The ISS has been plagued by problems following U.S. president Clinton�s decision to invite Russia into the program. All participating nations have suffered rescheduling delays. However the project which seemed close to crisis until May this year, when the Russian government finally agreed, after much political pressure from the U.S., to release funding for a vital piece of hardware, the Russian service module, to the tune of 800 Billion rubles. Without the payment, habitation of the space station would have been delayed to late 1999. As of the latest rescheduling, the service module, which will provide living quarters and an attitude control system vital to the fledgling station�s survival, will now be launched in December 1998.

Still, Goldin told JSN that he intends to continue development of the U.S. Navy-built Inter Control Module (ICM), describing the $400 million dollar project as a necessary contingency plan.

Beginning with the launch of the Russian Space Agency�s NASA-financed, Proton-launched Functional Cargo Block module in June 20 1998, the International Space Station will see, as Goldin describes, a 45 launch program which will place "a million pounds into orbit from 4 different launch sites with people speaking 15 different languages."

For serious students of government and its management a biography of Goldin can be found here.

Introduction:

Let me just take a minute to tell you why I am in Japan. First I wanted to get a sense of where the Japanese space program was, so I went to Tanegashima and Tsukuba. I had very a thorough tour of these facilities. Secondly, I wanted to meet with the American aerospace community here in Japan and understand the issues that exist here in Japan. Thirdly, we had a Head of Agencies meeting of the world�s leadership in space and the Japanese agreed to host the meeting at Tsukuba. And lastly, we were here for bilateral talks with the Japanese, who are probably one of our most significant partners in space, we talked to the Japanese about the human space flight program at NASDA and we talked to the Japanese about the human space flight program. At NASDA, we talked to them about a very important activity in the mission Planet Earth remote sensing of our own planet where the Japanese made a 5 billion dollar commitment over 5 years on a program called New Frontier, and finally we met with ISAS on Space science and the Origins program. The whole purpose being, at a time of very tight budgets, to assure better collaboration and cooperation between countries to get maximum benefit to our taxpayers and taxpayers� money.

Q1. NASA sources have said that it was vital to get the 800 billion rubles promised by the Russian Government flowing to support the program.

A. It was supposed to be flowing in April and May and be completed in mid-May. All the money has been delivered to the RSA and it has been dispersed to the five main contractors and we�re not only seeing the money flow, we�re seeing the hardware flow. We�ve seen unbelievable progress.

Q2. What sort of guarantees was Mr. Koptev able to give you that the Russians would be able to stay on track?

A. Well, let me just say this. Each of the partners presented the status of where they are and it is clear that the programs in Japan, Canada, Russia Europe and the United States are on track. Each of the leaders came to that meeting wanting to understand where everyone else was and when we left we all felt confidence that the program is back on track.

Q3. The HOA meeting final briefing statement mentioned the deleterious impacts of rescheduling delays. Could you elaborate on this?

A. Yes clearly the fact that the Russians had delayed the delivery of the Service module, the unit that is the habitation when we put up the space station, they delayed that delivery from April of 98 to December of 98 and what we wanted to validate that that schedule will hold. It will hold.

Each of the countries has had a different impact. In the United States we have had to shift schedules around. We have to commit $220 million this year for the back up solution in case the Russians were unable to deliver on time and we are going to continue down that path. It is crucial that everyone understand that we are going to hold the schedule, so we are committing that $200 million this year. We will probably have to spend some more money next year. We said that the space station will be complete in the year 2002 and it still will be completed in the year 2002. But I think the end date will add another four months to give the Russians another slip date.

There will be a delay in the Japanese Experimental module I don�t remember how many months. The Japanese understood and said that they were prepared to live with it. The Europeans had asked us to accelerate their schedule not delay it and we�re working as trust partners - everyone wants to do the right thing so we�re all going to work together to accelerate the delivery date for the Columbus orbital facility from Europe.

What I want to tell you is there is a real team here and, as I stated in the meeting by reciting a Haiku. I won�t give you a literal translation, but it had to do with the fact that it was a Haiku where people were rowing in the fog and then they broke out of the fog and then they saw this boundless frontier, the expanse of the ocean. I did that because it was my sense that we had difficult, tough times in the last four years and that there is a real partnership now. You had to be in that room to sense the feeling among the participants. There was genuine support, each person was trying to do the right thing for their country but to work with the other. We left the floor committed that we were going to build this pace station and we�re going to hold the schedule.

