Events, NASA

Thoughts on the Augustine committee meeting

I was at the Augustine committee meeting in DC yesterday, the first public meeting (of four currently planned) to solicit input on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight plans. Since the process is just now underway, it’s hard to draw too many conclusions about the meeting, but I did want to pass along some thoughts and observations from the meeting for those who weren’t there:

* The meeting was very much an information-gathering meeting, and at times seemed like drinking from a firehose: they went from 9 am to 5 pm with only a short break (originally 30 minutes, but stretched out in practice to more like 45) for lunch. The meeting was a series of presentations, ranging from the status of Constellation to proposals for alternatives, as well as perspectives from the White House (science advisor John Holdren), Congress (Rep. Pete Olson and Sen. Bill Nelson, with submissions read for the record from Rep. Ralph Hall and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison) and international partners (ESA’s Jean-Jacques Dordain and Roskosmos’s Anatoly Perminov).

* If the committee members had any initial opinions about the current status of NASA’s activities, they largely kept them to themselves, instead keeping to asking questions or making some basic concluding comments at the end of the day. Three of the ten committee members – Charles Kennel, Lester Lyles, and Sally Ride – had prior commitments and were not at the meeting.

* The afternoon session was largely devoted to either alternatives to the current Constellation system (EELV, DIRECT, and a shuttle-derived side-mount proposal) and COTS/ISS commercial resupply. A lot of attention in particular was devoted to the DIRECT concept, presented by Stephen Metschan. Depending on your point of view the committee seemed either interested in or skeptical about the idea (I heard both reactions afterwards) although the latter seemed evident in Leroy Chiao’s question to Metschan: “Who are you guys?”

* More interesting than the DIRECT presentation, though (since the merits and demerits of DIRECT have been widely discussed for some time now) was United Launch Alliance’s presentation on EELV alternatives to Ares, perhaps the most detailed public presentation to date by the company on this. Michael Gass, president and CEO of ULA, said that a modified Delta 4 Heavy could launch Orion as early as 2014 with a performance margin in excess of 20%. That would require $800 million for a new pad and $500 million in human-rating work, and then $300 million a launch. He also said Atlas 5 could start commercial crew missions to ISS in 2013 (with another company providing the spacecraft); that would require $400 million in non-recurring costs and then $130 million a launch. Gary Pulliam of the Aerospace Corporation then followed with a summary of their EELV-vs-Ares study previously reported.

* In brief comments early in the day, Holdren reiterated that President Obama is interested in space, noting his conversations with the crews of the last two shuttle missions, adding that Obama would continue the practice in the future. Obama, Holdren said, “is excited by human spaceflight… this is a president who gets it, he understands the importance of space, he understands the importance of human spaceflight.”

* Several people, including Sen. Nelson, said that they believed that the committee has particular power to shape the future of the country’s human spaceflight effort with their recommendations. “In essence, what you decide is going to be the significant influence for the White House, and therefore also for the Congress,” he said in brief remarks just before lunch. However, what the committee will provide is just that: recommendations. Augustine said in a press conference after the meeting that they would provide the White House with a number of options, graded against a set of criteria (risk, cost, capability) they are still developing. Like so many other panels in the past, it will be up to the White House and Congress to turn those recommendations into policies, plans, and legislation. And the historical track record is not necessarily promising.

64 comments to Thoughts on the Augustine committee meeting

  • CharlesInHouston

    Not that I wish to be too negative, too cynical about President Obama’s interest in space but he is able to lavish billions (of borrowed money) on useless stuff such as a high speed rail link between LA and San Francisco. Just so we can have a link that loses money far faster than AMTRAK does. He can send floods of money to lots of nice to have projects but has nothing but encouraging words for space. Every President talks to crews on the Space Shuttle – that proves nothing. So he will continue to talk to the crews on future missions, distracting them from the important work they could be doing!
    If he was truely interested in space he would have not increased our Federal deficit to 1.8 trillion dollars, he would have begun a measured program that could have been sustainable. The obscene deficit will distract us and almost certainly means a sharp decline in funding as we struggle to find money to pay interest payments.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Interestingly, we didn’t hear a peep from Shelby.

  • common sense

    @ CharlesInHouston:

    The LA-SF example you give as useless reallys isn’t good. Ever been to SF on Friday night? Or back to LA on Sunday night? Be it by car or by plane? Come on! If only it helps the congestion on the 5 and or 101 fwy that’d be a great improvement. And btw, this is NOT an Obama plan. This thing has been around for years.

    So you’d rather have the President not talk at the astronauts? When he talk to the astronauts it’s on TV, when he doesn’t it’s on NASA-TV. What is you problem with that?

    As for the deficit? I am sure another WH would have done much better right? Like stopping all spending on anything but Defense. Oh wait anything but Defense and NASA. Oh wait anything but… But what else? Anyway. I am no fan of the bail out BUT NOBODY in the other camp has provided any alternative AND it was started by a guy named Hank Paulson, a famous Democrat right?

    How about we stick with the subject at hand: Human Space Flight. I am not optimistic either but is it this WH’s fault? Who started and managed the program? Hired by whom?

  • common sense

    @ Martijn Meijering:

    Interesting indeed but I suspect that some people act in broad daylight, others don’t. Also if Ares turns out to be a failed program, how much do you want to be a proponent of such failure? What happens to credibility then? Nelson at least somehow representing KSC has more programs to stand upon.

    I did not see the meeting but if what others have said about the very poor performance of the Ares/Orion presentation is true then that probably is it for them. Because if they said all is good we’re all happy and yet they are in the hole for billions, who’s gonna believe them? They probably don’t read what I say but I suggested a while ago they be honest, open and real. If they weren’t then somebody on this panel has surely seen it. Then how can the panel recommend a go-forward?

  • sc220

    I did not see the Constellation presentation, but I heard that it gave a bit of an impression of throwing in the towel. The HLV/Shuttle-C presentation by Shannon had more pizazz, and even Cooke seemed to be behind the approach. It seemed to make a lot of sense, although many people were clearly uneasy about the crewed version of this concept.

    The ULA presentation had the most concrete numbers, and was more believable based on the extensive operational heritage of the ELV fleet. This appeared to be the best approach for addressing the Gap problem. Meanwhile, simultaneous development of the Shuttle-C does what Ares was intended to do, that is keeping the Shuttle workforce and industrial base for segmented solid rockets intact.

  • common sense

    My prediction is that the panel will recommend Orion on EELVs (if they can find what to do with the Ares workforce at MSFC and ATK, maybe Ares V but not clear) with the plan to go to the Moon and with COTS-D in parallel. COTS-D will receive some money to get going, nothing significant BUT if COTS A-C is successful then COTS-D will go forward. By then NASA better be on the Moon or somewhere beyond LEO.

    My issue with the other Shuttle derived concepts is their eventual cost and schedule. And no I don’t believe any PowerPoint based budget/cost. Any program of this magnitude will see setbacks and delays, no matter what. I think the panel will have similar issues. I don’t know anyone can make a REAL argument that it’d be sooner and cheaper than Ares. I am not starting a thread, just stating what is obvious to me. I may be wrong but that’s how I see it as they would require a redirection for the current team, be it on design or ops. EELVs are sufficiently independent from the current architecture that they will most likely be less expensive and possibly on time. COTS-D is the FUTURE so it MUST be funded.

  • CharlesInHouston

    @ common sense:

    In these forums I prefer to discuss the topic started by Jeff. Nevertheless I will address a few of your comments, in an attempt to direct the conversation back to the Augustine committee and what direction/influence they are getting from the Administration.

    Jeff mentioned that John Holdren claimed that President Obama was a supporter of the nation’s space program. That would indicate that the Administration would seriously consider any results that they came up with.

    My contention is that President Obama has had many opportunities to actually be a supporter of any space program but has neglected to take advantage of any opportunity. This would hint to me that President Obama will ignore any recommendation of the Augustine committee except if they were to propose new anonymous campaign donation methodologies.

