The White House is scheduled to release as early as today a new space transportation policy. This is the same policy that the administration has been working on for over two years and was reportedly nearly completed at the time of the Columbia accident, after which it was put on the back burner. Space News (subscription required) has some details on the policy’s contents, which do not appear very surprising: it will maintain existing policies, such the “assured access” policy to have both the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 EELVs available, as well as the policy that requires US payloads to launch on US launch vehicles except under special circumstances. It will also require NASA to work together with the Defense Department to study requirements for a new heavy-lift launch vehicle.
Update: 7pm The policy was indeed released Thursday afternoon.
Jeff,
Note the context of that “joint heavy lift” issue. NASA does not get to decide whether or not it needs heavy lift for exploration. NASA and the SecDef jointly make recommendations to the President and the President decides.
Very very interesting.
– Jim
Jim Muncy, is it good or bad to concentrate decision making like that?
Looks to me like the new space policy ends NASA’s custodianship of reusable launcher R&D. Clinton’s 1994 policy said:
1. The Department of Defense (DoD) will be the lead agency for improvement and evolution of the current U.S. expendable launch vehicle (ELV) fleet, including appropriate technology development.
2. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will provide for the improvement of the Space Shuttle system, focusing on reliability, safety, and cost-effectiveness.
3. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be the lead agency for technology development and demonstration for next generation reusable space transportation systems, such as the single-stage-to-orbit concept.
I don’t see the same language in the new transportation policy. I note also that the X-37 was transferred to DARPA last summer.
NASA does not get to decide whether or not it needs heavy lift for exploration. NASA and the SecDef jointly make recommendations to the President and the President decides.
That’s not how I read it, Jim (or at least, it’s not the whole story). What concerns me is that it reads as though it’s a fait accompli that there shall be heavy lift. The only issue is whether it’s SDV, EELVDV, or clean sheet. That’s what the SecDef and Administrator have to sort out and recommend to the President. This is one of the things I have heartbutn with, because I don’t think we need heavy lift, period, and to develop it would be a step backward and a waste of funds that could be spent on something useful.
Back when Arthur Kantrowitz was on the Gardner Commission to recommend launch options to President Kennedy, they concluded that on-orbit assembly using existing and cheap smaller launchers would be about a factor of 10 cheaper than building a big launcher.
Kennedy wanted to build a big launcher anyway and so Johnson classified the final report and kept every copy in his safe. When they were eventually declassified in the 1990s Kantrowitz says NASAs only reason for then not pursuing that path then was that “it would be embarrasing to us” – Perhaps that’s the only reason they’re pushing heavy launch now.
I want to see numbers before I believe NASAs case, and they have to refute (with numbers) the analysis made by the Gardner Commission.