Congress, NASA

Additional tidbits in the authorization bill

With the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee scheduled to markup HR 6063, the NASA authorization bill for FY 2009, later today, it’s worth looking at some of the other provisions of the bill not covered in previous discussions:

  • The bill would reauthorize the Glory mission, which ran into the NASA equivalent of the Nunn-McCurdy cost controls: when a program exceeds its baseline budget by 30 percent, NASA must notify Congress and cannot spend any more money on the mission 18 months after notification unless the program is reauthorized. Since Glory is planned for launch before that 18-month deadline, this provision is not unexpected.
  • Tangentially related to the above: the bill would require NASA to contract for an independent assessment of “to identify the primary causes of cost growth in the large, medium-sized, and small space and Earth science spacecraft mission classes” and potential solutions.
  • NASA would have to develop a plan for the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR (née Triana), which could range from cannibalizing its instruments for use on other missions to transferring the spacecraft to another agency. (Odd discovery: according to this NASA web page, DSCOVR was launched on December 7, 2001, and has carried out its mission. In an alternate universe, maybe. In this universe, it’s sitting in storage.)
  • The bill would require NASA to ensure that any future human lunar outpost would only need to be “human-tended”, that is, would not require permanent habitation to remain viable. (Learning lessons from the ISS?) Also: “The United States portion of the first human-tended outpost established on the surface of the Moon shall be designated the ‘Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost’.:
  • There’s a provision in the bill that calls on NASA to “develop a technology plan to enable dissemination of information to the public to allow the public to experience missions to the Moon, Mars, or other bodies within our solar system by leveraging advanced exploration technologies”, something that falls under the term “participatory exploration” and is something NASA is already starting to dabble with.
  • While NASA is forbidden under the 2008 appropriations bill to spend any money on work exclusively linked to human Mars exploration, the bill does include language endorsing work that leads up to such expeditions: “Congress reaffirms its support for a systematic, integrated program of exploration of the Martian surface to examine the planet whose surface is most like Earth’s, to search for evidence of past or present life, and to examine Mars for future habitability and as a long-term goal for future human exploration.”
  • The bill would require the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a plan to restart the production of plutonium for use in RTGs. Current stocks of plutonium-238 are running out, which is affecting planning for future missions.
  • In addition to adding a shuttle flight for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, the legislation would make two of the last shuttle flights, STS-131 and -133, “part of the Space Shuttle baseline flight manifest”. These are currently designated “contingency” shuttle flights, but even Mike Griffin has admitted that these flights are essential for stocking up the station with spare parts and other supplies before the shuttle is retired.
  • While the bill would require NASA to enter into funded Space Act Agreements with two or more companies for Capability D of COTS (crew transfer), the funding the bill authorizes for that “shall not come at the expense of full funding for Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle development, Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle development, or International Space Station cargo delivery.” Also, there’s bill language requiring NASA to come up with contingency plans for cargo delivery to the station should commercial providers not be available “during any extended period” after the shuttle is retired.
  • In a bid to perhaps study the problem to death, the bill requires OSTP to perform a study of “the impact of current export control policies and implementation directives on the United States aerospace industry and its competitiveness in global markets,” including its effect on international cooperation on science and exploration missions. It’s not clear what difference this study would make over the others commissioned in the last few years, though.
  • The bill supports continued use of prizes, including for NEO searches and space solar power for lunar applications, and increases the threshold for Congressional notification of prizes from $10 million to $50 million (a moot point for now given the lack of funding for such prizes.)

Update: The subcommittee approved the bill unanimously during a brief (less than 10 minutes) session Tuesday morning, without any changes.

12 comments to Additional tidbits in the authorization bill

  • Doug Lassiter

    I watched the webcast, expecting to see something interesting. The Vice Chair got things in order (Chair was gone), took a vote, and it was done. Either no disagreements, or no interest, or both. (Was there something else going on today?)

    Now, this bill has bipartisan sponsorship, so it may just be a non-issue.

