Congress, NASA

Another bid to save Constellation funding

On Monday Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) announced plans to introduce legislation that would compel NASA to spend FY10 funds on Constellation. The “Protecting Human Space Flight Act of 2010″, which Aderholt said he was introducing Monday (it has not yet shown up in Thomas), would require NASA to spend remaining FY10 Constellation funds on that program, rather than reserve the funds to cover contract termination liabilities, as NASA is now doing. “NASA is putting jobs in jeopardy because of a drastic proposal that isn’t even actual law,” Aderholt said in the statement. The agency “should not be assuming that this plan will be approved by Congress and signed into law.”

While the legislation has a number of co-sponsors from both parties (primarily from states most affected by plans to cancel Constellation), one wonders if this bill is designed more to highlight the situation than to actually become law. As a standalone piece of legislation the bill’s chances of making it through the House and Senate and be signed by the president by the end of September (the end of the current fiscal year) appear slim. A better strategy would be to do as the Senate has done and attach language to a must-pass supplemental appropriations bill. This may, in fact, be their strategy, but as Aderholt himself states in his press release, introducing a bill can send a stronger message. “I hope this bill sends the message to the rest of the House or Representatives and the Administration that NASA must wait for Congress to act on its proposal and that our nation needs to make a commitment to properly fund the Constellation program to save jobs and make sure that America remains the leader in space,” he said.

Aderholt later told Huntsville TV station WHNT that the legislation would “end a message to these [Constellation] contractors, that we are moving forward, that Congress fully expects the Constellation program to be in effect, and therefore the money should be spent, as is dictated by the 2010 law.” He added that he believes “90% or more of Congress right now believes that Constellation is a good program,” but did not disclose how he reached that conclusion.

37 comments to Another bid to save Constellation funding

  • He added that he believes “90% or more of Congress right now believes that Constellation is a good program,” but did not disclose how he reached that conclusion.

    Yes indeed, I would like to know how he came up with such a conclusion also.

    All of this CxP hand waving is pure, cynical pork-pie posturing and anti-anything Obama BS.

    Does anyone seriously believe that a GOPer Congress will increase NASA’s budget over the flat-line $18B/year past 2011 and beyond?

    Whatta bunch of disingenuous crap.

  • Nathan Koren

    I would assume that he based that number on the well-known fact that 90% or more of congresspeople, of every political stripe, are incorrigible pork addicts. This would at least strongly imply that 90% or more of them support Constellation, since that’s really the only reason for anyone to do so.

  • Dennis Berube

    While Congress may not appropriate more funding for NASA, in both the short and long terms, Constellation is the way to go. Much has already been spent on the development of the program, why throw that away on the whim of a President who doesnt know what he is doing. He should have listened more to John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, making his final selections from their ideas! Were the real men and women who make these journeys into space even included in his meetings with those in the know???? All that private industry will produce are rides for the rich. If anyone really believes the price of a space ticket will come down dramatically if private industry takes over, is really kidding themselves. Space X has already said they will ask upwards of 50 mil. to launch our astronauts to the station. Russian is already asking that. If Russia is truly our partners in this endeavor, how come they are charging us so damn much to fly their ships. We are footing the bill. That money could be better spent on our own deep space vehicle, Orion.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Wow – Dennis, that comment could have been borrowed from the likes of a breaking wind or Mark, or shelby himself.

    It was totally devoid of substance, and point.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 8:36 am

    Constellation is like Afghanistan…a hopeless cause that has already consumed a lot of resources (and people) needs far more and the only argument to do it is “without spending more (resources) all the stuff previously spent is wasted”.

    sorry no

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 8:36 am

    Space X has already said they will ask upwards of 50 mil. to launch our astronauts to the station.

    Elon Musk has stated publicly that SpaceX plans to offer rides to LEO on Dragon for $20M/seat. It’s on their website too.

  • John Malkin

    Is this money being withheld across the entire constellation program or is it targeted either by NASA or contractors at only parts of the program? Or is this all future money (3rd & 4th Quarter)?

  • Ferris Valyn

    Max – there are positive things to say about Constellation. Thats not the issue. The issue is the blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy and delusional thinking that seems to come with Constellation supporters.

    For a full year, we had a debate about Constellation, during the Augustine hearings. there was a lot of evidence presented. And the simple fact is, the results were not pretty for Constellation. A lot of us who had issues with Constellation ended up being proven right, and that the details and mechanisms which were used to pick Constellation resulted in a program with SUBSTANTIAL issues.

