Congress

Competitiveness and competing for funding

Yesterday the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing on the proposed overall FY2008 R&D budget, with OSTP director John Marburger as the sole witness. Neither the official committee press release about the hearing, nor the release by the committee’s Republican office, made any mention of NASA funding, but a GovExec.com article noted that NASA funding was a topic of the hearing. Members of both parties expressed concern that NASA funding is not sufficient to support all of its priorities, both science and exploration. Committee chairman Bart Gordon also complained about NASA’s exclusion from the American Competitiveness Initiative unveiled by the Bush Administration a year ago, questioning “whether that means the administration does not view aeronautics, earth and space sciences as ‘world-class’ sciences,” according to the article.

Marburger responded that while the administration supports NASA, “frankly it’s funded better than the physical sciences in these other agencies that have been under-funded for a long time — and we need to catch up.” As for strains on the NASA budget, Marburger reminded members that Congress passed the joint funding resolution that funds NASA at its FY06 levels for FY07, and that without an increase it would “jeopardize the vision for space exploration plus priority earth and space science missions.”

33 comments to Competitiveness and competing for funding

  • anonymous

    More lukewarm support from the White House. Too bad.

  • Al Fansome

    Please note that Gordon did not use this as an opportunity to argue for funding for NASA’s lunar exploration plans. Marburger gave Gordon a BIG opening to make a statement on this issue — all he had to say was “I think we should give you the flexibility you are asking for.”

    The message to the White House Science Advisor was “aeronautics, earth and space sciences”. Although Gordon is just an authorizer, I believe that the Democratic leadership in the appropriations committees, including Sen. Mikulski, are reading from the same play book.

    Historically, Congress has only rarely given NASA the flexibility to move money around in its budget. The fact that it did so a couple years ago was an aberration — partly because the then Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee (Sen. Stevens) trusted the then-NASA Administrator (Sean O’Keefe) implicitly. O’Keefe worked for Stevens, and O’Keefe did not have an agenda for that flexibility that conflicted with Congress at that time.

    Congress is almost certainly going to use its power over the purse to establish its priorities within NASA’s limited budget. There is little or no reason to believe that a Democratic Congress, which does not share Griffin’s agenda, is going to give up that power to Griffin.

    If there is a supplemental — which is possible but still unlikely — I would bet anybody a coffee that it will largely go to the priorities mentioned by Gordon, with a particular emphasis on Earth remote sensing.

    FWIW …

    – Al

  • Al, as suggested to Anonymous in a different thread, Congress cut the rate growth in the exploration budget but it is still allowed to grow more than anything else at NASA, or for that matter, the rest of government. There was not a wholesale shift of resources from exploration to Earth science and the rest.

    While I agree that the public statements so far to not portend well, actions so far indicate a change in emphasis but not a decision to abandon exploration.

    I agree with what I believe Anonymous has said, that we are likely to see Orion / Ares-1 continue at a slower pace for the rest of this Administration, with further decisions left for the future. While this is clearly not the desired outcome, I differ with many here that it would be an unmitigated disaster. After all, this has always been advertised as a go as you can pay strategy. . . .

    — Donald

  • Al Fansome

    Don,

    I also agree with what Anonymous has said.

    And I agree with you that Congress is not going to “abandon exploration”. It will be funded at a significant level, but less than proponents wanted or expected. Griffin basically said as much during his press conference on the budget at the start of the month.

    I agree it will be “go as you can pay”.

    I think everybody agrees that NASA should stop going around in circles in LEO, and get out on the frontier. Nobody is going to change that principle, which is the core of the VSE.

    Nor is Congress going to micro-manage NASA on “how” it should implement the VSE.

    The VSE implementation plan is not likely to change (from the current ESAS) until the next President takes office, and chooses a new Administrator. That new Administrator will almost certainly bring their own ideas to the job on how to implement the VSE. Just like Griffin brought his own ideas to the job; and O’Keefe had his own ideas before Griffin, and Goldin brought his own ideas to the job before O’Keefe.

    Yes, I am saying we are highly likely to see version 3 of the implementation plan of the VSE.

    After we see what version 3 of the plan is, we can then argue whether it is an “unmitigated disaster”.

    – Al

  • Al/Donald-

    I think the point here is that Congress does not agree with Griffin’s budget priorities and therefore Griffin’s chosen approach to exploration will slow down, perhaps to the point of political unsustainability. He has chosen an architecture in part for political reasons, but it turns out to be politically insufficient, and I would argue also unnecessary. It is a good thing that this plan has hit at least a speed bump, if not a brick wall, in FY2007, rather than building up speed only to get starved down the road, a la Space Station.

    Given that Mr. Bigelow is planning to announce his plans, including the use of Atlas 5 for human launches, in just two months, it will be interesting how much longer Ares 1 stays alive.

  • Robert G. Oer

    Wonk wrote @ February 15th, 2007 at 10:07 pm..

    that is about right in my view…

    very little at NASA human spaceflight survives any successful truly private human or cargo launch capability on the order of say Musk or Bigelow or a private industry team up with say Atlas or Delta to fly humans…

    The entire effort unhinges politically or as we say here “Does a Nowak”.

    Robert

  • anonymous

    I think we’re all saying the same basic things here, but Wonk really hits the nail on the head, IMO:

    “I think the point here is that Congress does not agree with Griffin’s budget priorities and therefore Griffin’s chosen approach to exploration will slow down, perhaps to the point of political unsustainability.”