    An example I used of the true priorities of the Administration is the high speed (sure to be money losing) rail system in California. Having driven in both El Ay and San Fran I am well aware that they are choked with traffic. But it is stupid to borrow billions of dollars to create a rail system just because the Europeans have one (which is a money loser even in their system). The Obama administration is going deeply into debt to buy a system that will lose money and drive us all more deeply into debt. That turkey has been around for years since people realized that it was over priced, no one would use it, and it would tear up the environment far too much.

    And it is nice that Presidents talk to Shuttle crews but it is hardly a measure of their support for exploration!

    And no one can compare the 400 billion dollar Bush deficit with the obscene 1.8 trillion dollar Obama deficit!! Not only is it borrowing money for projects that we do not need or want, it condemns us to cutting the budget for LOTS of worthwhile projects so that we can pay our interest payments.

  • common sense

    @ CharlesInHouston:

    Okay back to the panel. I don’t think we can come to an agreement on the other topics. So I’ll let them be for now.

    Talking to the crew only is PR but it’s good PR. He could just ignore them just like most people do. Think about it.

    I don’t understand your claim that the President is not interested nor a supporter of human space flight. He could have just cancelled the whole thing at a strike of a pen because of it being way over budget and under schedule (cf. Major Tom several posts on this subject for example). The panel he demanded is to see whether it can be salvaged or not. And what other options there might be. How many billions do you think Ares/Orion would need to be on track? Would you fund a contractor with such a record of poor performance? I think that the panel may be a great opportunity for Ares/Orion but, according to others, the presentation was rather lame (I did not see/read it so I rely on others). If the NASA leadership cannot make a good case then don’t blame the WH. Blame the NASA leadership.

    Finally: “In these forums I prefer to discuss the topic started by Jeff. Nevertheless I will address a few of your comments,” I don’t remember Jeff talking about high speed train or financial deficit. Can you show me where? My comments were only response to yours.

  • Major Tom

    “In these forums I prefer to discuss the topic started by Jeff.”

    Huh? You’re the one that brought up high-speed rail in the very first post. That’s a total non-sequitor that has nothing to do with the Augustine review, Constellation or its alternatives, or even NASA. If you want to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of various civil transportation projects, then I’m sure there’s a blog on the Department of Transportation that fits the bill. But this is the wrong forum.

    Mr. Foust’s blog entry recounted the presentations and comments made in yesterday’s meeting of the Augustine review. None of your posts discuss these presentations or comments, or even the topics (Ares I/V, Orion, EELVs, COTS, DIRECT, etc.) that were covered in those presentations and comments. Instead, you’re writing about phone calls between the President and astronauts and the Recovery Act.

    At least common sense bought up Ares, COTS, and EELVs in his posts.

    Stones, glass houses, and all that… FWIW.

  • common sense

    A crewed Shuttle-C in a configuration similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shuttle-c_launch_painting.jpg is utterly ridiculous! I can’t even believe they are thinking about this. I did not see the presentation but where is Orion/LAS supposed to fit? Now, if there is no LAS it’s something else but still. Is this all the imagination people have these days? Looks like we’re doomed. %^o

  • Doug Lassiter

    “My contention is that President Obama has had many opportunities to actually be a supporter of any space program but has neglected to take advantage of any opportunity.”

    Whoa! As if the last President was even a supporter of the space program that he created. He created it, and then nary a word was heard from him about it. When he was Texas governor he NEVER visited JSC. You in Houston must know that well.

    I’d go a little easier on a President who is at least going through the motions, and surely is taking advantages of what few opportunities seem to be presenting themselves in an economy left to him. Holdren says that Obama does “get it” with regard to space exploration, and I believe that to be the case. What I believe he gets is that space exploration can offer value to the nation if it is done right. It isn’t being done right. The Augustine panel will help him establish how to do it right.

    Frankly, high speed trains offer a lot more to the people of California than human space flight offers to the people of Texas.

  • SpaceMan

    The board meeting video is supposed to be available on their web site. I think the Direct presentation was solid as was the one by John Shannon. They both pointed to a method to get better results and keep the infrastructure & work force that exists. If one was to pay attention to the whole picture (infrastructure, systems & work force) then the Direct/Shuttle-C derived options make a lot more sense than any of the other ideas floated. The ULA fellow is/was in dream land.

    It will be interesting to see what the committee decides come fall.

  • Jeff,

    It was a good and fair summary of a full day, but I would just add three other points that emerged.

    1) There was strong pressure from ESA and Russia and elsewhere to put adequate funds in the budget to keep ISS operating at least until 2020; and

    2) There was general positive vibes about the COTS program and the work to date being conducted by SpaceX and Orbital. There were clear recommendations for NASA to fund its COTS-D alternative to carry station crews and other passengers to orbit.

    3) There was a strong divergence of opinion between various presenters on how much is involved in human rating. The human rating documents themselves are so weighty that $8m has been proposed to just simplify them. The aerospace Corp presenter claimed it could take 7 years to human rate an EELV, for example. Musk claimed that everything he is building is human rated already.

    Keep up the good work, Jeff.

  • Brad

    I’m glad that all sides seem to be getting a fair chance to air their positions before the Augustine committee. I didn’t know that John Shannon was an advocate of a side mount Shuttle derived HLV (‘not the Shuttle C’) concept. That was a pleasant surprise.

    If I had to bet, I would put my money down on Delta IV heavy replacing Ares I as the new Orion launch vehicle and a John Shannon type Shuttle derived HLV replacing Ares V for the cargo launch vehicle. That means tinkering with the lunar architecture, but that isn’t a bad thing.

    One alternative lunar mission plan is using one HLV cargo mission to preposition a lander at EML-1, plus one Delta IV heavy cargo mission to preposition an EDS at the ISS, then one Delta IV manned Orion mission to EOR with the EDS at the ISS.

  • sc220

    If one was to pay attention to the whole picture (infrastructure, systems & work force) then the Direct/Shuttle-C derived options make a lot more sense than any of the other ideas floated. The ULA fellow is/was in dream land.

    I don’t see how this could be the case. Shannon repeatedly stated that their results were too preliminary to draw any definitive conclusions. The Direct presentation gave hardly any numbers at all, just a lot of very neat animated graphics. At least the ULA fellow gave data, and most of it was based on operational experience.

    The fact that the ULA presentation had essentially an accompanying “peer review” following its briefing (i.e., Aerospace presentation) added even more credibility to its content.

  • Martijn Meijering

    One alternative lunar mission plan is using one HLV cargo mission to preposition a lander at EML-1, plus one Delta IV heavy cargo mission to preposition an EDS at the ISS, then one Delta IV manned Orion mission to EOR with the EDS at the ISS.

    This is a good suggestion. Unfortunately, a Delta-IV-Heavy is not big enough to launch an EDS that will get the very heavy Orion to L1. It’s not off by a huge amount, maybe RS-68A plus some incremental upgrades to Delta (Al-Li structures, propellant crossfeed) will close the gap.

    Much has been made of the lesser volume offered by Shuttle-C or EELV compared to SDLV, and suggestions have been made for a smaller lander. This can be circumvented by use of denser propellants. MMH/NTO is the obvious choice in the short run, because of the enormous amounts of experience with it. It also offers significant safety benefits, both on account of its density and because of its hypergolicity.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Not to mention that noncryogenic fluid transfer is a mature technology, being used on ISS today, so propellant depots could be part of the architecture from the beginning without the programmatic risks (perhaps overblown) of cryogenic propellant depots.

  • […] Networks, The LaunchPad, ZEIT und Tagesschau, JPL Releases zur neuen Mondkarte und der Mission und SpacePolitics und CosmicLog zu den Augustine-Hearings – viele weitere Links in den Cosmic Mirrors # 329 und […]

  • Charles In Houston

    @ common sense and Major Tom

    There could be no better reinforcements to my observations – of course we all hope that the national space program has success but people want “all sorts of neat stuff – because other people have it” and don’t realize that we either focus on the critical stuff or we fail absolutely.

