Congress, Lobbying, NASA

The Planetary Society’s concerns about NASA legislation

In a letter today to the chairs and ranking members of key House and Senate appropriations and authorization subcommittees, the leadership of The Planetary said it was “concerned about omissions and a lack of coherence” in the NASA-related legislation they have marked up in recent weeks. “[W]e are concerned that the path on which the legislative process is proceeding will lead to an incomplete plan, which would be worse than no plan at all,” states the letter, signed by the organization’s president and vice president as well as the retiring and incoming executive directors.

The letter cites several concerns. One is the lack of “a plan to restore U.S. technical capability to launch astronauts to space once the shuttle is retired”; the society supports commercial crew development, but worries that plans to develop government systems for such access could extend the post-shuttle gap. They also note the lack of specific exploration goals in the legislation and cuts in exploration and technology programs. Also, while supporting the eventual development of a heavy-lift vehicle, they don’t support the Senate’s plan to begin development of such a system immediately, because “premature development through political legislation rather than technological studies could result in huge waste and eventual delays.”

“We ask for your help and leadership, and that of your colleagues on the full Committees” to avoid the incomplete plan they fear, the letter concludes. “This may require stepping back from each of the Congressional bills now passed by Committees and refocusing on the whole. Congress’ interests and the Administration’s interests are more alike than different. We urge your support for a new NASA plan.”

64 comments to The Planetary Society’s concerns about NASA legislation

  • Looks like an attempted rubber-stamp of the original White House plan by a small group of loyal Obama supporters.

    This is The Planeatry Socity, but Bill Nye, Louis Friendman, and the other two officers do not bother to request any increase in funding for planetary or space science.

    They also fail to back up their claim that R&D is requried before beginning design of an HLV, when there already exist quite suitable rocket motors such as the P&W RS-68 and ATK SRB. In Congressional testomony, Neal Armstrong stated that there aren’t any major unknowns when it comes to chemical rockets, and that any resulting improvements would be marginal at best.

  • Bennett

    Perhaps the R&D required is for the payloads that a HLV would be lifting?

  • Ferris Valyn

    So, can Neil share his secret on how to get an HLV that can lift 150 tonnes for $15,000 per flight? I’d love to find out the secret.

  • Nelson Bridwell, the Planetary Society is one of the handful of space advocacy groups who realize that NASAs budget cannot be increased. See the current decadal recession that the United States is experiencing. We’ll be lucky if we get what’s being offered as is. The original plan really was a great step forward. It dismays me that the Administration isn’t fighting for it.

  • amightywind

    Looks like an attempted rubber-stamp of the original White House plan by a small group of loyal Obama supporters.

    Indeed, both are natural enemies of NASA HSF. The Planetary Society because they are a left leaning special interest, the Whitehouse because they despise any symbol of American success. They desire the US to slouch into a century of mediocrity.

  • Artemus

    “So, can Neil share his secret on how to get an HLV that can lift 150 tonnes for $15,000 per flight? I’d love to find out the secret.”

    Unless the H in HLV stands for “Hyperwarp” or something, that is not an achievable target.

  • hehe, 10c/kg, I don’t think even USPS is that cheap.

    in regards to the gap, I believe NASA has decided it is unclosable, and they’re not interested in directing any of their budget to it.

  • There is room for differences of opinion and even interpretation of facts, but the political bias charge is one that there is not room for. When we supported the Bush Vision for Space Exploration we were accused of being a right-leaning organization supporting too much human space flight, When that vision was lost in what aerospace experts found to be an unsustainable program that would neither meet its goals or get humans beyond the Moon we looked for a new Roadmap to Space — and published it — before the Obama Administration came up with their similar plan! (Indeed perhaps we influenced it). As for rejecting American success we have been proud to boast all space achievements from the space station (international) to Cassini to Spirit to Opportunity to Hubble to Deep Impact to Messenger. Yes, most of them are robotic — and that is exactly why we want a greater American human space program too. Admittedly — we want a greater one for the whole world as well.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    Does the RNC pay you by the word, or the letter?

  • . . . the lack of specific exploration goals in the legislation . . .

    IMHO, that can be solved by adding a specific line item for the immediate flight testing of a fuel depot demo and a commitment to thereafter deploy an EML located fuel depot that would be used to facilitate beyond LEO exploration missions by every spacefaring nation.

  • red

    Nelson Bridwell: “Looks like an attempted rubber-stamp of the original White House plan by a small group of loyal Obama supporters.”

    The Planetary Society isn’t a small group of Obama supporters, it’s the biggest grass-roots pro-space group there is. They’re not alone in supporting the FY2011 budget, either:

    http://planetary.org/programs/projects/space_advocacy/Joint_Statement_by_Space_Organizations1.pdf

    “We strongly support the top line FY2011 NASA budget. … We are excited by the increases in science, aeronautics and technology initiatives. … safe and cost-effective access to low earth orbit, robotic precursors, and other missions. … in-space servicing … it is critically important that the American people can and must participate and be engaged in the journey of discovery and exploration.

    AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE
    AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
    AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
    AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS
    AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR GRAVITATIONAL AND SPACE BIOLOGY
    ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC.
    ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY
    COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT FEDERATION
    MARYLAND SPACE BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE
    NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY
    THE PLANETARY SOCIETY
    SPACE FRONTIER FOUNDATION
    UNIVERSITIES SPACE RESEARCH ASSOCIATION”

    The Commercial Spaceflight Federation alone includes:

    “EXECUTIVE MEMBERS

    Armadillo Aerospace
    Bigelow Aerospace
    Blue Origin
    Excalibur Almaz
    Jacksonville – Cecil Field Spaceport
    Masten Space Systems
    Mojave Spaceport
    Sierra Nevada Corporation
    Southwest Research Institute
    Space Adventures
    Space Florida
    Spaceport America
    SpaceX
    United Launch Alliance
    Virgin Galactic
    XCOR Aerospace
    X PRIZE Foundation

    ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

    Andrews Space, Inc.
    DCI Services and Consulting
    ETC – NASTAR Center
    Jacobs Technology
    MEI Technologies
    OSIDA
    Paragon SDC
    Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne
    Raytheon
    Scaled Composites
    Special Aerospace Services
    SRA International
    Wyle
    Aeroports de Catalunya”

  • Bennett

    It’s great to hear from you, Lou. I applaud your organizations continued efforts to get our government to embrace a sensible path with the money available.

    Please keep up the good work.

  • red

    Lou Friedman: “There is room for differences of opinion and even interpretation of facts, but the political bias charge is one that there is not room for.”

    Don’t worry, amightywind also has wacky political bias conspiracy theories about Bush’s GAO, the CBO, the Augustine Committee, SpaceX … just about anything critical of or not centered around Ares I/Ares V.

  • red

    Some comments on the Planetary Society letter:

    “None include a plan to restore U.S. technical capability to launch astronauts to space once the shuttle is retired.”

    The Planetary Society is right. Unfortunately, even the Senate bills that many are rallying around because the House bills are even worse don’t fund commercial crew well enough to be confident in the success of that effort.

    Meanwhile, the SD-HLV in the bills would be too expensive for launching Orion on routine missions to the ISS or similar destinations. They would at best limit us to special rare BEO missions. However, since there is no money for payloads except for the basic Orion that can’t do much besides sort of go somewhere for the thrill of it … i.e. there is little money for technology development, satellite servicing, BEO infrastructure, etc … there would be no point in doing the BEO missions. Plus, these budgets have so little for robotic precursor missions that we simply have to give up on going to rocky world destinations (i.e. the Moon, NEOs, Mars moons, and Mars).

    “The Administration’s proposed exploration and space technology programs are deeply cut. This exacerbates the situation of the past decade when NASA technology programs were eviscerated and the agency was unable to develop new technologies that could reduce cost or enhance performance. We support restoration of NASA’s proposed technology funding.”

    This is essential. We should at least come to a compromise somewhere close to the middle of the Congressional bills and the Administration budget proposal for exploration technology and general space technology … and robotic precursor missions as well. Otherwise we will be wasting our time on an HLV and Orion that can’t do anything by themselves.

  • red

    Bill White: “IMHO, that can be solved by adding a specific line item for the immediate flight testing of a fuel depot demo”

    The FY2011 budget proposal includes a fuel depot demo that is started ASAP. It’s Flagship Technology Demonstration #2, and like #1 it’s started in the first year.

    It won’t happen if the budget is crowded out by the SLS, Shuttle, Orion, and KSC support for SLS. To do things like the flagship technology demonstration missions, something needs to relax on the SLS/Shuttle/Orion side: schedule, Orion back to CRV or eliminated altogether, SLS changed to side-mount or EELV-based, skip the Shuttle mission … something! I’m not saying they all have to vanish … just that some sort of compromise is needed between FY2011 and SLS/Orion/Shuttle or we will be wasting our time with NASA HSF.

    Also, I agree that the propellant depot demonstration and subsequent follow-on are crucial. However, the other flagship technology demonstration missions are equally crucial. Missions 1-3 combined develop a space tug, which would be a great enabler, especially if it can be made reusable. Mission 1 demonstrates advanced solar electric propulsion and solar arrays which are also great enablers, and 1 of which is based on military technology development (and thus presumably of interest for high-priority military applications). Mission 3 demonstrates inflatable habitats and advanced ECLSS, both of which have many commercial and exploration applications.

    I’d say that we need some serious progress in all of the areas represented by these first 3 missions. However, it will take more funding than Congress is giving to achieve these 3 missions on anything like a reasonable timeframe. We don’t need the full $7.8B the Administration requested for flagship technology demonstration missions and exploration technology development, but we need more than the crumbs in the Senate and House bills.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 8:49 pm

    Looks like an attempted rubber-stamp of the original White House plan by a small group of loyal Obama supporters.

    only to the uninformed.

    I’ve been a member of TPS almost since its first issue and as an aside they were one of the places that a letter of mine was published opposing the VSE, when TPS gave it a full throat-ed endorsement. (some of the other places were op eds in Space News, The Houston Chronicle…and a few others including statements here opposition that existed for much the reasons that VSE has floundered…it was an impossible goal with to little money run by idiots who were par for the last administration).

