Here are the most basic numbers for NASA in the proposed FY2008 budget released this morning by the White House:
Science, Aeronautics, and Exploration: $10.483B
Exploration Capabilities: $6.792B
Office of Inspector General $0.035B
TOTAL: $17.310B
That would be an increase of over one billion dollars compared to what the agency will most likely get for FY07, once Congress finishes work on the joint funding resolution. More details will be released this afternoon by NASA and published on the agency’s web site.
I fear that a budget increase for NASA amounts to a red flag that only draws attention to the VSE. Most likely, it’s a non-starter given the current Administration’s mismanagement of the overall budget and the war, and all the resulting competing priorities.
— Donald
I noticed a couple of juicy items.
LRO is already $45M over budget
Ares 1 has risks of not performing
Orion has risks of being too heavy.
Good catches by Mr. Wingo. Here’s a repost of my 2 cent analysis from the prior thread…
After a first go-over, there don’t appear to be any major suprises in the 2008 budget request for NASA, although there are many small surprises, some of which will take further digging to explain:
Exploration — Griffin is still trying to stay the course on Ares I and Orion, but he admits that the impact of the 2007 reduction to exploration is unknown. In his speech, Griffin is worried about the Shuttle gap widening and its potential impact on the human space flight workforce.
As an aside, I still don’t understand Griffin’s obsession with this workforce issue. I agree that NASA needs to retain key folks with critical skills through the transition, but NASA can’t afford to build Ares V and LSAM and return to the Moon unless the Ares 1/Orion workforce is considerably smaller than the Shuttle workforce. From that perspective, a lengthy gap may be a good thing — better that non-critical folks leave on their own accord than through buyouts or forced separations. It’s odd that I have such a different impression of the Apollo/Shuttle gap experience than Griffin. It would be interesting to look at his resume. It’s almost as if he was forced to leave NASA during that time period, and it’s left a big impression on him ever since.
What I don’t yet fully understand about the exploration budget is why it’s going down from the 2007 request to the 2008 request. This may be part of a full-cost accounting change (and thus has no bearing on the Ares 1/Orion projects) or it may be driven by the Shuttle/ISS budget increase below. Regardless, the fact that the exploration budget does go down indicates that the Bush White House is not taking any steps to accelerate Ares 1/Orion or to react to the recent Congressional reduction and its schedule implications for Ares 1/Orion.
Space Shuttle/Space Station — There is a large increase in the Shuttle/ISS budget going from the 2007 request to the 2008 request. I don’t understand yet what’s driving this — if there’s been yet another increase in Shuttle operating costs, a hiccup in ISS assembly, or just another full-cost accounting change — but it bears further investigation, especially if the dollars came out of Ares 1/Orion content.
Commercial Crew/Cargo — Griffin is staying the course here as well, although there are references to budget challenges in the later years, if commercial services cost more than what’s budgeted. If that’s the case, then Griffin promises streamlining in space operations to make up the difference. But the streamlining won’t happen on his watch, so the promise means little. If Griffin really cares about the long-term future of Commercial Crew/Cargo, better that he change the budget now than promise to achieve “management challenges†that are really up to his successor.
Science — Earth science, in particular the Global Precipitation Mission, got a boost in response a National Academies report, although the timing relative to recent accusations about the Bush White House not living up to its promises on global warming research, is interesting.
Aeronautics — Aeronautics also got a boost in 2008 in response to a National Academies report. But again, the timing relative to the Democrat-controlled Congress providing a boost to aeronautics in the 2007 budget just last week is interesting.
Innovative Partnerships — It’s way down in the fine print, but it appears that Centennial Challenges funding has been restored in the amount of $4 million per year. It’s a pittance compared to the $30 million-plus budget that the program used to have, but NASA seems to think it’s enough to do some good in the areas of solar sails, lunar (human?) rovers, and “micro-reentry†vehicles. At least there will be some new prizes going forward.
