Congress, NASA

Lots of talk, but…

More members of Congress are talking about the need to increase NASA’s budget. But how much action is really taking place?

On Friday Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), chair of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee, reiterated her call for additional NASA funding in a presentation at the Sea Space Symposium in Washington. The Augustine committee, she said, “performed a valuable national service by making it clear that ‘you can’t get there from here’ under the budget plan included in NASA’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget request.” (She was far less charitable about the committee’s work in last month’s hearing.) “I believe that it provides an opportunity for President Obama to step up and embrace a robust budget for NASA and use our civil space program to both inspire and benefit all of our citizens.”

Another member pushing for a NASA budget increase is Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who tells the suburban Cleveland newspaper News Sun that he wants a $3-billion-a-year increase to “restore research ‘so badly damaged’ under the Bush administration.” Kucinich, though, isn’t a fan of commercialization: he warns that such ventures “would lead to more privatization of government functions and loss of civil-service technical jobs.” Kucinich said he’s made his funding request in letters to NASA administrator Charles Bolden and presidential science advisor John Holdren.

Meanwhile, Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL) played up a meeting last week with Bolden about the future of the space program and the role that the Marshall Space Flight Center, located in Griffith’s district, will play. “As we await the full release of the Augustine Commission Report, we know that the Ares program is our best option to provide our nation with reliable access to space,” Griffith said in the statement, although it was unclear who he meant by “we”. Griffith added that Bolden “possesses a perfect mix of realism and ambition” for the job. “Commitment from the administration is our only concern at this point.”

And in today’s Florida Today, John Kelly reads between the lines of recent statements to conclude that the White House is considering raising NASA’s budget. Kelly cites statements last week by the president about spending more on science (statements he also made months ago, prior to the creation of the Augustine committee) as a sign that he’s considering boosting NASA’s budget.

“Certainly, there’s been more talk in Washington of significantly hiking space spending in the past week or so than there has been in a very long time,” Kelly writes. But even in Washington talk will only get you so far—and action to increase NASA’s budget is still lacking.

22 comments to Lots of talk, but…

  • Robert Oler

    I will be surprised if there is more money “this year” or even in the future…what I think is going to happen however is that there is going to be at least a “structure” change in how NASA operates,,,and that is the key to a US future in space.

    Federal government spending in human spaceflight is enormously important…it is a multiplier that all industries in the US depend on. And the fact that we are no where after almost a half century from Tranquility base is a testimony to the fact that the structure it is spent in is at least bad…and probably how it is actually spent is flawed.

    Put it another way. Add up all the money spent in human spaceflight SINCE Apollo and it has had zero effect in developing a human spaceflight industry. It might be argued that the last 1 billion or so of COTS spending has started to change things…but it is fair to say that had federal spending on human spaceflight stopped the last year of the last administration…..there would be none in the US.

    And there is no industry that the US has invested so much money in, that can make that statement.

    It is also a fair statement that the current state of affairs (9 billion for Ares 1 and nothing) plus the need for ever more cash and stretchouts as far as the eye can see…is a repudiation of the execution of Bush’s vision. It is equally accurate that the people in charge at NASA down to at least the program level manager and maybe deeper have failed to 1) develop a program that can be executed and 2) is affordable.

    We are in a situation with human spaceflight in the US now, such as we were in Vietnam in 68 when Westmoreland, who had 500K troops asked for a quarter of a million (or so) more.

    No matter what the money change is, the structure changes need to be such to embolden Charlie Bolden (grin) to either fire people and or get their resignations as he (and shutter Lori Garver) reinvent NASA. As it stands now we almost have an unlimited check for almost no results.

    It is not the program that has failed so much (although it has) it is the structure of NASA that has just rusted out.

    I find it amazing that some of the defenders of Constellation in and out of NASA refer to the coming changes as stifling descent. No one knows how to stifle descent better then either the folks in the last administration or the NASA toadies who put together Constellation. Or the space advocates who supported the entire mash.