    But TPS endorsed it because in their view it seemed like an attempt (if you just listened to Bush the last speech and ignored the sorry performance of his administration) to have what TPS always argues for…a sustainable (meaning affordable) balanced space effort that advances humanities knowledge of the universe in which we live.

    If you would read more then the “save our space program” propaganda, you would know that they (TPS) also stopped supporting the VSE as the program morphed into an unbalanced program that threatened to eat the agency alive ….and argued for a more thoughtful path.

    I see one of the leading lights of TPS has made those points…but they are worth making again because you and people like you having run out of facts to defend “the POR” now have turned to something annoying which is classifying everyone who supports a new and different direction as “loyal Obama supporters”.

    That is not only goofy but it is insulting. I didnt vote for Obama, and have been on other matters of his Presidency one of his harshest critics. But on his space policy, I and several others (Mark Whittington and Rich Kolker) suggested just such a policy in a Weekly STandard article (no left wing organization) in 1999 when Bill Clinton was President. There is no substantial difference between what Obama has proposed and what was suggested in a pretty right wing publication over a decade ago.

    Now Whittington in his zest to pander to all things Bush and morphing into the just blind eyed critique that he use to claim others were against Bush…has reversed his support for free enterprise and become a classic big government space supporter…and I guess that is where you are as well…but support for the new direction in human spaceflight is not synonymous with being a “loyal Obama supporter” or more correctly one of THe President’s political supporters.

    That redoubt is where you and other supporters of the POR run to when you find the facts to real to refute.

    But you should be called on it…no matter where you publish that charge.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    The Planetary Society is irrelevant. But they do love Waldo’s dues.

  • DCSCA

    amightywind wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 10:10 pm <- a little too much hot air there, Windy. Best you look up the origins of the NSI, now NSS and some of Sagan's rationale for forming TPS. Both had the best of intentions at the start but the organizations have drifted. Worth considering their POV but essentially powerless now.

  • Lou Friedman wrote:

    There is room for differences of opinion and even interpretation of facts, but the political bias charge is one that there is not room for.

    Dr. Friedman, there are one or two people posting here that use multiple screen names to write political screeds. I encourage readers to ignore “the usual suspects” but unfortunately writing lies usually succeeds in getting them attention.

    By the way, I joined the Planetary Society when it was founded way back in 1980. I had the privilege of seeing Carl lecture in Pasadena. I suspect he’d be very supportive of commercial space as we work towards the day when we really do have his starship of the imagination.

  • amightywind

    DCSCA wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 1:41 am

    Best you look up the origins of the NSI, now NSS and some of Sagan’s rationale for forming TPS.

    I had the honor and privilege of attending a seminar by Carl Sagan one spring semester while an undergraduate. He was a brilliant and demanding teacher, all business. I was very distressed by his early passing. I found his politics and political cabal revolting, but that doesn’t lessen my admiration for a very smart man.

  • GeeSpace

    In it’s August 19th, the Planetary Society stated
    The various bills push to start “heavy-lift launch vehicle” development sooner than proposed by the Administration, despite having no destinations or flight goals for such a rocket for at least a decade. We strongly support American development of a deep-space rocket, but we believe that premature development through political legislation rather than technological studies could result in huge waste and eventual delays. Thus, we suggest support for a technology program to develop and evaluate competing approaches and to complete a preliminary design before committing to the final selection. A shorter actual development time will lead to a lower-cost project.

    A couple of questions is why are the various studies done for Heavy Lift vehicles in previous years not adequate and why do we need a new study(ies)? What will new studies provide us? Don’t we have the technology now to built a HLV? And, yes hopefully different technology will be developed over time just as new aviation technology has been developed over time.

    As to lacking destinations, what about taking a flexible path with a possibility of a multitude of destinations? Some possible destinations could include the moon, various asteroids, LaGrange points, Mars, and the construction of solar power satellites around the Earth.

    For those folks who are concerned with the a lack of funds, perhaps President Obama and/or Congress can find a second billion dollars in the same place were the President found the original billion dollar increase. And that is assuming more funds are really needed,•

  • Gary Anderson

    Ditto amighty.

    As a young teen it was Carl Sagan’s national recognition that taught me to look up to the sky and see ‘Billions’. His mind is missed.

  • MECO

    From TPS letter….
    “No exploration goals are set other than vague citations of building capability to ultimately fly to destinations beyond Earth orbit.”
    That is the rap against the Obama admin’s proposal!! The FY’11 budget presented by the WH has no path forward pertaining to destinations.

    It’s just my opinion but I believe that congress is still going by the VSE play book of Moon, Mars and beyond. If that is the case then an HLV would be the next logical step.

  • Language From the Senate bill:

    The legislation would provide an authorization of appropriations for NASA for fiscal years 2011 through 2013 at $19 billion, $19.45 billion, and $19.96 billion, respectively. The legislation would provide for a balanced set of programs in human space flight and exploration, aeronautics research and development, and scientific research, including Earth observations and applications, and require a decadal-like survey to review the goals, capabilities, and direction of U.S. human exploration of space. It would establish an overall goal for human space flight to expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit, along with a number of related key objectives. It also would provide that human space flight activities should contribute to national and global needs and challenges.

    . . . expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit . . .

    Sounds good to me!