    At this point, I, frankly, am sick and tired of playing nice with Constellation supporters, at least those on the internet. I’ll let Major Tom and others actually provide detailed responses – they are better at it then me anyway.

    I am just going to start calling it BS when I see it

  • Major Tom

    “Were the real men and women who make these journeys into space even included in his meetings with those in the know????”

    Yes, Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space, and Leroy Chiao, a NASA astronaut with four missions under his belt, were on the White House’s blue ribbon Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee (aka the “Augustine Committee”).

    nasa.gov/offices/hsf/members/index.html

    “Space X has already said they will ask upwards of 50 mil. to launch our astronauts to the station.”

    That’s an enormous bargain — on a per mission or per seat basis — compared to Shuttle costs.

    “If Russia is truly our partners in this endeavor, how come they are charging us so damn much to fly their ships. We are footing the bill. That money could be better spent on our own deep space vehicle, Orion.”

    Although we’d all rather see it spent on U.S. industry, the cost of NASA Soyuz purchases are a fraction of what’s needed to finish Orion, either as originally planned or in CRV form.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Is this money being withheld across the entire constellation program or is it targeted either by NASA or contractors at only parts of the program? Or is this all future money (3rd & 4th Quarter)?”

    Orion elements (for potential use in a CRV) and the J-2X engine (for potential use in an HLV upper stage) are spared from the worst.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “He added that he believes “90% or more of Congress right now believes that Constellation is a good program,” but did not disclose how he reached that conclusion.”

    Yes, 14 co-sponsors is less than 3% of Congress, not 90%.

    Sigh…

  • One of the major problems with the Obama plan is that its politically unsustainable if your a Congressman who actually cares about NASA’s manned space program. The politicians know that manned spaceflight is the glamor part of the Federal space program.

    But if NASA isn’t launching people into space anymore then its going to be difficult for them to support an $18 to $20 billion a year budget for NASA. NASA’s manned spaceflight program is dependent upon it actually doing something– and doing something in the near future!

    What the Obama administration is doing is setting NASA up for some major funding cuts by Congress over the next decade by eliminating NASA’s ability to fly its own manned vehicles. And once private commercial spaceflight companies come on line, it will be pretty easy for Congress to eliminate NASA’s manned space program altogether.

  • common sense

    @ Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 11:08 am

    “there are positive things to say about Constellation”

    Like what?

  • Ferris Valyn

    common sense – it does provide a lot of nice pork for certain districts, if you think those districts deserve the pork.

  • common sense

    @ Marcel F. Williams wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    “One of the major problems with the Obama plan is that its politically unsustainable if your a Congressman who actually cares about NASA’s manned space program. ‘

    Okay then. If these people don’t support the new plan and since the old plan is being cancelled then I guess you can say Congress killed HSF at NASA, can you not?

    “NASA’s manned spaceflight program is dependent upon it actually doing something– and doing something in the near future! ”

    Funny because Constellation was supposed to survive the previous WH. The way they were supposed to go about it was to have vehicles on orbit http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf
    “C. Space Transportation Capabilities Supporting Exploration
    • Develop a new crew exploration vehicle to provide crew transportation for missions beyond low Earth
    orbit;
    « Conduct the initial test flight before the end of this decade in order to provide an operational
    capability to support human exploration missions no later than 2014;”

    How is that going for you? I know you like destination and timeline…

  • I am just going to start calling it BS when I see it

    You can’t go wrong there! ;)

  • common sense

    @ Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    I am not sure “pork” is a “good” thing to say about the program. So for the sake of it say it provides jobs to those poor republican states where big government is heresy.

    Now you said “things”, plural. Something else?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Sigh…
    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    One of the major problems with the Obama plan is that its politically unsustainable if your a Congressman who actually cares about NASA’s manned space program. The politicians know that manned spaceflight is the glamor part of the Federal space program. ..

    that is a fascinating (and possibly although I doubt it ) accurate viewpoint…the reality is that the POR is also politically vunerable (as the current situation shows). Some Congress people are for continuing Constellation, just not funding it at levels that are claimed by NASA people to be needed to actually get to flight in some reasonable time.

    So if the funding were to continue at the current levels, and the first flights do not occur until 2018 or later…then you have nailed it…the program gets more likely for cancellation.