    At the end of the 2nd World War one of the IJArmy generals who was being tried on war crimes tried to (as Justice Jackson put it) “Come under the protection of the vary Constitution that he had attempted to destroy”.

    Those who have either run human spaceflight aground, or were endless cheerleaders for the program…who endlessly during the time that the program was going on cheerfully would engage any opposition to the program as being “anti space” or “anti something”…to now talk about silencing descent…is in the words of Associate Justice Jackson “preposturous”.

    Everyone in this country gets to have an opinion, that never changes.

    But the currency given that viewpoint should be measured by how well people have predicted or executed things in the past. Mike Griffin is a person who should be given the Rumsfeld award for stupid statements. At least Rummy has had the good sense to sit quietly in disgrace as his policies and efforts have been repudiated by events. Perhaps Griffin (and others) should find out where Rummy is and join him.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassier

    “Add up all the money spent in human spaceflight SINCE Apollo and it has had zero effect in developing a human spaceflight industry.”

    I think that’s simplistic. We’ve created unsurpassed engineering expertise in building big things in space for humans to use. We do that very very well, and in the Apollo era we had virtually none of it. That expertise is fundamentally necessary for anywhere humans want to go in a serious way (though the lunar return program seems to be focussed on minimizing the importance of that expertise). As for developing “industry”, if you mean industrial functionality in space in a commercial sense, that was simply never a goal. Perhaps it should have been, but the players just weren’t there.

    That being the case, the program had never quite figured out what it wanted to do, and that’s a devastating situation. Constellation seemed to at least have a direction, and having that compelling direction blinded many people to the fact that it may not have been the optimal way to go there.

    “I find it amazing that some of the defenders of Constellation in and out of NASA refer to the coming changes as stifling descent.”

    Er, I think the issue is the stifling of ascent, rather than descent, to express it in a more decent way.

  • common sense

    @Robert G. Oler:

    A few comments.

    “I think is going to happen however is that there is going to be at least a “structure” change in how NASA operates”

    Possibly but I would not hold my breath. Again the major players here won’t let it happen easily. And the reason is that it is not NASA on its own that must be fixed but rather the whole system. Now I would submit that if the NASC is indeed revived and NIAC as well with a somewhat different charter and above all a REAL budget then things may start to change. Especially if COTS is succesful and some COTS-D makes its way to an RFP or whatever it is going to take to activate the existing option. But that’s an awful lot of ifs… Note that if none of the above happens I suspect that NASA HSF will die a slow but inescapable death.

    “It is also a fair statement that the current state of affairs (9 billion for Ares 1 and nothing) plus the need for ever more cash and stretchouts as far as the eye can see…is a repudiation of the execution of Bush’s vision.”

    I do disagree here. This is a repudiation of ESAS the plan defined by Griffin et al. Not a repudiation of the VSE. ESAS and its Constellation implementation of course. I think you’re mixing up stuff here. Had the original plan by O’Keefe been followed there is a real good chance we’d already be flying now.

    “It is equally accurate that the people in charge at NASA down to at least the program level manager and maybe deeper have failed to 1) develop a program that can be executed and 2) is affordable.”

    See above. The NASA implemtation not the VSE.

    “It is not the program that has failed so much (although it has) it is the structure of NASA that has just rusted out.”

    Again I do not agree here. It is far more than NASA alone. NASA does not work in a vaccuum deciding what and when to do what they do. Congress at the very least has an equal responsibility here, I would even dare say a much larger responsibility. It is (or SHOULD BE) Congress’ job to make sure the US cash is well spent and they did not and apparently still do not care a bit. At least this WH, through the Augustine panel, is trying, a little, to shed light. To me it’s too little BUT it’s a start and I support it.