    My first note did mention a few of many countless “nice to have” projects, to contrast what is important for our society and what we choose to spend money on. People then grabbed those poor examples and said that we want a space program – but not at the cost of Project 1 and Project 2 and Project N… You see my pattern? I chose the High Speed Money Waster from Los Angeles to San Francisco – a project that was proposed years ago but of course no one wanted to waste that incredible an amount just so we could lose money as fast as the French do. Hey, we already lose tons of money on AMTRAK, isn’t that enough?

    I did mention the horrific deficit of the Bush Administration and people responded that we are only making it about four times worse. I could ask why not just declare the concept of money to be obsolete and have people work because it was good to work? Oh, the Soviets tried that and it did not work. Somehow the fact that we wasted money before makes it ok to quadruple the deficit – hey we have never tried it before so why not now?

    In my career in the AF and in the space business I have learned through hard lessons that we can’t have it Better Cheaper Faster – we could choose any two if we are lucky. More likely we could have one at the cost of the other two.

    The Augustine Commission has LOTS to technical horsepower. They have LOTS of money to do studies. The lesson of the last ten years is that people do not have the courage to make hard choices – give up a useless missile defense system in favor of doing deferred maintenance at pad 39 (either side) or the VAB or the O&C. Lately, the Obama administration has found BILLIONS of dollars for projects that have been found wanting for decades. Now we could borrow billions from the Chinese to do them – but we didn’t have a billion for deferred maintenance. The Augustine Commisson will have some nice recommendations but the Obama administration will likely not listen to them. Not that the Bush Administration would have listened to them either! Largely because everyone has their own pet projects and we’ll get back to space as soon as they are all done.

    Read Jeff’s very important last sentence – this discussion is about priorities not about thrust to weight ratios.

  • SpaceMan

    I don’t see how this could be the case.

    Watch John Shannon’s presentation. All of it. And then consider what he said, NOT what you wish he said. The big issue with his option was the placing of the cargo/crew on the side next to the tank & how that affects the abort situation. The Direct option does not have that problem.

    Also note his comments about the flight software. Dead on target. Also retaining the infrastructure & workforce. Repurposing what we have is the best option.

    Of course none of us have any real say in what will be decided. To pretend otherwise is delusion.

  • richardb

    I watched some of this on NASA TV and it was pretty boring. Powerpoint marketing is all it was. The remaining sessions will no doubt be the fun ones where staff and members can begin picking apart the buzz. Some might not withstand the scrutiny and will quickly fall aside, hello Direct. Others might get a real boast, hello Elon and EELV. I did like the way Augustine runs the committee though. Brisk, using time wisely.

  • ForceKin

    “The Direct presentation gave hardly any numbers at all, just a lot of very neat animated graphics.”

    Very disappointing and possibly fatal to the concept.

  • Kris Ringwood

    Apart from the lack of aerodynamic surfaces, how does Shannon’s resurrected Shuttle-C proposal differ from current shuttle operations – excluding crew considerations that is? With the “flaky” ET eco-foam the break-up problem remains. The STS stack remains intact and standard – even more so than with the DIRECT proposals…
    The “Bushbaby’s” deficits were obscene and “Bambyboy’s” deficits are in the severely perverted insane territory: the art of making a disastrous situation utterly Catastrophic. No wonder the Chinese are doing what we did to the Brits in gobbling up our Gold supply! They’ve got heavy financial investment in the good ‘ol USA.
    Money has to be saved and we need to go with what we’ve got. With X-1 on hold that means the STS stack and support infrastructure and the 2 EELV’s and their infrastructure.
    Hell, we could chop the crew compartments off the existing Shuttles, put fairings and propulsion on ‘em and then fly to ISS way ahead of schedule for not a lot of money. The cargo capacity of Orion is miniscule in any case, so why not.
    Either way, after the “Who are you guys?” query we know Direct will get short shrift, if only to punish the “moonlighters.”
    I think they’re going to cover all bases and make proposals/recommendations to go-no-go and leave it up to Obama. He will do a moratorium on Manned Space Flight after 2010, cut NASA’s budget by that amount and spend the money on more wasted projects or trumpet how much taxpayers’ money he’s “saved”….

  • Major Tom

    “Read Jeff’s very important last sentence…”

    What does Mr. Foust’s last sentence about the poor track record of the White House and Congress on turning recommendations into policies, plans, and legislation have to do with losing “tons of money on AMTRAK”, the “horrific deficit of the Bush Administration”, the “Soviets… [declaring] the concept of money to be obsolete” or any of the other topics you keep bringing up?

    I’m not trying to be mean, but I would just drop the whole off-topic/on-topic argument if I were you. You repeatedly have trouble staying on-topic, and trying to argue that you are on-topic, when you’re clearly not, is confusing whatever point you’re trying to make.

    “- this discussion is about priorities not about thrust to weight ratios.”

    No one has brought thrust-to-weight ratios in this thread (except for you).

    “… we either focus on the critical stuff or we fail absolutely.”

    Yes, that’s why White Houses create blue-ribbon panels like the Augustine review committee — so they get clear recommendations about what critical priorities should be within the limited budget resources they have to work with.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Watch John Shannon’s presentation. All of it. And then consider what he said…”

    Shannon repeatedly said that the Shuttle side-mount analysis was lacking in key areas and that the numbers were uncertain. Shannon made it clear that the Shuttle side-mount needs the most work of any of the presentations given that day.

    That doesn’t mean that Shuttle side-mount might not work out or be the best option in the end. But even Shannon doesn’t fully trust what he presented.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “‘The Direct presentation gave hardly any numbers at all, just a lot of very neat animated graphics.'”

    That’s simply not true. Off the top of my head, I know the DIRECT presentation included development and operational costs, at least.

    “Very disappointing and possibly fatal to the concept.”

    The DIRECT presentation relied heavily on system comparisons and logic. That’s actually more powerful than just comparing numbers, which can always be fudged.

    I know of one former AA who watched the entire meeting and came away thinking that the DIRECT presentation was the most compelling one given. That doesn’t mean that the Augustine review committee will agree (and I don’t necessarily agree), but I thought it was an interesting data point/observation.

    FWIW…

  • kert

    So i repeat one of the long-standing questions : the “alternatives” that account for STS workforce are considered politically acceptable, and others are not. Question, why couldnt the workforce be simply paid off to retire, with money taken from planned Ares costs ? Problem solved, agency reborn, options open.

  • Norm Hartnett

    It should be noted that John Shannon was tasked by NASA to present the Shuttle-C concept after they were unable to find any willing and competent presenters. The views he presented were not his personal position. This was mentioned during the morning session.

    Unfortunately I have to agree that Direct failed to present the strong points of their proposal while focusing on pie in the sky, what if, capabilities. The fact remains that Direct has huge advantages in infrastructer costs, development costs and operational costs, I just hope the commission gets those numbers.

    The EELV Presentation, while somewhat inarticulate, was incredibly powerful and would appear, if used in conjunction with COTS and a minor shuttle extension, to offer not only a means to close the gap but also the possibility of having redundant manned launch vehicles for the first time in NASA history. Something we should have learned to desire after Apollo and the shuttle.

  • Norm Hartnett

    To clarify “redundant manned launch vehicles” I meant that the Delta VIH, Atlas V, and Falcon 9 could all be developed similtanously and apparently for less than Ares I is projected to cost now.

  • Space Explorer

    I noticed in the replay of the meeting that from Chris Soclese’s comments on there was reference to the separation of crew and cargo. I’ve never fully understood this. What is the reasoning behind the requirement in the Vision to separate crew and cargo? People will always mention the CAIB report, but the discussion related to crew and cargo during the CAIB review focused on the fact that you should not launch crew without a good reason (i.e. don’t launch crew to resupply the ISS). [Note: there was no specific recommendation on crew and cargo separation in the final report.] The way NASA implements this issue is to require crew to be launched completely separate of cargo (i.e. human rated Ares V or something akin to a Saturn V is forbidden…see Constellation Overview presentation slide 4) and a 25mt launch vehicle is necessary. Why is this a valid requirement?