    The sad thing is that Griffin probably missed the last oppurtunity for a breakout of Earth orbit for a decade or so. Had he put together a tight focused program that used existing launchers and made do on the dollars that were there…he would be flying..and the program would be harder to axe.

    As it is we are coming to the end of an era…where government and industry use to cooperate to do great things. Now government is viewed (after 8 of Bush and 2 of Obama) as incapable of doing much and industry is kind of looked at like BP and the banks.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “The politicians know that manned spaceflight is the glamor part of the Federal space program… NASA’s manned spaceflight program is dependent upon it actually doing something…”

    Since when is “glamor [sic]” the same thing as “doing something”?

    Goofy…

    “But if NASA isn’t launching people into space anymore then its going to be difficult for them to support an $18 to $20 billion a year budget for NASA.”

    Taxpayers should spend $18-20 billion a year on “glamor [sic]”?

    Really?

    “What the Obama administration is doing is setting NASA up for some major funding cuts by Congress over the next decade by eliminating NASA’s ability to fly its own manned vehicles. And once private commercial spaceflight companies come on line, it will be pretty easy for Congress to eliminate NASA’s manned space program altogether.”

    Ugh… enough with the goofy conspiracy theories. How can the Obama Administration conspire with some future congress to bring about the downfall of the nation’s civil space agency? Are they traveling through time?

    Take your meds when you watch Back to the Future reruns… lawdy.

  • And once private commercial spaceflight companies come on line, it will be pretty easy for Congress to eliminate NASA’s manned space program altogether.

    So what? Where does it say in NASA’s charter that it’s obligated to have a government HSF?

    NASA=DARPA. Works pretty good for the DoD, why not commercial/contractor space firms?

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    But if NASA isn’t launching people into space anymore then its going to be difficult for them to support an $18 to $20 billion a year budget for NASA.

    My congressman has not signed any of the CxP letters, and we don’t have any significant Constellation contracts in our district. I’m sure we could say the same for quite a few congressional districts, especially the ones in rural or bedroom communities.

    NASA is visible, but not big budget-wise, and money is a big concern these days, both in Congress, and around the dinner table at home. CxP was not money being well spent.

  • Ferris Valyn

    It hasn’t, to date, as far as we know, killed anyone. That is also true.

    And its 2 rockets have “infinite” safety, since anything divided by 0 is infinity.

    Will that work?

  • common sense

    @ Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 2:01 pm

    Arrrggghhh! Are you trying to change yourself in a Shelby?

    ;)

  • Ferris Valyn

    Oh, and someone just pointed this out to me – they made some really great CGI movies, as well as a really scary “movie” poster

  • common sense

    @ Ferris Valyn wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    I wish the movies would at least return a profit. James Cameron can make good CGI movies for a fraction of the cost Constellation does. Maybe we should turn the CGI movie making at NASA to the private sector, what’d you think?

  • DCSCA

    “One of the major problems with the Obama plan is that its politically unsustainable if your a Congressman who actually cares about NASA’s manned space program. The politicians know that manned spaceflight is the glamor part of the Federal space program.” Glamor is a bit superficial. National prestige fits better. But the ‘emotional’ appeal doesn’t calculate well with accountants. It’s part of the ‘Cernan intangibles’ commercial space advocates so easily dismiss. They don’t know how to figure those intangibles into a cash value for the bottom line — until they see what happens when they ignore it. See BP for details.

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    “See BP for details.”

    Not that I am a fan of mega corporation but how would you compare the BP disaster with say Challenger? Columbia? Apollo I? Any cost cutting issues there? Any mismanagement there?

    Just askin’

  • Major Tom

    “It’s part of the ‘Cernan intangibles’ commercial space advocates so easily dismiss. They don’t know how to figure those intangibles into a cash value for the bottom line — until they see what happens when they ignore it. See BP for details.”

    This is a goofy comparison.

    The oil disaster in the Gulf is doing tangible, concrete damage to the environment and economy there that can be measured in dollars and cents.

    By definition, intangibles like national prestige can’t be defined, measured, or assigned a dollar figure.

    Moreover, national prestige, if you think it is important, is a function of government and society overall. It shouldn’t be a goal in any company’s strategic plan.

    And after so many decades, who looks to routine LEO missions for national prestige, anyway? No one is impressed by the umpteenth Shuttle flight. For civil human space flight, national prestige lies beyond Earth orbit or in other, non-routine missions.

    Think before you post.

  • @ common sense

    I support the Congressional plans over the President’s plans. The President’s plan is politically unsustainable and simply a waste of tax payer dollars.