  • common sense

    “As for developing “industry”, if you mean industrial functionality in space in a commercial sense, that was simply never a goal. ”

    That is not true as stated. It is true it has almost not ever been worked though. Check this: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#NASA

    FUNCTIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
    Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall–

    (1) plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities;
    (2) arrange for participation by the scientific community in planning scientific measurements and observations to be made through use of aeronautical and space vehicles, and conduct or arrange for the conduct of such measurements and observations;
    (3) provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof;
    (4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
    (5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

  • common sense

    “Constellation seemed to at least have a direction, and having that compelling direction blinded many people to the fact that it may not have been the optimal way to go there.”

    No. VSE had a direction, Constellation not. It is one of the reasons why all those so-called “requirements” are changing all the time and turning this into the nightmare it is. LEO vs. Moon capabilities for example. And btw it is in total contradiction with your statement “That being the case, the program had never quite figured out what it wanted to do, and that’s a devastating situation. “

  • Robert Oler

    “I find it amazing that some of the defenders of Constellation in and out of NASA refer to the coming changes as stifling descent.”

    I wrote this and Doug gently made his point…

    zounds it should be “dissent” sorry about to leave for the OBGYN appointment where we get the results of the amnio (spell) so a little “nervous” and “dissent” became “descent”…

    later.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Idisagree with much of Robert’s argument, but I agree with his initial conclusion: significant new money for NASA is unlikely this year.

    However, I find it very interesting the number of Democrats fighting for what they perceive, rightly or wrongly, as NASA’s interests. Things have certainly changed since the days when many or most Democrats could reliably counted on to be against much space investment, and support for spaceflight is far more “non-partisan” than once it was, and, absent the budget mess, and expansionet space program would probably be on the table. This can only be good news in the long term.

    That said, I also find it very ironic that a Democratic president appears to be seriously considering encouragement of commercial human spaceflight, while powerful Republicans are fighting him to preserve government jobs and what can only be called a socialist model. If Republicans really believed what they preach, they’d be pushing Mr. Obama in the commercial direction, rather than fighting the idea.

    — Donald

  • […] Space Politics » Lots of talk, but… Comments […]

  • That said, I also find it very ironic that a Democratic president appears to be seriously considering encouragement of commercial human spaceflight, while powerful Republicans are fighting him to preserve government jobs and what can only be called a socialist model.

    Space has always been more bipartisan of a policy disaster than partisans want to admit. It is almost always driven by pork, not principle. And of course, Dick Shelby is simply a Republican of convenience, having changed parties to enhance his reelection chances, (like Arlen Specter) his first and probably only principle being to get reelected.

  • Doug Lassier

    “As for developing “industry”, if you mean industrial functionality in space in a commercial sense, that was simply never a goal. ”

    “That is not true as stated. It is true it has almost not ever been worked though. Check this: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/ogc/about/space_act1.html#NASA

    Let’s be careful here. Industrial functionality in space (or, as he put it, “a human space flight industry”) is not equivalent to commercialization. Commercialization applies to lots more than launching human bodies and, in many respects, the agency has served the provisions of the Space Act pretty well. The launch vehicles and space hardware used by NASA were developed, and are operated commercially, under contract by NASA. The companies that do that do it to make money. Now, the human spaceflight enterprise is entirely controlled by NASA and that’s a separate line of commercializability. It isn’t done to make money.

    So commercialization of human spaceflight was never an explicit goal of the agency.

  • common sense

    “Now, the human spaceflight enterprise is entirely controlled by NASA and that’s a separate line of commercializability.”

    Well, yes. HSF only is part of NASA, so if NASA is to promote commericalization then HSF MUST be part of it.

    “It isn’t done to make money.”

    Which is one of the major issues HSF actually has. A lot and I mean a lot of people are asking WHY. And so far the answer hasn’t been good. At least if you were able to answer that the US industry is making money, hence hiring people and be at the forefront of technology, at least you’d have a partial answer that I think a lot of people from any side would be willing to accept if not adhere to.