There is also a passing reference in the fine print to the purchase of flight services from the emerging commercial suborbital providers. But Griffin has mentioned this in speeches for years now and nothing has happened yet. Moreover, the document is not clear on what the budget will be or where the dollars are coming from. So I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Finally, there is also a passing reference in the fine print to the elimination of the Red Planet fund. Apparently it conflicted with “Administration policy†(huh?) and the dollars were redirected to higher priorities. So much for tapping into the venture capital community to help pathfind the way to Mars…
“I fear that a budget increase for NASA amounts to a red flag that only draws attention to the VSE. Most likely, it’s a non-starter given the current Administration’s mismanagement of the overall budget and the war, and all the resulting competing priorities.”
If the House reduction in the 2007 budget stands, I think these are legitimate concerns. I don’t think a $1 billion increase in a single year in the NASA topline can be sustained going from 2007 to 2008 — certainly not in this political and budget environment.
But what that means for the VSE is not yet clear (at least to me). If you look at NASA’s budget documents, the exploration budget is actually going down when you compare the White House’s 2007 request to today’s 2008 request. That trend may just be due to an accounting change, carryover, or something else with no real impact on Constellation and the schedule for Ares I/Orion. Griffin only mentions the 2007 House reduction in his speech, so the trend in the 2008 White House request is probably immaterial. But if there is a programmatic impact to Constellation, it could portend a continuation of the Bush White House not living up to its budget promises on the VSE, as it did in the 2007 White House request for NASA.
FWIW…
Anonymous, I continue to like your analysis.
But if there is a programmatic impact to Constellation, it could portend a continuation of the Bush White House not living up to its budget promises on the VSE, as it did in the 2007 White House request for NASA.
Unfortunately, I think this outcome very likely. The reason could be as simple as a response to the intense criticism the Administration received over the leveling off of space science funding last year. An Administration that wants to keep its head down may be trying to avoid that kind of noisy fight playing out in the press. It can only hurt them in their political competition with the Democratically controlled Congress, while gaining them nothing of substance — especially since it’s now clear they don’t consider the VSE worth investing significant political capital. (The real question is why anyone thought this Administration — or any Administration — would be likely to.)
— Donald
“Anonymous, I continue to like your analysis.”
Thanks, Mr. Robertson.
I should update my “analysis” (such as it is). The increase in space operations (Shuttle/ISS) is driven by TDRSS replenishment (see space.com), not by Shuttle increases, ISS hiccups, or accounting changes. Although I wish NASA would explore cheaper solutions to providing the TDRSS capability, at least Shuttle and ISS remain under control.
It’s still unclear to me if downward trend from the 2007 White House request to the 2008 White House request in exploration is real (and was maybe an offset for TDRSS) or just an accounting change. Will require more ferreting when I have the time.
“LRO is already $45M over budget”
This is really sad, for a few reasons:
1) It speaks poorly of MSFC management. If they can’t keep a simple robotic lunar orbiter with huge margins on budget, why are we entrusting them with Ares I? (Of course, I would have said the same thing after GP-B doubled in cost or the X-33 tank failure…)
2) It speaks poorly of exploration management at NASA headquarters. If they can’t keep a simple robotic lunar orbiter with huge margins on budget, why are we entrusting Scotty & Co. with Ares 1, Orion, and the rest of the Constellation?
3) Griffin had other choices available to him, including Pete Worden (of Clementine fame) and the Ames Research Center (of Lunar Prospector fame) or Griffin’s former Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University (which has a long string of on-budget small spacecraft success). Heck, he didn’t even have to pick and choose — just openly competed the mission and included his field centers in the competition. More missed opportunities…
“Ares 1 has risks of not performing
Orion has risks of being too heavy.”
Surprise, surprise… I hope the guys over at nasaspaceflight.com pay attention to the budget document in some detail.
you guys need to take a break from gloom and doom.
There’s a pretty good analysis on space.com that shows the numbers disparity in aeronautics and exploration and how the new agency wide accounting change skews the numbers. If you took the time to compare the original fy06,fy07 and fy08 budget projections you would see something was really off.
