“if you go back to the archives, you’ll note that I argued for pretty much exactly your plan, and was ridiculed for it. The majority of the participants in this forum at that time insisted that the “stick” was the only way to go.”

I find that surprising. From where I sit, Ares I (or even the ESAS/Constellation implementation plan) has never enjoyed support beyond certain senior NASA managers (Griffin and Horowitz, of course), ATK and the Utah delegation, and Senators Hutchison and Nelson (and they’re only interested from a Florida/Texas CEV jobs point-of-view).

You use the term “political coalition” a lot, but we need to be specific about what this presumed coalition is actually supporting. We especially need to differentiate between support for the VSE as originally articulated by the Bush Administration and O’Keefe and support for the ESAS/Constellation implementation plan as developed and executed by Griffin and NASA since O’Keefe’s departure.

Based on the passage of the last NASA authorization bill, one could argue that there is (or at least was) broad political support (whether it was a formal coalition or not) for the VSE. I won’t argue with that.

But I don’t see much evidence of a coalition for Ares I or even for the ESAS/Constellation plan. The authorization bill was not specific to ESAS/Constellation/Ares I. IIRC, only VSE and CEV (both O’Keefe acronyms) were mentioned in the bill, and the bill was passed before Griffin rolled out ESAS. Since then, there have been no new NASA authorization bills. Worse, on the appropriations side, the new Congress appears to be unwilling to fund the $700 million increase necessary in FY 2007 to keep the ESAS/Constellation implementation plan and the Ares I/CEV developments on schedule and under budget. If anything, that’s indicative of impotent or absent coalition for ESAS/Constellation/Ares I/CEV.

So, to sum up, although you could argue that there was a political coalition supportive of the VSE, there is little evidence in the Congressional record of a coalition specifically supportive of the ESAS/Constellation plan. And even if we assume there was a successful ESAS/Constellation coalition at one time, the FY 2007 budget debacle indicates that this coalition is now gone or has been rendered impotent.

The key question in my mind is whether the Congressional goodwill that enabled the passage of the last NASA authorization bill and its endorsement of the VSE can be salvaged. The FY 2007 budget debacle indicates “no”, but I am hopeful that the event forces Griffin & Co. to come forward with a revised and more sustainable implementation plan for the VSE.

If Griffin and Co. don’t take this opportunity, then Ares I/CEV will limp along on level or declining funding until the new President comes into power, at which point Ares V and the rest of ESAS/Constellation will get the axe. Then the question will become whether the new NASA Administrator is allowed to come forward with an exploration plan that allows the agency to retain most of the VSE budget, or whether those dollars will go elsewhere and NASA’s budget starts heading downward and exploration is again put on hold (as under Clinton).

“It’s like saying we shouldn’t have faught the Iraq war.”

Although I brought it up, I think you’re taking the wrong lessons from the the Iraq analogy.

Both Iraq and ESAS were rapidly and poorly planned.

But a war (or a police action or what have you) is very different from a discretionary development program in terms of how easily a new President or Congress can stop it.

It’s not easy at all for a new President or Congress to extricate the U.S. from military action once its started. Witness Vietnam or even our continuing military presence in S. Korea, the Pacific, and Europe.

But a discretionary development program is very easy to de-fund and bring to a halt. That’s exactly what the Clinton Administration did to the Superconducting Supercollider, and that program was much further along than NASA’s lunar return will be when Bush II leaves office. In fact, it’s also what Congress almost did to Space Station Freedom before Gore brought the Russians into the program.

No amount of ESAS/Constellation support from us is going to make a lick of difference when President Clinton II, Guiliani, McCain, or Obama take office. They will have no vested interest in ESAS, will see no return from ESAS until the second term of their successor, will see a huge payment still to be made on Ares V and the rest of Constellation, and will have much higher priority budget problems to fund. Worse, dollars to donuts, NASA is also going to hand the new President a technically crippled, unsafe, over-budget, and behind-schedule Ares I/CEV program.

It’s unavoidable — we are already looking at another Superconducting Supercollider situation when the new President takes office. Unlike Iraq, which the new President will have to deal with, it will be very easy for the new White house to cut Constellation’s purse strings, and they will have every possible incentive to do so.

Again, the only question in my mind is whether Griffin & Co. manage to change course before then or, if not, whether there will still be an opportunity for the new NASA Administrator to salvage some of the VSE funding.

“we have to deal with the mess we’ve created, however messy it is.”

I guess it depends on what your definition of “mess” is.

If Ares I was just suboptimal in one or more ways or merely inferior to other options, I’d agree with you and say “press on”. No design is ever perfect, and optimizing between safety, performance, cost, and schedule necessitates compromises on one or more of those criteria.