  • Doug Lassier

    “if NASA is to promote commericalization then HSF MUST be part of it”

    Um, no. Who says? Most of us agree that human space flight is ultimately survivable only if it can be commercialized. But to say that all of what NASA does has to be commercialized (space science, etc.) is just not sensible. Who’s going to make money deciding on their own to send probes to the outer planets? If NASA is going to promote commercialization then probes to the outer planets have to be a part of it? C’mon.

    Suffice it to say that NASA really should be working hard to see that at least human spaceflight into LEO can be commercialized. But the Space Act isn’t just about human spaceflight., and in many respects what NASA does builds strongly on the commercial sector.

    I’m not quite sure what your point is, but if you’re saying that Lockmart, Boeing and NG aren’t making money off of NASA, that would be pretty arguable. Yes it’s a mistake that NASA doesn’t put more emphasis on commercialization of HSF to LEO. No, the fact that it hasn’t doesn’t really contradict the Space Act.

  • common sense

    “Um, no. Who says? Most of us agree that human space flight is ultimately survivable only if it can be commercialized. But to say that all of what NASA does has to be commercialized (space science, etc.) is just not sensible.”

    Where did I say that all of NASA had to be commercialized. The topic here is HSF and per your own words “human space flight is ultimately survivable only if it can be commercialized.” I don’t understand your disagreement.

    Hmm not sure I understand your “disagreement” here.

    “But the Space Act isn’t just about human spaceflight., and in many respects what NASA does builds strongly on the commercial sector”

    Agreed. BUT the current approach has just shown its limitations, hasn’t it? So again we seem to agree…

    “if you’re saying that Lockmart, Boeing and NG aren’t making money off of NASA, that would be pretty arguable. ”

    I think that a lot of us see “commercialization” differently from what the usual contractors are doing. I never said they don’t make money. But it is arguable as to their recent track records in HSF. “Commercialization”, to me anyway, is more like COTS.

  • Robert Oler

    No one, at least “me” (grin) is calling for all of NASA to be commercialized.

    What I think we have to get rid of are the two ball and chains that have shackled human spaceflight.

    The first is that exploration is what human spaceflight does…

    Oberg is correct here (in my view). The technology aspect is killing NASA. It isnt that NASA doesnt know how to do human spaceflight technology development (although that might be argued)…it is that there is almost no commercial (or more correctly external) spin in from other aspects of spaceflight that are 1) tolerated or 2) encouraged. There has been spin in before

    NASA used ATlas and Titans that were more or less “stock” ICBM’s…OK there was some attention to human rating and care was taken in the production of the ones carrying humans …but to get Mercury (and Gemini) flying NASA used off the shelf hardware. They have never done that since.

    2. They have stopped doing “spin outs”. This is the essence of the communications side of NASA…the Syncom/ATS/ACTS programs. The shuttle was a “spin out” platform…at one point it was going to open to all comers. But the agency made it more and more difficult to fly non agency payloads on the vehicle…and before long all but trivial (or NASA paid for ) processes stopped. If you want an example of how badly things ahve gone awry…look at what it cost to get an amateur radio on the shuttle…

    The USAF was instrumental in developing the turbojet engine…and doing a lot through its various bomber programs to solve the problems of high altitude flight Imagine some AirForce equivelent to Hanley arguing “turbojets are to difficult for commercial flight”?

    The reason NASA is so screwed up is that it pretends to be a test flight organization when it is not…and yet go read Hanley’s memo and all you get through his 9th grade prose is “We are to sexy for ourselves and no one else can do what we do”.

    when really they dont do anything at all very well

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Oler

    That said, I also find it very ironic that a Democratic president appears to be seriously considering encouragement of commercial human spaceflight, while powerful Republicans are fighting him to preserve government jobs and what can only be called a socialist model.

    ……

    it doesnt surprise me. Most ardent Republicans give lip service and thats about it to private industry.

