Congress, NASA

Initial reactions to the House NASA budget proposal

The draft Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill released Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee attracted considerable attention in the space community because of its plan to terminate funding for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, part of nearly $2 billion in overall cuts from the administration’s request. Astronomers in particular have been particularly outspoken about the plan to kill JWST, which has suffered from major cost overruns and schedule delays.

“Against a backdrop of widespread discussion over the future of NASA and the human spaceflight program, it is tragic that the Congress is also proposing to curtail NASA’s science program,” William S. Smith, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), said in a statement issued by the organization Wednesday afternoon. Dan Clemens, chair of AURA’s board, added in the release that JWST has been previously identified by astronomers as NASA’s highest priority astronomy mission. “The importance of its science has only increased since then. I hope that this year’s final appropriations bill will provide the needed support to complete this program.”

In a “Take Action Alert” emailed by The Planetary Society last night, executive director Bill Nye put the blame for JWST’s proposed demise on another NASA program, the Space Launch System (SLS), which would get slightly more money than the administration requested for 2012. “The congressionally designed machine called the Space Launch System could go down in history as the rocket that destroyed NASA’s space program,” he writes in the email. He notes that besides JWST, NASA’s commercial crew program could also be “hit hard” by the cuts. “What is causing such carnage? It’s not just the weakened U.S. economy. It’s the giant Space Launch System, a rocket legislated by Congress and signed into law by the President. It’s got no destination and no mission to fulfill.”

Nye asked people to contact Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the CJS appropriations subcommittee, and ask him to reverse this plan. “Please let him know that this proposal — to be voted on tomorrow — would spell disaster for space exploration, now and for generations to come,” Nye said. However, time is short: Wolf’s subcommittee will formally mark up the appropriations bill Thursday morning at 10:15 am. That markup, though, is just one round of what may be a long and bruising fight for the future of NASA and especially JWST.

34 comments to Initial reactions to the House NASA budget proposal

  • Shaggy

    It’s not about a place to go, it’s about building capabilities for the future. that is what SLS is for. As much as I’d like to see JWST succeed, it needs to be postposed at best to get things back on track in my opinion.

  • The heavy launch has to go…SCIENCE before pork.

  • tom

    The loss of JWST is regrettable. The simplest part of this effort was to develop the spacecraft. Other than the sunshields, the instruments should have been the long pole. However turns out not. Just a few of the problems with JWST are: incompetent contractor management, a failed attempt to share cost between NEPOESS and JWST, near zero systems engineering, using JWST as a charge number holding area for people transitioning in and out of classified spacecraft programs and the effort to modify and use a NG proprietary chip set originally developed for a classified program as the base for the C&DH system between JWST and NEPOESS. The other issues, a flawed mission operations concept, serious thermal considerations and inability to hold more than 24 hours of science data on the spacecraft before it was automatically over written for engineering data.

    Both NEPOESS and JWST have shared management and cost. About $1,000,000,000 was spent on common systems to the benefit of NEPOESS but at the cost and delay of JWST. Many, many design, requirement and system engineering documents and efforts have been delayed because the money was reallocated someplace else. My all time favorite was when the contractor management explained they put will statement in all the requirement documents by mistake and had no money to go back and fit them. So lets just approve as is. Note* you’re not required to build to a ‘will’ but you are to a ‘shall’. the question was asked “are they building to the documents or documenting what they are building”? They would not answer and it was obvious. Not building to a design. I’m sure the instruments will fly on a new spacecraft. The Fine Guidance telescope alone could do world class science. As it is today JWST will never fly. Just not enough money in all Christendom to finish the spacecraft. Time to stop, pick a new contractor and move on. Blaming SLS/Orion for the loss of JWST is wrong. Not holding the contractor accountable to a price they bid to build a spacecraft NASA contracted for is.

    And yes I worked on JWST for several years.

  • VirgilSamms

    “The congressionally designed machine called the Space Launch System could go down in history as the rocket that destroyed NASA’s space program,”

    And it could go down in history as the rocket that saved NASA’s space program.

    And it will.

