Yesterday’s Space Transportation Association breakfast, held immediately prior to the beginning of the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference, featured Leslee Gilbert, the minority staff director for the House Science and Technology Committee. Obviously there was a lot of interest in NASA’s FY07 and FY08 budget situations, although given that the FY08 budget had come out less than 24 hours before, she couldn’t offer that many details. A few notes of interest:
- When the joint funding resolution and its half-billion cut in NASA’s budget came before the House last week, her boss, committee ranking member Ralph Hall, “was so concerned about these cuts that he went to the Rules Committee with an amendment to restore the funding.” However, she said, the House was considering the resolution under a closed rule, with no amendments allowed.
- When asked if this cut was a sign of how the new leadership of the appropriations committee viewed NASA, she said that this resolution was “a little unusual” but said that there’s a need to reach out to appropriators about NASA priorities. She added that her concern was not with just the top-line NASA budget figure but thew shifting of money between accounts within NASA. “I think a lot of the Democratic members are more interested in putting some money in different areas of NASA, so keeping the Vision strong is going to be a challenge.”
- She anticipates a continuation of the tradition of bipartisan cooperation in the committee, saying that Hall believes that the new chairman, Bart Gordon, shares many of the same priorities and goals as Hall.
- One of the priorities down the road in this Congress will be a new NASA authorization bill in 2008. That will most likely be a two-year authorization.
One of the priorities down the road in this Congress will be a new NASA authorization bill in 2008. That will most likely be a two-year authorization.
What would be the advantage of yet another authorization bill? the last one hasn’t protected NASA.
“What would be the advantage of yet another authorization bill? the last one hasn’t protected NASA.”
Authorization bills (for NASA or any other department or agency) only set limits on what the appropriators can spend (no more than $X million or $Y billion) in various accounts. They provide some guidance and indication of spending priorities, but they don’t prevent the appropriators from spending less on an agency (they can’t prevent cuts) or shifting dollars around between programs or out of programs for earmarks or other priorities. In recent years (maybe decades), authorizers have increasingly failed to pass their bills before the appropriators get to their bills, further marginalizing the already marginal role of the authorizers in the budgetary process.
I think the most important role for authorizers is that of oversight. Unlike the appropriations staff, which must deal with annual bills, the authorization staff have time to delve into the details of agency programs and make sure that they are on track technically and programmatically. My 2 cents is that Ares 1 and Orion need some attention in this regard. I did not see any remarks to that effect from Gilbert, but she also works for the President’s party. It will be interesting to see if the change in party control of Congress results in such enhanced oversight (really any oversight at all) on these critical path programs.
ULA says Atlas V could ‘easily’ be human-rated by 2010-11
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
02/08/2007, page 05
Jefferson Morris
The Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) “easily” could be available in a human-rated form capable of launching passengers by 2010 or 2011, according to George Sowers, vice president for advanced programs at United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Hi –
Hi –
My name is Robin Amer and I’m a producer for Open Source (www.radioopensource.org) a nationally syndicated public radio show hosted by Christopher Lydon, formerly of NPR’s The Connection. I hope this finds you well.
I’m writing because I’m working on a show scheduled for next week on the subject of “what to do in space.” (Is space a future wasteland or a future gold mine? What are the most interesting, innovative, or unconventional projects in the works or on the horizon? What role, if any, should private space exploration play? What should be our motivations for space exploration, and should they be different than they were in the past?) If you want you can read more about the show here: http://www.radioopensource.org/what-to-do-in-space/
I’ve been reading your blog this week, and I was hoping I might be able to speak with you to get your take on some of these questions and talk to you about possibly having you on the show as a guest.
If you think you might be interested, please give me a call at the number below or send me your number and a good time to talk.
Thanks so much. I look forward to hearing from you.
best,
Robin
Robin Amer
Producer
Open Source
http://www.radioopensource.org
robin at radioopensource dot org
Since Rep. Hall’s office, part of the Republican Minority, “believes that the new chairman, Bart Gordon, shares many of the same priorities and goals as Hall”, it is appropriate to look at what Chairman Gordon says his priorities and goals are:
Following are excerpts from Chairman Gordon’s press release today. I don’t see one mention of Moon-Mars here … somehow I don’t think that is his priority.