Really this site is getting as bad as the opends, I may just stick with nasaspaceflight.com
Anonymous: The real question, as I argued in Space News a couple of months ago, is, why are we wasting money on large lunar robots at all? We know how to land people on the moon and take off again. The polar landscape outside of the permanently shadowed craters is likely to be similar to that of the last three Apollo sites. The upper stages of crew transfer vehicles should be able to conduct mapping from orbit. If not, small low-cost vehicles should be able to do the job for tens of millions, not multiple hundreds of millions, of dollars.
In a well-planned space program, we should not be sending expensive robots to locations we’re planning to send far more capable astronauts in the foreseeable future. If Dr. Griffin does cancel the automated lander to keep Ares-1 / Orion on track, he’s only doing something he should have done in the first place.
— Donald
“There’s a pretty good analysis on space.com that shows the numbers disparity in aeronautics and exploration and how the new agency wide accounting change skews the numbers. If you took the time to compare the original fy06,fy07 and fy08 budget projections you would see something was really off.”
I did not see any such budget table on space.com. Please post a link if it exists.
I did note the disparaties between the White House’s 2007 and 2008 budget requests for exploration and space operations in my post above, and noted that I could not explain them. And I added an update after realizing that TDRSS is driving the space operations increase. Please read above.
I admit I still don’t have a handle on what’s driving the exploration decrease. It may just be accounting changes or maybe dollars were taken out of exploration for TDRSS or other NASA/White House priorities, or some combination of the two. Until I have some time to reconstruct the numbers, it’s hard for me to say.
“Really this site is getting as bad as the opends, I may just stick with nasaspaceflight.com
It’s not all gloom and doom. The Senate could reverse the $500 million plus cut that the House made to the 2007 exploration budget last week, or NASA may get a supplemental later on in 2007. The dip in the White House exploration budget may just be an accounting change, and Congress may agree with the President’s proposed $1 billion increase in the NASA topline in 2008. And the next White House may agree with Bush policy to take the savings from Shuttle retirement and apply them to hardware for a lunar return effort.
But I’d also argue that none of those scenarios are very likely. Congress-critters have stated that the Senate does not plan to make changes to the 2007 House-passed budget. NASA did not get a supplemental for Katrina damage, let alone to maintain schedule on programs in development. The White House did not live up to its VSE budget promises in its request for NASA during the past two years, resulting in cuts to science and aeronautics and the creation of significant opposition to the VSE from NASA’s own communities. A $1 billion increase in NASA’s overall budget going from 2007 to 2008 will be a huge target during Congress’s 2008 budget deliberations, especially now that Congress is controlled by a different party than the President that is proposing that increase. And regardless of who wins, the next White House will have no stake in the VSE and no actual exploration hardware will be underway, making it very easy for the next President to allow NASA to finish Ares 1/Orion for ISS transport, never start Ares V/LSAM/other lunar return hardware, and apply the Shuttle retirement savings to other priorities in a federal budget that will be highly constrained by baby boomer retirement (Social Security), rising medical costs (Medicare), a war on terrorism, and maybe even global warming (energy research).
From where I sit, Griffin and his successor are going to have to pull off at least three, maybe four, pretty big political and budgetary victories over the next three or so years to keep the ESAS plan on schedule and whole. As much as I wish it were different, those are not good odds. If I had to place a bet on a scenario, I think the most likely one is that Ares I/Orion will get stretched out, and Ares V, LSAM, and the rest of the actual lunar hardware will never get underway.
We all see reality differently, and I’d like to think that I can see both the half-full and half-empty glasses. Things could change, but I’d argue that the evidence is weighing heavily in favor of the half-empty glass right now. Please post any evidence and arguments to the contrary. It’s all healthy debate.
“I may just stick with nasaspaceflight.com”
Actually, there’s already a thread brewing over there on the items that Mr. Wingo picked up on.
FWIW…
> It’s way down in the fine print, but it appears that Centennial Challenges funding has been restored
> in the amount of $4 million per year. It’s a pittance compared to the $30 million-plus budget that the program
> used to have, but NASA seems to think it’s enough to do some good in the areas of solar sails, lunar (human?)
> rovers, and “micro-reentry†vehicles. At least there will be some new prizes going forward.