Q4. Mr. Uchida jokingly confided just after the meeting that you had caused him some consternation as he wanted to come up with a suitable reply.

A. Yeah... (Laughs) Apparently they couldn�t find one, so Mr. Uchida called a good friend of his and his friend wrote a proverb which had to do with the blue indigo sky and going off into space together. It was very touching it was indicative of the maturing of the relationship.

And you have to understand that this is a technological program, it�s founded in science and technology. But we�re talking about people, countries who have had difficulties working together. One of the other aspects this program is proving is that on an international level Japan, the United States, Russia, Europe and Canada can work together.

I�ve been at this for almost five and a half years now and I want to tell you this was an outstanding meeting and that sense of trust was exactly what I was looking for. There was a sense of trust and there was a sense of accomplishment and pride.

Now is there still going to be trouble? You bet! This is a tough, grinding, gripping program, but when you have trust you overcome one of the major barriers and I think this bodes well because international science was having trouble, there have been a number of problems. And I also want to tell you that I had some very solid meetings. We went to meet with the Deputy Minister of Education, I met with the Minister of Science and Technology, I met with the director of ISAS, with the Head of the Space Activities Commission and I want to tell you, it was really issues of substance where the United States and Japan are working as partners. We worked together before but we didn�t have this level of trust.

Q5. Do you feel the Japanese Space programs are measuring up in terms of the "cheaper, better, faster" initiative?

A. Well in United State we call this downsizing process "better, faster cheaper," but I think the Japanese are calling it "cheaper, better faster." They changed the sequence of the words around and they�ve talked to us about it. We have strategic planning sessions with the Japanese and they recognize that the budgets are going to tighten up. They want to get more for less and we at NASA are willing to share that experience.

We have gone through tremendous downsizing and the amazing thing is that our productivity has gone up. We have started more new projects in the last three years than in the prior ten and they�re shorter, tighter and much more higher tech.

And another thing that came out of the sessions was that Japan has worked very hard to have an indigenous capability and as a result they focused on in-country resources, and although we had collaborative programs, it was much more of things being done in parallel. And one of the things that came out of the conversation was that we are going to do more complementary things. So this will allow the US and Japan to go forward in partnership because we trust each other more to get more science for less money.

Now there will still be some overlap but it will be a lot less and American and Japanese taxpayers will benefit. Now clearly the only areas where Japan and the United States have to maintain in their own national advantage certain critical skills - we don�t want 100 percent overlap because that�s wasteful. I think there is a real good sense about that and there is talk in Japan about the global marketplace and we had discussions about this subject and on certain production programs like the H-2.

Japan is now considering using US contractors as subcontractors. I�ll give you two examples, Thiokol is building some components for the solid strap-on rockets its a first and the Japanese attitude was that "hey! It�s a global marketplace," and you have to get the lowest cost at the highest quality in the fastest period of time - and Thiokol could do it and then there is a reciprocal arrangement with McDonnell Douglas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is supplying some hydrogen tanks to some of the McDonnell Douglas lines and McDonnell Douglas is providing some systems for the H-2A.

The key here is reciprocity on merit. And I think this is indicative of the maturing of the aerospace business. Now again, clearly there will be long-term technology that Japan is wanting to develop, but as I see really good things happening. And then if you start thinking into the future, the space station is going to be a working laboratory. We don�t just want to do government research on the station. In the United States we are looking at some aspects of commercialization, we�re bringing in American industry to do industrial research. So there�s a very good relationship building. It isn�t there yet, but it�s very positive.

Q6. You mentioned trust. What are the key elements of this, this warm fuzzy feeling you have now?

A. I think it�s more than warm fuzzy, I think it is focused and business-like. �m a business man, I mean I come out of 25 years of corporate America. I�m not into warm fuzzy. I�m into the bottom line.

The space station program was a pioneer program, a frontier program and the space station program had too much change and too much turbulence. Again you have to think about culture. In America we are very used to it. If we are going to provide leadership on this space station, we have to be sensitive to our partners and prolong stability and I think the single most important thing we did was freeze the design of the space station in October 1993. I would say that at that point in time the relationship was at it�s most tenuous because we had gone for 8 years.

The Japanese, in a very focused fashion, had developed the JEM design and they were going into the detailed design phase, and we kept changing it. So we made a commitment to them that we were not going to change the design of the space station as of October 1993 and by God we held to it.