Others have separately started lobbying for putting the NASA climate research program — managed out of Goddard — back on the same funding level it had at the end of the Clinton Administration. I recall seeing a statement that this means putting $500M per year back into this part of the NASA budget. I believe that Senator Mikulski will support this initiative.
There is one obvious place for that $ 500M per year to come from.
There may be one or two outliers, but I doubt that many Members of Congress will be willing to stand up in public argue that “sending humans to the Moon” is more important than funding additional climate research.
– Al
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=21843
House Committee on Science and Technology Vows Action on Climate Change
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, February 8, 2007
(Washington, DC) Today, the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology held the first Congressional conversation with climate scientists who authored that 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report released last weekend in Paris (2/2/07).
…
“The scientific experts have provided us with a diagnosis of the problem and a prognosis for our planet’s health. They’ve done their job and we know the prognosis is ominous. Now, it is time for us – the policymakers – to do our jobs,” continued Chairman Gordon.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi signaled Congress’ intent to act during her remarks before the Committee, “We hold our children’s future in our hands – not our grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, but our own children. As the most adaptable creatures on the planet, it is time for us to adapt.”
…
“There’s no denying we face a big challenge,” said Chairman Gordon. “We must explore ways to reduce emissions, to adapt to coming changes and to mitigate the negative effects of a changing climate. We cannot accomplish all this overnight, but we must begin in earnest now to address this serious issue. Continued scientific research is essential to that process.”
…
In the coming months, the Committee on Science and Technology expects to play a key role by acting to address areas of needed information identified by the IPCC report. Namely, the Committee will work to set forth a “better understanding of regional vulnerabilities to climate change.”
The programs under the Committee’s jurisdiction that are part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program have provided the basic scientific understanding of this phenomenon. But, if we are to mitigate and adapt to coming changes, we need to know what the new climatic conditions are likely to be in the areas where we live and work. The Committee will address research programs that can improve our understanding of regional climate change.
…
“The U.S. can and should lead the world to address this,” said Chairman Gordon. “I’ll see to it that this Committee does its part.”
The renewed emphasis on earth science and climatology, and other congressional and executive priorities certainly do not bode well for crewed exploration missions. Prior to VSE, NASA did a superb job of linking its efforts in planetary science, solar physics and astrophysics programs with understanding issues relevant to Earth’s environment. With strong leadership at the helm (someone like Wes Huntress or Ed Weiler), I am sure that these activities could recover in tandem with a new Earth Initiative.
Strange , I read comments by Gordon supporting vse on more than one occassion. What comic books do the people on this blog get their info from.
Really , how many of these so called predictions have come true, what about the big budget surprieses…
I seem to remember some comments that the president budget was going to reflect the sentiment of the cr, didn’t happen.
I don’t know why you are so against the aries I and V, and so much for eelv’s, but I used to come to this blog looking for info, now its the same crud every day.
> I don’t know why you are so against the aries I and V, and so much for eelv’s, but I used to come to this blog
> looking for info, now its the same crud every day.
Michelle, the principle advantage of EELVs is that they already exist. Their development costs are already paid for and don’t have to be paid again. (Note: this only applies to the existing, operational EELVs, not Delta IVH which has never flown successfully or the EELV-derived heavy lifters that some enthusiasts pass off as “existing” vehicles.)
The other advantage is that if NASA designed its architecture components to fit on EELV Light or Medium, it might be possible to shift those payloads to reusable launch vehicles, when those are developed. Then NASA could do an affordable lunar program with no further investment.
Components like Orion and LSAM, which are designed to require a heavy lifter, will be too heavy for a first-generation RLV. So, when RLVs come along, NASA will have only two choices: 1) they can ignore the new RLVs and keep buying expendables for the next 40 years (as Griffin says), or 2) they can throw away the huge investment in Orion and LSAM and go back to Congress and ask for more money to build smaller RLV-compatible systems.
Why spend $100 billion to develop systems that will be obsolete in short order when you can spend a small fraction of that to develop systems that will be useful much longer?
The systems you are talking about building, would scale the orion to something akin to a gemini capsule.. wll slightly bigger. May be ok for short moon trips, but 30 days coop up in something like that to a neo, forget it.
Somehow , someway congress has to be brought onboard to the aries v and IV.and possibly the aries I, although I’m not 100% decided on that one yet. But right now I don’t put a lot of faith in cots.