But Ares I not just suboptimal or inferior. Ares I is downright dangerous to CEV flight crews. Whether it’s the reversed centers of gravity and mass during ascent, the dangerous loads being transmitted through the lower solid rocket motor interfaces and seals from the mass of the CEV and 5th segment, or the combination of underpowered initial orbit with a perigee that lies inside the Earth and an orbit circularization motor that must perform multiple burns but is not designed to do so, we already know that Ares I possesses several fatal flight safety flaws. Unlike Shuttle, where the deadly combination of fragile TPS and side-mount configuration was not discovered until after the Columbia accident, we know that these Ares I flaws exist now, that they are endemic to the design, and that we have no other choice but to pursue a different vehicle unless we want to kill astronauts at higher rates than what the Shuttle has done. (And that assumes Ares I survives testing, which I find doubtful).

So from a technical standpoint alone, it’s time for NASA to cut its losses. Except to save face for Mike Griffin, there’s no reason to wait until there’s a new President and a new NASA Administrator to change course.

In fact, if we want to salvage the VSE budget, we have a better chance of doing so now under a President that’s vested in the program than under a new President that has no vested interest in the program.

“SEI died not solely because of its cost; it died because it did not have a large political coalition behind it.”

I disagree with that interpretation of history. SEI never achieved a political coalition (large or otherwise) because of its price tag. (More precisely, SEI’s price tag was too high relative to its low returns and the long timeframe for those returns.) So SEI did “die” because of its price tag (and, to a lesser extent, NASA infighting and partisan politics).

“The political coalition is far more important than any technical decisions”

Again, I would agree with you if the technical issues were ones of optimization within the design or inferiority to other designs.

But technical decisions do (and should) trump politics when a design contains fatal flight safety flaws and there is no way to avoid those flaws without switching to another design.

“Dr. Griffin picking unnecessary fights with people who should be neutral if not his friends, and a thousand nibbles from people supporting alternative plans, are well on the way to destroying the effort.”

Again, per my text and prior posts above, Griffin’s lack of political sensitivity or scores of blogosphere critiques are not going to influence one iota what happens when the new White House takes office. Even if Ares I/CEV development miraculously succeeds, Griffin & Co. have given NASA’s ESAS/Constellation implementation plan such an expensive, long, and low-return structure that it will be extremely tempting and extremely easy for the new President to terminate the VSE well before the first metal for Ares V is cut.

Better that folks with the ears of influential NASA managers, Congressional aides, and White House staffers try to fix things now.

Hoping for the best (especially in the face of overwhelming odds) is not a strategy for success.

That would have been nice — and, if you go back to the archives, you’ll note that I argued for pretty much exactly your plan, and was ridiculed for it. The majority of the participants in this forum at that time insisted that the “stick” was the only way to go.

Here and now, if we can evolve in the direction of your plan, without appearing to stop and start over, I would support it even now. The EELVs (and real authentic commercial vehicles) were and are a better choice for a whole host of reasons. . . .

But, that isn’t what happened and that’s not where we are. It’s like saying we shouldn’t have faught the Iraq war. Maybe so, but we can’t go back and un-fight it now, we have to deal with the mess we’ve created, however messy it is.

As with SEI, there will be no second chance for at least another decade, probably more in the absence of another stimulus like Columbia.

I agree one-hundred percent. Which is exactly why we have to go forward. SEI died not solely because of its cost; it died because it did not have a large political coalition behind it. The VSE does, or did, but — for the best of reasons — people like you are doing their very best to erode it.

The political coalition is far more important than any technical decisions, and a combination of the selection of the Ares-1, Dr. Griffin picking unnecessary fights with people who should be neutral if not his friends, and a thousand nibbles from people supporting alternative plans, are well on the way to destroying the effort. I think we can survive the first bad decision; we may be able to survive Dr. Griffin; but there is no chance we will survive if the nibbling continues forever. Remember: even if you win, and somehow get a new plan this decade, the nibbling will only start again from another quarter from all those who insist that the stick (or their own third-party plan) was the only possible way to go.

— Donald

Or, the best of all options…

a reformed George Abbey!

The betting can start now…

“Well, Anonymous, it sounds like you actually agree with me, that there is not a politically realistic alternative to going forward with ESAS.”

No, I disagree with that. See the recommendation at the end of my last response to your earlier posts.

If you get rid of Ares I, shift all of NASA’s medium-lift LEO requirements to private sector vehicles, and accelerate Ares V (or Direct or some other in-house NASA HLV build), you can have the best of all worlds (continued NASA jobs and coalition, larger commercial markets, and an accelerated lunar campaign).

But you have to kill Ares I.

“I think we all agree that Ares-1 was a mistake”

Absolutely. But unlike you, I would kill it in a heartbeat for the proposal above (or anything remotely similar).

