever is doing the awards luncheon and have them announce that nominations are open for next awards
· Action: Susan Elrod will look into getting a banner put on AIAA website to ask for nominations
· Action: All members should submit their ideas for the abstract for student design competition to Brian Bjelde for 2010-2011.
· Action: Tim Bulk will look into organizing a short course that TC could give.
· Action: Peter Montgomery to email today presentation by Josh Hopkins to the TC.
· Action: If interested in being on oversight committee for Aerospace America contact Betty Guillie, (703)264-7573,
o Upcoming TC Meetings (Peter Montgomery) –
§ January 2010 (During Aerospace Sciences?) – Orlando FL – Augustine Committee Members?
§ February 15-16 2010(t) - next TC meeting tentative dates – VAFB, targeting launch of Delta II/Cosmo-4
· April 2010 – next TC meeting - Wallops Island
o Chuck Larsen announced the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference February 10-11, 2010 in Washington D.C.
o Explosive Nut Award – Jason Hundley for his characterization of the Aerospace industry and it’s “Submerging Markets”.