    The slowdown on Ares 1/Orion may suck and Griffin may be right about his workforce obsession, but losing political and budgetary sustainability is the real danger. Lose that and we lose it all. And as I look out to the next election, I don’t think that’s as much a “possible”, as a “most likely” outcome. I worry greatly that with all the federal budget pressures that will be coming to a head early next decade and with no exploration hardware underway, the White House won’t give the next NASA Administrator a shot at VSE v.3.0. Except for finishing Ares 1/CEV to get off Shuttle and keep the eagle and flag flying in LEO, they’ll have every incentive to take the remaining VSE money and the Shuttle savings and reassign those dollars other priorities outside NASA. Regardless of who wins the White House, I think we’re looking at another Clinton era, with a declining NASA budget and human space flight restricted to LEO, by budget, if not by policy.

    “He has chosen an architecture in part for political reasons, but it turns out to be politically insufficient, and I would argue also unnecessary.”

    Assuming Wonk lives up to his moniker and is another Beltway denizen like myself, I find it interesting that we share similar views. Folks outside the Beltway (and politically naive managers like Griffin) always place such a huge emphasis on parochialism, jobs, and industry lobbying as being the keys to a sustainable government program, and although I don’t want to discount those things, from where I sit, clear logical goals, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, and generally well conceived and managed programs tend to win the day. Although convoluted and subject to goofy earmarks, I don’t think the majority of the budgetary process is as irrational or self-serving on most folks think it is. It’s no GE six-sigma process, but it actually does a reasonable job weeding the bad programs from the good, despite the occasional “Fleecing of America” report on the evening news.

    “Given that Mr. Bigelow is planning to announce his plans, including the use of Atlas 5 for human launches, in just two months, it will be interesting how much longer Ares 1 stays alive.”

    Boy, I sure hope Wonk knows something that I don’t and that this is true. Regardless of the impact to ESAS, it would be a wonderful thing.

  • Robert G. Oer

    anonymous wrote @ February 15th, 2007 at 11:51 pm …

    how would you rate from an inside the beltway Mr. Griffin’s performance as Administrator…?

    Robert

  • anonymous

    “how would you rate from an inside the beltway Mr. Griffin’s performance as Administrator…?”

    In terms of the political and budgetary strategy and tactics, I think he’s been pretty bad. Unfortunately, those are the things that count the most in terms of getting what he (and we) most want — a sustainable human space flight effort beyond LEO. Among the mistakes he’s made:

    — Blew the Bush II Administration window of opportunity to get actual exploration hardware underway, the only thing that would really make a human exploration effort sustainable through the change of power in the next White House.

    — Did not balance national capabilities, timeline, and costs with safety and performance in the ESAS study, and included no requirements sensitivity analysis in the ESAS study so he could have made a balanced decision, even if he wanted to. As a result, he committed to plan with little near-term payoff, flexiblity, or backup — all of which are key to the sustainability of the effort.

    — Relied on relatively inexperienced and unthoughtful appointees to articulate the official rationales for the lunar effort (when he actually does a better job at this himself), do the Congressional politicking, and seek international support. As a result, the policy goals for the effort are another weak, multi-point, ISS-like list of rationales; already weak Congressional support is getting weaker; and no foreign partners have signed up in any substantive way.

    — Promised not “one thin dime” out of science, only to decide a year later in the face of (not unforseeable) waning White House budget support to cut science growth dramatically to keep Constellation on track, fracturing NASA’s support and alienating the science community. Same goes for aeronautics and the aeronautics community.

    — Went even further and divorced science, especially the astrobiology revolution, from human space flight — the one potentially sustainable rationale (if astrobiology pays off) for sending humans into deep space.

    — Recently telegraphed his intention to make another raid on science and aeronautics to fund exploration if NASA was flat funded, causing Congress to tie his hands in the budget resolution.

    He had no foresight that the good budgetary times would have to come to an end at some point, insists on dividing instead of unifying his program rationales, prefers perfect engineering solutions to sustainable programs, has relied on the tired and outdated Apollo jobs playbook for his politcal strategy, and routinely shoots himself in the foot with his promises and comments. Let’s just say he’s no Webb or O’Keefe when it comes to political and budgetary “strategery”.

    There are other qualities that are less important and he does okay by these. Managerially, after the standard initial bloodletting in the ranks, I think his hand has been steady and that’s appreciated inside the Beltway. The same could not be said of Goldin, for example. He’s also a very forthright kind of person and that’s also appreciated inside the Beltway. The same could not be said of Truly, for example. But as I said, these qualities are less important — although appreciated, they’re not key to winning dollars or to planning and executing a sustainable program.

    Finally, I’d just note that it’s important to separate performance and qualities from values. For example, I disagree with how Griffin values science versus human space flight programs, but that’s not a knock on his performance.

    Only my 2 cents… I’m sure there are other viewpoints.

  • canttellya

    Wow, anonymous–that’s a pretty good assessment. How’s about you starting a blog on this stuff?

  • Anonymous: the White House won’t give the next NASA Administrator a shot at VSE v.3.0.

    I agree, which is why I think that at this point, with all of Dr. Griffin’s mistakes under the bridge, it is important to move forward with what little we’ve got and at least get Orion built. If the private folks make Orion moot, that would be well and good, but I wouldn’t want to bet the farm on it.

    In terms of the political and budgetary strategy and tactics, I think he’s been pretty bad. Unfortunately, those are the things that count the most in terms of getting what he (and we) most want.