Actually, only one of those is new. The solar sail and micro reentry vehicle were announced last year (although not funded). Some of the other prizes announced last year — the astronaut glove competition, low-cost spacesuit competition, and on-orbit refueling demonstration — are gone, cancelled without actually saying so. Not to mention any chance of a follow-on to the lunar lander competition or anything new.
One interesting statement in the budget is that future Centennial Challenges will NASA’s goals in science, aeronautics, and space exploration. Not the interests of the nation, no matter what NASA’s charter says.
Here’s the space.com link http://www.space.com/news/070205_nasa_budget.html
starts with this paragraph
“Because all parts of NASA’s budget have been affected by these accounting changes, year-to-year comparisons are made that much more complicated. “
> Aeronautics — Aeronautics also got a boost in 2008 in response to a National Academies report.
Only on paper. $554M is a boost relative to what the Administration requested in FY07, but that requested was DOA. Aeronautics $890M under the FY07 joint funding resolution, about the same as FY06.
When you wipe the lipstick off the pig, that’s a 38% cut.
Things could change, but I’d argue that the evidence is weighing heavily in favor of the half-empty glass right now.
Well we could very possibly be in a new space race with China.
Remember Politics drives this effort more than anything else.
Since people are makomg all kind of rash predictions let me make a couple for the next 10 years you can shoot down .
1) China will become an important factor, they will accelerate is what is definitely a military and politically focused space effort. Unlike the former soviet Union they are also have a growing economy. The US in particular will feel threatened, especially if we do not have access to leo yet.
2) the shuttle WILL NOT be retired in 2010. At least one orbiter will be retained, flights will be limited to only a single one per year. reasoning will be more political than scientific or technically motivated.
3) Neither Britain or Japan will be able to fully develop there own programs and will join the us Effort.
4) Tensions will increase with Russia, as Putain continues to wither away at democracy in his country, US will distance itself with Russia, ESA will partner with Russia Largely led by France. This will cause more moderate countries to distance themselfs and ESA will collapse. (wow .. can’t wait to see the counter posts on this one)
5) Cots will fail to deliver, but some underdog maybe SpaceDev will come from nowhere and actually provide a stopgap solution for iss servicing..
6) It will be the Dems turn to be in trouble in 2008 elections… Here why I believe this…. And I’m not either Dem or republican, this is simple logic.
1) The Us will make a hasty retreat from Iraq, this will be preceived at least as being mediated by congress, this will be precieved as a US retreat aka vietnam. Iran will come in and fill the power vacumn.
OR
2) the US will still be in Iraq, everything will still be status quo and because the American people thought of the congress change in much the way as a white knight is brought in a hostile merger… the policy will appear to have failed.
“The upper stages of crew transfer vehicles should be able to conduct mapping from orbit.”
Maybe. Depends on if there’s any mass margin on Ares 1/Orion (unlikely for now although that could change) and on the pointing requirements.
“If not, small low-cost vehicles should be able to do the job for tens of millions, not multiple hundreds of millions, of dollars.”
Absolutely — I’m with you here. Worden had it right, and Griffin should have let him and Ames (and other folks) have a run at the LRO requirements instead of funding a small battlestar managed by a center with a poor track record on project execution.
“In a well-planned space program, we should not be sending expensive robots to locations we’re planning to send far more capable astronauts in the foreseeable future.”
I disagree with your approach here, at both a strategic and tactical level. The details at the tactical level are too numerous to get into here, but at the strategic level, I would just note that even undersea exploration takes advantage of both human and robotic divers. Debating one versus the other has long been a destructive debate within the NASA community. I thought one of the more positive and remarkable things about the VSE as rolled out by O’Keefe was ending that useless debate and marrying the two tools of human and robotic explorers in a single program of science-driven exploration.
My 2 cents… FWIW.
I’m a bit up in the air on this whole debate…
On the one hand I really have some reservations about the aries I, its only suitable for LEO and also allows for the possibility that some future administration could allow the LEO aries I but never commit to the heavy lift vehicle.
On the other hand, an aries IV variant would be overkill for LEO, and put the country in the position of having a platform that payload per cost is way to expensive. ie. the Shuttle.
