Since this summer the Mars Society has battled language in the House version of the appropriations bill that prohibits NASA from spending money on projects exclusively intended for human Mars exploration. Now, as conferees prepare to work out differences between the House bill and its Senate version (which lacks the offending provision), the NSS is joining the fray. “HELP!” begins an email sent out by the NSS late yesterday. “A bill heading through Congress MUST be amended or stopped–or NASA could be barred from doing anything related to ‘Human Exploration of Mars.’” (Emphasis in original.) The email goes on to explain what’s going on, and what kind of help—primarily financial—is seeking (again, emphasis in original):
Here’s what’s going on: The same bill that would increase NASA’s overall budget, specifically FORBIDS NASA from investing in human exploration of Mars!
NSS has started an EMERGENCY LEGISLATIVE CAMPAIGN to stop this outrageous effort. YOU CAN HELP.
Please send your Emergency Contribution to NSS now at www.nss.org/save_mars.
We’ve got to preserve NASA’s ability to function…but we hadn’t planned for this fight so our resources are now stretched thin. Your generous donation today will enable us to fill the gap and keep going.
The House of Representatives has already approved the bill. The Senate, on the other hand, refused to include the negative language against human exploration of Mars. Because of this, the bill is heading to the Congressional Conference Committee – right now! We must immediately take action to ensure that this language stays out of the final bill.
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So who do you give money to if you want to ensure the legislation DOES pass as written…?
Because you know that if you want to be fair and balanced you should give your readers both sides of the issue.
While I do not support legislating that NASA cannot work on Mars, I also think the space community has far more important battles to fight. If we lose the funding battle, any Mars legislation will be entirely academic.
— Donald
This whole debate is only relevant if Mars is a sterile planet.
In terms of oversight and setting limits on the agency, this is just the wrong focus for Congress regarding NASA right now. Whether or not NASA spends some millions on research grant supporting potential future human Mars exploration decades down the road is insignificant compared to the problems facing the tens-of-billion dollar development programs in Constellation today. For example, the Ares I PDR is slipping by six months due to a combination of performance and structural issues (add http://www):
flightglobal.com/articles/2007/11/07/219207/nasa-admits-significant-threats-to-performance-of-ares-i-launcher.html
It’s good that NASA is putting some focus back on launcher performance instead of taking all the redundancy, safety, and operability out of Orion. That said, the structural weakness of the 5-segment stack in the absence of a full Shuttle stack’s rigidity means that mass is going to have to be added, not taken away, and performance will likely only worsen from here. That would require Orion to get even lighter than at ZBR, which is not in the cards without reducing Orion’s requirements and making the capsule smaller.
If they really care about the gap, a human lunar return, or just the future of U.S. civil human space flight, Congress (and the White House) desperately need to exercise some oversight on the big ticket development programs in Constellation and tackle their increasingly intractable technical, budget, and schedule issues and stop playing in the weeds of Mars research grants.
Finally, I’d just note that even if the Mars language survives conference, NASA’s appropriations bill is under Presidential veto threat. If the White House carries through on its veto threat, there will be more opportunities to insert and/or delete the Mars language (and everything else related to NASA funding).
FWIW…
Weird. In all the links I’ve surfed on this subject, not a single one of them has quoted the actual language that they find objectionable! I’m sure that nobody is trying to be misleading, but this is still a very strange and annoying oversight. I refuse to protest something on hearsay alone; I’d like somebody to show me exactly what it is that I’m supposed to be protesting.
More on Ares I structural problems (add http://):
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2007/11/aiaa-99-2797.html
FWIW…
Nathen
See my blog: Congressional games with Mars exploration @ http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=129320645&blogID=314674206&Mytoken=65E2E13C-943A-48EC-AD824D49B7895E1031276778
It includes the actual language and a link to the House Approved bill.
Patrick, I have read your blog link and the sentence you are afraif of is : “Provided, That none of the funds under this heading shall be used for any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars.”
OK, I am French, so maybe I am misunderstanding, but apparently it says that the funds should not be used for things exclusively related to human exploration of Mars. Strictly, that does also mean that these funds could be used for things related to Mars and other things, like the Moon, no?
So what seems forbidden is only an exclusive manned Mars logic, while a Moon-Mars one still remain possible. Your advice on this?
[…] One of the other significant differences to be ironed out is the inclusion in the House bill of language that would prohibit funds from being used for “any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars.” Similar language is not included in the Senate bill. (hat tip: Space Politics). […]
Mmmm…..this seems like such a side issue given the problems NASA has been having with Orion and Ares. It sounds like they’re going to have trouble going to the moon, much less doing anything significant there.
I don’t know why NSS isn’t really sounding the alarm on that. They are more tied into what’s going on with NASA and in DC than most people. Surely they must understand what’s happening.
They seem to be largely silent on these bigger issues, unless I’m missing something. Are they hoping things turn around? Are they reluctant to criticize Griffin and the administration?
Doug,
You are correct that the Ares 1 problems are much larger … but they are also much more difficult to solve (NSS generally avoids issues that would have NSS criticize NASA … they are willing to criticize Cogress, but bend over backwards to avoid criticizing NASA.)
In NSS favor – the Mars issue is relatively simple & straightforward and comparatively easy to solve. And it might be important some day. I don’t mind NSS focusing on this.
– Al
PS — IF anybody does not believe me about NSS not being willing to criticize NASA — what do you want to bet that NSS will not criticize NASA for its position this week on planetary defense (we can only afford $4M/year, even though Congress told is, in law, in 2005 to make this a bigger priority). NSS has no real excuse, since NSS is an advocate of planetary defense.
Yeah, that’s been an institutional issue with NSS since von Braun helped to found its predecessor. Sort of a grassroots organization founded by people at the top, which is a fundamental contradiction that Michael Neufeld points out in his von Braun bio. Limits the group’s effectiveness a bit when they’re that close to NASA, although they have forged close ties with the emerging tourism industry.
I was disappointed with a recent NSS statement that mentioned the Earth sciences programs. The basic attitude was “yeah more could be done, but there’s plenty of missions planned.” I felt it largely ignored the damage Bush has done to Earth sciences, especially environmental monitoring crucial to understanding climate change. It was too close to the administration’s line, which I think has been fundamentally dishonest on climate change for going on seven years now.
“Whether or not NASA spends some millions on research grant supporting potential future human Mars exploration decades down the road is insignificant compared to the problems facing the tens-of-billion dollar development programs in Constellation today.”
Why must you turn every single thread into a gripe about Orion and Ares?
“Why must you turn every single thread into a gripe about Orion and Ares?”
Please reread my post. It’s a complaint about where Congressional attention is focused, not about Ares I/Orion issues. Even if Ares I/Orion were going well, Congress’s (and the White House’s) attention needs to be focused first and foremost on those ten billion dollar-class development programs, not million dollar-class technology research programs. Our political leadership has lost the forest for the trees when it comes to NASA, which is just bad governance.
To back up my complaint about our congressional representatives, I did link to and summarize an article about yet another technically driven schedule slip on Ares I. But it was just an example, and not the point of the post.
FWIW…
I checked the National Space Society site:
http://www.nss.org/
Not only do they have the alert about the Mars language, but they have this:
“NSS Legislative ALERT: Private Property Rights in Space in Serious Jeopardy!
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty and it is now heading to the Senate floor for a vote. It can be voted on any day now. Please help stop the Senate from ratifying the Law of the Sea Treaty (LoST).”
There’s a lot more in the link they provide after that about the precedent the treaty would have for the Moon Treaty, which they are against.
I don’t think human exploration of Mars is needed. Let the robots do it, they can do more than a human do out there anyway.