Yesterday marked the third anniversary of President Bush’s speech at NASA Headquarters where he unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration. The anniversary passed quietly; the closest thing to coverage of the anniversary yesterday was a Houston Chronicle article about the budget pressures facing NASA because of the lack of an FY07 budget for the agency. Maybe that absence of coverage was because the anniversary fell on a Sunday of a three-day weekend (with people more interested in, say, the NFL playoffs or the season premiere of 24), or perhaps because the Vision seems to be in fairly good shape, especially when compared to the brief, unfortunate history of its predecessor exploration program, SEI.
However, as I note in an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, the next two years may be the most critical for the long-term future of the Vision. The budget crunch NASA is currently facing, relatively tepid public support, and continuing rumors about technical problems with the Ares 1 in particular all pose near-term challenges for NASA. While it’s unlikely that Congress or the White House will make major changes to the Vision in the next two years, all bets are off in 2009 when a new president takes office. Will he or she inherit a program beset by problems and limited public support, or one that is relatively healthy? That could make all the difference when Bush’s successor decides what direction NASA should take in his or her administration.
I don’t know that programmatic health or public support for the VSE will make much difference when the new President takes office in 2009. Civil space activities in general will remain a low budgetary priority, especially as the costs of the baby boomer retirement, Medicare, and the war on terror continue to escalate. And unlike George W.’s experience with Columbia and his father’s SEI effort, all the leading candidates have no experience with or predisposition to supporting human space flight. Whoever wins, they will be very tempted to cancel Ares V, LSAM, and the rest of NASA’s lunar return effort so those dollars can be put to work outside NASA. The one thing that could stop this highly likely scenario from happening would be sunk costs — i.e., a substantial amount of dollars have already been put into building lunar hardware so we might as well let NASA finish the job. Unfortunately, by sinking so many dollars and so much time into Ares I, which is just another LEO truck, there will be no significant dollars sunk into the development of actual exploration systems or metal bent on actual exploration hardware by 2009. In the end, the VSE will become little more than an extended SEI. Once again, no human exploration effort (or even substantial progress towards one) will be mounted, ATK will have retained its solid-rocket motor business, LockMart will have stolen the human space flight contractor lead from Boeing, and, if we’re lucky, the Space Shuttle will be retired in favor of Orion/Ares I and/or (maybe) Falcon/Kistler for ISS delivery. Not much else appears likely to change, and an historic opportunity for NASA and human space exploration will probably be lost.
It’s worth differentiating between the VSE and ESAS so that the ultimate failure of NASA’s latest human exploration effort does not get laid at the feet of the VSE. The policy underpinnings of the VSE — science-driven human and robotic exploration, regular achievements to demonstrate progress, full leveraging of private sector capabilities, minimal infrastructure to maintain budget flexibility and sustainability, pay as you go, competition — are fundamentally very solid. Where ESAS and NASA implementation have strayed from the VSE’s tenets — treating science as an afterthought, reducing or eliminating key robotic programs and milestones, keeping private sector capabilities outside the mainstream program, creating in-house competition to private sector capabilities, expanding NASA’s space flight infrastructure, reducing budget flexibility with large purchases, committing to large purchases in the absence of competition — these are the fundamental ills causing the symptoms we see today in Constellation and NASA at large — a lack of budget flexibility, a lack of professional support, and questionable sustainability.
And as to technical problems, short 60-day (or 90-day, etc.) studies (or blue-ribbon panels, etc.) like ESAS almost never get technical details right. That’s what lengthy, involved, competitive procurements are for. One only has to look at the track record of the studies and panels that created the ISS and SEI, for example, to see the folly of this “twenty-people-can-figure-this-out-in-two-months” hubris. Many of the rumored technical woes on Ares I — inadequate TVC to compensate for the moments induced by the CG/CM placement on liftoff, inadequate performance to orbit reducing CEV capabilities, lack of appropriate mass/performance margin at this stage of development, potentially dangerous loads through the SRM interfaces — can be attributed to design decisions by NASA managers since ESAS. But even when you set those issues aside, there are still large and important inconsistencies in ESAS itself — the high cost of human rating EELVs versus the lower cost of developing those EELVs in the first place, high g-loads in ESAS EELV abort scenarios versus lower g-loads in LockMart studies of Atlas abort scenarios, crediting certain Shuttle components with safety heritage when they will require substantial changes in design or operating environment — all of which beg for ESAS to be revisited from an independent viewpoint. Unfortunately, it is probably too late to revisit ESAS in any detail and make a significant change in implementation strategy at NASA before the next President takes office.
