Press Conference On The Future Vision For Exploration

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Sean Keefe, NASA Administrator NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

Well, good afternoon.

This afternoon we got a mandate,. And we got support for a set of specific objectives that very clearly identifies exploration and discovery as the central objective of what this agency is all about.

There is a presidential directive which* very specifically, defines those objectives, much as he discussed this afternoon and in greater detail. It will be the guiding policy focus that we will carry forth and follow up with at this point for the foreseeable future.

The objective will be to continue, as you heard the president identify, the shuttle program? with the objective of completing the International Space Station by the end of the decade and, at the point at which ...
... that completion occurs, to retire the shuttle at that time. Nonetheless, it is projected to give you an indication of how this transformation will occur during this period, that as the shuttle retires there is a much greater use of the resources necessary in order to complete a crew exploration virile for the purpose of pursuing the exploration objectives that he identified.

But for this interim period, for the next couple of weeks, our focus will be on organizing ourselves, getting ourselves prepared for the specific efforts to hit the ground running right away to achieve what is now a mandate for the purpose of exploration and discovery that has been provided by the president of the United States today.

So with that, I'll take your comments or observations.

Qt Can you tell us a little bit more about the crew exploration vehicle? What will lift it into space, and is it going to be an Apollo-like capsule?

A: Very significantly, I think we've got to avoid getting fond of a design. We ought to get fond of the exploration requirement and agenda of what it's supposed to do and invite the industry and other alternatives that may emerge, other ideas of how to actually accomplish that and carry it out.

A lot of work has been done on the orbital space plane objectives to have it provide -^ the objectives were? as you recall* to provide a return capacity in a period of time here towards the end of this decade, and by the turn of the next decade a transfer capability.
And that's it.

So that'll take us several steps in this spiral development approach and there will be different ways to lift that capacity. There isn't going to be a one-size-fits-all solution requirement to do that.

Q: Getting back to the issue of the vehicle, I know you're not locked into any design, but are you looking for a reusable vehicle or something more along the Apollo line?

A: We'll see.
Q: What's your plan for engaging foreign governments in this plan, specifically the Russians and their involvement?

A: Well, last night and this morning I had the opportunity to speak to my counterparts with the heads of agencies of the International Space Station consortia, from the European Space Agency, from Rosaviakosmos, the Russian Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. And the enthusiasm and interest in opening up the dialogue about what the degree of international participation could be in thievery near future here is pretty high.

So in the time ahead, I think we'll see more and more of different ideas of what they'll be exploring and looking to, and look at cooperative arrangements and partnering arrangements. And we're looking forward to engaging in that discussion.

Q: In the period between the retirement of the shuttle and the completion of the new crew exploration vehicle, will US astronauts continue to fly into space? And how will they do so?