225 Dr. Kraft. I believe that as we begin to experiment with manufacturing techniques in space, we will find that there will be increasing needs for electrical power as well as growing needs for substantial numbers of people and machines in space to convert these raw materials we will be taking up into some kinds of products. All these things are directly related, one to the other. Senator Ford. Professor O'Neill in his statement on Monday made a—I guess I could use the phrase—compelling economic case—assuming his numbers are roughly correct and he hasn't neglected any major problems. He says we don't need a new heavy-lift rocket, that a modified shuttle will do. Would you agree that NASA would do well to thoroughly evaluate his ideas before you go too far along the road with a heavy-lift rocket? Dr. Low. Yes, Mr. Chairman. In fact, much of Professor O'Neill's work was done in conjunction with NASA. He participated in a summer study at our Ames Laboratory this past summer. And certainly we do intend to assess all of his studies before we move out on anything new. Senator Ford. In your estimated 5-year program cost of, I believe, $230 million, you stated that no contributions from existing programs was assumed. You say many activities would be performed anyway. Could you comment further on these activities? Dr. Lenoir. We were trying to assess, in the satellite power team, what it would take to resolve the critical areas that we had defined earlier—and, assuming that there were no other commitments, what the total job requirements would be. Many of these areas involve efforts that we know the agency is interested in pursuing and is presently pursuing. For example, one of the large questions in space power systems is the question of large space structures and assembly. Certainly, anything this huge is orders of magnitude bigger than anything we have done in the past. We have a lot to learn. Space power systems are not the only large structures that NASA is looking at for the future. Large radioastronomy telescope dishes are possible. In addition, in the earth resources area as in, for example, microwave remote sensing, larger antennas give you better resolution. I think we can look ahead and see that we will be building large structures in space, and the first few steps along this road are common, no matter whether you are doing it to build a large antenna or a satellite power system. Senator Ford. Doctor, you stated, I think, that the immediate step of your plan would not require a large development commitment. Are you saying that this subscale orbital demonstration would not involve a full prototype? Dr. Lenoir. We don't know exactly what it would involve. One of our earlier studies that I showed you a picture of the subscale orbital demonstration that resulted from a 6-week study, showed that we could build it, assemble it and service it with the Space Shuttle transportation system. It was a smaller scale, on the order of 400 meters across, rather than 4 to 10 kilometers, so it was an order of magnitude smaller in dimension. And it was in the vicinity of a 15-megawatt power plant.
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