So on top of the budgetary pressures that will predispose any new President to cancel the still-to-be-appropriated lunar return effort and on top of any Ares I technical issues that may or may not emerge, there will probably be technical advisors revisiting some of the questionable underpinnings of the ESAS study itself. When you total it up, it does not bode well at all for the VSE and NASA.
Albeit a minor blow, this also doesn’t bode well for international contributions to the lunar effort.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070115/ap_on_sc/japan_moon_mission
Here’s a fun story from today’s Washington Post:
Cutbacks Impede Climate Studies
U.S. Earth Programs In Peril, Panel Finds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501049.html?sub=AR
“The government’s ability to understand and predict hurricanes, drought and climate changes of all kinds is in danger because of deep cuts facing many Earth satellite programs and major delays in launching some of its most important new instruments, a panel of experts has concluded.
“The two-year study by the National Academy of Sciences, released yesterday, determined that NASA’s earth science budget has declined 30 percent since 2000. It stands to fall further as funding shifts to plans for a manned mission to the moon and Mars. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meanwhile, has experienced enormous cost overruns and schedule delays with its premier weather and climate mission.
“As a result, the panel said, the United States will not have the scientific information it needs in the years ahead to analyze severe storms and changes in Earth’s climate unless programs are restored and funding made available.
“NASA’s budget has taken a major hit at the same time that NOAA’s program has fallen off the rails,” said panel co-chairman Berrien Moore III of the University of New Hampshire. “This combination is very, very disturbing, and it’s coming at the very time that we need the information most.”
____________________________
In lieue of actually cutting carbon emissions, Bush promised a vigorous research program to study global warming.
When he announced VSE, he said it would only modest cuts in other NASA programs.
After Katrina, Bush said never again.
Instead, what do we have? Budget raids. Gutted programs. Bureaucratic mismanagement. A stubborn refusal to fund the things we truly need while claiming otherwise.
We can’t afford to go without these environmental programs. But, the administration’s fiscal policies make it impossible to fund them properly. Unless, of course, we cut back on something else. That something may well be VSE.
You can focus your ire on Democrats and Congress and a president who won’t be in office for another two years, but the real problem lies elsewhere.
Reading is fundamental…
“You can focus your ire”
What ire? There are words of disappointment in the first post, but none of anger.
“on Democrats and Congress”
Where are the Democrats mentioned? Where is Congress mentioned? Neither is referenced even once.
“and a president who won’t be in office for another two years,”
He/she is not angry at the next President. They’re simply stating the likelihood that the next President will terminate the lunar effort unless NASA changes course and gets development of actual lunar hardware underway well before 2009. It’s not misplaced anger at a White House that does not exist yet — it’s just a (probably accurate) assessment of what is likely to happen in 2009.
“but the real problem lies elsewhere”
Sure, Bush has screwed up lots of things, and the White House could have set the budget bar at NASA a little higher. But after rolling out the VSE, the White House has had little to do with what’s been going on at NASA. Current budget problems — Constellation, Earth observation, or otherwise — are really an outgrowth of defects in the ESAS/Constellation plan and NASA Administrator Mike Griffin’s priorities.
Although the last Republican Congress created the current flat funding shortfall in NASA’s (and almost every other federal agency’s) 2007 budget, it’s not that hard to foresee level funding occuring at least once over the 15-20 year lifetime of NASA’s human lunar exploration program. Unfortunately, the high-cost, lack of competition, and all-or-nothing approach of the ESAS plan is constructed in such a way as to guarantee programmatic implosion when such highly predictable budget problems do occur. And instead of making the necessary adjustments to the Constellation programs that grew out of ESAS, Griffin’s preference is to cut other programs, as he already did once in the science and aeronautics areas.
It wasn’t Bush that picked the Ares I option. It was Griffin. It wasn’t Bush that cut science programs last time around. It was Griffin. Apportion your ire appropriately.
It wasn’t Bush that picked the Ares I option. It was Griffin. It wasn’t Bush that cut science programs last time around. It was Griffin. Apportion your ire appropriately.
Someone wanna remind me who appointed Griffin?
Jeff, excellent analysis, I think.
The real challenge facing the Vision won’t come for two more years. When the Vision marks its fifth anniversary on January 14th, 2009, the country will be on the threshold of inaugurating a new president.
Actually, I think it’s more like a minimum of 2.5 years, and possibly more than three years. As you state, this is unlikely to be a priority of the new Administration, whoever they are.
Will he (or she) inherit a program that has made steady progress over the previous two years,
This, of course, is the key variable. To succeed, the VSE must stay out of the news until Orion is far enough along that continuing is politically easier than killing.
vehicles whose development is experiencing problems and delays
There would be no quicker route into the news. Opponents of ESAS are certainly correct about one thing: Dr. Griffin has made most of the decisions, the bad and the good. None of the economic problems the project has faced were hard to predict. Dr. Griffin shoulder’s much of the responsibility for the outcome of ESAS, bad or good. And, Ferris is correct. Dr. Griffin’s boss is where the buck stops, although, as with the many disasters his Administration has brought about, I do not expect Mr. Bush to face up to. or even acknowledge, responsibility for any failure of the VSE. . . .