“While you may be correct in your analysis of what the next Administration will do, I suspect (and hope) that the desire not to withdraw from human spaceflight”

It’s not a question of whether the next Administration will withdraw from human space flight. They’ll still have the ISS (and maybe Ares I) to “show the flag” and “fly the eagle” on.

In fact, the continued existence of ISS makes it easier for the next Administration to junk the lunar program or any other exploration effort. They can point to the ISS to satisfy national pride regarding human space flight, talk about all its supposed “benefits”, while trashing the Bush’s lunar debacle as “too expensive” and putting the VSE dollars to use outside NASA.

“Politically, we’ve got to make it work, then substitute a better launch vehicle later on, once there is a reason for it to exist.”

No, politically you have to get it right from the start.

As with SEI, there will be no second chance for at least another decade, probably more in the absence of another stimulus like Columbia.

“I nominate “Anonymous” to be the next NASA Administrator.”

Thanks for the high compliments.

Who knows? Maybe I’m Mike Griffin’s actual persona, unconstrained by the Florida and Texas politicians that got him confirmed? Or maybe I’m a regretful Sean O’Keefe, wishing I had stayed at the NASA helm a little longer? Or, Dan Goldin, wishing that I could have gotten the human space flight program to work a little better-faster-cheaper like JPL’s robotic missions?

Or, the best of all options…

a reformed George Abbey!

The betting can start now…

“The existance of the Space Station was a prerequisit for the political approval of COTS.”

No, it wasn’t. NASA has purchased commercial services (ELV launches) for its robotic spacecraft for almost two decades now. The human space flight program could have adopted that approach, even for a portion of its requirements, years ago. It just never had the incentive, in the face of a huge and entrenched Shuttle workforce and bureaucracy, to do so.

What finally forced NASA to experiment with commercial services for the human space flight program was the loss of Columbia. Faced with the clear inferiority of the crippled Shuttle design, and looking at the prospect of a Presidentally mandated 2010 retirement with no timely transportation alternatives in sight, NASA finally had a strong enough incentive to overcome decades of Shuttle entrenchment.

Whether the ISS existed only in CAD drawings or on orbit is really immaterial to NASA making this decision. There would have been a U.S. human space flight program regardless. ISS needs give specificity to the commercial service requirements, but those requirements and specifics could easily have been for some other human space flight activity. What was vastly more important to the decision was the existence (or projected non-existence) of the in-house government human space transportation vehicle (the Space Shuttle).

This is even more true for a human lunar base, which does not need the kinds of lengthy, complex, on-orbit assembly that the ISS requires. Although one could weakly argue that the Shuttle supplies certain unique capabilities that were necessary to build ISS, the same does not hold true for lunar base buildup (or for a properly designed space station, which is another story). A lunar base (or a rationale space station) can be designed simply from the get-go to leverage existing or developing commercial transportation capabilities. That way NASA can focus on what government does best — research and exploration, not building and running cost-effective infrastructure.

Again, there’s no reason that NASA has to build a lunar base (or a smartly designed space station) before it starts turning transportation responsibilities over to the private sector. In fact, Government 101 tells us that the proper division of labor in any taxpayer-supported endeavour is to contract with the private sector to cost-effectively meet routine needs and let government agencies focus on the dangerous, the cutting-edge, or the general welfare that is not congruent with market needs or private sector capabilities.

“If ESAS and the existing vehicles really can be undercut by new generation vehicles, the latter are ultimately likely to displace them, in much the same way the events ultimately forced expendables to displace the Shuttle.”

But again, why wait two decades for this to happen? Why not start killing CEV variants and Ares now, completely shift ISS to commercial vehicles, and rethink the lunar architecture to leverage commercial capabilities from the start?

“I would not be opposed to any of your alternatives. They do not have political approval, and I don’t think they’re very likely to get it; Constelation has a political coalition behind it. Get me a political coalition representing a large fraction of the various interests in government and the aerospace industry behind one of your alternatives, and get it approved by an Administration and Congress and then I’ll vote for killing ESAS — but not the other way around. I am not prepared to give up an existing political coalition for a dream, especially when I doubt it is politically possible to take the government out of lift to LEO except gradually over time as commercial space demonstrates their wares in operation.”

The problem with this kind of logic is that it accepts a patently bad situation and advocates no prescription for change, in the hope that the situation will get better. I don’t mean to get political, but that’s what we’ve done in Iraq for the past several years.

Unlike a war, which a White House or Congress cannot easily disengage from, when you undertake a massive, multi-year, non-military, discretionary government program, you have to get it right from the start. Because they are discretionary and subject to new White House budget proposals every year, they are very easy to kill, even with the support of a self-interested Congressional coalition. (Witness the Superconducting Supercollider.)