> The systems you are talking about building, would scale the orion to something akin to a gemini capsule..
> wll slightly bigger. May be ok for short moon trips, but 30 days coop up in something like that to a neo, forget it.
If you want to go to a NEO, you can use an inflatible module and have lots of room. The idea of riding in a reentry vehicle all the way is just another throwback to the Apollo era. You don’t even need to take a reentry vehicle with you, if you can rendezvous in Earth orbit.
> Somehow , someway congress has to be brought onboard to the aries v and IV.and possibly the aries I,
In that case, NASA will be nothing more than an expensive sideshow, providing bread and circuses but irrelevant to real space development.
“Following are excerpts from Chairman Gordon’s press release today. I don’t see one mention of Moon-Mars here … somehow I don’t think that is his priority.”
To be fair, that press release appears to be only about climate change. I wouldn’t expect any of NASA’s other programs to come up in such a statement.
But based on other things Gordon has said/released, I think your line of argument is right. Gordon doesn’t think NASA has enough dollars for everything NASA has on its plate and has promised a “rebalancing” of NASA’s priorities in the 2008 budget, over and above the $500 million hit to exploration in 2007.
So I’d agree, he and Hall are not seeing eye to eye, despite all their statements to the contrary. And of course, how much the authorizers can actually affect the appropriations in 2008 remains to be seen. The past track record is not great.
“Others have separately started lobbying for putting the NASA climate research program — managed out of Goddard — back on the same funding level it had at the end of the Clinton Administration. I recall seeing a statement that this means putting $500M per year back into this part of the NASA budget. I believe that Senator Mikulski will support this initiative.
There is one obvious place for that $500M per year to come from.”
If there is a $1 billion (or less) “Mikulski miracle” supplemental for NASA in 2007, that’s a pretty good assumption as to where a large chunk of it will go. I’d also guess Hubble servicing and maybe Station/Shuttle for Senators Hutchison/Nelson. I don’t see much going to exploration.
“There may be one or two outliers, but I doubt that many Members of Congress will be willing to stand up in public argue that “sending humans to the Moon†is more important than funding additional climate research.”
I think that’s a reasonable outcome given the shift in congressional power and the loss of Delay.
Time will tell…
“With strong leadership at the helm (someone like Wes Huntress or Ed Weiler),”
Amen. What I wouldn’t pay to see one of those two (or both) back in change in science (or over the whole agency).
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MICHELLE SAID: Strange , I read comments by Gordon supporting vse on more than one occassion. What comic books do the people on this blog get their info from.
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When Chairman Gordon says something positive about “human exploration”, it is always seems so equivocal. For example, I will agree that his prior press release about the NASA budget did say that human exploration was important — but it said so in the context that other things were also important, and that the President had not provided enough money for all the priorities, and that a budget train wreck was coming.
I have never seen a press release from Gordon saying “human exploration is important” and we need to give exploration more money. Rep. Hall does this, but I can’t recall a single press release from Gordon ever saying that.
We now know that Chairman Gordon can publish unequivocal statements of support for an issue. He has just done it.
Veteran political watchers learn what to look for. This is a clear sign of his position.
Now, I am not saying I agree with his position — I think that that the Mission to Planet Earth stuff should have been placed in NOAA a long time ago; and that NASA’s role should be primarily focused on enabling the settlement of space (e.g. as the Space Settlement Act calls for).
Nor am I saying that Gordon will be that influential.
I am saying that Gordon’s attitude is one (of many) signals about the budget priorities of the party controlling Congress.
I am saying that “global warming” is going to be a major political wedge issue that the Democratic Party is going to attempt to use to their advantage for the next 2 years. They can smell that the Republicans are weak on this issue, and that the majority of Americans want our leaders to take REASONABLE action to do something about it.
The Dems are going to take significant steps on this issue, that think will appear reasonable to the American people, and hope/pray that the Republicans will fight back. It is NASA’s (bad) luck that the NASA budget is highly likely to be one of the battlegrounds for this political battle. It is perfectly reasonable for the Democrats to propose significantly expanding the “research” budgets that are targeted at studying global warming. It really is hard to oppose “studying” global warming.
Any time a Republican opposes this, the Dems will just say “You can’t even agree to study it? Why? Are you against science? Are you against reason? Are you afraid of the truth?”