    I strongly agree with this — in fact I think it’s a gross understatement — which is why I think all the carping on the technical shortcoming of the ESAS are beside the point. It’s political shortcomings are what count. I agree with the implication of your summed statements that all we are likely to get at this point is Orion and an unneeded Ares-1. The former is far better than nothing, and will be available if and when there is another political window — so we should shut up and build the damned thing.

    Promised not “one thin dime” out of science, only to decide a year later in the face of (not unforeseeable) waning White House budget support to cut science growth dramatically to keep Constellation on track, fracturing NASA’s support and alienating the science community.

    And even worse, reversed himself on some of the decisions, showing weakness that emboldened his newly made enemies in the scientific community.

    Unfortunately, I’m afraid that I completely agree with your assessment of Dr. Griffin’s political performance, although I think I would cut him a little more technical slack than most here would (but freely admit that my technical credentials are close to non-existent).

    In the sense that it is important to understand why something went wrong, I think we also need to address why Dr. Griffin made the decisions he did, particularly the technical ones. My interpretation is that he was afraid of exactly the outcome that we look likely to end up with: that the VSE would proceed as far as Earth orbit, or the lunar surface, and not go on to Mars. He tried to tie the whole project together technically in such a way that if it did go forward, it would result in the capabilities required to get to Mars. That strikes me as a rather elegant idea, albeit very poorly executed. Unfortunately, the way he did execute it, it meant abandoning much of the go-as-you-can-pay philosophy by integrating too many of the elements together.

    The one saving grace I see is still Orion, since the only thing it is tied too is a too large launch vehicle, and that can be fixed later on. Getting that much (Orion) would be a significant step forward, and would lower the political (and to a much lesser degree, the financial) costs of going forward at another time.

    It’s not much, but it’s something. . . . Meantime, we’ve got the Space Station and COTS, and the success of COTS (however unlikely that outcome may be) would change the game in a such a way as to make COTS of far greater importance than any other part of the VSE.

    — Donald

  • anonymous

    “My interpretation is that he was afraid of exactly the outcome that we look likely to end up with: that the VSE would proceed as far as Earth orbit, or the lunar surface, and not go on to Mars. He tried to tie the whole project together technically in such a way that if it did go forward, it would result in the capabilities required to get to Mars. That strikes me as a rather elegant idea, albeit very poorly executed. Unfortunately, the way he did execute it, it meant abandoning much of the go-as-you-can-pay philosophy by integrating too many of the elements together.”

    In terms of a programmatic strategy for exploration, I think Mr. Robertson is right here — that “better” has too long been the enemy of “good enough”. NASA has a history of overreaching in human space flight (Shuttle capabilities, single-launch versus modular space station, SEI, and now Constellation). I think it’s the height of hubris to think that we can design a system for a human Mars mission that would take place 20-40 years from now, given that we have little idea what technological developments will take place between now and then, where the commercial sector and foreign space agencies will be by then, what budget will be available, or whether we’ll even want to put astronauts on the surface depending on where the astrobiology research leads. Instead of going with the biggest, most capable, most expensive, and most time-consuming hardware options, we’re much better off biting off these accomplishments in a step-wise fashion, and iterating new technologies, capabilities, and discoveries into the hardware options as we go. The criteria for a successful NASA human space flight program should be very simple: beyond LEO, timely progress with an affordable and flexible budget leading to sustainability over multiple elections, and no budgetary harm to NASA’s other programs. I could honestly care less what the exploration targets are, how big the boosters are, how many crew there are, whether it’s on steroids or not, and how well the first generation of hardware is integrated with the second or third.

    As an aside, I also suspect that Griffin’s lack of political chops may have driven him to make the choices he did. O’Keefe could head down the EELV path because he was so politically powerful that he could practically thumb his nose at the NASA workforce issues and parochial politics engendered by such an option. Griffin, however, has no such political power and had to make sure that workforce issues and parochial politics got addressed in the ESAS plan or risk losing Congressional support. Unfortunately, workforce issues and parochial politics drive the costs and timeline of the ESAS plan to be unsustainable over multiple budgets, Congresses, and White Houses.

  • Outside the Beltway

    Ref: anonymous wrote @ February 16th, 2007 at 1:49 am
    “- Relied on relatively inexperienced and unthoughtful appointees to articulate the official rationales for the lunar effort (when he actually does a better job at this himself), do the Congressional politicking, and seek international support.”

    I see Griffin’s choices for VSE leadership positions as one of his key failings. He has selected too many NASA insiders with little or no experience in the political aspects of program management for the positions that must deal with Congress and potential international partners. Maybe this was a reaction to the lack of progress under Adm. Steidle’s boarding party. Unfortunately, the NASA talent pool of mature program managers with strategic vision is vanishingly small.

  • LetsGetReal

    The one saving grace I see is still Orion, since the only thing it is tied too is a too large launch vehicle, and that can be fixed later on.

    This is true. With some design changes, Orion, along with its launch abort system, could be made compatible with an Atlas V or Delta IV LV. That would take care of NASA’s needs for crewed access to ISS.

    Unfortunately, at least for some of us who see heavy lift as a necessity for crewed missions beyond LEO, that leaves no time to gain traction on Ares V.

  • Anonymous: I’m glad we have so much agreement (and, as an aside, I really wish I knew who you were!)

    and no budgetary harm to NASA’s other programs

    That’s not possible, but I do think Dr. Griffin could have minimized the damage by making a few key decisions, then sticking to them.

    Unfortunately, workforce issues and parochial politics drive the costs and timeline of the ESAS plan to be unsustainable over multiple budgets, Congresses, and White Houses.

    So, what’s the lesson for next time? Or, are we doomed to repeat this the SEI / VSE process every sixteen years or so?