It almost seems like we should try to keep the shuttle for ISS servicing and supplement it with private ventures if they ever emerge. But assuming the commerical prospects will take of is bad, remember all the materials proessing that was suppose to open up with the ISS. Galium arside chips for instance. And retiring the shuttle is needed to free up funds, in the end even if the US does come out of this with a moon program it loses for the foreseeable future a inspace repair and construction capablity. This is not unlike the situation that occurred with apollo vs. the shuttle.
This is a nasty catch 22.
I guess if I had a say in the US space effort I would do something like.
Reduce the nasa budget slightly and create a couple other agencies, which funds would be scaled appropriately over time.
Nasa would be charged with deveoloping and proofing new technologies, than turn administation over to the other agencies.
Iss for instance, designated as a national lab might fall under the NSF budget, shuttle operations too, the moon program after proven might go to a quasigoverment cislunar agency. Nasa would than be free to develop its next project. Point is having one agency that covers everthing may becoming dated.
Ed: on Aeronautics funding, NASA has changed its method of assessing overhead expenses, making it difficult to do year-to-year comparisons. The previously-cited SPACE.com article notes that when this is accounted for, aeronautics funding is essentially flat in FY08 compared to FY07.
Ed: on Aeronautics funding
Yes and it skews , all the other numbers too. When I add it up it looks like exploration gets a boost, which is why Griffin didn’t cite any problems with the numbers.
Anyone see it different?
With this kind of political gang warfare between W and Congress, I’d have to say Nasa will have to find protection and fast. Lockheed, Boeing, ATK and many others will be enlisted to lobby with $ and keep Congress from eviserating Nasa’s VSE budget in the name of killing a Bush signature policy.
It will be ugly but I think the Primes will win and Nasa will have close to what it wants for itself. When was the last time a major Nasa program was killed? Not Shuttle, Not ISS. VSE will get what it needs.
Michelle:
Since people are makomg [sic] all kind of rash predictions let me make a couple for the next 10 years you can shoot down .
Well, since you asked…
1) Keep in mind that there’s no evidence that China’s civil space program is accelerating. In fact, while there was a two-year gap between Shenzhous 5 and 6, the gap between Shenzhous 6 and 7 will be closer to three years, it now appears. That ASAT test last month, though, does complicate matters.
2) Griffin was asked in the budget briefing this afternoon if there was a chance of extending the shuttle’s lifetime beyond 2010. His response: “No.” No elaboration, no clarification, just “no”. Remember that as long as the shuttle is still flying, NASA can’t afford to do much else in the VSE other that Ares 1 and Orion—if that.
3) Neither Britain nor Japan have much in the way of exploration programs to begin with (Britain has none, and JAXA only at the level of viewgraphs.)
4) I don’t think a collapse of ESA is in the cards any time soon. Just a hunch.
5) It’s too soon right now to predict the failure (or success) of COTS. Let’s see these companies actually start building and flying some hardware first.
Michelle: It almost seems like we should try to keep the shuttle for ISS servicing and supplement it with private ventures if they ever emerge.
I would not necessarily be opposed to that, except it takes $5 billion a year just to maintain the Shuttle system, no matter how often or infrequently you fly it. Doing anything else in human spaceflight in a
less than $20 billion NASA budget — where there is a political requirement that at least half to two-thirds of the budget must be spent on non-human activities — must start with getting rid of that sunk cost ASAP. The fastest way out of our current budget crunch is to get the Shuttle off the books by 2010 and to get the development costs of Orion / Ares-1 behind us. Once we’re left with the Orion / Ares-1 operations costs (which even in the worst case should be far less than operating the Shuttle while simultaneously developing Orion / Ares-1), the hope is that would free up money to develop the rest of this or a different plan using the Orion as a crew transit vehicle in cis-lunar space.
If you keep the Shuttle flying, that’s all you can afford to do, especially if you are operating Orion at the same time.
Of course, all of this would work better if we were not developing the Ares-1 at the same time, but instead were funding modifications to the EELVs. Even if they weren’t cheaper than the Ares-1, they would have larger markets beyond the lunar program, allowing the development costs (both financial and political) to be amortized amongst a larger number of users.