We are all smart here. I think we can recognize a winning political issue for the Democratic Party when we see one.
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MICHELLE SAID: Really , how many of these so called predictions have come true, what about the big budget surprieses…
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I am not sure what you read here, but my advance information had been that the NASA’s FY08 budget submittal was going to look pretty good.
NASA’s budget level was set some time ago within the WH. Well before the CR came out.
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MICHELLE SAID: I seem to remember some comments that the president budget was going to reflect the sentiment of the cr, didn’t happen.
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Again, that was not I.
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MICHELLE SAID: I don’t know why you are so against the aries I and V, and so much for eelv’s, but I used to come to this blog looking for info, now its the same crud every day.
***********
Well, I will ignore the insult, and deal with the substance of your question (the “why?”) as it is a legitimate question.
In other parts of the web, you have posted that you are a former member of the L5 Society. The L5 Society’s primary mission was “space colonization” or the more politically correct term used today of “space settlement”.
So I will phrase my answer in terms of “space settlement”, which makes the answering the question straight forward.
The only way we are going to PERMANENTLY settle space, and in LARGE numbers, is to bring down the cost of getting into space by one and then two orders of magnitude. That is the single most important goal.
Ares 1 and Ares 5 will do nothing to bring down the cost of getting into space. More importantly, they distract us from that absolutely critical objective for at least another generation, maybe even two generations, by locking us into high cost systems which only NASA will use and which will have low flight rates. In many ways, they are an intellectual repeat of the mistake of the Shuttle. (Meanwhile, there are so many other things that NASA could do with that money that are much more useful to achieving the goal of “Cheap Access to Space” and to supporting the creation of space settlements. But they can’t do those things if they are committed to spending all their money on these huge money sinks.)
As a former L5 Society member you probably know that Dr. Gerard O’Neil was the spiritual founder of the L5 Society (and the founder of the Space Settlement Institute) for his writings on how it was technically feasiable settle space (most popularly through his book “The High Frontier”) and why we should.
In 2005, I heard Nobel Prize winner Freeman Dyson talk in public about his belated friend Dr. O’Neill. Somebody asked Dyson a question along the following lines “As we know hindsight is 20-20 … if Gerard O’Neill would have made one change in what he did as a leader of the space settlement movement … what would he have done differently.”
Dyson, without a beat, stated “He never would have supported the Space Shuttle. Gerard believed that was his single biggest mistake.”
Right now we all have a decision to make.
Do we support today’s equivalent of the Space Shuttle, or do we throw our support behind doing something different that will do much more to open the frontier to large numbers of people, and to space settlements in our lifetime.
Last time, history was telling us that NASA could do the impossible, and accomplish amazing goals.
This time, history is giving us plenty of reasons to draw different conclusions.
This time, before we make a decision about what to support, we have the benefit of learning from the mistakes of those who came before us. Yes, we too will make mistakes, but when we do, at least let us make new mistakes.
In summary, I oppose Ares 1 and Ares 5 because I believe the human settlement of space is absolutely critical, and is one of the most profound things that will ever happen — not just in human history but in the history of life on this planet. In my support of the human settlement of space, I would do something completely different with the taxpayers money, which I have written about many times here on this blog.
– Al
“Strange , I read comments by Gordon supporting vse on more than one occassion.”
If you have links to positive, post-election comments from Gordon, I, for one, would be interested to see them.
“What comic books do the people on this blog get their info from.”
None. I don’t know of any comics books about civil space policy. I imagine they would not sell well.
“Really , how many of these so called predictions have come true,”
The House holding NASA flat in the 2007 budget resolution, resulting in a $500 million or so reduction from the 2007 request.
What most (all?) of us didn’t anticipate is that the House would also prevent Griffin from redirecting funds from other NASA programs to exploration in the budget resolution, too. We (all?) of us also didn’t anticipate that only a meager 40 congressmen would sign a letter in support of NASA. In those two respects, these predictions (at least mine) proved too positive (at least from a pro-exploration perspective).
“what about the big budget surprieses…”
Unfortunately, the most recent NASA budget surprises have been on the negative side of the ledger.
“I seem to remember some comments that the president budget was going to reflect the sentiment of the cr, didn’t happen.”
I think the only claims made about the 2008 budget request were that aeronautics and Earth science would get a little extra money and that the top line for exploration would go down. Both of those “predictions” (I think both were based on early looks at the budget) turned out to be true.