  • Major Tom

    “What is the reasoning behind the requirement in the Vision to separate crew and cargo?”

    Cargo that doesn’t require a human presence shouldn’t be launched with humans to avoid burdening the cargo launch with human-rating costs and to not risk human lives where they are not needed.

    This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use the same vehicle to do both tasks (as Space-X plans to do with Falcon 9 and Dragon) on separate launches. In fact, there are cost and safety advantages that accrue from the higher flight rate.

    But the logic is that NASA should not develop another launch vehicle that requires a human presence on every flight when it will be launching payloads (like the Shuttle often did before Challenger) that do not require a human presence.

    FWIW…

  • Martijn Meijering

    Shannon’s presentation on Not-Shuttle-C appeared to me to be a very subtle, calculated and brilliantly executed attack on DIRECT, without even mentioning it by name. He undermined the credibility of DIRECT’s claims J-130 can help close the gap by showing Not-Shuttle-C is more direct than DIRECT itself and estimating it still cannot close the gap. He also suggested that anything less than Ares V (in particular Not-Shuttle-C, but including Jupiter by extension) would lead to a less capable lunar architecture. This invites the conclusion that if you are willing to wait longer for an inline SDLV you might as well go for Ares V.

  • Space Explorer

    @ Major Tom

    Thanks for your insight. But NASA’s logic appears flawed to me. Just because a launch vehicle can deliver both crew and cargo doesn’t mean you would have to launch crew on every flight that has cargo. For example, for a lunar outpost, you could use an unmanned Ares V to launch cargo missions (habitats, SPRs, etc.) while still using the Ares V to launch crews for outpost visits. Does that make sense?

  • Major Tom

    “Just because a launch vehicle can deliver both crew and cargo doesn’t mean you would have to launch crew on every flight that has cargo. For example, for a lunar outpost, you could use an unmanned Ares V to launch cargo missions (habitats, SPRs, etc.) while still using the Ares V to launch crews for outpost visits.”

    Agreed. See discussion of Falcon 9 and Dragon in my earlier post. Space-X plans to use the same vehicles to deliver both crew and cargo, but on different flights.

    That’s not the case with Shuttle program pre-Challenger, when manned orbiters were being used to launch science, communications, and military satellites that could have been launched using unmanned ELVs.

    Hope this helps… FWIW…

  • Al Fansome

    “The Direct presentation gave hardly any numbers at all, just a lot of very neat animated graphics.”

    An important point, but not really fair. If I was on the commission, I would be asking NASA to provide a similar level of analysis and detail for the “in-line shuttle-derived” options.

    I found Shannon’s presentation very interesting — specifically that a senior NASA leader stood up in front of a room on TV and proposed an alternative concept.

    Why was there not a senior NASA leader, like a Shannon, who did the same on “in-line Shuttle derived system”? As Augustine duly noted, he saw NASA studies on “in line” options back to the early 1990s.

    Wouldn’t that have been appropriate in this situation?

    I am thinking that Shannon is the anomaly here, and that what we need is somebody similar to Shannon (within NASA) to give the in-line option a home so that the engineers can do the work needed to provide hard number comparisons. This would be a service to the country.

    Another thought on “shuttle derived”. If I am the commission, I am NOT going to pick between the “side mounted” versus the “in-line” options.

    What I might do is suggest one solution is for NASA to pursue one of these options for “heavy cargo lift” in replacement of the Ares V. This will be derived from a recommendation for canceling the Ares 1, and replacing it with a combination of COTS-D, and Orion+EELV. NOTE: The Ares V, as currently designed, only makes sense if you do the Ares 1.

    Thoughts?

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • The Ares V, as currently designed, only makes sense if you do the Ares 1.

    And the Ares I only makes sense if you plan to do the Ares V (and even then not much). As Clark Lindsey said yesterday, their argument is that if they’re not allowed to waste a vast sum of money on Ares I, they won’t be able to waste a truly stupendous amount of money on Ares V.

    Note that using Cook’s own new estimate of Ares I development costs, you get an LCC for the program of over forty billion dollars for the fourteen flights they based the Aerospace trade on. That’s about three billion dollars per flight. Am I alone in thinking that’s insane?

  • Charles In Houston

    This discussion thread has been so similar to others that I have been in for the last 20 years. We spend time discussing the technical merits of several really neat options – but at the end of the discussion we all sadly shake our heads and admit that we don’t have the money for any of them. Then we spend a few minutes trying to decide what to do with the limited budget that we do have!

    It does not matter whose presentation was compelling – it matters who’s proposal could actually be funded with about 16 billion per year. 16 billion if we are lucky.

    It does not matter which administration ran up what deficit before – we have to live within the budget that we are going to be handed. And that budget is gonna be dominated by the 1.8 trillion (and don’t believe it can be much lower next year!!!) deficit and the need to pay interest on it. The Bush deficits may have been unfortunate but they are dwarfed by the deficit we have to live with now.

    The Augustine Commission will hopefully spend some time discussing Shuttle-C vs Direct and government vs commercial. They MUST spend time trying to find a path that does not result in short term large job losses. They need to stretch the inevitable large job losses out over several years.

    Rand made a very telling point when he noted that Ares 1 would cost about 3 billion dollars per flight. How do you pay for that with the limited budget that we have to live within??? That is a crazy amount to commit to, for a single flight. At least with the Shuttle a lot of that vehicle would be reused, very little of an Orion will be reused.

    If anyone tells you that this discussion is about the technical merits of the proposals – they don’ tknow what they are talking about.

    Just recall the tradeoffs we had to make with the Shuttle, there were lots of goo ideas that we could not afford (the Shuttle was just the vehicle to get back and forth to the space station). This discussion is about the priorities of the current Administration since they are the ones making the decision! And agree with them or not – they had the choice of spending money to do all the deferred maintenance at KSC. They could have directed money to lots of worthy exploration missions (or whatever) that would return science data for decades.

    Instead, their priority was projects like high speed rail or the Murtha Airport To Nowhere or other nice to have things that no one was dumb enough to fund before.

    Sigh. Most of the people here will continue to argue about the LaGrange Points vs the Moon, deep space probes vs Mission To Planet Earth. While some of us will have to put together some sort of program with the leftover crumbs.

  • richardb

    Charles In Houston has hit the nail flush. Politics is what the A-Team is all about, the rest is background music. If Ares I fails by the wayside it’s because the out year Obama budgets won’t fund it. The costs of Ares I were addressed recently by the Aerospace report and it gives cover to Ares I since its carrying development costs for Ares V. They said
    “Carrying cost is incurred for capabilities needed for Ares V that are developed under Ares I but not required for [the Delta IV heavy],” Aerospace Corp. found. “Total cost equivalency depends on carrying costs.”
    That report also said Ares I development costs are comparable to a J2X powered EELV and some 3 billion costlier in LCC than a RL10 powered upper stage EELV. Not a huge amount in the Federal budget world.

  • Major Tom

    “We spend time discussing the technical merits of several really neat options… ”

    Not all architectures and vehicles are created equal. Technical merits are critical to choosing goals and solutions that meet budget and schedule with reasonable risk. Ignoring technical merits in a discussion of programmtic options for an aerospace (or any other engineering-intensive) development activity is like ignoring capabilities, safety reviews, fuel efficiency, and costs when buying a car. Ignore such factors and you end up buying an eight-person minivan when you’re a bachelor or a gas-guzzling luxury car when you’re on a tight budget.

    “… but at the end of the discussion we all sadly shake our heads and admit that we don’t have the money for any of them.”