    The only good thing about the President plan is the fact that private industry gets a tiny bit of money to actually develop something and to do something.

    @Major Tom

    If you don’t realize by now that President Obama could care less about NASA then I guess ignorance really is bliss!

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 29th, 2010 at 4:03 pm

    “It’s part of the ‘Cernan intangibles’ commercial space advocates so easily dismiss.”

    So why are these “intangibles”? Prestige for one is very “tangible”, suffice to look at how the US for one and the world perceive the US. And there are polls in and outside the US that can provide the picture if you look for them. And if you think that 1 or 2 flights to the Moon would restore US prestige you don’t livein this time in this world. The election of the current president did way more for the US than any flight might have, in and outside the US. “Glamour”? You mean pilot with a scarf kind of glamour? “Right Stuff” kind of glamour? This kind of glamour is like the memory of a good diner. Today’s right stuff lies in other than aerospace areas: Entertainment. No one even knows the astronauts names. There is no such a figure as Chuck Yeager, Charles Lindbergh, St Exupery, Buzz Aldrin, any more. People look for glamour at Hollywood and on the Internet.

    Anyway. If they are intangibles they are not going to help with today’s world. So what good are they for?

  • vulture4

    “Much has already been spent on the development of the [Constellation] program, why throw that away”

    Unfortunately everything that has been spent or will be spent on Constellation has been thrown away. The Ares costs roughly 10 times as much as the Falcon to process. The Orion weighs more than twice as much as the Dragon and carries fewer people and far less cargo. The processing and facilities costs for Constellation dwarf those for SpaceX or even Delta.

  • Rhyolite

    I have a suggestion for those who want to save Constellation: Rather than whining congress for more pork, figure out how to fix its cost and schedule problems.

    Constellation would have a fighting chance if you can get the development cost down by 75%, the operations cost down by 75% and cut half of the remaining development schedule (3 or 4 years at this point).

    It might also be helpful if you could demonstrate some useful capability in the near term. For example, delivering cargo to ISS in the next year or two might make a favorable impression.

    Barring that, I think you are headed for cancellation sooner or later.

    (Of course, if cutting schedule and cost are anathema to you, then space exploration wasn’t the real point of Constellation for you anyways was it.)

  • DCSCA

    @MajorTom “Think before you post.” <- Please do.

    @commonsense- Clearly you've never seen or experienced the kind of value these 'intangibles' can have in dealing with other nations. Cernan has. Armstrong has. Lovell et al have. Most Americans who have never experienced the power and reach the actions of their nation has in and on other lands in shaping the perceptions and values of the United States. This writer, while residing in foreign capital, once had some locals ask where we kept our guns. Seems they believed we all pack heat in the US of A as seen in our TV programs. Our space program, along with other good -and bad elements of American life, leave lasting ipressions in other lands and cultures stronger than you may believe.

  • DCSCA

    Rhyolite wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 12:05 am <- the way to 'save' Constellation is to scuttle Ares, ramp up Orion and adapt it to existing expendable LVs in inventory and get it flying; then press on through this lean period, with plans for a lunar lander in the mid-term out years culminating with a permanent lunar facility by 2030. That's your manned space program for the next few decades. The engineering experience and methodology from this lunar effort could then be applied to an expedition to Mars– if it's even worth going by then. With unmanned planetary probes becoming increasingly sophisticated and the imagery and instrumentation from Mars rovering and orbiting probes showing the place to be not much more than a rocky red desert, wasting the time and resources to send people there may be moot by that time.

  • DCSCA

    @commonsense: “Today’s right stuff lies in other than aerospace areas: Entertainment. No one even knows the astronauts names. There is no such a figure as Chuck Yeager, Charles Lindbergh… Buzz Aldrin, any more. People look for glamour at Hollywood and on the Internet.” Uh, you have it backwards. The storylines of those individuals and/or their experiences, usually distributed to an interested public in books, television and film are the content of the very ‘entertainment’ you chide as mere ‘glamour’.

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 30th, 2010 at 5:41 am

    “This writer, while residing in foreign capital, once had some locals ask where we kept our guns.”

    This writer has traveled all across the world and your anecdote does not make any sense. The “locals”, as you call them, don’t give a hoot about where our guns are but they are more interested in the foreign policy of the US and that we don’t bring our guns to their country or the countries of their friends.

  • DCSCA

    ^ Inaccuate, as usual.

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