— Donald
My guess is the VSE will be derailed significantly within a year or two. We will likely have bigger fish to fry, and our federal monies will be required to clean up a mess the nature of which we haven’t experienced since 1941-1945.
It is possible we are not ready to set sail yet, perish the thought. Some of us think way ahead and dream of better lives, but most do not (or cannot). And it seems the latter is calling the shots for the moment.
I think that several of you are missing an important issue and it might be worthwhile to read Jeff Foust’s Space Review article to refresh your memory.
When the VSE was rolled out three years ago, NASA was supposed to get small but steady increases in its budget, with the expectation that it would reach $18 billion by 2008. None of those increases really materialized, and it now seems likely that NASA will have a budget about $1.5 billion or so less than what was originally proposed in 2004.
Note that critics of the VSE said that they wanted to see the administration maintain its funding commitment. And note that even that initial budget proposal–rolled out by O’Keefe–contained a lie, that the ramp-down of the shuttle would actually result in savings before 2010.
Face it, Griffin arrived at NASA to discover that his predecessor (and OMB/White House) had lied about how much shuttle would cost over the next several years. He also got none of the budget increases that were promised three years ago. Add to that the fact that the Republican Congress left town without passing a budget last year.
So, before you start hitting Griffin too hard, consider who has stuck him in this difficult situation.
Of course, I know that there are plenty of people who will instantly yell “Bill Clinton!”
Dave: initial budget proposal–rolled out by O’Keefe–contained a lie
Far be it from me to defend the Bush Administration, but that seems a little strong. I’ve seen little evidence that anybody deliberately lied about the cost of continuing the Shuttle program, or even about the plans for the wider NASA budget. They were wrong, but that is different from lying. There may have a little (or a lot) of wishful thinking, but that again is different from lying.
There certainly was the larger lie that we could simultaneously have tax cuts, conduct multiple major wars, not cut any politically important projects, and still end up with a balanced budget — oh, and go to Mars besides.
Mr. Bush has taken it to unprecedented extremes, but there is nothing new about this wider lie, particularly (but not exclusively) among Republicans.
— Donald
Mr. Blow:
I was speaking in general terms about those on the right who, if this thing implodes, will blame Congress and the Democrats instead of those who those responsible for planning and implementing the program.
Bush appointed Griffin. And O’Keefe. He approved the VSE plan. He approved the budgets that cut NASA’s science funding. The program is carried out by his administration and appointees (which now includes Michael Brown’s former deputy from FEMA).
Of course Griffin deserves blame if things go badly. But, Bush has ultimate responsibility for this. He is the president. VSE is his administration’s initiative, and if it works, he’ll be there front and center to claim credit.
“Someone wanna remind me who appointed Griffin?”
Yes, Bush appointed Griffin.
But to use an Iraq analogy, both Bush and Rumsfeld share responsibility for mismanaging the Iraq war (along with Cheney, Rice, etc.).
And Bush is much more involved in Iraq than he is in the implementation of the VSE. It’s been Griffin, not Bush, who has been deviating from the VSE as laid out by Griffin’s predecessor (O’Keefe) and the Bush White House.
I’m no Bush fan, but to imply that the President (whoever he or she is) bears all or most of the responsibility for errors in setting up NASA studies, inflexible budget planning by NASA leaders, and poor technical decisions by NASA managers, is a little extreme and rather ludicrous.
“To succeed, the VSE must stay out of the news until Orion is far enough along that continuing is politically easier than killing.”
True, but Orion and Ares I are not the problem. Budget and rumored technical issues aside, Orion and Ares I will be well along in development by 2009. In the absence of a miracle in COTS or the commercial sector at large or the rumored technical debacles on Ares I, it will be difficult for the next President to cancel Orion and Ares I, especially given the poor alternatives (continued Shuttle flights and/or continued reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles).
The problem from an exploration point-of-view is that no actual lunar hardware — heavy lift (Ares V), lunar lander (LSAM), etc. — will be under development by 2009. So even if Orion and Ares I are healthy and performing, it will be very easy for the new White House to cancel the rest of the VSE — the part that actually prepares for exploration — and redirect the remaining budget ramp-up elsewhere.
This is the true tragedy of the ESAS implementation plan, Griffin’s overarching decisions, and NASA’s cultural obsession with astronaut safety and ETO transporation ownership. If you want NASA to transform itself from a LEO trucking company to an exploration agency (as I do), then ESAS is the exactly wrong way to execute the VSE in terms of political and budgetary strategy.