    Let’sGetReal: Unfortunately, at least for some of us who see heavy lift as a necessity for crewed missions beyond LEO, that leaves no time to gain traction on Ares V.

    Heavy lift can wait for later. Remember, this is supposed to be go-as-you-can-pay, which means you don’t develop everything at once. Where we are today, we should finish Orion first, adapt something to be its launcher, then worry about heavy lift if we really need it.

    I’d like to avoid heavy lift if we can. First, it amounts to the same problem as Ares-1 — a large up-front investment and long-term maintenance overhead in a vehicle with exactly one customer. Second, it discourages corporate involvement because EELV-class launchers and payloads are much more likely to be affordable to entrepreneurs than, say, Saturn-class launchers and payloads. Third, but most important, it discourages thinking small and living off the land, two key requirements of a long-term human future in the Solar System.

    — Donald

  • Robert G. Oer

    anonymous wrote @ February 16th, 2007 at 1:49 am

    nice job…a lot to think about there…

    Robert

  • Robert G. Oer

    Donald F. Robertson wrote @ February 16th, 2007 at 5:23 pm

    Don.

    the conclusion I have come to over the years is that really in terms of human spaceflight…the Apollo landings were going “about as fer as we can go”…with a dedicated “project”.

    Unless human spaceflight by NASA gets several magnitudes cheaper and takes several decades shorter time spans to pull together (two trends I consider very unlikely) to me there is NEVER not in a hundred years, even given the best and very unlikely budgetary situations…to be enough money to get NASA to Mars…or even back to the Moon as a sort of “just send NASA there for science”.

    We will I believe only go back to the Moon when two things have occurred.

    (this is with humans)…

    the first is that a space infrastructure develops which more or less makes development of such vehicles (or adaption of others to the use) cost effective…and there is some resource or activity on teh Moon which has a reasonable chance of paying its way.

    I think that the space station is the last human space project that is going to be done just to do human spaceflight.

    Robert

  • LetsGetReal

    Donald: I’d like to avoid heavy lift if we can. First, it amounts to the same problem as Ares-1 — a large up-front investment and long-term maintenance overhead in a vehicle with exactly one customer.

    Donald, I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. One thing that has been common in the multitude of studies done over the last several decades has been the need for heavy lift (HL). Whether you are talking about crewed missions to the Moon or Mars, or deep space missions with high-power robotic spacecraft, HL is key to avoiding the complex and exceedingly costly task of rendezvous and assembly in LEO. Think about how much easier ISS deployment would have been if we had had a Saturn V-equivalent.

    The good news is that the need for HL is not immediate. Development could be done at a more deliberate pace if started now, while the crew launch requirement could be met with Atlas V/Delta IV.

    I do agree that return to the Moon could be done with many EELV-class launches. But anything beyond this, such as establishing a lunar base or conducting crewed missions to Mars will require HL.

  • Al Fansome

    Anon,

    In general, well said! It is generally rare to find a new poster who shares useful & valuable space policy/political analysis online. Most of space policy postings espouse opinions on subjects for which they have little knowledge or expertise, but I find myself nodding my head and thinkings “good point” when reading your postings. I am glad you are taking the time to share your “two cents”.

    I am going to explore a few issues you have brought up in later postings, but I wanted to compliment you first.

    – Al

  • Al Fansome

    ANONYMOUS: In terms of a programmatic strategy for exploration, I think Mr. Robertson is right here — that “better” has too long been the enemy of “good enough”.

    Anon,

    I agree with your and Mr. Robertson’s logical reasoning. That said, my position, which Mr. Roberston may disagree with me on, is that the current ESAS plan is not even “good enough”. I have been pointing out for some time (at least a year) that the ESAS plan was politically unsustainable. It was never “good enough.”

    Your have proposed that we go with a smaller Orion that fits on an EELV, particularly a single stick EELV (say the Atlas V 551, or the 552 if they paid for the upgrade to a 2-engine Centaur). I think this is politically sustainable. I can think of better, but this would be good enough.

    – Al

  • Al Fansome

    ANONYMOUS: Instead of going with the biggest, most capable, most expensive, and most time-consuming hardware options, we’re much better off biting off these accomplishments in a step-wise fashion, and iterating new technologies, capabilities, and discoveries into the hardware options as we go.

    I completely agree with this.

    The DoD calls this “spiral development”. Admiral Steidle was beginning to institute this exact approach, and one of Dr. Griffin’s first decisions was to kill the spiral development process, stating in public “I hate the term spiral development.” In the process, Griffin argued that he was killing spiral development because “The CEV needs to be safe, it needs to be simple, it needs to be soon.”

    You can see Griffin’s quotes here.

    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/115302main_mg_roundtable_051205.pdf

    If Griffin really wanted the CEV “safe, simple and soon”, he would have gone with a smaller CEV that could launch on an existing EELV as anonymous has proposed. In light of the facts, I don’t think anybody can now argue that Griffin’s ESAS approach is designed to minimize the gap in human spaceflight.

    In hindsight, it is pretty easy to see that Griffin’s program is really designed to get him a big Mars spacecraft, and a Mars super-heavy lifter. This objective trumped the objective to get a CEV that was “safe, simple, soon”.

    – Al

  • Al Fansome

    One of things that I have been struck about, is the opinions and insight by “Anonymous” on the team around Griffin. This is real inside baseball, but I wanted to explore some of this, as I think it is quite important.

