Good day again,

At SpaceRef.com and at NASA Gov you can read Michael Griffin's comments at the Workshop on Space Space Exploration and International Cooperation.
- LRK -

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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18543
Text of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's Comments at the Workshop on Space Exploration and International Cooperation

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/137173main_mg_csis.pdf
Remarks
Center for Strategic & International Studies Workshop on Space Exploration and International Cooperation Michael D. Griffin Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
United States of America 1 November 2005 Washington, D.C.

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A snip here but do go and read.
- LRK -
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To Eisenhower, the subject of highways - more broadly interpreted as transportation infrastructure - was of compelling interest. Back in 1919, as a young Army captain, he joined the Army's first transcontinental motor caravan, a trip from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco. On the poor roads of that time, the caravan averaged five miles per hour and took 62 days to
cross our continent.

snip

..., Eisenhower used his State of the Union Address to call for the creation of a national network of interstate highways, one that would contain 41,000 miles of new roads. Eisenhower would push hard for the enactment of this system, saying later that without the united forces of our communication and transportation systems, our country "would be a mere alliance of many
separate parts."

Today, a half-century after this major commitment of our nation’s resources and energies, we have the modern interstate highway system. And just as important as those multi-lane roads with the green signs to which we’ve all become accustomed are the more than 15,000 exit ramps and interchanges that were built into this system. It is at these interchanges where gas stations, rest stops, hotels, restaurants, stores, many other businesses, and full communities took root. Because most of us have never traveled through an America which is not linked by the system, it is hard today to imagine the economic leverage that our nation has derived from its interstate highways.

That visionary focus on the proper role of government in creating crucial core infrastructure has paid dividends for decades to America’s wellbeing. And that is the context in which we should view NASA’s new architecture for space exploration, and the new generation of spacecraft which comprise that architecture. The Crew Exploration Vehicle, the associated Crew Launch Vehicle, and later the Heavy Lift Vehicle, will be the 21st century space equivalent of our interstate highways. This is the core infrastructure that will enable us to travel from the surface of the Earth to the Moon, Mars, and the near-Earth asteroids. And, as with our interstate highways, it is at the off-ramps of this system, for example the first base camp on the lunar surface, where the best opportunities for international cooperation will occur.

snip

But if we focus too much on the hardware, we run the risk of forgetting that the real excitement lies not in the trip, but at the destination. So let's think for a moment about what we will need at our first destination, the lunar surface. The plan we have developed offers, even on the first lunar return mission, four times the lunar surface exploration capability of the last and most ambitious Apollo mission, Apollo 17. It does so at 55 percent of the cost expended through the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. It meets the presidential goal for human lunar return, can be accomplished within the Administration's fiscal guidelines and, at this basic level, can be accomplished by the United States alone.

snip

The development of crucial infrastructure such as lunar habitats, power stations, scientific laboratories and facilities, radio and optical telescopes, manned and robotic surface rovers, unmanned logistics and resupply vehicles, communication and navigation systems, in situ resource utilization equipment, and long-duration life support systems will, if it is to occur at all, result from a great exploration partnership between nations. The "interstate highway" that we develop can carry international crews to the Moon, and later to Mars, to work on cooperative goals at research stations of international design and construction, possibly in much the same fashion as occurs in Antarctica today. Quite likely these efforts will be aided and abetted by commercial providers offering service for a fee; with the right incentives, this can be made to happen sooner rather than later.

snip
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Once again, do read.

My taking snips is not fair to the whole set of remarks. I just wanted to prick your interest.

I want to see something that we can all look up for, but if we don't start we will never get there.
- LRK -

Larry Kellogg

Web Site http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
Blog Spot http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link at http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
News ltr at https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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