— Donald
This is all well and good except with the aries you lose the in space repair/construction capabilities you have with the shuttle.
Aries should be cheaper…
This is all sounding a lot like dejevu… I remember how the shuttle was supposed to bring cost down.
Really a sensible country would not put all its eggs in one basket be it shuttle or aries.
As to China not becomming an issue…
I realize a lot of their talk is just rethoric , but they are doing a lot of talking lately.. And with recent ASAT tests… Wouldn’t be the first time this country was surprised… Sputnik comes to mind.
I’ve read that the Chinese asat was their fourth or fifth attempt so someone was keeping score and that casts doubt on this surprising the USG. Add to it that China has had a well know laser program and a rising space program and surprise isn’t the verb to use. I don’t think it will affect Nasa’s funding in the slightest and I think the US has already budgeted what it needs based upon China’s track record..
One quibble Michelle. China doesn’t have a “civil space program”. China has a space program run by the military.
> Ed: on Aeronautics funding, NASA has changed its method of assessing overhead expenses, making it difficult
> to do year-to-year comparisons. The previously-cited SPACE.com article notes that when this is accounted
> for, aeronautics funding is essentially flat in FY08 compared to FY07.
Jeff, even if that’s true, the Administration is only claiming that it’s equivalent to $724.4 million they requested for aeronautics last year.
Even if this year’s request is equivalent to $724.4 million under the old accounting rules, that’s still a big step down from the $890 million aeronautics got in FY06 and 07.
Wow this wasn’t easy to find in all those pages..
2007 2008 net change
Crew Exploration Vehicle 875.5 950.8 +75.3
Crew Launch Vehicle 827.4 1,175.2 +347.8
So I guess there wasn’t a decrease for vse in the budget request.
Look at the presentation charts, they detail how the accounting changes affect the budget, confusing but very readable.
One thing to dig out of this confusion is that the ISS commercial cargo and crew purchases (which are actually purchases of Russian gear not COTS) have been moved from ESMD to OSD. This was a $236M dollar line item shift from exploration to ops. I know that this is confusing, it was to me as well.
Dennis
It appears there are a number of accounting changes in the NASA budget that makes year-to-year comparisons difficult. In addition to the change in the overhead rates, I thought I heard Griffin state that the ISS crew & cargo services budget had been transferred from ESMD to SOMD.
I think the only way to make real comparisons is by comparing the “direct” budgets of specific programs, like Michelle does above for CEV and CLV.
– Al
Dennis,
The $236M line item you mention appears to be what was left in ESMD for COTS. NASA has split the program. COTS stays in ESMD, while purchase of the “services” with the rest of the ISS crew & cargo services budget has been transferred to SOMD.
I could not find any details on the actual ISS crew & cargo services budget in the SOMD portion of the budget. They appear to have buried it in the ISS budget.
– Al
“Wow this wasn’t easy to find in all those pages..
2007 2008 net change
Crew Exploration Vehicle 875.5 950.8 +75.3
Crew Launch Vehicle 827.4 1,175.2 +347.8
So I guess there wasn’t a decrease for vse in the budget request.”
As of yesterday, those Ares I and Orion numbers still didn’t explain why the total exploration budget in the White House 2008 request was going down versus the 2007 request. In fact, they just highlighted the contradiction — how could the two projects that made up the great majority of the exploration budget be going up when the total exploration budget was going down?
That’s what puzzled me yesterday. Of course, the answer lay with the other elements of the exploration budget.
“The $236M line item you mention appears to be what was left in ESMD for COTS. NASA has split the program. COTS stays in ESMD, while purchase of the “services†with the rest of the ISS crew & cargo services budget has been transferred to SOMD.”
After delving into the numbers a little more this morning and reading through the Q&A at yesterday’s budget briefing, this transfer of COTS services to space operations seems to be what’s driving the lower exploration budget in the 2008 request — not overhead accounting changes or the White House continuing to back away from VSE budget promises. At least Griffin and Co. don’t have to overcome another White House budget shortchange again this year.
