Congress, NASA

Misinterpreting the authorization bill?

Saturday’s Orlando Sentinel has an article about HR 6063, the recently-introduced NASA authorization bill for FY 2009. The reporters play up the international cooperation language in the bill—perhaps too far:

President Bush had a simple plan for NASA in 2004. Stick another American flag on the moon and launch a new American-led space age.

Four years later, Democrats in Congress have unveiled another idea. Going it alone is expensive; let’s invite the world.

The plan is part of a new congressional blueprint for the space agency. If successful, it could significantly shift the direction of NASA and change its next big project from a purely American push for the stars to a global science project.

Under the bill, released late Thursday by a bipartisan band of House members, building a successor to the space shuttle would become a group effort similar to building the international space station.

The article continues down along that line: that the bill would somehow push NASA to make the development of Ares 1 and/or Orion an international effort in some way. However, the text of the bill itself doesn’t contain any such provision. The closest I could find was section 401, a “Sense of Congress” passage:

It is the sense of Congress that the President of the United States should invite America’s friends and allies to participate in a long-term international initiative under the leadership of the United States to expand human and robotic presence into the solar system, including the exploration and utilization of the Moon, near Earth asteroids, Lagrangian points, and eventually Mars and its moons, among other exploration and utilization goals.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mark Udall, said the following in his statement Thursday introducing the bill:

[T]he NASA Authorization Act of 2008 makes clear that any human exploration initiative to return to the Moon and venture to other destinations in the solar system should be undertaken as a cooperative international undertaking under U.S. leadership—and that such a cooperative approach will have the best chance of being successfully sustained if the President is personally involved in inviting our friends and allies to participate in such a venture.

However, the Sentinel article presses on, getting a quote from a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson indicating that the senator is “not convinced it is a good idea because of safety concerns”, although not elaborating about what those concerns are (and being vague about what exactly is not “a good idea”.) The article adds that NASA “is unlikely to embrace the idea of outsiders working on its Constellation program”.

The article is also off-course when it claims that the bill would “change its next big project from a purely American push for the stars to a global science project.” In his January 2004 speech introducing the Vision for Space Exploration, President Bush said:

We’ll invite other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of this new era of discovery. The vision I outline today is a journey, not a race, and I call on other nations to join us on this journey, in a spirit of cooperation and friendship.

NASA has made clear since then that they’re open to international cooperation in a wide variety of areas, but also they want to keep the core transportation infrastructure a US-only effort. The authorization bill, while perhaps putting a stronger emphasis on international cooperation in the overall exploration effort, would not appear to force NASA to change that approach.

12 comments to Misinterpreting the authorization bill?

  • Ray

    Jeff: The article adds that NASA “is unlikely to embrace the idea of outsiders working on its Constellation program”.

    Yes, even U.S. commercial companies are seen as outsiders by NASA when it comes to what it thinks is “its” lunar transportation system. NASA even seems to think parabolic flights are inherently “its”, if the speculation in a recent Space News editorial is right.

    Jeff: “NASA has made clear since then that, while they’re open to international cooperation in a wide variety of areas, they want to keep the core transportation infrastructure a US-only effort.”

    Does anyone have ideas on what international organizations could add to the core lunar effort, and would they want to? Could they plug in a redundant component that could integrate into the rest of the architecture, like a different version of an Orion launcher, a different lunar lander, etc?

    One idea that might have some promise is for an international agency to provide a fuel depot to the core architecture. This would not step on NASA’s core ESAS “turf”. However, it should add considerably to the capability of the architecture. It also would be a big on-ramp for additional international and commercial participation in the effort (via filling the depot). I’m not sure if it could be done in an “optional” way, where lunar ESAS missions would work with or without it, though.

  • Thanks so much for your blog. I’ve been a big fan and regular reader ever since I started this beat six months ago. Your observations are insightful and articulately expressed. Indeed, your critique of our article in the Orlando Sentinel today raises some valid points.

    While I am not a big believer in journalists defending their work outside of their work, (I believe it should stand alone), the trend by newspapers fighting for survival to make complex stories shorter and more accessible to a wider audience can sometimes inadvertently lead to over simplifications. This may be a case where an amplification would be helpful.