    The bill would initiate steps to develop a Space Launch System and a multi-purpose crew vehicle as a follow-on to the Space Shuttle and Constellation-based Ares I and Orion projects. In combination with appropriate new technologies and robotic elements, these fundamental capabilities would support initial exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit to such destinations as lunar orbital and Lagrangian points. These capabilities would provide the foundation for pursuit of international and other collaborative activities in the conduct of these and potential follow-on missions to the lunar surface and deep-space destinations, such as asteroids and ultimately the surface of Mars.

    Not exactly the VSE, but no all that different from the VSE either.

    Yes there is some vagueness, however, the original FY2011 proposal was even more vague.

    = = =

    I see the central POLITICAL question between the original FY2011 and the Senate version as being this:

    Do we strive to go beyond low Earth orbit sooner, or later?

  • Martijn Meijering

    Is that lawyer-speak for I want you to see the central question this way?

  • red

    Bill White (sections from the bills):

    “It would establish an overall goal for human space flight to expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit, along with a number of related key objectives. It also would provide that human space flight activities should contribute to national and global needs and challenges.”

    It might set that overall goal, but it doesn’t fund expanding human presence beyond LEO or HSF contributions to national and global needs and challenges. It takes away almost all of the funding to do that in favor of the SLS and Orion.

    “In combination with appropriate new technologies and robotic elements,”

    The Senate bills take alway almost all of the funding for appropriate new technologies and robotic elements. Look at the FY2011 funding lines for Space Technology, Exploration Technology Demonstrations and Development, and Robotic Precursor missions, among others. The Senate wipes out those funding lines, basically leaving them in about the same shape as under Constellation.

    “these fundamental capabilities would support initial exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit to such destinations as lunar orbital and Lagrangian points.”

    I’m in favor of a strong early emphasis on closer beyond-LEO destinations like lunar orbit and Lagrange points. I’d like to see more than quick test missions to these destinations. They could be used for all sorts of space infrastructure, lunar studies and human-robotic work (eg: sample return), satellite/observatory servicing, ISS-like work, science, exploration mission assembly, refueling, and so on. Unfortunately, although the Senate attempts to get the SLS/Orion to these locations (a task I think NASA will fund much harder than the Senate thinks given the schedule and funding they’re getting while being required to use the Shuttle infrastructure), it does very little to fund any actual capabilities at these destinations beyond just getting there. The Senate approach will also make it hard to develop any actual capabilities at these destinations even after SLS/Orion can get there (if that happens), since those systems are so expensive to maintain, and since commercial crew is so underfunded and commercial crew investors will be so scared off by SLS/Orion that SLS/Orion will probably have to spend much of the HSF money sending astronauts to the ISS.

    There is no point going to these destinations without the capability to do anything there.

    “These capabilities would provide the foundation for pursuit of international and other collaborative activities in the conduct of these and potential follow-on missions to the lunar surface and deep-space destinations, such as asteroids and ultimately the surface of Mars.”

    No, those capabilities will devour all of the funding to do follow-on missions to the lunar surface and deep space destinations like asteroids and Mars. Witness what happened to the robotic precursor budget in the Senate bill. It’s wiped out almost completely. We aren’t going to asteroids without robotic precursor missions to assess hazards, find local resources, catalog easy-to-reach asteroids, and so on. We aren’t (or at least shouldn’t) go to the lunar surface without robotic precursor missions to look for resources, demonstrate processing of those resources, and many similar tasks. Unfortunately, it takes many years to fund, develop, and operate, and assess results from robotic precursor missions before feeding that information into HSF architectures and operational plans. Since the Senate wipes out the robotic precursor funding line, the Senate is essentially saying “No!” to all of the rocky world destinations for HSF for a long, long time.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 6:32 am

    My Sagan story is that several decades ago I was TDY in Tucson and had gone to the library of “a major university” there to catch up on some of the tech pubs I was missing while TDY…

    I was reading my stack of magazines when I noticed the other person sitting down at the table I was at…It was Sagan.

    A few weeks later I sent him copies of Cosmos and he was kind enough to notate all five of them. At some point one of them will go to my four month old daughter. That will leave two more for any future kids!.

    On my “I love me wall” is the picture a grad student (or someone) was kind enough to take.
    Robert G. Oler

  • On my “I love me wall”

    Why are we not surprised that you have such a thing?

  • red

    GeeSpace: “A couple of questions is why are the various studies done for Heavy Lift vehicles in previous years not adequate and why do we need a new study(ies)? What will new studies provide us?”

    It’s not so much studies that we need. We need more work on things in the FY2011 budget, like developing a U.S. RD-180 engine equivalent that could be used in HLVs. That type of work isn’t merely “studies”. We need the unaffordable Heavy Lift options to fade away so politically we can go after the more affordable ones. We need to find heavy lift options that share infrastructure with other rockets we will be using anyway. We need exploration technology development and demonstrations, commercial crew and cargo, and robotic precursors to give us the affordable building blocks and knowledge to let us know what kind of HLV, if any, that we need. Do we just need existing rockets, something in the EELV Phase I class, or something in the EELV Phase II class?

    “Don’t we have the technology now to built a HLV?”