    ANONYMOUS: Among the mistakes (Griffin’s) made: … Relied on relatively inexperienced and unthoughtful appointees to articulate the official rationales for the lunar effort (when he actually does a better job at this himself), do the Congressional politicking, and seek international support. As a result, the policy goals for the effort are another weak, multi-point, ISS-like list of rationales; already weak Congressional support is getting weaker; and no foreign partners have signed up in any substantive way.”

    Anonymous,

    I agree that the “multi-point, ISS-like list of rationales” was a complete flop. (FWIW, IMO a bureaucracy is never going to be able to pick a single rationale. That is what we need our political leaders to do.) I also agree that Griffin actually does by far the best job of publicly articulating a rationale.

    However, Griffin is by no means perfect in this area. For example his (well written and eloquent) argument that the taxpayers should give him $100+Billion for his ESAS system because Europe built the cathedrals, went off the cliff. What Griffin seemed to forget (or did not understand) was that those cathedrals were financed on the backs of the serfs (which is a softer version of slavery) and the millions who were “persuaded” to pay the church to build the cathedrals as a means to get either themselves or their loved ones out of purgatory. (Are we supposed to be the serfs, or the ignorant millions?)

    I wanted to explore one space policy area. You are clearly saying that Shana Dale (Deputy Administrator) has failed to sell the ESAS plan to the international partners. This is a reasonable point, as it is pretty clear that they have failed to generate any progress (so far), and I am highly doubtful there will be any real progress.

    My question is “HOW MUCH” of this failure — in your opinion — should be pinned on Ms. Dale as being a failure of leadership or salesmanship … and how much of it was that she was given something to sell that was fundamentally poorly designed from the start?

    I am inclined to think it was more of the latter, and that Ms. Dale took on a task that was pre-destined to fail. I will explain why I think so below. (NOTE: I am not letting Ms. Dale off the hook. She took the job with her eyes open, and she should have understood that she was being set up to fail. I know it is a high standard, but we should ask for (and demand) excellence of our political appointees.)

    Some may point out that Ms. Dale does not appear to have much experience in international affairs. But she was supported by the NASA external relations office and the State Department (presumably), so this kind of experience is not really necessary for somebody who was well briefed, and knows how to sell a program.

    I believe this is another result of Griffin’s neophyte political approach, which we have all discussed at length here. Griffin designed the perfect “long-term” program to get to Mars, but ignored the key underpinnings of a long-term political strategy that would be sustainable. In this instance, Griffin locked in the design on the key strategic parts of his entire system, which he called the “interstate highway”, and then tacked on a plan to sell it to the IPs after the fact. The only thing left to sell to the IPs was the “off ramp” work.

    On 1 November 2005, Griffin told the Center for Strategic & International Studies “And, as with our interstate highways, it is at the off-ramps of this system, for example the first base camp on the lunar surface, where the best opportunities for international cooperation will occur.”

    See his full speech at http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18543

    Considering that the IPs have just spent billions of dollars on the ISS partnership, for which the NASA “interstate highway” to the ISS failed, I think this was a pretty poor metaphor for Griffin to choose. More broadly, if you look at European space policy history, the last 20+ years of their space policy has been designed (in great part) to eliminate their dependence on NASA.

    The European’s have been to this show with NASA, even before the ISS. They agreed to put all their eggs in the Shuttle basket in the early 70’s. After they were dependent on the Shuttle, NASA then gave European payloads a secondary status. The Ariane program was created in response.

    More recently we have Europe’s recent experience with the ISS, in which they were clearly at risk of losing their entire ISS investment — because of a change in direction in American space policy. Their at risk investment was pretty substantial — consisting of the Columbus module, the ATV, and all the science that is supposed to be done at the Columbus module.

    In this context, I don’t see how Europe would want to put themselves in a completely dependent position with the U.S., one more time.

    In conclusion, I think that Ms. Dale was pre-destined to fail at selling the ESAS approach to the IPs. Yes, she should have known better, but the majority of the blame for this failure still lies with Dr. Griffin in my opinion.

    I think that Europe is much more likely to focus on completing their investment in the ISS, and then focus on investments that give them even more independence from the U.S. plans. I think that Europe is much more likely to take an evolutionary approach in the next phase that builds off their existing systems and capabilities.

    You can see more on what the Europeans are considering of this kind at http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/projects/index.cfm?act=default.page&level=11&page=776

    I also think that the Russians are approaching the Europeans with a cooperative project that is of much more interest to Europe — the Clipper — than what we are offering. Assuming that Europe gets a major piece of the work on the Clipper, and assuming it will launch on an Ariane 5, I think this could happen (unless Europe decides they want to do their own.)

    FWIW …

    – Al

  • Al Fansome

    DONALD: I’d like to avoid heavy lift if we can. First, it amounts to the same problem as Ares-1 — a large up-front investment and long-term maintenance overhead in a vehicle with exactly one customer.

    LETSGETREAL: Donald, I’ll have to disagree with you on this one. One thing that has been common in the multitude of studies done over the last several decades has been the need for heavy lift (HL). Whether you are talking about crewed missions to the Moon or Mars, or deep space missions with high-power robotic spacecraft, HL is key to avoiding the complex and exceedingly costly task of rendezvous and assembly in LEO. Think about how much easier ISS deployment would have been if we had had a Saturn V-equivalent.

    Dear Let’s Get Real,

    In spite of what the studies you quote say, I have to agree with Donald. I would like to avoid heavy lift too.

    It is not that I so much disagree with the outputs of the studies — I disagree with one key built-in assumption of the studies.