    1) Democrats on the committee that drew up the legislation crafted the language in the bill referring to international cooperation.
    2) The language is vague and open to interpretation about how far this cooperation should extend: Does it cover Constellation or not? Is the cooperation referred to a venture like that which built the ISS or is it something more akin to the World Bank?
    3) It’s clear from talking to Congressional staff that supporters’ intentions are about interpreting it widely: brining in partners ASAP to lessen costs on current lunar systems developments, not excluding vehicles; that it should be aimed at extending U.S. strategic leadership into space, and that a role for the Chinese needs to be considered to end the idea of a race.
    4) The sense among many insiders on the Hill is that this language is a shot across the bow of NASA and an attempt by Democratic supporters of space to prepare the ground to make the Constellation program more palatable to a future Democratic President, especially one not sympathetic to the idea of sending astronauts back to the moon. The hope is that by turning manned space exploration into a foreign policy issue that would extend U.S. leadership while spreading the costs, the appeal might be greater to anyone who only sees NASA as a discretionary program ripe for the chop.

    Again, the vagueness of the language leaves it open to interpretation. Our report tried to look at the intentions behind the proposed legislation, while pointing out that it’s future is far from certain.

    Thanks for your comments and efforts to keep us honest.

    Best,
    Bobby Block (with Mark Matthews wholeheartedly agreeing)
    Orlando Sentinel

  • anonymous.space

    Two points:

    1) While the language in the bill on international participation in NASA’s human space exploration efforts is limited, the entire section on NASA’s human space exploration activities is titled “International Exploration Initiative”. Were the bill enacted and closely pursued by the next Administration, that title could presage more of a shift towards greater foreign involvement than the text indicates.

    2) There’s also the question of timing. Under the current Constellation plan, there is no significant opportunity for foreign contributions to NASA’s human lunar return effort until sometime after 2020, after the first human lunar landings. The bill text may be an attempt to accelerate the pursuit of foreign agreements in an attempt to make the lunar effort more sustainable and immune to changes in U.S. politics, as Russian involvement did for ISS.

    FWIW…

  • Charles In Houston

    Back to International cooperation:

    Ray said Does anyone have ideas on what international organizations could add to the core lunar effort, and would they want to? Could they plug in a redundant component that could integrate into the rest of the architecture, [snip]

    International organizations (probably only ESA at the moment, though JAXA is not too far behind) could significantly contribute to various Lunar missions. For instance, on the X-38, our avionics were donated by ESA (I forget exactly how the loan was arranged, but I know that we shipped all the avionics boxes back to Europe). On the Station, ESA contributed the Columbus, Japan contributed Kibo, Canada contributed the SSRMS and DEXTRE. ESA is flying the ATV right now, and it integrates with the Russian side of the Station pretty well.

    Of course, a few years ago ESA also contributed the Spacelab – built in Turin, Italy. Dennis Wingo probably has some fond memories of that program.

    Given the chance, international partners could contribute habitation modules, power generation, additional logistics that could dock with a Lunar expedition in orbit, etc.

    They certainly have the smarts and experience.

    The question of if they would want to calls out for a separate post, that would seem to diverge from the original intent of this thread (GASP! Dare we diverge??).

  • Dennis Wingo

    Does anyone have ideas on what international organizations could add to the core lunar effort, and would they want to? Could they plug in a redundant component that could integrate into the rest of the architecture, like a different version of an Orion launcher, a different lunar lander, etc?

    There are a zillion things that ESA could provide.

    1. Comsat/positioning constellation.
    2. Surface modules (Alenia built ISS Node 2 and 3 as well as Columbus)
    3. Materials processing (many many contributions)
    4. Logistics (Ariane V class lunar landers)
    5. Navigation and Rendezvous and Docking technology

    ESA has a hell of a lot to contribute and they are a great partner after they make up their minds.

    JAXA

    1. Materials Technology
    2. Robotics (major major contribution)
    3. Logistics (lighter weight landers using the H-IIA.
    4. Lunar Surface Operations

    JAXA and Shimizu have thought a lot about these areas and have an amazing competence in robotics.

    This is one of the key political problems with ESAS and or DIRECT style heavy lift architectures in that in order to lower the unit costs you have to fly all the payloads on those vehicles, which is just self defeating.

  • Jeff Foust

    Bobby: Thanks for the thoughtful comments. The main reason I think the bill’s international cooperation language is unlikely to include the initial elements of Constellation—Ares 1 and Orion—is that it would conflict with another major priority in the legislation: authorizing additional funding to shorten the Shuttle-Constellation gap. Adding international cooperation to Ares 1 and/or Orion would do nothing to accelerate their progress at this stage, and in fact would likely delay their progress, since those efforts would likely be put on hold to figure out who would participate and how. Moreover, existing contracts would likely have to be renegotiated or terminated, causing additional headaches. It’s hard to think that one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida, would sign on to such an approach.