Per my response to Spacebull, we are almost certainly facing that situation when the next White House takes office. I would argue that the ESAS/VSE/Ares lunar return effort is already dead due to a large number of defects in its technical details, budgetary approach, and timeframe vice the political process.

I’d rather stand on the side of “better” now and hope that I and my fellows can present the next Administration with an attractive alternative for keeping the VSE alive than face our own Iraq-like debacle and retreat a couple years from now.

Even better, I’d like to see NASA and Griffin come to their senses now, even if they lose a little face (better than being remembered as another Rumsfeld). NASA doesn’t have to turn everything in human space flight over the private sector now… just more. Kill Ares I and CEV, put another half-billion on COTS to make sure there is a domestic ISS transport system, and use the remaining billions to accelerate Ares V (or some better HLV a la Direct) so the NASA workforce has something to do and we’re locked into actual lunar hardware by the time the next Administration arrives. That’s an affordable, effective, and politically viable (in terms of both acceptable timeframe and preserving NASA jobs) human space exploration program.

With the way the program is headed now, we’ll be lucky if we get Ares I after the next White House is through with us…

Well, Anonymous, it sounds like you actually agree with me, that there is not a politically realistic alternative to going forward with ESAS. While you may be correct in your analysis of what the next Administration will do, I suspect (and hope) that the desire not to withdraw from human spaceflight plus the lack of easy (reading low-up-front-cost) alternatives will keep things going forward.

I think we all agree that Ares-1 was a mistake, but that’s where we are. Politically, we’ve got to make it work, then substitute a better launch vehicle later on, once there is a reason for it to exist.

— Donald

Considering that Bush has effectively cancelled the Shuttle program, and created the “ISS crew/cargo service program”, I don’t think you can say “Mr. free market Bush didn’t even try”.

I stand corrected. You are one-hundred precent right.

— Donald

“A lot of people seem to be focused right now on giving Congress an alternative approach. This way, if they want to nix it, they have an alternative to choose.”

Congress really isn’t the issue. To a certain extent, Congressmen are like sheep — show them that you’re spending money in their district or state and they’ll follow, largely regardless of whether the money is being spent wisely. Spend money in enough districts and our form of representative democracy will sustain stupendous expenditures on stupendously stupid programs for stunningly long periods of time.

The issue is the Executive Branch, which does not always have to answer to the “all politics is local” syndrome and must implement its programs in a somewhat rationale and minimally effective way.

Ares I is unlikely to meet that minimal bar when the next Administration takes office. From inadequate power that places CEV in an “orbit” that intersects the Earth’s mantle, to a reversed CG/CM, to dangerous mass loads being transmitted through the interfaces between the solid rocket motor segments, to expensive flight tests that don’t reflect the new 5-segment booster, there’s a pretty good chance that Ares I will be technically dead upon on the arrival of the new White House team.

Add to that a very expensive and NASA-unique heavy booster development in Ares V that is just ramping up in funding as the new White House team arrives, an ESAS/Constellation budget that leaves almost no funding for actual lunar exploration or space infrastructure development beyond the transportation system, and a timeline that won’t produce any results beyond what Apollo achieved until the second term of the second President after the current Bush Administration… Well, even if Ares I is still limping along technically, Ares V/Constellation/ESAS will be budgetarily and politically dead upon the arrival of the next Administration.

The main question is what the new White House does with those dollars. When ESAS/Constellation/Ares V get cancelled (and maybe Ares I with them), does NASA lose those dollars intended for the VSE? Or is there a viable alternative?

From higher-leverage R&D investments (nanotech, biotech, infotech), to ongoing wars in the Muslim world, to the burgeoning Medicare and Social Security impact of the baby boomer retirement, I think it’s very likely that the budget intended for the VSE, and the VSE itself, will be lost. In the face of so many huge, near-term budgetary demands, a new White House with nothing invested in the VSE will not continue to fund a long-term space exploration program with so many drawbacks and issues and such low, non-specific returns and lengthy timeframes. Things may stumble along for a year or two on Texas and Florida earmarks, but like major military development programs, if the White House thinks it’s a stupid expenditure, the ESAS/Constellation/Ares implementation of the VSE will die sooner rather than later.

It’s just a question of whether anyone can convince the new White House that there are effective alternatives to ESAS/Constellation/Ares so NASA can retain those dollars. If so, the VSE can be sustained in another form. If not, we can kiss U.S. government-sponsored space exploration goodbye for another generation.

And who knows… if NASA can’t do any better than ESAS/Constellation/Ares, that may be a good thing in the long-run.

DON SAID: I am not prepared to give up an existing political coalition for a dream, especially when I doubt it is politically possible to take the government out of lift to LEO except gradually over time as commercial space demonstrates their wares in operation. Note that Mr. free market Bush didn’t even try. . . .

– Al