    That is simply not true. NASA is slated to spend $32.1 billion on the Constellation Program from 2009 through 2014, with $10.6 billion of that going for Ares I, $10.4 billion for Orion, and nearly all the rest for program integration. See:

    http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

    There were plenty of options presented at this week’s meeting of the Augustine review committee that would fit that budget with billions to spare. They’re available at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/meetings/06_17_meeting.html

    For example, Gass’s ULA presentation cited a non-recurring figure of $1.3 billion to develop a human-rated version of the Delta IV for launching Orion. That would save NASA $9.3 billion through FY 2014 versus the current Ares I budget plan Even if you don’t believe the ULA figure, Aerospace Corp. independently calculated savings of $5 billion versus Ares I if unnecessary J-2X engine development is not pursued. That’s $5-9 billion that could be freed up over the next five years to go into developing a heavy lift vehicle or lunar lander or propellant depot or whatever your favorite exploration architecture is.

    More savings can be had by forgoing both Ares I and Orion and pursuing a human-rated Atlas V or Falcon 9 in combination with a CTV or Dragon capsule. ULA quoted a $400 million non-recurring figure for a human-rated Atlas V, and Space-X’s COTS D development option is about $300 million for a manned Dragon — or $700 million total. That would save NASA $20.3 billion through FY14 versus the current Ares I and Orion budget plans. Even if you don’t believe these figures, we could increase them by a factor of ten — $7 billion for a human-rated Atlas and a manned Dragon — and NASA would still save $14 billion. That’s $14-20 billion that could be freed up over the next five years to go into developing a heavy lift vehicle or lunar lander or propellant depot or whatever your favorite exploration architecture is.

    Again, these options all fit within the Constellation budget with many billions of dollars to spare.

    You know what doesn’t fit? Ares I. By about a factor of three. The Ares I program manager told the Augustine committee that Ares I development would top $35 billion through first manned flight in 2015:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/science/space/18nasa.html

    Of course, there’s only about $12 billion in the Ares I budget through 2015.

    The problem is not whether NASA or Constellation have enough money. The problem is that Ares I’s costs are insanely out of control and completely unaffordable.

    Luckily, this is not 1961 and there are affordable alternatives and experienced hands like Augustine that the agency can turn to to get its human space flight program turned around and back in the box.

    “It does not matter whose presentation was compelling – it matters who’s proposal could actually be funded with about 16 billion per year. 16 billion if we are lucky.”

    NASA’s budget is over $18.6 billion per year, not $16 billion.

    “It does not matter which administration ran up what deficit before – we have to live within the budget that we are going to be handed. And that budget is gonna be dominated by the 1.8 trillion (and don’t believe it can be much lower next year!!!) deficit and the need to pay interest on it… They MUST spend time trying to find a path that does not result in short term large job losses. They need to stretch the inevitable large job losses out over several years.”

    Your arguments here are contradictory. We can’t be budget hawks on the one hand and then fret about job preservation on the other. Most of NASA’s budget goes to pay the salaries of civil servants and contractors. If we don’t think NASA’s current activities can be afforded within the available budget, then the NASA workforce will have to shrink.

    “… choice of spending money to do all the deferred maintenance at KSC”

    All NASA field centers have a deferred maintenance backlog. NASA’s backlog is actually considerably better than the maintenance backlog for most government departments and agencies. Why whine about KSC?

    “They could have directed money to lots of worthy exploration missions (or whatever) that would return science data for decades. Instead, their priority was projects like high speed rail or the Murtha Airport To Nowhere…”

    How do you know that funds for KSC maintenace weren’t redirected to other NASA needs? How do you know that they went to high speed rail or airports? Were you in the room when the decision was made?

    “Sigh. Most of the people here will continue to argue about the LaGrange Points vs the Moon, deep space probes vs Mission To Planet Earth.”

    No one in this thread has made those arguments. Only you.

    “While some of us will have to put together some sort of program with the leftover crumbs.”

    I’m not trying to be mean, but what a bunch of wimpy whining. It’s 50 years into the Space Age and we’re spending $10 billion a year on NASA’s human space flight activities. With that kind of technology and those kinds of budgets, it shouldn’t be hard to formulate a vibrant program (as long as we avoid boneheaded moves like needlessly reinventing the intermediate LEO lift wheel with a inexperienced workforce, multiple new engine developments, and in the absence of any independent review).

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Politics is what the A-Team is all about, the rest is background music.”

    Evidence?

    The terms of reference for the review have no political content. The members of the committee are all managers, engineers, and scientists — there’s not a politician amongst them. And the agenda for the committee’s first meeting was dominated by technical presentations on various launch options.

    “If Ares I fails by the wayside it’s because the out year Obama budgets won’t fund it.”

    Huh? The President’s FY 2010 Budget Request for NASA includes $32.1 billion for the Constellation Program from 2009 through 2014, and $10.6 billion of that is set aside for Ares I. It’s not the White House’s fault that Ares I costs have ballooned to $35 billion, swallowing up the entire Constellation budget and then some.

    “The costs of Ares I were addressed recently by the Aerospace report and it gives cover to Ares I since its carrying development costs for Ares V.”

    The Aerospace study provides no such cover. Their presentation explicitly stated that “Aerospace had not independently verified” NASA’s claim of “carry forward costs of $14.4-16.6B” for Ares V. The carry forward costs are NASA’s, not Aerospace’s.

    “That report also said Ares I development costs are comparable to a J2X powered EELV”

    Why waste seven years and multiple billions of dollars developing an unproven upper stage when there are perfectly good upper stages that the EELVs have successfully using for years now?

    Do we actually want to launch anything and explore space? Or just create billions of dollars of make-work on the taxpayer’s dime so that the MSFC and SSC supporting engineering has something to do?

    “and some 3 billion costlier in LCC than a RL10 powered upper stage EELV.”

    No, the study found LCC savings as high as $6 billion. The presentation to the Augustine review committee explicitly states so.

    FWIW…

  • Al Fansome

    CHARLES IN HOUSTON: We spend time discussing the technical merits of several really neat options – but at the end of the discussion we all sadly shake our heads and admit that we don’t have the money for any of them.

    This statement by “Charles in Houston” is factually incorrect.

    There are approaches and options that we do have the money for, which also address all the goals stated by the Augustine review commission.

    Just watch. The Augustine committee will suggest at least two such “approaches” for which we do have the money for.

    These approaches generally are “open architectures” that enable competition, flexibility and redundancy as they have 1) much more commercial involvement, and 2) much more international involvement.

    One possible approach, which would get us back into the budget box, is an architecture designed around COTS-D for humans to LEO, and a propellant depot based architecture for the largest and most expensive part of the remaining cost of getting cargo off this planet.

    Both COTS-D and propellant depots go directly to the issue of cost and sustainability.

    A propellant depot approach explicitly:

    1) Expands the market available to commercial providers, and designs in competition. Want an RLV? Well a propellant depot provides 50 flights per year of a Falcon 9 equivalent LV, which is large enough market to close the business case on an RLV.

    2) Allows international partners to directly contribute to the cost of the transportation beyond LEO. Thus the total budget available for going to the Moon, Mars and asteroids is suddenly not just NASA’s budget, but instead NASA + ESA + Russian FSA + JAXA + CSA + ISRO + ??

    If we choose these two strategic thrusts (COTS-D + Propellant Dept), and then add Orion with an EELV focused on beyond LEO, we can execute them all within the stated budget box.

    I predict that the Augustine committee will include this option as one possible path to address the explicit objectives they were given by the WH.

    ISS vs. Exploration beyond LEO:

    There is another food fight taking place, and I don’t know how it will turn out. There is growing pressure to extend the life of ISS from 2016 to at least 2020. The downside of that decision is several billion-dollars-per year that comes out of the human exploration beyond LEO budget. There are good reasons for extending ISS (such as doing the research that NASA promised would be done on ISS, testing new technology, and creating a real market for COTS-D), but nothing comes for free. Basically, going back to the Moon will be significantly delayed by a decision to extend the life of ISS.

    I am intrigued with what Augustine committee might say about this issue.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • Ferris Valyn

    Quick question Al,

    From your perspective, is there any serious overlap of ISS utilize that would allow for bootstrapping stuff to beyond LEO flights?