    Enhanced international cooperation in other aspects of the overall exploration effort seems more feasible, and other nations have various capabilities that they can bring to bear, as Dennis Wingo outlined above. However, that assumes that the current exploration effort proceeds in something close to its current form for the long term, as many of those opportunities won’t materialize for years to come.

    Of course, come January 20 of next year, all bets are off…

  • Jeff, all good points. But I wonder, are there enough contracts out there, and has enough money been spent to deter Congress or the next President from forcing NASA to shift gears? My sense is that there is not, which is a big reason why Constellation is so vulnerable to a political rethink.
    It has also been suggested (in Florida space circles at least) that the campaigns have caught hold of the conventional wisdom floating around the net that Ares I is fatally flawed, and that this, more than anything else, is coloring their view of the agency and the vision.
    One of the most interesting things about this House bill is that it seems to confirm the Constellation architecture, for now at least. However, NASA is at a point where most experts say that more money now is unlikely to bring the gap back from 2015.
    I agree with you: it’s all a crap shoot at best and in eight short months all bets are off. Nobody knows this better than Dick Oberman, which is why I wonder, as anonymous space suggested, if his international cooperation clause in the bill is merely a thinly disguised “Hail Mary” pass to the Obama camp so it won’t kill the moon mission?
    Time will tell.
    Keep up the nice work, and thanks for your insight.
    Bobby

  • Charles In Houston

    Bobby Black Said:

    Jeff, all good points. But I wonder, are there enough contracts out there, and has enough money been spent to deter Congress or the next President from forcing NASA to shift gears? My sense is that there is not

    Earlier today I drove past the monument to the ability to change plans, the Saturn 5 outside of the Johnson Space Center. As I recall, and many people here will chime in with corrections, there were three Apollo missions that were cancelled at the end of the program. At least one was (partly?) stacked at KSC and parts of that booster are on display at JSC today. They destacked it, floated it to Houston, and put it on display.

  • Jeff, I had the same “?” after reading (and first finding the still unprocessed) bill text. International cooperation “under the leadership of the U.S.” is just not the most important part of the bill.

    The commercial end of things is strengthened, as is an emphasis on NEO mitigation, and a strong budget. The design of any lunar habitation, interestingly, should include maintenance autonomy. The L1 Advanced Component observatory.

    Is the budget enough, and does the bill address ITAR concerns sufficiently?

    It’s a high bid ahead of a long negotiation process. I must say I expected much worse.

  • BlueShift

    After the ISS, I’m a little wary of large international space efforts, especially of the human spaceflight variety. To be fair, they can work both positively and negatively. Bringing internationals into a program can help defray costs and take advantage of a larger talent-pool and technology-base. It also can serve as a useful diplomatic tool. I think this is all great.

    However, some international collaborations, especially big ones like ISS, have a tendency to grow beyond the ability of anyone (or any country) to really get a handle on it, manage it, change it, or cancel it if warranted. The commitments become more important than the mission. The commitments might inoculate the program and make it impossible to cancel. In some ways this would be great; get everyone on the hook and nobody can stop it. Maybe that’s how you make it through all the budget and political turmoil, yes? But if by building the program around such commitments you lose the ability to alter the program if you’ve gone down the wrong path, you might be stuck, too.

    Can an international exploration initiative be structured in such a way as to maximize the positive aspects of cooperation without tying everyone’s hands? If so, how do you do that? Thoughts?

  • Someone

    It is already happening. A U.S. Radar is flying on the Indian mission. And there will be more mixing on furture robotic missions.

    Unlike the ISS you don’t need an docking port for a lunar base, so different landers , by different countries will work find. And the different habitat modules don’t need to stattion keep, so different habitats could be built and delivered by different countries, just as different contractors build offices in an industrial park. And the same goes for the robots, instruments, etc.

    A lunar base would be more like an RV park by a recreation area then a closely knit structure like the ISS. So different countries could add and support it without the lockstep needed to build the ISS. Think of it as a town in the wilderness where each building is independently built, but walking distance to the others for support.

  • Jeff Foust

    Bobby: one other factor that may make it difficult (politically, not technically) to make Ares 1/Orion an international endeavor: if the US was to go down that path, we would end up in a situation where US government human access to space would be dependent on international cooperation, while Russia and China would (presumably) continue to have their own independent access—and perhaps in 8-10 years from now, so would Europe and/or India, depending on their plans and progress. I’m not sure such a scenario would go over well with some people on the Hill. (A mitigating factor might be that, by that time, there may be US commercial human space access through SpaceX’s Dragon and/or another venture, but that might not be sufficient to mollify those concerned about human spaceflight and national prestige.)

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