    I was a solid “red” Republican until the Clinton impeachment fiasco …and the party’s opposition to Bosnia when I figured out that most of the “conservatives” were frauds.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Oler

    Doug Lassier wrote @ October 12th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
    I wrote:
    “Add up all the money spent in human spaceflight SINCE Apollo and it has had zero effect in developing a human spaceflight industry.”

    you replied…

    I think that’s simplistic. We’ve created unsurpassed engineering expertise in building big things in space for humans to use. ..

    that maybe (and indeed I think that it is the one legacy of the space station of immediate value…one wonders why NASA didnt take advantage of that expertise in the “vision”?)

    but it wasnt what I meant.

    Everyone should in my view go do a little research on the Syncom/Advent projects that heralded the opening of geo synchronous communications. It is an interesting study in how the Army (Advent) totally miscalculated the “cost/capability/benefit” range as it designed Advent…and yet the folks at Hughes who designed Syncom…worked it just perfectly to get the concept up and running.

    the design features in Advent are now quite commonplace but at the time Advent was the Ares of its day.

    As long as “where NASA goes” with HSF is the key talking point…not how it goes there…most of the Money is going to be badly spent

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @Robert G. Oler:

    “It is also a fair statement that the current state of affairs (9 billion for Ares 1 and nothing) plus the need for ever more cash and stretchouts as far as the eye can see…is a repudiation of the execution of Bush’s vision.”

    My mistake I did not read carefully and I am the one that mixed up stuff. You are right and we do agree.

    Oh well…

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense…

    there are fascinating parallel tracks in history which one would like to see how they turned out even though it is impossible.

    For instance had Griffin come up with some plan using the EELV’s and some fast build capsule or even something different even in terms of structure, like some vehicle that started and ended its journey up at ISS and was reusable (sort of a Moon cycler) and made some reasonable progress to it in the last 4 years…or maybe even had something flying.

    Well that might be different. As it is NASA has once again come up with a vehicle that is so expensive it has no other customer…and a decades long effort that the nation can not afford..

    so it is toast.

    Another failed Bush program

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    totally off topic

    We were at the OBGYN today (good news as an aside) and I was asked a very good question by the doctor…which I do not know the answer to.

    During the Apollo effort quite a few LM’s and Saturn third stages were deliberatly crashed into the Moon…I notice LRO has in fact seen the Apollo 14 SIVB site…

    did any optical equipment from earth attempt to image the impacts of that era? The LM Maybe to small…but I was wondering about the third stage…

    I know BTW the ALSEP’s recorded it …

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassier

    “Where did I say that all of NASA had to be commercialized.”

    Your statement was that “if NASA is to promote commericalization then HSF MUST be part of it”. The logical sequence is that if HSF is part of NASA, and NASA is promoting commercialization, then HSF must be part of what is commercialized. That same logic applies to anything NASA does.

    But I agree that this statement is ambiguous.

    I guess what you’re really saying is that commercialization of HSF has to be a key ingredient in any attempt by NASA to fulfill the commercialization mandate of the Space Act. But I really don’t understand where that comes from. I think we both agree that commercialization would be strongly beneficial to HSF, but the reference to the Space Act seemed irrelevant in that respect. Commercialization of HSF was never an explicit goal for NASA.

  • common sense

    “That same logic applies to anything NASA does.”

    Maybe you could say that but in my mind the topic was HSF hence…

    “I guess what you’re really saying is that commercialization of HSF has to be a key ingredient in any attempt by NASA to fulfill the commercialization mandate of the Space Act. ”

    All I am saying is that for one reason or another there has never been a real attempt at commercial space. Worse, a lot of people at NASA in position to make decision do not want to see an emergence of commercial space. And all of that despite the fact that it is in NASA’s charter to promote commercialization of space. So in essence some people within NASA are not following their mandate.

    “Commercialization of HSF was never an explicit goal for NASA.”

    Stricto sensu true but again commercialization of space is a goal per the Space Act:
    (4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
    (5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

  • There hasn’t been any significant space advancement in awhile now, mainly because of the continuing financial drain of the Iraq war, IMHO.

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