  • Coastal Ron

    I emailed my Republican Rep. today, and told him to kill the SLS (“blatant jobs program”) and support the CCDev program (“support U.S. aerospace and stop sending money to Russia”).

    I’m not decided on what to do with the JWST. On the one hand it’s good to have programs killed so that people understand they have to do better jobs at creating and sticking to budgets. On the other hand the JWST is far enough along that it may be a bigger waste to kill it than to finish it.

  • Tom D

    Putting the JWST instruments (or derivatives thereof) onto different spacecraft may be a reasonable way to recover something from the mess. It seems to have worked pretty well with the Mars Observer instruments.

  • Paul

    Americans spend $18 Billion on coffee annually. Why do we have to cut anything from NASA?

  • VirgilSamms rocks.

    This proposal would spell disaster for space exploration, now and for generations to come? All I can say is

    http://www.techimo.com/photo/data/6180/medium/facepalm.jpg

  • Bob Mahoney

    @sftommy
    The heavy launch has to go…SCIENCE before pork.

    On what justification, precisely? Your religious devotion to ‘science’ has no greater moral value than another’s devotion to BEO exploration.

    Can you demonstrate that the acquisition of pure scientific knowledge about distant astronomical targets via a badly run over-budget government program is more valuable than creating a heavy-lift capability aimed toward human exploration & exploitation beyond LEO via a badly run over-budget government program? (Let’s put aside the fact (oink, oink) that the JWST distributes billions of taxpayer dollars to certain folks in certain regions, just as the SLS would, shall we?)

    Sometimes ‘givens’…aren’t.

  • Bill Nye wants to blame the Space Launch System, choosing to ignore the massive JWST cost overruns and schedule delays:

    In June 2011, it was reported that the Webb telescope will cost at least four times more than originally proposed, and launch at least seven years late. Initial budget estimates were that the observatory would cost $1.6 billion and launch in 2011. NASA has now scheduled the telescope for a 2018 launch, though outside analysts suggest the flight could slip past 2020. The latest estimated price tag for the telescope is now $6.8 billion.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#Reported_Cost_and_Schedule_Issues

  • Americans spend $18 Billion on coffee annually. Why do we have to cut anything from NASA?

    They spend the money on coffee voluntarily. It’s their own money.

    This kind of argument doesn’t become less stupid from repetition.

  • Coastal Ron

    VirgilSamms wrote @ July 7th, 2011 at 12:22 pm

    And it could go down in history as the rocket that saved NASA’s space program.

    How? Provide some details.

    How could a massive rocket that has no funded payloads “save” NASA’s space program?

    How could a massive rocket that costs NASA probably $1B/year regardless if it fly’s “save” NASA’s space program?

    And most of all, how could a massive rocket “save” NASA’s space program when it keeps taking larger and larger portions of NASA’s budget?

    Pretty soon NASA will have to change it’s name to “Massive Rockets “R” Us”, and forget the parts of it’s mission where it was supposed to focus on scientific discovery and aeronautics research. Ugh.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Your religious devotion to ‘science’ has no greater moral value than another’s devotion to BEO exploration.

    Exploration does not require an HLV, nor would it be helped much by it. What we need is to make launching payloads dramatically cheaper, so that we can finally do manned exploration again as well as commercial activity in space, scientific research etc. What matters is $/kg, not throw weight or fairing diameters.

  • tps

    Tom: I’m sure the instruments will fly on a new spacecraft. The Fine Guidance telescope alone could do world class science.

    IIRC The spare mirror for Hubble is on display at the Air & Space Museum. Could that be used as a basis for a Hubble2 with some of the instruments from JWST?

  • Bennett

    “The spare mirror for Hubble…”

    Is it pre-fix, or post-fix?

    i.e. inches or centimeters?

    What a jwst THAT was.

  • vulture4

    tom is right. However the original AURA study called for a telescope of 4m, which could have been launched with a one-piece mirror. Dan Goldin made a bizarre off-the-cuff decision to increase the diameter to 8m, quadrupling the mirror area and probably the cost as well, apparently just because he thought all that was needed to accomplish such a costly task was a leader with the hubris to say “make it so.”