“My guess is the VSE will be derailed significantly within a year or two. We will likely have bigger fish to fry, and our federal monies will be required to clean up a mess the nature of which we haven’t experienced since 1941-1945.”
Unfortunately, I agree most with this assessment.
“Face it, Griffin arrived at NASA to discover that his predecessor (and OMB/White House) had lied about how much shuttle would cost over the next several years.”
I disagree completely with this interpretation. Griffin chose not to hold the Shuttle program (and human space flight program at large) responsible for the budget savings they had promised to his predecessor (O’Keefe) as part of their buy-in to the VSE. Instead of holding Shuttle and human space flight managers responsible, Griffin chose to punish science and aeronautics instead. He probably did so either because he did not want to see human space flight (or other NASA civil servant) layoffs on his watch or because avoiding human space flight civil servant layoffs at all costs was the price he paid to Senators Hutchison and Nelson for his confirmation.
And from a technical and budgetary point-of-view, it makes little sense for a program that is flying fewer vehicles not to see a declining budget. It’s just lazy and timid on the part of Griffin and the Shuttle and human space flight managers not to extract savings as orbiters retire.
“He also got none of the budget increases that were promised three years ago. Add to that the fact that the Republican Congress left town without passing a budget last year.”
He (Griffin) also constructed a Constellation budget that, contrary to the VSE and based on erroneous ESAS analysis (that he also set up), sucked up all the spare dollars at NASA and provides the agency with practically no budget flexibility. Any reasonable observer of federal budgets could have predicted that NASA would run into external budget problems at some point in the 15- to 20-year lunar build-up and would have left some slack in the system to accommodate it. But Griffin chose to do the exact opposite.
“So, before you start hitting Griffin too hard, consider who has stuck him in this difficult situation.”
I don’t mean to pick unnecessarily on any NASA Administrator. It’s a tough job regardless.
But Griffin’s current situation is one almost entirely of his own making.
Anonymous wrote:
“And Bush is much more involved in Iraq than he is in the implementation of the VSE. It’s been Griffin, not Bush, who has been deviating from the VSE as laid out by Griffin’s predecessor (O’Keefe) and the Bush White House.”
Umm, refresh my memory here. Did Bush leave the White House at the same time O’Keefe left NASA? Are we somehow dealing with a different administration that has veered from what the previous one set out to do?
This is not a credible argument. If Griffin started doing things that were contrary to what the Administration had agreed to, then isn’t it Bush’s responsibility to say, “WTF is this? This is not what we decided upon. We talked about this and if we do it your way, it’s not going to work.”
If Bush didn’t do that, then he’s not being very responsible. The same thing happened in Iraq. The administration had policies regarding the Iraqi army and De-Baathification, and Paul Bremer went in did the exact opposite. You can blame Bremer, but it was ultimately Bush’s responsibility to make sure policy is being followed. You can’t just delegate things and walk away from any responsibility.
“If Griffin started doing things that were contrary to what the Administration had agreed to, then isn’t it Bush’s responsibility to say, “WTF is this?”
Well, actually before Bush, it’s the science advisor’s (Marburger’s) job to ask those questions. But since Griffin was Marburger’s handpicked choice for NASA Administrator, that’s not going to happen in this White House.
“The administration had policies regarding the Iraqi army and De-Baathification, and Paul Bremer went in did the exact opposite.”
This is simply not true, but this space forum is not the place to discuss it.
Again, I’m no fan of Bush. But to expect one person (President or otherwise) to personally oversee the detailed planning, budgeting, and execution of the hundreds of multi-billion dollar development projects and operations spread across a multi-trillion dollar federal government is a little extreme and rather ludicrous.
I don’t expect him to get into that much detail, but at some point he has to realize this isn’t following the path he laid out. You figured it out, and you don’t even have a name.
Um, not to get into a debate about Iraq, but please see Imperial Life in the Emerald City and Fiasco. They are well-sourced books by responsible reporters. Most of the people working these issues on the ground were startled by what Bremer did after he took over. It was contrary to what they had been working toward, and they protested vigorously. Jay Garner told Rummy as much.
NASA’s original mission was to advance the technology of flight. Now we do not have the money to develop technology because we have to fly missions. We do not need to prove that people can work in space, on the Moon or in orbit. We need a way to get there at a practical cost. If private industry can do this, then NASA’s role is to support that industry. The VSE is like trying to build a permanent base at the Souh Pole with dogsleds, when we should be designing C-130s. I see little chance it will win Congressional or public support when the cost becomes known.
We can walk on the moon, or we can open the sky. We cannot do both.