“I don’t know why you are so against the aries I and V, and so much for eelv’s,”
Sorry to nitpick, but it’s Ares (the ancient Greek god of war), not Aries (the goat-shaped constellation).
As others have already stated, Ares 1 duplicates LEO launch capabilities that the United States already has in the Delta and Atlas vehicles. Those vehicles are already demonstrated, paid for, and currently underutilized. It makes no sense for NASA to waste precious time and money reinventing the wheel, especially when the ESAS requirements, assumptions, and arguments regarding crew size, EELV capabilities, and safety that NASA has used to justify Ares 1 are specious, at best. NASA should have sized its CEV requirement to leverage existing national capabilities in the Atlas and/or Delta vehicles, made modest human-rating modifications to the Atlas and/or Delta to accommodate such a CEV and ensure that the resulting system is much safer than Shuttle (a pretty low bar to pass), and focused remaining exploration resources on actually opening the human space flight frontier through a lander and either a heavy lift vehicle (likely a Shuttle-derivative like Direct, Max, or Ares V to utilize the Shuttle infrastructure, workforce, and politics) or some combination of COTS/in-space fueling demo.
What’s truly tragic, though, is that NASA only has a limited window of opportunity to get a real human space exploration effort underway before the political tide changes, certainly no longer than the end of the Bush II Administration. Unfortunately, Ares 1, which is just another LEO truck, is tying up all of NASA’s available resources during this crucial window. Worse, the political tide appears to be changing faster than most of us predicted, which is likely to stretch out Ares 1 and push actual exploration vehicles (whether it’s LSAM/Ares V or something else) over the horizon, even assuming the next White House or Congress, in the face of increasing budget pressures, doesn’t cancel the lunar elements outright in favor of higher priorities outside NASA.
“but I used to come to this blog looking for info,
I think there is some good data in these threads, but whether you choose to incorporate that data or ignore it is up to you.
“now its the same crud every day.”
If you have evidence or arguments to the contrary that you want to present and discuss, by all means, jump in. But calling other folks’ well-reasoned arguments “crud” and claiming that they get their publicly available evidence from “comic books” — just because their viewpoints are not as positive as you’d like them to be — is not honest debate. Grow up and make useful contributions to these threads and or go away if they really perturb you that much. No one is forcing you to spend your time here.
Cowing noted the limp-wristed language in the White House SAP in response to the House reduction to exploration in the 2007 budget resolution. He’s right — they’re usually much more directive and specific:
“Editor’s note: The fact that NASA made it into the SAP demonstrates some committment from the White House to ensuring funding for the Vision. However, the language “The Administration strongly urges the Senate to provide NASA with the flexibility it needs to achieve the goals and timeline of the Vision for Space Exploration, while maintaining balanced programs in space science, Earth science, and aeronautics.” is so limp that it conveys virtually no seriousness of purpose.”
See http://www.nasawatch.com and scroll down for more.
The longer the Senate takes to pass its version, the better chance NASA probably has to make its case. But the weak, inspecific language of this SAP, combined with the fact that exploration is on a laundry list of almost 20 other White House spending priorities in the SAP, isn’t going to help much with the Dems. I think it’s going to really be up to NASA to convince the Senate appropriations staff of the importance of exempting exploration from the flat-funding rule.
It will be interesting to see if they can pull it off…
Anon,
There was a quote in Space News from an unnamed Senate source who clearly stated that the House CR had been pre-negotiated with the Senate. This source was clearly from the Senate appropriations. I would bet a cup of coffee that the source was Paul Carliner (Senator Mikulski’s staff director for approps for others).
You are correct that NASA has an opportunity to make their case for additional flexibility, and I expect that NASA is extremely focused on doing so right now.
If I was Carliner I would be saying to the NASA guys “The White House SAP is internally conflicting. It asks for “flexibility” and for “maintaining balanced programs in space science, Earth science, and aeronautics”. The only way I can see to maintain “balanced programs” in those areas is to NOT give you the flexibility to take money from those accounts and give to the exploration.”
I would then listen to what NASA has to say. If they had a good answer, on how to achieve both, I might consider talking to my boss about it. That is, unless my boss had already decided that exploration was going to be capped, and (say) more money was going to be put into the Earth orbserving part of NASA.