And the only bump in the road was something that was unavoidable, the Russians had a financing problem. And the Japanese understood that, from a technical standpoint, the Russians were critical to the project because of their knowledge base. So they felt changing the schedule was something acceptable. We didn�t just call them up and say "hey, by the way, we�re changing the schedule!," we worked the problem in a open fashion. We had whole sub-consultations in advance and we didn�t make any decisions unless it was made with our international partners.

So when we arrived here (in Japan) with our partners, all the technical people had met, they�d worked out the details and all we did was report to the Heads of Agencies Meeting. That didn�t happen three and four years ago- there had been a lot of friction and emotion. So it�s been very businesslike- that�s the word, business -like, and we have stability in the program.

Q7. Do you think ISS has finally turned the corner?

A. Let me put it to you this way. We�re cautiously optimistic. You can not be involved in large, complex programs and relax. Even if you don�t know that there is a problem, by God one will occur! So You have to work constantly at contingency planning.

So the first issue is lets attack what we don�t know- so at the Heads of Agencies meeting we set up a team that is going to deal with contingency planning on an international basis. Everybody is involved with it, so if you like it�s going to be a yellow light system. When a problem occurs, everyone is going to get together and start working.

We also talked about the fact that that our partners wanted us to report on it, they wanted to know our contingency planning in case there were further financial problems in Russia. We will continue upon our partners� desire to keep the contingency plan going in the United States. Now it�s not a hundred percent guarantee. You know, its like an insurance policy. You can never buy too much insurance, but we�re buying a prudent amount of insurance.

The third aspect is that this is an enormous- and this is the one that worries me, I�m not worried so much about one and two but number three worries me- this is the most complex space program that I have ever seen, and I�ve been in the business 35 years.

Let me give you some background. We�re going to launch elements of this space station from Cape Kennedy, Baikonur with the Proton, Soyuz and Progress launchers, from Tanegashima with the H-2A, which is still under development, and with the Ariane 5 and the Ariane transit vehicle, which are also having problems, and are still under development.

Then, we are going to launch equipment which has never been put into space before like the JEM. Japan has never developed pressurized modules. The Europeans are building the Columbus orbital facility. They have some experience. We�re putting robot arms from Canada, it looks like a human being. Its 22 feet across, it has the body of a human being and it has arms and fingers. The Special Purpose Dexterous manipulator is the most incredible robot ever built and we�re going to use this robot to assemble the space station. And we�re building original equipment in the US. It can�t leak, you have to test it, it has to be human-rated, it has to have redundant systems for oxygen and carbon dioxide scrubbing.

Think about it, we�re going to put a million pounds into orbit from 4 different launch sites with people speaking about 15 different languages and we�re going to do it on time. This is one large systems management program, but we�re not afraid. We know we�re gonna have problems, but let me tell you something. I mean, just look at the material, the paperwork I have to look at every day, look at the complex international teaming that�s going into a multibillion dollar program.

This space station is going to be a pilot program for projects coming down stream, and we�re inventing technology. I mean this is cutting-edge technology-right at the edge. Oh and by the way, the other thing about the space station we have to up-rate this system with almost no vibration, a millionth of a G. So if you think about all these things, it�s absolutely incredible.

Q8. There were some doubts a few years ago about the suitability of the ISS to conduct materials science research. Some even thought the project a waste of time and there was a lot of pressure to kill it.

A. Let me tell you about a fellow who is the president of the American physical society, he wrote me a letter strongly supporting it. A Nobel Laureate is now going to be putting the AMS, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, on board. He�s going to be researching for anti-matter galaxies. We�re testing it on the shuttle and it�s going on the space station.

We have already validated two Noble theories in phase-chain transition in group theory-because of the absence of gravity you can make much finer temperature measurements. We are doing 10 percent of the papers on a major combustion deal aimed at microgravity research. So I want to tell you not only is this an outstanding facility for biotech and biomed, we are now doing some wonderful things. You just have to get some experience in space and people have to get comfortable with it. We have a list of people supporting this which is remarkable.

Q9. You mentioned one of your objectives here was to visit the Japanese space program. How do your impressions compare now with your previous impressions?

A. Well let me provide you with the context of where I was in corporate America. At TRW I was responsible for space activities and a lot of the R&D of the corporation. And as the Cold War was winding down I was opening the Pacific Rim for aerospace at TRW and I had to deal with a broad range of companies there, Korea, Japan, Taiwan. And when I came here then I had to work with a number of Japanese companies. They were doing good things, but I didn�t see them on the cutting edge in rocketry, I didn�t see them on the cutting edge of space science.

