The House Appropriations Committee’s Science, State, Justice, and Commerce subcommittee held a hearing Thursday afternoon to take testimony from members of Congress. (Or, at least, that’s the gist from a barebones hearing description on the committee’s web site.) One of those providing testimony was House Science Committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert. In his opening statement, he called for full funding of NASA’s proposed FY07 budget, as well as other science-related agencies and the new American Competitiveness Initiative.
“If you can find any additional funds,” he requested, he had a list of programs that he felt could use the money. The top two were programs at NSF and NIST, but the next two were at NASA:
A close third as a priority is the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. The FY07 budget provides sharply reduced funding for science compared to earlier projections. This will sideline important scientific work that not only would increase human knowledge, but that would require the development of technology that could promote U.S. security and competitiveness. Following the recommendations of the scientific community, we urge you, at a minimum, to restore funding for the Research and Analysis programs in the Directorate and to permit additional smaller missions to be launched. Those items are more of a priority than any flagship science mission.
A fourth priority is the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at NASA. I share your support for NASA’s aeronautics programs. While NASA is revamping its aeronautics programs a major increase in funding may not be necessary. But the U.S. must maintain its leadership in aerospace and the projected cuts over the next five years are too severe.
On the other hand, Boehlert felt that, unlike some members of the appropriations subcommittee, the CEV did not need additional money to accelerate its development:
Finally, let me make clear that I do not think it is a priority to add funding above the request to the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program at NASA. I support the President’s Vision for Space Exploration, but I do not see any great advantage to be gained from launching the CEV in 2012 rather than 2014. Too many other items are of
greater concern.No one has described any actual threat posed by the additional two-year gap – even taking into account Chinese space efforts – and the U.S. should be able to maintain an adequate aerospace workforce as long as it is clear that work on the CEV is proceeding according to schedule. Our priorities should not be skewed by emotional appeals.
[Emphasis above in original.] One wonders what reaction Boehlert got from the committee, if any, about his China comment, given all the hand-wringing they were performing a week ago about a space race between the US and China.
“…I do not see any great advantage to launching the CEV in 2012 rather than 2014.”
So much for the budgetary and programming gyrations Griffin has put NASA through during his administration, all in an effort to accelerate CEV deployment. So it finally turns out that O’Keefe, the previous administrator, had the right CEV development timeline after all. Griffin may be a rocket scientist, but O’Keefe had deep experience dealing with megabudgets and megabureaucracies.
Didn’t take long for the vultures to start descending once the “DeLay” was over.
“So it finally turns out that O’Keefe, the previous administrator, had the right CEV development timeline after all.”
There’s no reason to believe that the original 2014 timeline was realistic. The previous 2014 CEV timeline was based upon the assumption that the shuttle budget would decrease in later years (2007-2010) and that money would go to CEV. As Griffin discovered, that was a false assumption, and he needed to find an extra $3 billion for shuttle. So the 2014 CEV timeline contained a fictional component, and if O’Keefe was still there, he would have had to slip the CEV schedule due to lack of money.
“Griffin may be a rocket scientist, but O’Keefe had deep experience dealing with megabudgets and megabureaucracies.”
O’Keefe had that experience, but one wonders how much it mattered. After all, NASA’s financial management system is still not fixed (it was one reason why O’Keefe was sent to NASA in the first place), and the missing $3 billion was discovered soon _after_ O’Keefe left. The reality of that latter case is that O’Keefe and everyone else involved with NASA’s budgeting knew that the expected savings before shuttle retirement were illusory and they simply kicked the can down the road and decided to let somebody else address it.
Mr. Day, I think O’Keefe (and whoever worked with him) should be recognized for two key observations that probably could not have been made by someone without his credentials.
First, that whatever NASA does beyond the Shuttle must stay close to the current budget.
Second, that results must be obtained soon; whatever replaces the Shuttle cannot be an open-ended technology playpen (NASP, et al) or a constantly redesigned political football (the Space Station).
Of course, both of these lessons were forgotton the instant O’Keefe left office, and we went back to the failed policy of putting indecision and perceived technical requirements ahead of the political and economic requirements.
Dr. Griffin’s plan takes longer and costs more than O’Keefe’s — even before it hits the pavement. It requires the United States to develop and maintain multiple government launch vehicles over the long haul — like the Shuttle, this is a huge tax on the space budget that makes it hard to do anything else. Whatever it’s technical merits, it ignores the political and economic environments and is probably doomed to failure.
I suspect that the only way to save the day is to go back to something like Mr. O’Keefe’s minimum lunar infrastructure using tiny capsules and EELVs.
— Donald