On the speculative front, I *think* Senator Mikulski will be the “decider” on this issue. Byrd will not care how the money within NASA’s budget is spent. I am expecting that some other Senators are talking to her right now, on behalf of their local NASA interests. Mikulski will be asking them similar questions. I am hard pressed to think what Nelson or Hutchison could give to Mikulski that she would want.
Whether NASA will succeed at getting some flexibility is a real test, and will be a good near-term indicator of the future. Although Griffin has demonstrated political ineptness, the people around him are very smart about politics, and they may come up with a solution.
FWIW …
– Al
Solid analysis by Mr. Fansome. I have no clue whether Carliner speaks to the press, even under deep cover. But Mikulski will likely be the “decider” and her interests are not aligned with plussing-up or giving more flexibility to exploration.
“Byrd will not care how the money within NASA’s budget is spent.”
Agreed. As long as dollars (and preferably earmarks) are flowing to his IV&V and NTTC facilities, Byrd could care less about the substance of civil space priorities and NASA’s programs.
“I am hard pressed to think what Nelson or Hutchison could give to Mikulski that she would want.”
Also agreed. I would just add that I’m not certain that Ares 1/Orion are at the top of the Hutchison/Nelson wish-list, given their continued interest in extending Shuttle operations and making ISS useful.
“Although Griffin has demonstrated political ineptness, the people around him are very smart about politics,”
I don’t know about that. I guess it depends on whom you’re talking about specifically. Folks like Dale and Shank, even with their authorization experience, are neophytes when it comes to appropriations, which is where the rubber hits the road. I’d also argue that they’ve never been tested in any substantive way (two years to get an authorization bill passed for a Presidential initiative rolled out to a friendly Congress is hardly a test). They’re both pretty young, and personally, I am underwhelmed by Dale’s lack of technical knowledge and personal skills (I think this has hurt NASA’s efforts to bring foreign partners on board) and by Shank’s lack of critical thinking skills. But maybe you have other folks in mind.
Down in the civil service, there are some very good people like Kerwin who work appropriations and should have higher positions of authority. But I don’t think they rank as advisors to Griffin, certainly not part of his inner circle.
FWIW…
Just to add to my earlier comment, I’d give anything to have O’Keefe and his team back to wage the tougher budget battles that must now be fought on the Hill. We had O’Keefe, who had worked on appropriations and at OMB, had strong ties to Stevens and Cheney, and was respected on the other side of the aisle. We had Steidle, a decorated Vietnam pilot who spoke with authority and had success pushing the biggest jet fighter program ever through multiple Congresses. And we had Isakowitz, a well-respected ex-OMBer with Hill staff and comptroller experience who is now in line to be the next CFO at DOE.
Contrast that with Griffin’s political naivete, the weak authorization experience of Dale and Shank, Horowitz’s taint from being labelled the inventor of the “Scotty rocket”, and Cooke’s total lack of political experience, and it’s little wonder NASA couldn’t get an exception to the flat-funding in the budget resolution when nearly every other department and agency did.
FWIW…
Anonymous: and making ISS useful
It occurs to me that you may have come up with the possible answer in this Congress. Trade support for the Orion and COTS instead of the Shuttle, in exchange for a longer-term commitment to supporting the Space Station and its attendent international commitments with the new infrastructure.
I’d give anything to have O’Keefe and his team back to wage the tougher budget battles that must now be fought on the Hill.
I fully agree — he recognized the political and financial realities, and (to my great disappointment) Dr. Griffin has chosen to pretend they don’t exist. That said, it was Mr. O’Keefe’s choice to move on and, unavoidably, that is a clear measure of his interest in spaceflight. He had the knowledge and skills, but, in spite of his supposed burning desire to lead NASA, he clearly did not have the commitment to see it through. In a sense, it is as much his fault that we are in this mess as it is Dr. Griffin’s. (Yup, that’s unfair, but who ever said politics and history were fair?)
— Donald
ANON,
I agree with you that O’Keefe had the experience, knowledge & connections that NASA needed to succeed in the current budget battles.
DONALD SAID: “That said, it was Mr. O’Keefe’s choice to move on and, unavoidably, that is a clear measure of his interest in spaceflight. He had the knowledge and skills, but, in spite of his supposed burning desire to lead NASA, he clearly did not have the commitment to see it through. In a sense, it is as much his fault that we are in this mess as it is Dr. Griffin’s. (Yup, that’s unfair, but who ever said politics and history were fair?)”