  • Al Fansome

    Hmmm. If we really used the ISS for testing & demonstrating breakthrough technologies, there plenty of overlaps.

    Potential breakthrough technologies include:

    * Partial gravity environments (e.g., sending up centrifuge accommodation module)

    * Very high-ISP in-space transfer systems (think VASIMR or higher power electric propulsion)

    * Testing of technologies to create low-mass radiation shields.

    * Advanced closed-loop life support (This is one thing that we are doing — have not looked at how much more we could or should do.)

    I am sure other people can suggest additional breakthrough technologies that could be tested/proven at ISS that would critical for beyond LEO.

    I think Gerstenmaier wants to do this … but we need to make a national decision to actually make productive use the ISS as a space technology testing facility. That will take some money. I heard somewhere that it also take somewhere in the neighborhood of $3+ billion per year to operate it. So it is a pretty expensive “testing facility”.

    The worst decision would be to keep it going, but NOT then make the additional investment to justify keeping it.

    Another point — other than Elon, many of the COTS-D providers need to raise significant private investment to execute a COTS-D venture. If they go to Wall Street and say “We will conduct our demo flight test in 2013, and begin commercial operations in 2014. When the investors figure out that NASA’s plan is to retire the ISS at the end of 2015, the COTS-D company will be told “No thanks”. COTS-D companies need a longer stream of certain customer revenue to justify the investment.

    But if you are a philanthro-capitalist, you don’t need to justify investments based on rational methods, such as “risk-adjusted ROI”.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • Martijn Meijering

    With EDS and Orion launched separately and/or Orion topped up by a hypergolics depot in close proximity to the ISS, you could use the ISS as a staging node. If your EDS doesn’t show up or if you miss your launch window, it just means two weeks of KP duty on the ISS. With ISS now having a 6 person crew, this works even better if you send up two MPLMs converted for permanent use, as is currently being considered.

  • lostinspace

    If ISS can be made a productive investment, then we should maintain it indefinitely, as was the plan back in the 50’s. If not, it’s hard to see how it could possibly be productive to send humans to the Moon or Mars, where costs are much higher. A productive investment requires costs low enough to be acceptable for tourism and/or competitive with automated systems for research.

  • […] Thoughts on the Augustine committee meeting – Space Politics […]

  • common sense

    @Major Tom:

    “Do we actually want to launch anything and explore space? Or just create billions of dollars of make-work on the taxpayer’s dime so that the MSFC and SSC supporting engineering has something to do?”

    Well I am sure you actually know the answer to that, don’t you? ;)

    The point of having the right leadership (some permutation away from dealership btw) is that they should be able to come up with a plan that do all of the above. The apparent failure of Ares/Orion is precisely that. The REAL problem is that nobody, at NASA or Congress or the WH (?), seems to have the courage to acknowledge it. The first step of the therapy is acknowledgement then we will find and apply the correct cure to it. Until then…

    A 90-day (90 days!!!!) study for a plan to respond to the broad spectrum of the VSE requirements should have been warning enough to us all . I was not initially a fan of the O’Keefe spiral approach as it appeared to complicated BUT since then I wish we would have kept it or some variant of it. Space IS complicated therefore there is NO simple solution.

  • common sense

    @ Al Fansome:

    “When the investors figure out that NASA’s plan is to retire the ISS at the end of 2015, the COTS-D company will be told “No thanks”. COTS-D companies need a longer stream of certain customer revenue to justify the investment.”

    This is why COTS-D should only be the FIRST (!) step in allowing commercial exploration. An immediate follow-on that does not require a huge technological leap is to let the COTS providers bid on a COTS-Moon. This is much longer term. At the same time NASA can focus on the rest of the VSE while helping the COTS providers getting it right with technologies and analyses. But this would take quite a bit of change that I don’t know the panel will ever recommend for NASA…

  • Major Tom

    “The point of having the right leadership (some permutation away from dealership btw) is that they should be able to come up with a plan that do all of the above. The apparent failure of Ares/Orion is precisely that. The REAL problem is that nobody, at NASA or Congress or the WH (?), seems to have the courage to acknowledge it. The first step of the therapy is acknowledgement then we will find and apply the correct cure to it. Until then…”

    The creation of the Augustine review committee is arguably a tacit acknowledgement by the White House that Constellation is broken. Given that he worked in the aerospace industry early in his career and has MS and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering and plasma physics, I’d guess that OSTP Director John Holdren was key to making this determination.

    Although there are still Ares I/Orion holdouts in Congress, the congressmen that addressed the committee last week all seemed resigned to change ahead.

    “A 90-day (90 days!!!!) study for a plan to respond to the broad spectrum of the VSE requirements should have been warning enough to us all .”

    Agreed. The decisions that ESAS compressed into that 90-day period took the Apollo Program about a year-and-a-half to make. Although we can run the numbers much more quickly today, there’s also a lot more engineering permutations to run through these days. And the VSE is more complex than the goals that Kennedy gave to NASA in the Apollo days. Griffin & Co. should have spent more time getting their act together before fully committing to an architecture or set of vehicles. The SSME to J-2X upper-stage engine change and the four- to five-segment first-stage engine change alone attest to this, not to mention all the technical issues with Ares underperformance/Orion weight, Ares thrust oscillation, Orion landing mode, etc. that have cropped up since.

    Even without the very compressed timeframe, ESAS was in serious need of an independent review to assess some of the study’s more questionable assumptions and their impact on the vehicle comparisons. I still don’t understand why Griffin & Co. didn’t pursue an independent assessment for such momentus, multi-hundred billion dollar decisions. What’s happening on the Augustine review should have happened five years ago.

    “I was not initially a fan of the O’Keefe spiral approach as it appeared to complicated”

    It’s really not. It’s just an acknowledgement that we can’t do everything we want to do in the first iteration of a system, and that some requirements and technologies should be left to future variants. Constellation has been doing this in fact, if not in name, with Orion, developing an ISS variant that will be evolved later on to a lunar variant, using hypergolics currently with intent to substitute CH4/LOX later on, etc.

    I think Griffin and Steidle unfortunately talked past each other on this, and much later pain could have been avoided if they had been able to communicate with each other better. But that’s water under the bridge…

    “Space IS complicated therefore there is NO simple solution.”

    Yes and no. We often make it harder than it needs to be — trading cost, schedule, risk, and margins for performance that’s not really needed for the job at hand or forgoing perfectly good existing capabilities, ostensibly for some marginal requirement, so we can build our own duplicative toy.

    FWIW…

  • common sense

    @Major Tom:

    Yes, I hope that Holdren is part of the cure, he also worked on RVs if I am correct at LMT.

    As for the spiral approach it seems the natural approach to a constantly evolving problem where the program uses technologies as they mature and not where a program dictates necessary technologies to go forward. Therefore, yes, I believe it was a much more appropriate approach to the VSE. It sill can be used to reform the current implementation though. Suffice to look at where we would be in the spiral approach had we used it. And then start from there again.

    I think the “broken” part of Constellation was the emphasis on re-using Shuttle hardware to save moneey AND preserve jobs. This MUST now be addressed in greater detail as it appears to be a major failure. So what do we do now with MSFC and ATK if we choose a different approach. It is unclear to me that Direct is the RIGHT approach, not even to mention the Shuttle-C approach especially for crewed vehicle with a LAS of some sort (looks like dangerous aerobatics to me).

    Even the 60 day review seems a little short to me. Unless the next NASA Admin proposes his vision to VSE, of course supported by the Augustine panel’s conclusions.

    We shall see.

  • common sense

    @Major Tom:

    “Constellation has been doing this in fact, if not in name, with Orion, developing an ISS variant that will be evolved later on to a lunar variant, using hypergolics currently with intent to substitute CH4/LOX later on, etc.”

