NASA

What astronauts want

Or former astronauts, at least. Sunday’s Houston Chronicle included an op-ed by 16 former astronauts with their opinions for the Augustine committee and others on what direction national space policy should take. Their summarized conclusions:

We urge this panel, along with the president, Congress and the American people to consider that: Exploration must be recognized as a national imperative that sustains U.S. leadership in space; a significant increase in human space-flight safety should be accomplished under government leadership; we must leave low Earth orbit and explore destinations beyond; and sustaining robust funding and staying the course are imperative to implementing a safe, reliable and meaningful space exploration program worthy of our nation.

The second point—crew safety—might get the most attention, in that the writers endorse the current Constellation architecture—one that appears in jeopardy given the Augustine committee’s proposed options and agency budget pressures—as one “infused with generational lessons learned, well planned and scrutinized by multiple stakeholders to provide a safe and reliable system for our nation.” (It should be noted that some of the authors now work for companies involved in Constellation.) They also appear to endorse alternative, commercial crew and cargo transportation options, but in a more lukewarm fashion, saying that these “new entrants to the aerospace community” (hello, SpaceX) could “possibly” move from cargo to crew if they demonstrate performance and ability to meet NASA crew safety requirements. “This is a sensible, milestone-driven approach that ensures appropriate measures are being taken to protect our assets while allowing NASA to focus on its current program.”

13 comments to What astronauts want

  • One would think that seeing as how Obama won the election, terms like “staying the course” would be a bit deprecated by now…

    ~Jon

  • Major Tom

    “(It should be noted that some of the authors now work for companies involved in Constellation.)”

    I don’t know what the Houston Chronicle’s editorial policy is, but the paper’s byline implied that all the authors are active members of the astronaut corps (not true, almost none are) and failed to mention that nearly half work for ATK or other Constellation contractors (a direct conflict-of-interest that the reader should be made aware of). Crippen, Halsell, and Precourt are all on the ATK payroll, Horowitz is an ATK consultant now, Duffy and Melroy work at LockMart on Orion, and Davis is at Jacobs Engineering.

    It’s one thing for former members of NASA’s astronaut corps to use their association with the corps to influence opinion to enrich their current employers and themselves. It’s another thing for a newspaper’s editorial board to not make their readership aware of such obvious conflicts of interest.

    FWIW…

  • CharlesTheSpaceGuy

    You would think that they would read the piece and ask themselves if anyone could find an obvious flaw in their reasoning. They say that Constellation was well planned and infused with generational lessons learned – then why have there been so many major changes and problems?? Such as the need to down size the crew from 6 to four? Such as the change from 28 vDC to 120 vDC in the power system?? Such as the many changes in the Ares?? Etc etc.

    They entrusted their lives to the experienced, innovative men and women on the ground that led us into the loss of the Challenger and Columbia – where the accident investigation showed a broken safety culture and a management team that ignored safety concerns. There is a darn good reason that Rick Husband did not sign that op ed.

    It sounds like they are saying that they have done a great job so far and to give them more billions. They have gotten us to a point where we cannot fly our only launcher that takes crew members into space, we are totally reliant on a uncertain ally (who’s government cooperates with us while stoking radical nationalist and anti-American racists at the same time), and we are committed to finishing a 100 billion dollar Space Station just before abandoning it.

    What am I missing here?

  • blairf

    10 mins with google makes it clear it is pretty much all of them pleading for their employers.

    Jeff Ashby USAF
    Michael Bloomfield ATK
    Bob Crippen ATK
    Roger Crouch Freelance educator
    Jan Davis Jacobs
    Brian Duffy LM
    Jim Halsell ATK
    Steve Hawley Kansus University
    Rick Hieb LM
    Scott Horowitz ATK
    Bruce McCandless LM
    Don McMonagle Raytheon
    Pam Melroy LM
    Charlie Precourt ATK
    Ken Reightler LM
    Kent Rominger ATK

  • blairf, well, I see only 75% there. The one working for USAF and the two educators probably don’t have conflicts of interest.

  • common sense

    Well, the problem really doesn’t lie with the astronauts. Here again it is with the press. Sorry. Anyone at the Chronicle asking what these astronauts do for a living? Then again, do you think that the Chronicle has a vested interest here? What do you think? Say for example about their readership at Clear Lake if they do not endorse anything that looks like supporting JSC… Just asking.

  • Tom D

    I wouldn’t automatically assume base motives for these former astronauts. I think it would be wiser to assume this really is their opinion and try to find points of common agreement. The points we don’t agree with should be argued logically and cordially and not just dismissed with simple accusations. There is far too much useless contention these days. We can do better.

    I would personally like to see as many astronauts on my side as I can get. They aren’t dumb. A few may truly be venal, but most either haven’t caught the vision of near-term commercial spaceflight or have become so disillusioned by the slow pace of space development that they have little hope for anything beyond NASA. Some (probably most) are quite anxious to push the development of space.

    I do think the Chronicle should have written “Former Astronauts” as part of the byline, but I’m not sure if that would have made much of a difference.

  • I don’t understand why astronauts would be reluctant to travel into space aboard a Space X vehicle. Space X has a 2 out of 5 launch success rate (40%). The current shuttle has a 125 out of 127 launch success rate (98%). So its obvious that riding aboard a Space X vehicle would be much more exciting for a ‘space cowboy’ than riding aboard the shuttle:-)

  • Space X has a 2 out of 5 launch success rate (40%).

    SpaceX has a much higher reliability than that at this point. You can’t compute future reliability by such a simplistic analysis. It is not a random process. At this point, I would estimate that the Falcon 1’s reliability is in at least the low nineties if not higher.

  • blairf

    TomD

    Hang on a minute…

    No one is accusing them of being dumb, venal or driven by base motives.

    But 16 ex-astros – 13 directly employed by Constellation and the other 3 closely linked (you do the google searches I can’t be bothered to re-do them) that is no coincidence.

    They all have achieved way more than I, and I don’t question their morals, passion or commitment. But how the heck do you think this op-ed came about. They randomly met up in a bar and decided to write it? Or the constellation PR machine decided their case needed some astro support?

  • Tom D

    blairf,

    I’m sorry if I was a bit strong in my comment, but I read far to much simple accusation on the web these days. I hope the current debate over NASA’s plans results in some good changes (like the axing of Ares 1), but I hope cordiality isn’t tossed out the window along the way.

    I do wonder about the timing and purpose of the op-ed. It does look like big changes are coming for NASA. I don’t think this would have been written if that wasn’t a very serious possibility. I think almost any change from the current Constellation plan will be an improvement, but a lot of people aren’t going to like it.

  • @blairf

    Being employed by ATK or Lockheed Martin does not automatically mean that these former astronauts are working in the Constellation program. But even if they were, why is it wrong for them to express their opinion? They believe in the program and think it is the right direction. Noticed that the piece was in the opinion/editorial column. Steve Hawley is a physics professor at KU and I find it hard to believe that he had any conflicts of interest involving Constellation.

  • […] in late August a group of former astronauts published an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle in support of human space exploration in general and Constellation in particular. (The link to the original op-ed is now broken, as the Chronicle […]

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>