    Just because “on-orbit assembly” is expensive for NASA, does not mean that “on-orbit assembly” is inherently and fundamentally expensive. It may be that NASA’s on-orbit assembly is fundamentally expensive and complex because NASA is the one doing it. The built-in assumption — that on-orbit assembly is too complex and expensive — is essentially equivalent to arguing that reusable launch vehicles are impossible to achieve because NASA proved it was impossible with the Shuttle.

    I agree that the smaller launch vehicle approach to exploration requires a much cheaper and lower risk approach to on-orbit assembly. This is a task for private industry. Private industry designs, builds, and operates complex assembly projects all the time … and does so at a much lower cost than any government agency ever could.

    Furthermore, a commercial on-orbit assembly industry would be strategically valuable to this country in many ways beyond supporting human exploration of the Moon/Mars/asteroids.

    – Al

  • Al,
    I agree that the inputs and assumptions underlying a lot of these studies are questionable. In addition to orbital assembly, orbital propellant transfer is also interesting. For most lunar missions, orbital propellant transfer alone would be adequate to allow missions to be launched using entirely existing boosters. You only really start needing orbital assembly for bigger projects.

    ~Jon

  • Robert: I think that the space station is the last human space project that is going to be done just to do human spaceflight.

    I think this very unlikely, simply because no one in either Congress or any likely administration will want to be responsible for a complete withdrawal from human spaceflight. That said, projects might get pretty small and incremental for a while. However, a slow build-up and infrastructure and capability (which can act as markets for commercial launch companies) probably is no bad thing. . . .

    the first is that a space infrastructure develops which more or less makes development of such vehicles (or adaption of others to the use) cost effective…and there is some resource or activity on teh Moon which has a reasonable chance of paying its way.

    That is exactly why we should have used the EELVs — somebody else had already paid for their development, using them would have amortized their support across more projects, and they could have been adapted for most of our initial requirements.

    LetsGetReal: The good news is that the need for HL is not immediate. Development could be done at a more deliberate pace if started now, while the crew launch requirement could be met with Atlas V/Delta IV.

    Strategically, this amounts to the same thing. Let’s get by with what we’ve got for now, and see what we need later on. I’m not so certain in the end we’ll need HL, no matter what the paper studies say. We are learning how to do construction and assembly with the Space Station — skills we will ultimately need whether we have HL or not — and it should be easier and cheaper the next time around, with second generation equipment. And there are safety advantages: even if we had lost a Space Station component on one of the Shuttle losses, it need not have meant the end of the project.

    Al: Your have proposed that we go with a smaller Orion that fits on an EELV, particularly a single stick EELV (say the Atlas V 551, or the 552 if they paid for the upgrade to a 2-engine Centaur). I think this is politically sustainable. I can think of better, but this would be good enough.

    But, as Anonymous has pointed out (and I agree), that is not in the political cards for at least the next two years, and by then Orion will be too far along in development to cheaply redesign. If I were at Boeing or LM, I would be figuring out how to adapt my respective EELV as cheaply as possible to launch the current Orion design. Then, when the next administration takes power and someone at NASA is trying to figure out how to go forward at less cost, I’d tout my new plan to Congress and the media. All that said, I still have to remind everyone that Dr. Griffin has met us part way with his decision to use the Delta-IV engines.

    In hindsight, it is pretty easy to see that Griffin’s program is really designed to get him a big Mars spacecraft, and a Mars super-heavy lifter.

    Dr. Griffin has stated this himself. I see no reason to doubt it!

    What Griffin seemed to forget (or did not understand) was that those cathedrals were financed on the backs of the serfs (which is a softer version of slavery) and the millions who were “persuaded” to pay the church to build the cathedrals as a means to get either themselves or their loved ones out of purgatory.

    The cathedrals, like the pyramids, were built by willing, albeit possibly “brainwashed,” labor — it is hard to call them “slaves.” But, maybe we should try the “Christian” approach to this: Do what we say and give us your money now, and you’ll live happily ever after once you’re dead. . . .

    Ms. Dale took on a task that was pre-destined to fail.

    Let us not forget that, while the outcome does look likely at this point, the VSE (and even ESAS) has not failed yet. Let’s not push it over the edge before it actually goes.

    After they were dependent on the Shuttle, NASA then gave European payloads a secondary status.

    And, remember the way they were screwed on Spacelab — where we dropped their product for Spacehab. They do. I don’t disagree with most of your analysis about Europe’s view of all this, but, as someone who reads and has written for many European publications, I would note that the VSE is having an impact in Europe. In many ways, they see it as a competitive threat. They are far more concerned about staying competitive in human spaceflight than they were — in fact, a group in the French Parliament just called for human rating the Ariane-V.

    Al and Jon, regarding on-orbit assembly. The Russian’s have been doing this cheaply and relatively efficiently for years — read any good history of Mir. They’ve long understood the value of “quick and dirty and good enough.” We should hire some of their engineers. . . .

    — Donald

  • Al Fansome

    DONALD: They are far more concerned about staying competitive in human spaceflight than they were — in fact, a group in the French Parliament just called for human rating the Ariane-V.

    Very interesting. This supports my assertion that the Europeans will invest in systems that utilize, to the maximum extent possible, their existing systems.

    Assuming these French politicians are successful, the only question is whether they will develop their own human-rated spacecraft (e.g., Hermes II), or partner with the Russians on Clipper.

    DONALD: Al and Jon, regarding on-orbit assembly. The Russian’s have been doing this cheaply and relatively efficiently for years — read any good history of Mir. They’ve long understood the value of “quick and dirty and good enough.” We should hire some of their engineers. . . .