    We could, but there are lots of problems with the Senate approach. The Senate approach builds an HLV now, which, given the Shuttle-derived approach the Senate (or a small group of well-placed Senators) wants, takes almost all of the funding away from higher priorities like commercial crew, robotic precursors, exploration technology demonstrations, general space technology, and of course affordable heavy lift R&D. Building an HLV now also means that we won’t have money for payloads for the HLV when it’s done. All we will have if we’re lucky is Orion, but by itself all Orion can do is go to the ISS to politically squash commercial crew and take pointless sightseeing trips beyond LEO. Building an HLV now also means that we have to continually pay for the HLV infrastructure costs (especially painful if it’s Shuttle-derived with no shared infrastructure with other rockets we need anyway), no matter how little we actually use the HLV.

    If the Senate said “let’s have a COTS-like HLV competition, where we start with a modest (e.g.: 40-50mt to LEO) and affordable introductory level HLV that can later grow if needed”, we could develop an HLV now while removing or limiting the problems I mentioned. However, that’s not what Congress is asking for.

    “As to lacking destinations, what about taking a flexible path with a possibility of a multitude of destinations? Some possible destinations could include the moon, various asteroids, LaGrange points, Mars, and the construction of solar power satellites around the Earth.”

    The Planetary Society is all for the Flexible Path – in fact their Roadmap to Space was quite similar to what eventually was called the Flexible Path.

    “For those folks who are concerned with the a lack of funds, perhaps President Obama and/or Congress can find a second billion dollars in the same place were the President found the original billion dollar increase. And that is assuming more funds are really needed”

    I don’t think such an increase is going to happen. We can push for more money, and hope it happens, but we have to work with what we get. The Senate and House bills don’t give those increases, and they waste much of what we do get. They need to do better. They can still get what they want (i.e. jobs program) while leaving more funding for actual space accomplishments (robotic precursors, technology demonstrations and development, commercial crew, etc) if they give some ground for these areas.

  • @ red

    I agree that an LLO or EML “fly-by and loiter briefly” is of little value. What we need to send to those locations are fuel depots and I would hope that the Senate bill is modified to point us in that direction.

    But I disagree that using EELVs rather than SDLV will free up the money needed to do the other things you mention. Rather, I believe a NASA transition to EELV-only will lock us in LEO for the indefinite future, at least as a question of funding and political will.

    Technically, can we “do the Moon” with EELV? Of course we can.

    I wrote a novel about doing a lunar return using Proton, Soyuz, Long March and Ariane. Yes, the proposed ULA architecture for lunar return is brilliant, but I believe the mindset behind FY2011 as originally proposed will cause us to continually believe we will need “another few years of R&D” before we are “ready” to go beyond LEO and then another few years after that, and then another few years after that.

    EELV is no less “porky” than SDLV. I fully agree that NASA could bloat out an SDLV program to the point of oblivion, I also believe NASA could just as easily bloat out an EELV program to the point of oblivion.

    Anyway, I believe FY2011 as originally proposed ignored the key reform we need — NASA needs a competitor.

    Assimilating NewSpace into NASA (as FY2011 intended) won’t solve that problem. Rather, that would eliminate a valuable potential competitor to NASA.

    I do not want NASA to acquire NewSpace, I want NewSpace to play Roadrunner to NASA’s Wily E. Coyote. And that requires NewSpace to find funding sources that do not pass through Uncle Sugar.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    @ Bill White,

    And that is the key point. That is, IMHO, the issue that will be settled once-and-for-all by the SLS program: Is NASA HSF actually capable of doing anything anymore? To use the ‘vogue’ phrase: “Is it fit for purpose?

  • Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 11:46 am

    I agree.

    I also believe that if NASA is incapable of running SLS successfully, they would be equally incapable of running an EELV-centric program successfully.

    I am willing to give NASA one more chance with SLS, since I believe FY2011 as originally proposed was aimed more at preparing the ground to shut NASA down than it was aimed at actually developing beyond LEO human capability.

    And since my sense is that the Planetary Society prefers the idea of more robots now with human exploration someday “when we are ready” I am not at all surprised by the recent letter.

    Also, let me be clear that I find the “robots now, humans someday, maybe” position to be plausible and defensible. I just do not agree with it.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Just on the face of it, the Planetary Society letter is just crazy.

    Obamaspace does not promote commercial space enterprises. It smothers commercial space with government subsidies, making the government pretty much the sole customer and the majority investors. That is not commercial or free enterprise by any definition.

    Obamaspace eschews space exploration in return for vague promises of asteroids and Mars orbit sometime in the indefinite future. It bypasses the Moon and eschews any idea of people permanently living in space.

    The Planetary Society may be “the largest space advocacy organization in the world”, but insane decisions like sending that letter is made by a small group of people who adhere to political agendas rather than any notion of a space faring future.

    Just as a note, I see that I am still living rent free in Oler’s head. That being the case, one would wish he would get things right once in a while. But that may be asking too much for a person famous for his active and imaginative fantasy life.

  • This is what I feel that The Planetary Society should recommend for NASA:

    (1) A 25% increase in funding for planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, allocated in accordance with the decadal survey.

    (2) Because manned lunar exploration will be delayed, launch more unmanned lunar rovers and orbiters with specifi…c scientific objectives.