    Well the problem is that ISS was supposed to be a very secondary capability for Orion when the whole VSE/spiral was started under O’Keefe. And it should have stayed this way. It looks to me like the initial approach was turn over its head for no good reaseon other than having something “different”.

    The more stringent requirements MUST be the driving forces in a design, not the other way around. A LEO reentry Orion is a lot simpler than an any time Lunar reentry Orion. If you cannot show that your system of sytems has any chance to evolve (financially and technologically) then you are stuck with what you have.

    It seems to me that Constellation suddenly contracted Moon fever. Too bad.

  • richardb

    I take it that the A-Team was formed to deal with the $3 billion cut in the exploration account for 2011-2013 that Obama is proposing not that Constellation is broken, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t I don’t know. That money was intended by Nasa for Ares V and the moon lander.

    If that cut is permanent then there is no moon program under Obama. At best the A-Team will need to map out access to the ISS for the next 10+ years. I suspect they won’t believe the cost and schedule figures of the Direct team and will add substantially to them. The Direct team has no track record of producing anything against a real budget and that matters in federal contracting.
    I suspect they won’t like lengthening the gap by switching to the EELV’s. Not-Shuttle-C will get a real hearing but in the end, Ares I will be tough to beat since its in production now and has a small hope of flying in 2015 whereas the others are all powerpoints at this stage, 2009.

  • common sense

    “Not-Shuttle-C” is DOA for crew, especially the stuff they showed. There is a need for sanity check I think with projects like this.

  • Major Tom

    “I take it that the A-Team was formed to deal with…”

    Don’t “take” or assume anything. Read the relevant documents. The terms of reference for the Augustine review committee are found here:

    http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/about/charter.html

    It states very clearly that:

    “The Committee should aim to identify and characterize a range of options that spans the reasonable possibilities for continuation of U.S. human space flight activities beyond retirement of the Space Shuttle. The identification and characterization of these options should address the following objectives: a) expediting a new U.S. capability to support utilization of the International Space Station (ISS); b) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO); c) stimulating commercial space flight capability; and d) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities.”

    There’s no need to resort to conspiracy theories — the terms of reference are very accessible to the public and couldn’t be any more clear.

    “the $3 billion cut”

    There is no cut over five years and there’s actually a small increase to NASA’s budget. Between the stimulus and accelerated funding in the FY 2010 budget request, the NASA budgets in 2009, 2010, and 2011 are a combined $2,001 million higher. The FY 2010 budget request for NASA is $957 million less than the FY 2009 budget request for NASA in 2012 and 2013. And the House has proposed cutting the White House’s FY 2010 budget request for NASA by another $670 million. The net is a $374 million increase to NASA’s budget from 2009 through 2013.

    Moreoever, the money is coming earlier, which increases NASA’s purchasing power. This is also what the Constellation program has wanted for years — more budget before Shuttle retires so that Ares I/Orion development could follow a more natural development curve that was less constrained by Shuttle flyout costs.

    Unfortunately, although Constellation was given what it wanted, NASA’s own estimates just for Ares I development have ballooned from $28 billion to $40 billion, and NASA’s own projected costs for Constellation through first lunar landing have nearly doubled from $57 billion to $92 billion.

    The problem is not the budget. Rather, the problem is that Ares I and Constellation costs overall are skyrocketing and far outstripping the budget, whether it’s the accelerated Obama Administration’s budget profile or the old Bush II Administration’s budget profile.

    “At best the A-Team will need to map out access to the ISS for the next 10+ years.”

    Why? There were plenty of options for ISS access presented at this week’s meeting of the Augustine review committee that would fit that budget with billions to spare for an exploration architecture. They’re available at:

    http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/meetings/06_17_meeting.html

    For example, Gass’s ULA presentation cited a non-recurring figure of $1.3 billion to develop a human-rated version of the Delta IV for launching Orion. That would save NASA $9.3 billion through FY 2014 versus the current Ares I budget plan. Even if you don’t believe the ULA figure, Aerospace Corp. independently calculated savings of up to $6 billion versus Ares I if unnecessary J-2X engine development is not pursued. That’s $6-9 billion that could be freed up over the next five years to go into developing a heavy lift vehicle or lunar lander or propellant depot or whatever your favorite exploration architecture is.

    More savings can be had by forgoing both Ares I and Orion and pursuing a human-rated Atlas V or Falcon 9 in combination with a CTV or Dragon capsule. ULA quoted a $400 million non-recurring figure for a human-rated Atlas V, and Space-X’s COTS D development option is about $300 million for a manned Dragon — or $700 million total. That would save NASA $20.3 billion through FY14 versus the current Ares I and Orion budget plans. Even if you don’t believe these figures, we could increase them by a factor of ten — $7 billion for a human-rated Atlas and a manned Dragon — and NASA would still save $14 billion. That’s $14-20 billion that could be freed up over the next five years to go into developing a heavy lift vehicle or lunar lander or propellant depot or whatever your favorite exploration architecture is.

    Again, these ISS access options all fit within the Constellation budget with many billions of dollars to spare for development of an exploration architecture. Given what they already have to work with, there’s no a priori reason that the Augustine review committee can’t lay out multiple options for affordable ISS access and get development of an exploration architecture underway well before 2020.

    “I suspect they won’t like lengthening the gap by switching to the EELV’s.”

    Per the Aerospace study/presentation, EELVs only lengthen the gap if we require a stupidly unnecessary redesign, like a J-2X upper stage, to keep the sustaining engineering workforce at MSFC and SSC occupied (especially when their talents are better spent on exploration vehicles). Of course, the J-2X upper stage is what’s driving Ares I schedule, too.

    “Not-Shuttle-C”

    It’s a Shuttle side-mount configuration. Use the correct name.

    “… will get a real hearing but in the end”

    Unclear. Shuttle side-mount for human launch make a viable escape system incredibly difficult to achieve, likely recreating one of the flaws that led to the Challenger loss of crew. Even setting that aside, Shannon was clear that the Shuttle side-mount numbers were very preliminary and that even he didn’t necessarily believe them. It’s the least well-developed of the options that were presented and probably has the biggest safety flaw after Ares I’s margins and thrust oscillation. I’m sure the committee will review it, but they may not do so in much depth.

    “Ares I will be tough to beat since its in production now”

    What alternate reality are you typing from? There is no Ares I vehicle in production. Ares I won’t complete its Preliminary Design Review until later this summer. Assuming it does, it still has to get through Critical Design Review and some still to be redefined set of tests (Ares I-Y, etc.) before going into production.

    “has a small hope of flying in 2015″

    Statistically, there is currently zero confidence in Ares I/Orion making 2015. Although technically a plan forward exists, there is a huge disparity between the work required to fix Ares I’s issues and get Orion in sync and the schedule and budget.

    “whereas the others are all powerpoints at this stage, 2009″

    You have to be kidding. A Delta IV Heavy launched an NRO payload this January. An Atlas V launched LRO just last week. The first Falcon 9 is sitting on a launch pad in Florida. These are operational or near-operational vehicles — very far past the PowerPoint (or pre-PDR in the case of Ares I) stage.

    Even DIRECT is further along than Ares I by virtue of requiring fewer new developments, especially engines.

    FWIW…

  • Martijn Meijering

    If you kill the shuttle stack now, then during the rest of Obama’s period in office you free up at least 7 years * $1.5B in shuttle fixed costs (probably more), not to mention SDLV development cost. That’s a lot of money.

  • Major Tom

    “If you kill the shuttle stack now, then during the rest of Obama’s period in office you free up at least 7 years * $1.5B in shuttle fixed costs (probably more)”

    Shuttle’s fixed costs are more in the $3-4 billion range. Marginal costs are only about $100 million per flight.

    FWIW…

  • Martijn Meijering

    Wow. Imagine what you could do with all that money in an all-EELV solution.