    Good point. I agree.

    In fact, much of what we talk about here (using the EELVs) parallels the logic that the Russians have executed extremely well, and which the Europeans are likely to follow.

    – Al

  • Robert G. Oler

    The reality of VSE/and everything else is that by Jan 20,2009 one thing will be pretty clear.

    Either one or all of the various “big time” private efforts (Musk/Bigelow) to accomplish something very significant in the space business will have succeeded or failed.

    FAilure is one thing. But if one or (gasp) both succeed then whoever takes the oath of office on Jan 20,2009 will have (eventually) space people who will at some point ask the “smart people” at NASA HQ and Nasa Parkway “why can they do these things and you cant?” before essentially pulling the plug on all the stuff that is going nowhere.

    Hard to believe that if this happens in 2009, it will have taken 40 years for the agency to more or less “blow down” after its one high note.

    Sort of a “Nowak moment”
    Robert

  • Robert G. Oler

    Donald F. Robertson wrote @ February 18th, 2007 at 4:35 pm ..

    Don.

    I have no doubt that “something” is going to be done, federally, if for no other reason then to feed the hog…but the question is will there be any “large scale” ones…I think not for a bit.

    I believe that this is a good thing.

    The NASA culture needs completly “redoing” (and no I dont mean Lisa Nowak!although there is a problem there)…it needs to become more “lewis and clark”…ie doing projects which either make use of private infrastructure or push private enterprise to develop infrastructure that has value beyond the NASA/government program.

    I would have more “empathy” for the REturn to the Moon, or the space station program or “anything” IF it used commercial infrastructure and did so in a way that was designed to “enhance it”.

    Over the years I have become increasingly oppossed to doing projects whose sole “equipment’ procurement is for things which never see the light of private use.

    For instance I dont know if it would have mattered but the shuttle program got badly off track in the 80’s when it was determined that NASA was going to remain the sole operator of the vehicles. I dont know if a private truly private company could have operated them “cheaper” or more versatilly (probably not) but just letting NASA do it, particularly after Challenger was the “end of the road”.

    NASA is almost a “legacy” airline that refuses to come into this century in terms of its operation. The only difference is that tax dollars just keep flowing to keep it in business.

    Robert

  • anonymous

    “I wanted to explore one space policy area. You are clearly saying that Shana Dale (Deputy Administrator) has failed to sell the ESAS plan to the international partners. This is a reasonable point, as it is pretty clear that they have failed to generate any progress (so far), and I am highly doubtful there will be any real progress.

    My question is “HOW MUCH” of this failure — in your opinion — should be pinned on Ms. Dale as being a failure of leadership or salesmanship … and how much of it was that she was given something to sell that was fundamentally poorly designed from the start?”

    Your point that ESAS is already a hard sell for Dale to make foreign partners is well-taken. ESAS has several things going against it:

    1) NASA still has to launch the European and Japanese ISS modules. Until those modules are up, ESA and JAXA (and their political masters) will be reluctant to commit to the next cycle of human space flight development, whether it’s ESAS or something else.

    2) Even if the ISS modules had recently gone up, ESA (and most member European space agencies), JAXA, and CSA have learned some hard lessons from their ISS and STS experiences. They are naturally going to be reluctant about a proposal that would once again make them reliant on another NASA human space transportation system. But by requiring that Constellation be an all-U.S. effort, Griffin has essentially dictated such to our potential foreign partners. This is why we see ESA talking to RSA about Soyuzes at Kourou and Kliper, and not with NASA about contributions to Orion, scarring Orion for Ariane, etc.

    3) And even if potential foreign partners did not have a bad taste in their mouths from their ISS and STS experiences and were chomping at the bit to contribute to the lunar efforts, there’s not much for them to do for the next half-decade. NASA won’t start designing and building actual lunar elements in earnest until 2011 at the earliest (maybe 2012 with the latest budget crunch). Potential foreign partners are naturally going to wait and see if NASA actually embarks on the lunar return effort as currently planned (and if the next White House and Congress embark on the lunar return effort at all) before designing and building their own hardware to Ares V and LSAM specs. That only leaves Ares I/Orion to contribute to, and as mentioned above, Griffin has forbade foreign participation in those elements. So even interested foreign partners are left to twiddle their thumbs instead of helping lock in international agreements and foreign policy rationales that would help see the lunar return effort through the next U.S. political cycle.

    So yes, you’re right that it’s hard to pin too much of this on Dale, who inherited a tough sell job thanks to ISS/STS history (#1 above) and Griffin’s poorly conceived international (really anti-international) strategy with regards to Constellation (#2 and #3 above).

    That said, Griffin compounded the situation by putting a relatively young Deputy NASA Administrator with no foreign relations experience, only moderate political experience, and who has publicly admitted that she suffers from “shyness” in charge . Were I in Griffin’s position, I would have assigned the effort a much higher priority and sought out an experienced, confident diplomat (maybe even outside the agency) to lead the foreign politicking. NASA HQ’s international division may report up through Dale, but (no disrespect to Dale) she just doesn’t have the credentials, experience, or personality to lead foreign relations efforts.

    As an aside, the way that Dale has gone about trying to secure foreign involvement has been rather amateurish at best and somewhat goofy at worst. Normally, informal talks take place out of the eye of the press, and depending on who evinces interest in what, discussions proceed to formal bilateral or multilateral talks. Unless the temperature of a particular proposal needs to be taken (with Congress or the public) before it goes final, nothing is usually rolled out publicly until the signing ceremony. Contrast that with the highly public conferences that Dale conducted over the past year — where potential foreign partners could not talk about contributions without tipping their hands to other partners, the press, or their political masters — and it’s little wonder that all that’s come out of Dale’s efforts are six mixed and uncompelling rationales for lunar development and a few “no duh” pronouncements about a lunar polar base.