  • Ray

    Now, just for fun, let’s assume the provisions in the Authorization bill actually form the basis for the adjustments that will be made to the Administration’s plan. I believe all of the funding changes in the bill are increases over the Administration’s proposal. So, you have the Administration’s baseline proposal that we’ll pretend everyone agrees with, and the various new provisions.

    One problem: the bill asks for a large increase over 2008 (something like 14% – see my May 17 comment in the May 16 “NASA authorization bill text available” post, or correct my comment if it’s in error). Let’s suppose you’re limited to a healthy but comparably modest increase – say $500M over the Administration proposal. Which of the provisions in the bill do you keep?

    That’s a bit more than enough to fund the advanced exploration capabilities, COTS D start, and docking adaptors. It’s half the Ares 1/Orion acceleration boost for that year. It’s somewhat more than the augmented ISS cargo services, operations shuttle reserves and transition funding, and Shuttle AMS add for the year. It’s about the size of the aeronautics increase, and about the size of the Science increase.

    i.e. even in this scenario, some tough choices still need to be made. What should they be?

    Personally, I have mixed feelings. I like the Science adds, both because I tend to favor Science in the first place, and because I like that the various Science increases include more suborbital missions. That can help those suborbital entrepreneurs whittle away at the space access problem, if they get a piece of the action.

    I also like the COTS D/exploration/ISS cargo areas, again to help with that space access 800-pound gorilla, and also to help the lunar effort beyond the basic transportation issue.

    I also like the aeronautics and operations items, but they wouldn’t be my first choices.

  • gm

    “He also points to an item in the NASA authorization bill telling the agency to negotiate with other spacefaring nations to agree on a common docking system”

    this was my “Decision #001″ as “ghostChief” of ghostNASA in August 2006:

    http://ghostnasa.blogspot.com/2006/08/decision-001-standardize-docking.html

    it seems that NASA and Congress are quietly following all my ideas and ghostNASA “decisions”… :)

  • That’s for the analysis, each of you. I believe the Committee decided on offering the next administration a higher bar to whittle from, and more “done deal” perhaps more costly to cut than presently, a goal NASA has apparently communicated to the Committee well. Perhaps the late appeal by members of the commerical sector last week made a stronger impact as well.

    Among my favorites is the “and beyond” Earth orbit, language for private development, tucked away.

    In keeping with similar “directive” intent included in such bills, not yet marked up with line items and heading for the leadership. there are ways of reading ideology into the speeches (and reports) everyone concerned can project their visions upon without much fear of correction. And NASA appears to have been granted a generous opportunity to make its case (while being removed from the politics of the coming federal elections)

  • Ray, I’d put most of the money into COTS / COTS-D / cargo services as I think we should use the ISS leverage to get better / commercial transportation to LEO while that “market” is still there. I’d buy some suborbital flights for much the same reason. Any left over I would put into long-term research that would reduce the costs of exploration — e.g., closed life support and use of local resources, especially on the moon and asteroids.

    — Donald

  • So this authorization bill changes reporting requirements on prize efforts, but doesn’t fund them??

  • Me

    gm, quit polluting these forums with your untrue and incorrect remarks.

  • Ray

    Donald: I guess your priorities are similar to mine, although I’m sure you’re arriving at them from a different direction.

    Greg: By the way, it will be cool to see how that video contest you described on the Space Show goes.

    It seems that’s the case about prize reporting and funding. It does have some wording encouraging the use of prizes. I’m not sure if that means NASA has the choice to implement some other goal via prizes though. Some other Congressional bills in recent years explicitly ruled out funding more Centennial Challenges. I don’t see any specific prize line item or prohibition in this one.

    The House Authorization Cross-Agency Support Programs amount is $3,299,900,000, which is exactly what the Administration is asking for for that area, so maybe it should be interpreted to be the same as the Administration request except as called out specifically? I don’t know if that’s how these things work. I suspect the Appropriations bill will say definitively one way or the other. Anyway, Centennial Challenges is in Cross-Agency Support Programs, and the Administration request is $4M for 2009 for Centenial Challenges, which still would make the $10M to $50M reporting change a moot point.

    I have some links to the text and related items here:

    spaceprizes.blogspot.com/2008/05/nasa-authorization-act-of-2008.html

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