    (3) A small, simple rotating LEO space station to test the long-duration effects of reduced gravity levels for crew on the Moon and Mars.

    (4) Continue with the Constellation mission to the Moon. Retarget a deadline of 2025 for the first manned landing. The goal should be exploration and a scientific understanding of the origin and composition of the Moon, because we will be working and living there in the future. Add manned NEO missions using Constellation spacecraft.

    (5) Give commercial crew a chance to prove that they can safely transport crew to the ISS. Proceed cautiously.

    The perception of a rubber-stemp stems from:
    (1) The TPS officers have personally donated thousands of dollars out of their own pockets in support of Candidate Obama.
    (2) The TPS officers were personally invited to attend Obama’s KSC announcement where NASA engineers where excluded.
    (3) The TPS officers have never voiced ANY cirticism of ANY aspect of the Obama plan. When you read a product review that sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

  • I believe FY2011 as originally proposed was aimed more at preparing the ground to shut NASA down than it was aimed at actually developing beyond LEO human capability.

    And this belief is based on…?

    You seriously believe that Lori Garver wants to shut NASA down?

  • Lori Garver? Nope.

    But what about John Holdren, who outranks both Garver and Bolden?

    Anyway, the political question is whether Congress would continue to be willing to fund human spaceflight at anywhere near current levels after the shuttle infrastructure is dismantled. I believe the answer to that question is “no”

    Nonetheless I readily accept that your mileage may vary on that.

  • But what about John Holdren, who outranks both Garver and Bolden?

    Rank isn’t the issue. Why would Lori hang around to help shut down NASA? She could get other jobs. Or are you claiming that Holdren is pulling the wool over her eyes?

    Anyway, the political question is whether Congress would continue to be willing to fund human spaceflight at anywhere near current levels after the shuttle infrastructure is dismantled. I believe the answer to that question is “no”

    I agree. Fortunately, NASA has been getting more money than it needs for human spaceflight. Unfortunately, it’s been wasting most of it, and Congress seems to be insisting that it continue to do so.

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 11:31 am

    But I disagree that using EELVs rather than SDLV will free up the money needed to do the other things you mention.

    If you look at the historical funding rates for NASA, Congress has kept them pretty flat budgetwise, and I wouldn’t expect them to vary it too much, even without SDLV. Remember a dollar spent is a dollar spent, regardless what it’s used for, and the various oversight committee’s are not going to want their serfdoms reduced if they can help it.

    EELV is no less “porky” than SDLV.

    If it’s competitively bid, then yes it is. Commercial launchers are essentially common carriers, and they compete in the free market. SDLV is being promoted partly to retain “national capabilities”, which is essentially jobs. No competition here as to what the needs are and the possible solutions. No comparison.

    I do not want NASA to acquire NewSpace, I want NewSpace to play Roadrunner to NASA’s Wily E. Coyote. And that requires NewSpace to find funding sources that do not pass through Uncle Sugar.

    Q: “Willie, why do you rob banks?”
    A: “Cause that’s where the money is.”

    There are three sources of customers in the U.S. for things that go into space. Commercial, DOD, and NASA. And you want NewSpace to ignore two of them?

    Why should NewSpace not compete for money just as Boeing, LM, ATK or anyone else? Isn’t competition the way to lower costs? Your statement doesn’t make sense for NewSpace or for NASA.

  • amightywind

    Rand Simberg wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 12:45 pm

    You seriously believe that Lori Garver wants to shut NASA down?

    Lori Garver and John Holdren want to radically redirect NASA’s budget and end the HSF program. Obama foolishly bought into it. Congress, in near bipartisan unanimity, rejected the idea, and here we are.

    If Obama were wise he would fire the people who got him to this point install necessary management changes, from outside if necessary, and get Constellation back on track. The same process should apply to his economic council, the budget office, and the treasury. Obama is dying from a thousand cuts. Logic would dictate that he does something beside bleed out.

  • Martijn Meijering

    end the HSF program

    Shuttle stack != HSF program

    Congress

    special interests in the subcommittees != Congress as a whole

  • I think there is a coherent plan coming together in Congress, but it does have many of the shortcomings indicated.

    No proposal immediately addresses the human launch issue with the vigor of getting a launch vehicle as fast as possible. Congress/NASA needs to order the Atlas V or Delta IV human rated variant now as a backup to commercial human rated vehicles. This is such an obvious no-brainer I’m amazed no one in Washington has thought of it!!

    I’m no fan of any of the heavy lift’s being suggested but we, as a nation, would regret not having a heavy lift vehicle by 2016 or 2018. More so as other nations enter the LEO launch market. Our next goal will eventually reveal itself to be developing the Lagrange points (most of the 2020s I suspect) and only with those facilities will lunar development take off.

    NASA is a cheap way to prime the pump of the American economy and set the US on a path of techno leadership and peaceful LEO development. If we don’t do it now, other nations will define LEO for us. Space is the ultimate tactical and strategic ‘high ground’, just as Tibet was a “moral high ground” for centuries.

    This budget at $19B underfunds NASA in such a way as to call into question the future of America’s national security in the latter half of this decade.

    American political leadership is dropping the ball on national security by ‘making these hard choices’.