    Finally, I’d just add that there is an interesting “what could have been” in all this. Horowitz’s predecessor, Steidle, was looking at modelling CEV on either his own Joint-Strike Fighter experience, where Britain contributed dollars to a U.S. military development effort in exchange for a seat at the requirements table and some work, and/or using industry-to-industry agreements on CEV, where the best combination of U.S. and foreign components could be brought together. Had Griffin not axed Steidle and dictated an all-U.S. solution for the Constellation architecture, we might be well along to building the first international human space transportation vehicle and architecture. The devils are in the details and such an effort could easily have gotten bogged down in competing requirements and red tape. But such an effort would have provided a powerful foreign policy rationale to sustain the lunar return effort through the next U.S. political cycle and maybe even reduced U.S. costs on the LEO elements through foreign cost-sharing so more U.S. bucks could be spent earlier on actual exploration hardware.

    Such are the vagaries of alternate histories…

  • Back to the origional subject of this thread, today’s New York Times has an Op Ed piece by a Cassini scientist suggesting how space science would benefit from the Ares-V. It focusses on the scientific benefits, but also implies that there would be political and financial benefits.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20porco.html?th&emc=th

    If Dr. Griffin has any brains at all, he will take this as a peace offering from the scientific community (though in reality, of course, it is nothing of the kind), and respond vocally and positively to it, giving the political appearance of a re-united space community behind the VSE.

    — Donald

  • anonymous

    “Wow, anonymous–that’s a pretty good assessment. How’s about you starting a blog on this stuff?”

    “In general, well said! It is generally rare to find a new poster who shares useful & valuable space policy/political analysis online. Most of space policy postings espouse opinions on subjects for which they have little knowledge or expertise, but I find myself nodding my head and thinkings “good point” when reading your postings. I am glad you are taking the time to share your “two cents”.”

    Thanks for the kind words from Cantayella and Mr. Fansome. I would just point out that many of the same general points are made by other folks in these threads and elsewhere. I may have a minor gift for articulation, but I have a very limited number of original thoughts

    For Cantellya, unfortunately, I have to remain anonymous due to my day job, so I probably won’t be starting a blog anytime soon. Even if I did, I probably don’t have the spare time to do a blog justice, and I find the give-and-take of these discussions more interesting in any event.

    For Mr. Fansome, I tried to respond to a substantive question from him in the post directly above.

    Again, thanks for the kind words.

  • anonymous

    “today’s New York Times has an Op Ed piece by a Cassini scientist suggesting how space science would benefit from the Ares-V”

    As much as I like Dr. Porco and laud her team’s findings at Enceladus (now there’s an exciting space exploration target!), I found her editorial to be rather unrealistic when it comes to the cost, budget, and schedule issues that would be involved with the “superheavy” class of science missions she proposes to undertake using Ares V. The largest class of routine planetary missions currently fielded by NASA are the New Frontiers missions (currently New Horizons to Pluto and Juno to Jupiter) and they’re capped at $700 million (inclusive of launch costs). The cost of building and launching one Ares V is likely to be on that order (around $500 million), leaving little, if any, budget for the actual spacecraft, operations, and data analysis.

    So to effectively take advantage of Ares V, we’re talking about something at least as big as the multi-billion dollar class of missions represented by Cassini and Galileo. Cassini came in at $3.3 billion total, and I just don’t see where the dollars for that kind of planetary mission are going to come from in the foreseeable science budget at NASA. Griffin has almost flat-lined the science budget, put space telescopes (e.g., SIM) that are a fraction of that cost on permanent hold, and is getting excoriated for spending too little on Earth science. Heck, he even killed JIMO early in his tenure, which was the perfect planetary mission to take advantage of a heavy lifter like Ares V.

    Even if the post-Griffin budget pressures on planetary science lighten up next decade, the annual science budget will still be only a handful of billions of dollars and will still have to address a multiplicity of targets and disciplines. Just like during the 80s and early 90s, they will only be able to afford about one of these flagship-class missions each decade. And even then, the science community will wait to see Ares V actually flies towards the end of next decade before committing to develop such a mission. So what we’re really arguing about is one, maybe two at most, superheavy missions that might launch in the mid- to late-2020s and 2030s.

    No thank you, Dr. Porco. I’d rather not wait for retirement before the first Europa or Enceladus orbiter or Titan airship to get back to those interesting astrobiology targets in the outer solar system. I think we’re much better off with a series of less capable but smaller (although probably slightly larger than New Frontiers, maybe $1B+) and more frequent (e.g., every 5-years) flagship missions. The Mars program has proven the sustainability of such an approach in the face of the loss of the 2001 Mars missions and more recent Griffin cuts. We need develop a similar approach for the outer moons.

    My 2 cents… FWIW…

  • Anonymous, I fully agree with your analysis of the NYT piece, and the implications in your last paragraph that smaller is better anyway. That does not mean this should not be used to the political benefit of the VSE, which is what I was suggesting.

    That said, we used to launch planetary probes on the Titan-IV, with which development the Air Force managed the true miracle of coming up with an expendable rocket that cost more to launch than the Space Shuttle. While no one is likely to develop it for this purpose, if the vehicle is available, it may well get used, particularly for space telescopes.

    — Donald

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