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…

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

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.

“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 “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.”

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.

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…

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

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

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.