My breath was taken away by what I saw at Tanegashima. They still have a way to go, but now they have first class launch facilities, they have a plan to make their launch vehicles competitive. They understand metallurgy, they understand automated testing. I met with Dr. Godai, the Vice President of NASDA and he said, "Dan, I came to the DC-X launch and I saw the control room, and in the control room there were only three people. I was unbelievably impressed, and I came back here and I put a head count of the number of people that could be allowed for an H-2A launch."

Now, this is very sophisticated thinking that had not been done in Japan before. So they are getting it, and they understand the idea of launch vehicles is not to build an indigenous capability and hug it. The purpose of launch vehicles is to be competitive in the commercial launch market. And you need world-class performance and that�s why they made a decision to bring in the best in the world, and they brought in some American companies. That is an indication of the sophistication I see now.

Are they at where we are now? No. But they are coming up that curve fast. I love competition. It makes me thrive. I�m basically a Capitalist, a free-marketer and I like what I see here, there�s life here. I went to Tsukuba and saw that their assembly and test areas are all very impressive. They have an astronaut training facility, they have biomedical work and they have something that I wish we had - everything is co-located. They�re building the JEM in the same facility where they have microgravity research and where they have life science, and biology and materials science, they have different laboratories next to each other and they�re right opposite the operations room. Very, very clever. I was in the high bay area, it�s a first-class area. And I took a very close look at their assembly techniques. They have sophisticated metallurgy. These are the things you know you want to look for. I am proud to be working with them.

Q10. In your discussions with Atsuhiro Nishida about the Origins program could you tell us about what was discussed, bearing in mind grumbles among Japanese ground-based astronomers that Origins may be a little too high profile.

A. Let me provide you with a little context. A few years ago I challenged NASA�s space science community and America�s space science community to understand Origins. I asked them two questions.

Firstly, how did galaxies, stars, solar systems and planetary bodies form and evolve and how does this knowledge help us rewrite chemistry, physics and biology textbooks.

Secondly. Is life in any form unique to planet Earth with a challenge. I said, within 15 years I would like you to be able to directly detect if Earth-sized planets exist around stars within 100 light years of Earth. That�s 600 trillion miles. Within that volume there are thousands of stars - many like our own sun. This was a very tough astronomical problem. And I also asked that within 18 years "are you going to be able to tell me if they have atmospheres containing water vapor, carbon dioxide and oxygen." If you have carbon dioxide and oxygen you might be able to count on equilibrium and that would indicate photosynthesis as a driving force. That was the challenge.

Now there are two ways you can go at this. The first is to use ground-based telescopes, and the second is to use space-based telescopes and small spacecraft to go to planetary bodies, which drives technology.

Now, NASA is funding ground-based work such as in Hawaii where NASA is spending about $50 million dollars on the Tek Observatory, which is the world�s largest ground-based telescope. And in fact we have two of them and we are going to combine the light of both of these which will actually allow us to begin to directly see planets around other stars. But they�ll never detect Earth-sized planets and that�s the problem.

So you could use ground-based astronomy to begin to understand what�s in extra-Sol solar systems, but in the end you need these incredible space-based telescopes. We at NASA are going to build these telescopes and we invited the Japanese to participate by providing instruments to fit on these telescopes.

I think the place that the Japanese are going to make a very significant contribution to the origins program is in some of their really advanced planetary spacecraft. They are going to be sending in 2002 to an asteroid [Muses-C to Nereus] and bring back a piece of the asteroid and we are thinking of working them. I invited them yesterday to participate in what we call Deep Space-4, which is one of my "faster, better, cheaper" spacecraft where we are going to do something similar. And we�re going to land a very small probe on a comet. So again, we�re trying to do complementary things instead of overlap. They have a mission to Mars [Planet-B, 1998] and they�re looking at other planetary spacecraft.

So I was very impressed with ISAS. They do things faster better cheaper and I think that they are an outstanding organization and we vowed that we are going to work together cooperatively on this Origins program.

The technology from origins is going to drive semiconductors. We�re going to have to have thinking spacecraft. These spacecraft are going to be going so fast when they pass other planets that we can�t program them from the ground. They will have to do their own tasking, they�ll have to do their own pattern recognition. So the software and semiconductor technologies and optical technologies that come out of these programs will feed right into the American commercial industry. And this is where we may not share technology, but that�s OK.