But going forward, they will have to overcome three major political/budgetary challenges to keep the ESAS plan on schedule and intact:
1) Recover the $500 million cut by the House in the 2007 continuing resolution. Given that the Senate reportedly plans to pass the House version of the resolution largely unchanged and given NASA’s lack of success in obtaining supplementals in the past, I’d rate this at a low probability of success.
2) Maintain the $1 billion plus increase in the total 2008 NASA budget requested by the White House. That’s a 6% plus increase. Given that nearly all non-military departments and agencies received only a 1% or less increase in 2008 and given that the Congress is no longer controlled by the President’s party, I’d also give this a low probability of success, although maybe higher than #1 if parochial interests get their act together.
But even if the White request for the NASA topline in 2008 is met, the science and aeroanutics communities will be looking to make back the cuts they received from Griffin in prior budgets, in which case exploration will get the short end of the stick again in 2008, as it did in the 2007 budget resolution.
Either way, another delay in the Ares 1/Orion schedule seems to be in the cards in 2008, on top of the likely 2007 delay.
3) Convince the next White House to direct savings from Shuttle retirement to building Ares V, the LSAM and the rest of the lunar return hardware starting in 2009-11. Anything could happen between now and then, and the task may be left to Griffin’s successor. But none of the Presidential candidates have any vested interest in the VSE (or even NASA) and they’ll be facing big budget pressures and higher priorities for those dollars, ranging from increased Social Security costs from the initial wave of baby boomer retirements, to increased medical and Medicare costs, to the war on terrorism. Thus, I also rate this a low probability of success.
Based on this rather grim political and budgetary outlook, I’d argue that now is the time to revisit the ESAS plan and make adjustments in requirements and system selections that will allow a Shuttle replacement to be brought online sooner and for less money and get actual lunar hardware underway before the next election. I doubt, though, that Griffin & Co. would seriously consider such an option at this point in time. They will probably have to fail at challenges #1 and #2 before enough worry mounts in their minds to question the sustainability of the ESAS plan they’ve set out on.
Time will tell…
A few thoughts to add to Jeff’s comments to Michelle:
“Keep in mind that there’s no evidence that China’s civil space program is accelerating. In fact, while there was a two-year gap between Shenzhous 5 and 6, the gap between Shenzhous 6 and 7 will be closer to three years, it now appears. That ASAT test last month, though, does complicate matters.”
China can be played both ways — competitively or cooperatively — as a rationale for NASA’s lunar return plans.
Competitively, as Jeff notes, Chinese human space flight progress is going forward at a glacial pace — in today’s environment, they’re just not driven to the same Cold War spending and risk-taking that the Soviets and U.S. undertook back in the ’60s. Even after they get regular Shenzou flights under their belt, the next Chinese human space flight project is to put a single-element space station in orbit — and there’s no schedule for that. The Moon is even further off as there’s no official Chinese human lunar plans beyond single robotic orbiter. I think serious Chinese competition in human space exploration is at least a couple decades off, assuming they continue to give it any priority in the face of some pretty serious population, standard of living, and environmental issues.
Cooperatively, I was actually hopeful that Griffin’s visit to China last year might create a foreign policy rationale for the VSE much as bringing the Russians into the ISS partnership saved that program from cancellation in the early years of the Clinton/Gore Administration. But China’s recent ASAT test has derailed any such hopes for cooperation for the foreseeable future. Even if China gets back in our good graces, it would probably be cheaper for a future White House to involve them in the ISS partnership — something that the Chinese have a keen interest in — rather than a new human lunar effort.
“Griffin was asked in the budget briefing this afternoon if there was a chance of extending the shuttle’s lifetime beyond 2010. His response: “No.†No elaboration, no clarification, just “noâ€. Remember that as long as the shuttle is still flying, NASA can’t afford to do much else in the VSE other that Ares 1 and Orion—if that.”
More than that, Shuttle is patently unsafe. Although the exploration elements of the ESAS plan may ultimately prove to be unsustainable, at least ESAS should get NASA off the Shuttle. It would be a true tragedy if Senators Hutchison and Nelson get their way and extend Shuttle operations beyond 2010. If that happened, it would be time to fold up the tent on NASA’s human space flight programs.