    When a design is a modest evolution of something that is already flying, then extrapolated costs and schedules are likely to be reasonably accurate. But systems engineering is _not_ intended for situations where when you have no hands-on flight experience with the critical technologies.

    We would be so much further ahead today if we had simply launched duplicates of the HST every year or two, with each incorporating incremental improvements or modest increases in size.

  • Jim Hillhouse

    Bill Nye may be the Science Guy, but he really should call Wolf’s office before doing the bidding of others in criticizing SLS as the reason for JWST’s loss of funding. That’s silly.

    Mikulski will get the funds restored, but she won’t be able to get NASA’s overall budget increased. So where will the money come from?

    Keep in mind, despite what some commenters here may want, however badly, that the funds needed to continue JWST won’t come from Orion MPCV. Or from SLS.

    So, what NASA program having little support among Senate Appropriators, and none among House Appropriators, could be sacrificed for $250M?

    CCDev.

    During the 2010 Space Debate, House Space Committee Gorton tried to strangle CCDev, but the Senate stopped him. Still, CCDev wasn’t directly funded in FY11, so NASA had to find the funds for this program in it’s general budget. For FY12, NASA’s budget is getting a haircut, the House CSJ Subcommittee again appropriates no funding for CCDev and Mikulski needs funds for JWST. None of this looks good for CCDev.

    If I were a CCDev awardee counting on funding in FY 12, it might be time to look elsewhere.

    Btw, anyone catch the very interesting transfer of $1M from NASA’s Cross-Agency Support’s budget of $3.05M to the NASA’s Inspector General Office (p. 71, line 18)? Of particular interest is it’s stated purpose, “…and used by the Inspector General to commission a comprehensive independent assessment NASA’s strategic direction and management”.

    Also of interest was the 50% cut to OSTP from the President’s request. Sweet justice by the Subcommittee that OSTP staffers may have to look for work just as lay-off’s at NASA are winding down.

  • Rhyolite

    “Americans spend $18 Billion on coffee annually. Why do we have to cut anything from NASA?”

    I get a lot more utility out of coffee than I do out of NASA – that’s probably true for most Americans.

  • Rhyolite

    “Putting the JWST instruments (or derivatives thereof) onto different spacecraft may be a reasonable way to recover something from the mess.”

    A simple 4 m monolithic mirror – no origami needed – would provide a substantial improvement over HST with less risk.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Jim Hillhouse wrote @ July 8th, 2011 at 2:05 am

    “Bill Nye may be the Science Guy, but he really should call Wolf’s office before doing the bidding of others in criticizing SLS as the reason for JWST’s loss of funding. That’s silly”

    lol…really. you dont see where the show is going.

    Commercial crew/cargo is doing something that neither SLS nor webb are doing…it is flying. And there is a solid reason to have it. SLS and Webb are both going to die. Sacrificed on the alter of a ruined economy after two terms of Bush and 1/2 of Obama…neither SLS nor Webb can perform or meet a deadline/cost and they are going to be the projects “let go”.

    Watch. I havent gotten a thing wrong since Bush announced his return to the Moon (on space policy) RGO

  • “So, what NASA program having little support among Senate Appropriators, and none among House Appropriators, could be sacrificed for $250M?

    CCDev.”

    Jim:

    It is going to get real interesting. If the shuttle was still flyinig, I would agree that CCDev could be a target for cuts. If Ares I was still under development, I would also see CCDev as a place they could cut funding. There is clearly no great love between Congess and NewSpace.

    However, because of US-Russia concerns (especially after that invasion a few years ago) I suspect that CCDev has a solid foot in the door, unless and until they manage to kill off a half-dozen astronauts!

    For them the primary objective needs to be crew safety. Cost will remain a secondary issue.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Nelson Bridwell wrote @ July 8th, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    “However, because of US-Russia concerns (especially after that invasion a few years ago) I suspect that CCDev has a solid foot in the door, unless and until they manage to kill off a half-dozen astronauts!”

    it didnt phase NASA when they did it.