  • Martijn Meijering

    This is such an obvious no-brainer I’m amazed no one in Washington has thought of it!!

    Actually, work on that has been funded and is progressing as we speak.

  • I’m no fan of any of the heavy lift’s being suggested but we, as a nation, would regret not having a heavy lift vehicle by 2016 or 2018.

    Why? Most people wouldn’t even notice.

  • Martijn Meijering

    American political leadership is dropping the ball on national security by ‘making these hard choices’.

    Huh? What does national security have to do with it?

  • The technology they’re waiting for is airship-to-space technology. JP Aerospace will be in orbit before NASA after the shuttle is retired. And the price will be a dollar-per-kilogram of payload.

  • GaryChurch

    The future is not LEO or Lagrange or Luna or Neo’s or Mars.
    It is the asteroid belt.
    That is where the easy resources are.
    Ceres may have more fresh water than earth does. There are thousands of asteroids large enough to have “mining camps” inside them.
    The requirements are a reactor and and an approximately 1000 foot diameter underground “racetrack” where people can get their required dose of 1G- deep enough to shield them from Radiation. And hi-pressure sodium light bulbs to grow food.
    A trashcan reactor, some ovens and arc welders, explosives to excavate tunnels, lightbulbs, and shovels and sundries. And inside a 10 mile across rock people can live and work for years at a time. If it sounds grim consider flying through 50 foot high brightly lit tunnels filled with plants and giant aquariums with fish. You would not see any rock for the green.

    A couple hundred tons of equipment would do it- and a good crew. Getting the stuff there is the trick.

    That is why we need HLV’s and a Nuclear propulsion system.

    Inferior Lift vehicles will not work. Fourteen 150 ton payloads a year is doable but eighty something is not.

    Fuel depots will not work. Centaur proved how difficult handling cryogenic propellants in zero G are. And storables compound mass so that even eighty launches a year will not put enough fuel up.

    Depots are nonsense in any case considering the radiation shielding required for long duration missions. Any form of chemical propulsion is hopelessly inadequate to push that mass around the solar system.

    And that is reality. Your do it yourself and make a buck space fantasy is not going to happen. The profit motive driven space enterprise is doomed to fall flat on it’s face. The shuttle program- driven by cost cuts and the need to pay for itself with satellite launches showed what happens when profit comes first.

    NASA needs several times their present budget for HLV’s. The DOD does not need any more cold war toys. The solution is obvious.

    And national security is a factor when planetary defense from asteroid and comet impact threats are addressed.

  • Robotnik

    We want to explore the solar system. The best way to do this is to stop wasting money on big rockets and expensive space capsules designed to carry heavy, expensive, fragile and ultimately useless human cargo. Realocate the funds for human spaceflight to NASA’s unmanned exploration and we can have fleets of rovers on Mars and probes exploring the oceans of Europa (looking for life) before 2025. Human exploration will still not have left LEO by then and is a waste anyway.
    Astronauts are obsolete, robonauts are the future.

  • Martijn Meijering

    We want to explore the solar system.

    True, for some values of “we”. For other values of “we”, we might want to establish commercial manned spaceflight instead. Or both. Or something else entirely. It isn’t obvious to me that either of these two is worth government funding, although robots do seem to have a better case.

  • amightywind

    NASA’s unmanned exploration and we can have fleets of rovers

    We could have had fleets of rovers on Mars regardless. Will somebody please help me understand the logic of orphaning the designs of Spirit and opportunity in favor of that insane Battlestar Galactica Mars Science Laboratory? Wouldn’t it have made sense to pepper the surface of Mars an armada of improved versions of these small rovers instead landing a one time, expensive, inexpendable nuclear nightmare? After years of success the Mars program has begun to flounder badly.

  • DCSCA

    amightywind wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 8:39 am <- Yes but he had a rationale for starting TPS rather than shouldering support with Von Braun's NSI/NSS.

  • DCSCA

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
    “Just on the face of it, the Planetary Society letter is just crazy.” It’s not crazy. It’s just irrelevant.

  • I would love to see JP Aerospace succeed as I find their approach immensely satisfying from an emotional perspective.

    Will it actually work? I haven’t a clue; although I very much hope that it does.

  • g.h.o.s.t

    “Wouldn’t it have made sense to pepper the surface of Mars an armada of improved versions of these small rovers instead landing a one time”

    No.
    A. the MER rovers are too small and power limited for any other types of instruments.
    b. There isn’t the bandwidth to handle that many rovers.

    c. The MER design was specific to the 2003 opportunity, that occurs every 16 or so years. The combination of low C3 and low entry speed made for a design that could be launched by a Delta II and use the heat shield/airbags

  • DCSCA

    At some point one of them will go to my four month old daughter.” <- Kids are easily impressed, as the Hypocritical Waldo Oler once quipped dissing this writer's young niece meeting with Dr. Sally Ride.

  • DCSCA

    @Windy- “Lori Garver and John Holdren want to radically redirect NASA’s budget and end the HSF program.” Depends. Garver’s a lobbiest at heart, a creature of the corridors of Washnigton, and never met an aerospace contract she didn’t advocate. If HSF was part of it, she’d be all for it… but she is not a space exploration advocate at the core. The quicker she leaves NASA, the better.