“Neither Britain nor Japan have much in the way of exploration programs to begin with (Britain has none, and JAXA only at the level of viewgraphs.)… I don’t think a collapse of ESA is in the cards any time soon.”
What I find interesting about our existing international partners is their deafening silence regarding NASA’s human lunar return plans. Although they probably can’t make commitments to ESAS until their ISS modules are up, their lack of commitment to the ESAS plan after several years of existence and a major international outreach effort by the Deputy NASA Administrator last year speaks volumes about the plan’s lack of sustainability. It’s a major contrast to the space station program, which had commitments from the Europeans and Japanese early in the going.
“It’s too soon right now to predict the failure (or success) of COTS. Let’s see these companies actually start building and flying some hardware first.”
Strongly agreed. There’s a world of difference between the old ’80s space markets, which tried to substitute space research and products for much cheaper and more routinely produced ground-based counterparts, and building a more efficient launch vehicle to address an existing space transportation need. If nothing else, the former was greatly constrained by the costs and availability of the Shuttle, while the latter is only limited by normal project constraints — funding, requirements, and talent.
If anything, Griffin underfunded COTS. ~$250 million per competitor is less than the budget for a small Discovery planetary mission and a small fraction of EELV development costs (and those had some heritage to build on). Thus, I don’t see these vehicles getting built without a lot of additional private sector funding, much more than LockMart put into X-33, and I’m just not sure that the private markets will take on these risks at those amounts. But if that funding does come through over the next year and these companies can achieve their milestones and get paid, they should be allowed to run for as long and as far as they can. We desperately need some new, more efficient approaches to human space flight.
.We desperately need some new, more efficient approaches to human space flight.
That wouldn’t be VSE, ESAS, CEV, Orion or Ares I/V.
It’s odd that you mention that, because we happen to have a couple of EELVs, and we should have 15 or so SSMEs to play with sometime after 2010, we have RL-10s and an RL-60 well into the development phase, as well as an IPD development program. Can you tell me what the problem is here, because I just can’t see any.
Anonymous: I think serious Chinese competition in human space exploration is at least a couple decades off, assuming they continue to give it any priority in the face of some pretty serious population, standard of living, and environmental issues.
This ignores one key development: India. If India proves as serious about human spaceflight as they sound (which, admittedly, is a very big if), a competition between China and India (and possibly Japan) becomes possible, or even likely. Neither China nor India will allow the other absolute supremacy in human spaceflight — indeed, India’s talk is probably a response to China’s actions.
Time will tell, but I consider all this good news in the long-term strategy of getting humans into the Solar System. However “glacial” China’s current efforts, the game is no longer confined to the United States and Russia, and in the wider picture that is all to the good.
— Donald
“This ignores one key development: India.”
India is even further behind the 8-ball when it comes to human lunar exploration (or human space flight at all) than China. Aside from some musings about GSLV being capable of launching humans (and what orbital launch vehicle isn’t), there’s nothing official to go on or progress to point towards. At least China has Shenzhou.
“a competition between China and India (and possibly Japan) becomes possible, or even likely.”
That doesn’t guarantee that the competition will take the same form or have the same goals as the U.S./Soviet Cold War race to the Moon. In fact, I would almost guarantee the opposite given that the proximity of the involved nations makes the ICBM-sized launchers associated with the early manned space flight programs less relevant, given the very small or non-existent size of each nation’s strategic land-based missile arsenal, given the relative lack of wealth in China and India, and given China’s (not unforeseen) penchant for asymmetrical advantages, such as ASATs and cruise missiles.
“However “glacial†China’s current efforts, the game is no longer confined to the United States and Russia, and in the wider picture that is all to the good.”
I would’t debate your general statement — I think you’re right. But any specifics regarding timeframes, likely arenas for competition, etc. are only musings at this point, at best. I think we U.S. space cadets put a little too much hope into whatever civil space competition/cooperation arises out of these emerging powers in the 21st century and we model it too much on our own 20th century experience.
My 2 cents… FWIW…