Donald,
What data do you have that O’Keefe had a “burning desire” to lead NASA?
I talked to Mr. O’Keefe early in his tenure, and he clearly communicated to me that he was concerned that he was not making enough money as the head of NASA to send his kids to college. That was clearly his personal priority, as years later when he left to take the University job he gave that as the reason. I am not going to fault him for making his family his top priority.
I don’t know if it was true — but the widespread rumor around the industry is that O’Keefe wanted to take another shot over at the DoD. This too indicates that O’Keefe did not have a burning desire to lead NASA. There is also plenty of data that he wanted out after the Columbia disaster, and that he had lost his appetite for risk. Although I agree with “Anonymous” that O’Keefe had the right mix of skills & experience needed to deal with the current budget crisis, that does not mean that he was perfect.
On the downside for O’Keefe, in many ways Griffin’s tolerance for risk was the antidote to the blunder that O’Keefe made with cancelling the HST servicing mission. Also, O’Keefe was making many mistakes in managing NASA because he was so over his head in the technical areas, and dependent on the NASA “bureaucracy” giving him the right answers. Since O’Keefe did not even know what questions to ask, getting the right answers was problemmatic. As a result, in many ways O’Keefe became the mouth piece for the NASA bureacracy’s agenda (Example — O’Keefe could have done something about reducing the number of Shuttle flights to complete the ISS by 2010 before he left, but he did not. O’Keefe took Readdy’s position on this issue at face value.)
There is no one person who can address the full needs & requirements that we need in a NASA Administrator. That person does not exist (I guess you need 6 Master’s degrees, plus a Master’s degree is “political experience”).
IMO, you really do need an “Webb/Okeefe-like” person in the Administrator spot who is responsible for the top-level strategy, and who delegates all the technical/operational decisions to the Deputy Administrator who has the broad skills & experience of a Mike Griffin. Oh yes … they would want/need to trust each other implicitly, and they would need to agree on strategy too.
– Al
Well, Al, I don’t disagree with most of that. And I emphatically agree with your last paragraph. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of skills to assemble under one skull. I (and apparently others) had hoped that Dr. Griffin would be that person, but he (like O’Keefe) picked unnecessary political fights with scientists, and recommitted that consistant NASA political mistake of planning for more money than he was going to get. It looks like we’re going to lose this “last best chance” to leave Earth orbit, and there is plenty of blame to go around, not least among space advocates who cannot get behind even on the basis for a plan, let alone it’s details. As I’ve stated before, attacking the overall architecture (VSE) because you don’t like the details (ESAS) displays political nievete on a scale far beyond any displayed by Dr. Griffin.
— Donald
And while we’re on this subject, Al, you asked me why an “apparently thoughtful” person like myself could continue to support the VSE and ESAS. I answered that question, but I don’t think you saw it. Here’s what I wrote:
Al, I continue to stick to this viewpoint because I believe (rightly or wrongly) that at this point in time, it is the only viable option. No, we would not have planned to spend $100 billion on the Space Station to create a market to get COTS, but the alternative (no COTS) was worse. I would respectively suggest that few people who engage in successful politics — certainly once blindly campaigning against “the government†became a requirement — should be able to look themselves in the mirror.
Is the goal of moving humanity into the Solar System important enough to do what you have to do to get there? Or, is it just important enough to do the “right thing,†however you define that? While there are clear limits (e.g., I would not send anyone to the gas chamber to get to the moon), if I can support this disaster of an Administration in this, after all the hundreds of billions they’ve wasted in Iraq and elsewhere, surely you can support the waste of the odd hundred billion to achieve a far more worthy goal.
Ares-1 is a complete waste of money; Orion is not. Unfortunately, at this point in time, Ares-1 and Orion are politically tied together, therefore I support the waste to get the product we need. In the future, I think the equation is likely to change — but only if we don’t kill the whole thing in fratricidal warfare right now.
Do that, and we’ll be back to developing the technology to “do it right†in open-ended play pens that will never create the markets that can actually get us to the moon.
Unfortunately, the Administrations wider budgetary disasters seem increasingly likely to make that the outcome no matter what we do or support. . . .
– Donald