  • amightywind

    A. the MER rovers are too small and power limited for any other types of instruments.

    Aside from drilling deep boreholes what else could you possibly want? The panoramic and close up imaging is 90% of the mission.

    b. There isn’t the bandwidth to handle that many rovers.

    Absurd. We all clearly saw the improvement in operations of the SO rovers. The deliberate pace has been highly beneficial.

    c. The MER design was specific to the 2003 opportunity, that occurs every 16 or so years. The combination of low C3 and low entry speed made for a design that could be launched by a Delta II and use the heat shield/airbags

    Baloney again, especially today with EELV launchers on line. I said similar missions, not identical. I’ll remind you the US has blown through several Mars launch opportunities launching nothing.

  • John Malkin

    NASA is developing the Axel Rover Prototype which is a low mass rover and usable on earth but this could never replace MSL in equipment, distance and duration. I like the ARES too (proposed Mars Scout Mission not the rocket).

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/axel-20090204.html

  • mr. mark

    Relating this to commercial space… Spacex’s first fully functional cargo Dragon is now at the cape for the first COTS mission in about a month. All stages are now at the cape awaiting integration as reported today at spaceflightnow.com

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    Will somebody please help me understand the logic of orphaning the designs of Spirit and opportunity…

    I can’t speak to the technical merits, but I agree with your line of reasoning – reuse known designs.

    I think this would be a wonderful strategy for exploring the Moon, where we could establish a dedicated production line of robotic explorers (1-2/year), and iterate based on feedback, fixes and new technology. Has to be kept on a tight budget and schedule, otherwise you lose the effectiveness of the feedback loop. Kind of along the lines of Agile software development.

    Good thought.

    How goes that Ares I cost justification your were working on? ;-)

  • Martijn Meijering

    Neal Armstrong stated that there aren’t any major unknowns when it comes to chemical rockets

    I’m sorry to say that I have lost a lot of respect for Armstrong. Still a great man, but this is a stain on his record.

  • Rhyolite

    Bill White wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 11:55 am

    “I also believe that if NASA is incapable of running SLS successfully, they would be equally incapable of running an EELV-centric program successfully.”

    Apples and oranges. It’s the difference between buying a F150 – or a fleet of them – off of the lot and designing your own dump truck in your garage. One design is established and in production – low risk. The other has all the risks of a new development program and a much larger scale to boot. And let’s not forget that MSFC has not developed a new launch vehicle in a whole generation; They lack current experience priming the development of new launch vehicles when compared to ULA.

  • Byeman

    windy, again you don’t know what you are talking about

    “Aside from drilling deep boreholes what else could you possibly want? The panoramic and close up imaging is 90% of the mission.”

    Scientists don’t want imaging, they want chemical analysis.

    “Absurd. We all clearly saw the improvement in operations of the SO rovers. The deliberate pace has been highly beneficial.”

    You don’t know the first thing about what I was talking about. We don’t have the bandwidth to receive the data from that many rovers and still continue with other missions. That is a fact.

    ?Baloney again, especially today with EELV launchers on line. I said similar missions, not identical. I’ll remind you the US has blown through several Mars launch opportunities launching nothing?

    2 opportunities is not several. And don’t give me responses like absurd and boloney when you do know the first thing about spacecraft or launch vehicle engineering. Your manlove for the Stick discredits any thing you say.
    EELV are more expensive than Delta II. MER even avoided Atlas II for cost reasons. And again, launch mass was not the only constraint. Similar does not cut it. The MER architecture was on the borderline for all resources. It was the max size for airbags. It was the max size for solar rover. Scientists wants other instruments than AXPS and imaging is not a priority.

    Stick to playing with your little medical devices and leave space flight to the big boys who know something about it and have done something about it.

  • The Planetary Society as a group are an aggregation of dimwits. They subscribe to science fiction ideas when it comes to drawing space plans. They have absolutely NO grasp of the realities of true manned interplanetary flight! They are dead-set on ignoring the Moon as a spaceflight destination. To them it’s like:”Oh no, anywhere but the Moon!” Hence, NASA listens to them, we get used to all the mediocrity & mundanity, and we stay chained to LEO for decade after decade! So with only LEO and far-distant, recondite-to-reach asteroids as the only places in deep space we can send astronauts to, NASA never will acquire the operational skills to eventually do an actual extra-planetary journey, because Low Earth Orbit puts you into a micro-low risk mode of thinking, with a peace-of-cake easy re-supply for the station, and peace-of-cake easy earth-return abort. I mean, JUST HOW CLOSE TO EARTH CAN YOU BE, AND STILL CLAIM TO BE IN ‘SPACE’??? (Not that distance from the Earth is a deciding criteria: the base viability of a place, plus its resource-utilization potential should be deciding factors too.) My overall point is, that dealing with the Moon is the Gemini project equivalent, to ANY thought about doing a manned mission to Mars in the future. The skills and survival techniques that expanded Lunar surface operations will teach us, is too important; and must not be trivialized & swept under the carpet by these anti-Moon old fogeys!—We in the space interest community have got to be loads more smarter than that! And it’s looking like Congress is not really going to buy into their version of what the space “roadmap” will actually look like!

Leave a Reply to Byeman Cancel 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>