  • common sense

    Shuttle should have been retired a long time ago. A very long time ago, think what could have been done. But that is past and this is now…

  • richardb

    MajorTom, you’ve mentioned there is no budget cut of $3 billion in the 2011-2013 era, yet I’ve seen numerous articles contradicting you such as this

    http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/Panel052709.xml&headline=Spaceflight%20Panel%20Wants%20Open%20Minds&channel=space

    Where the subject comes up at the second to last paragraph.
    This article also connects that $3 billion cut to the A-Teams expected primary goal, what to do without Ares V since the money has been removed by Obama’s OMB.

  • D.B.

    With all this interest in the committee and the presentations, I really hope you have all interacted with them via their website. http://hsf.nasa.gov They have made it clear that they are open to hearing the public’s thoughts on what was presented.

  • Major Tom

    “MajorTom, you’ve mentioned there is no budget cut of $3 billion in the 2011-2013 era,”

    That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that there is not a cut to the NASA budget over five years (2009-2013) and actually a small increase. Over five years, the White House and Congress have added to and moved money forward in NASA’s budget, which boosts the agency’s purchasing power and gives Constellation a budget profile closer to what the program has always desired.

    “yet I’ve seen numerous articles”

    Don’t rely on secondary sources when you can go to the primary sources. This is especially true for budget figures, which, with the exception of black programs, can always be examined in greater detail by going to the President’s Budget Request, the relevant agency budgets, and congressional legislation, which are all available to the public. You can run the numbers yourself — NASA’s 2009 and 2010 budgets can be found here:

    http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/index.html

    It was Griffin himself who first mentioned the $3 billion figure at the space prom (when the FY 2010 budget was actually still embargoed, which is a no-no). The $3 billion figure is misleading because it doesn’t recognize all the funding that was added in the near-years, where it’s more valuable to NASA generally and to Constellation in particular. It may unfortunate that the figure keeps getting repeated in secondary sources (the press) without any analysis of the primary sources (the budgets). But that doesn’t mean that those secondary sources are providing an accurate assessment — reporters aren’t hired for their accounting skills.

    “This article also connects that $3 billion cut to the A-Teams expected primary goal,”

    Who said that? I already provided a link to and quoted the terms of reference for the Augustine review committee in my earlier post above. Why insist on making stuff up even when presented with the primary sources in black and white?

    “what to do without Ares V since the money has been removed by Obama’s OMB.”

    C’mon, Ares I is now in the $35-40 billion range. Do you really think that Ares V is going to cost only a fraction of that, $3 billion-plus, and be ready by 2020?

    NASA spends about $10 billion per year on its human space flight programs. That’s over $100 billion through 2020. A few billion cut is not going to make or break that budget. But tens of billions of dollars of cost growth in a single project certainly will.

    Blue-ribbon panels like the Augustine review committee are created to deal with multi-ten billion dollar problems, like space station cost growht at the beginning of the Clinton Administration or Constellation cost growth now. They’re not created to deal with few billion dollar problems. OMB takes care of those, like when the ISS program was overrunning by $5 billion at the beginning of the Bush I Administration and CRV, Hab, etc. were terminated.

    FWIW…

  • Al Fansome

    MAJOR TOM: Shuttle’s fixed costs are more in the $3-4 billion range. Marginal costs are only about $100 million per flight.

    Major Tom,

    While those numbers are an OK “ROM”, there are a couple issues.

    The marginal cost is only as low as “about $100M” if you only account for the marginal costs of “hardware”, like refurbished SRBs and the ET.

    There truly are other costs beyond SRBs and ETs for a Shuttle launch. Based on this, I have seen other estimates of “marginal costs” that account for the other issues, which are in the $300-400 million range.

    On the issue of “Fixed Costs”, again your $3-4 Billion is probably about right, but it is dangerous to leap to the conclusion that NASA can save the entire $3-4 Billion and apply the funding as it likes to other priorities.

    Some of those fixed costs are things like JSC Engineering Directorate and MOD costs, that are allocated to the Shuttle budget under full-cost accounting.

    When we shut down the Shuttle, unless there is a major RIF, there will not be massive lay-offs at MOD and the JSC Engineering Directorate, to free up the funds to pay for other projects that we would like NASA to do.

    I expect that JSC and SOMD will try to re-allocate most (if not all) of those costs to the ISS under full-cost accounting, or to NASA’s overhead budgets.

    Thoughts?

    – Al

  • Major Tom

    “Major Tom,

    While those numbers are an OK ‘ROM’, there are a couple issues.

    The marginal cost is only as low as ‘about $100M’ if you only account for the marginal costs of ‘hardware’, like refurbished SRBs and the ET.

    There truly are other costs beyond SRBs and ETs for a Shuttle launch. Based on this, I have seen other estimates of ‘marginal costs’ that account for the other issues, which are in the $300-400 million range. ”

    I think you may be confusing _average_ cost with _marginal_ cost.

    The _average_ cost of a Shuttle flight is the Shuttle budget over some timeframe divided by the number of flights during that timeframe. Depending on the timeframe and flight rate, it’s usually is in the $500 million range, and may get as low as the $400 million figure that you mention above.

    The _marginal_ cost of a Shuttle flight is the cost of adding one more flight to the Shuttle manifest and budget. It really is driven by the extra hardware that you note above (ETs, SRBs), plus maybe some additional workforce costs (overtime, depending on the flight rate). It’s usually in the $100 million range. The only way I could think of driving the marginal cost into the $300-400 million range would be to drive the annual flight rate into the double digit range, in which case an expansion of the Shuttle workforce and facilities would be required at some point (at say the 10th, 11th, or 12th flight), the costs of which would be applied to the marginal costs of the additional flight that required them.

    GAO quotes a marginal cost of $84 million per Shuttle flight and an average cost of $435 million per Shuttle flight in this 1999 report (see the first paragraph on page 2):

    http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/ns99177.pdf

    Taking about a decade of inflation since 1999 into account, those figures are pretty close to the $100 million and $500 million WAGs that I threw out.

    “On the issue of “Fixed Costs”, again your $3-4 Billion is probably about right, but it is dangerous to leap to the conclusion that NASA can save the entire $3-4 Billion and apply the funding as it likes to other priorities.

    Some of those fixed costs are things like JSC Engineering Directorate and MOD costs, that are allocated to the Shuttle budget under full-cost accounting.

    When we shut down the Shuttle, unless there is a major RIF, there will not be massive lay-offs at MOD and the JSC Engineering Directorate, to free up the funds to pay for other projects that we would like NASA to do.

    I expect that JSC and SOMD will try to re-allocate most (if not all) of those costs to the ISS under full-cost accounting, or to NASA’s overhead budgets.”

    The costs of the civil servants in engineering service pools (like the JSC Engineering Directorate) and in the Mission Operations Directorate are not bookkept under the “Space Shuttle” budget in the “Space Operations” account. Rather, civil servant salaries, benefits, etc. are bookkept under the “Center Management and Operations” in the “Cross-Agency Support” account. (In terms of the budget display that goes to Congress, there is no longer any full cost accouting. Griffin killed it.) So if the Shuttle program and budget magically disappeared tomorrow, the civil servants supporting the Shuttle program would still get their paychecks. So it’s not a question of how you fund civil servants after Shuttle goes away. It’s just a question of what you have them work on next and whether their skills match that work. You may still choose to RIF, but it will be driven by workforce skill issues, not budget issues.

    Where you’re right, though, is that the Shuttle budget probably covers some contractor costs for the engineering pools and MOD. (I’m not certain, but pretty sure, of this.) New programs would have to decide whether they want to continue to pay for those contractors (if their contracts and skill sets could be repurposed) or whether those contracts would need to be terminated/let go in favor of new procurements.

    Hope this helps… FWIW…

  • I think that $100M is a little low for marginal costs (I don’t believe that even covers ET plus SRB refurb). But you also have to consider mission-specific training for the crew (hard to estimate that) and specific payload integration costs (again, hard to estimate). I’d say that marginal cost for a Shuttle flight is about $150M, but that’s purely a WAG. A lot depends on definition and how you do your bookkeeping.

Leave a Reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>