    “For them the primary objective needs to be crew safety. Cost will remain a secondary issue.” Without cost being a primary concern crew safety will never be much higher then it is now at NASA, meaning not that high.

    Robert G. Oler

  • “So, what NASA program having little support among Senate Appropriators, and none among House Appropriators, could be sacrificed for $250M?

    CCDev.”

    Jim’s wet dream. As even Nelson pointed out, CCDev is the only thing left that can get us out from under dependence on the Russians. Not even its most ardent critics in public office are stupid enough to try that one.

  • Its ironic that those who have been advocating less government spending on government programs and ending government subsidies fro private industry are now whining about cuts to NASA programs:-) You reap what you sow.

    There has been no better friend commercial crew launch than NASA. In fact, many of the commercial crew concepts originated at NASA. Unfortunately, anti-government libertarian attempts to kill the Federal goose that lays the golden eggs ends up hurting everyone.

    Hurting NASA’s ability to conduct its own space program actually hurts commercial crew development. Private industry needs the innovations that come out of an aggressive government space program and NASA needs the innovations that come out of private space programs. Both government and private space programs are mutually beneficial to each other!

  • Rhyolite

    “As even Nelson pointed out, CCDev is the only thing left that can get us out from under dependence on the Russians. Not even its most ardent critics in public office are stupid enough to try that one.”

    Never underestimate the power of stupid.

  • tom

    One more point about all this. The way CxP was killed, the disrespect by NASA mgt to the Congress and Senate, the loss of so many jobs has eroded sympathy for any other NASA program/project/mission needing extra help from congress. This new world will be a much colder one for NASA. JWST held the promise of great science. Images from the 1st 500,000 years of the Universe! Every year NASA came forward, reported on some of the current problems to congress and got more money and time. Now our elected friends as upset with NASA Mgt. and will extract a good bit of meat from any program not performing. The NG’s actions killed it and NASA HQ created an atmosphere that upset the people who pay the bills. Don’t look for a bailout to fund JWST. Think more along the line of the old AXAF-I and AXAF-F missions.

  • Coastal Ron

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ July 8th, 2011 at 10:46 pm

    Its ironic that those who have been advocating less government spending on government programs and ending government subsidies fro private industry are now whining about cuts to NASA programs:-) You reap what you sow.

    No, we’ve been advocating for NASA to spend it’s money more wisely, but continued funding of the SLS shows that greedy politicians have not learned any lessons from CxP.

    It cost Shuttle $4.8B to get 28 astronauts up to space in one year. SpaceX is planning to do that for $560M, and likely Boeing, SNC and Blue Origin will be able to do it for less than $1.6B (Soyuz prices).

    What could the SLS/MPCV do as the backup for commercial crew? Four (4) crew for over $1B/flight. That’s worse than what Shuttle was costing us.

    Who in their right mind would think that spending far more for something equates to a good idea?

  • The way CxP was killed

    CxP committed suicide, slowly and painfully.

  • Unfortunately, anti-government libertarian attempts to kill the Federal goose that lays the golden eggs ends up hurting everyone.

    I suggest you read Aesop’s fable again and consider the origin of those Federal dollars.

  • VirgilSamms

    “It cost Shuttle $4.8B to get 28 astronauts up to space in one year. SpaceX is planning to do that for $560M,”

    The shuttle is gone Ron. What are you talking about? Just blowing smoke so you can advertise for the ump-teenth time.

    It doe not matter how much it takes to send astronauts on a BEO mission when there is nothing capable of doing it. It requires hydrogen upper stages and a hydrogen earth departure stage. That is the only way human beings have ever traveled BEO and it will remain so because the laws of physics have not changed.

    The shuttle derived HLV looks to be carrying a capsule. I would have preferred a cargo version but oh well.

    Very bad news for SpaceX. Great news for space exploration.

  • Paul

    “Americans spend $18 Billion on coffee annually. Why do we have to cut anything from NASA?

    They spend the money on coffee voluntarily. It’s their own money.

    This kind of argument doesn’t become less stupid from repetition.”

    Rand, this wasn’t meant as an argument. It was meant as a value comparison.

    As for whether the comment was stupid or not, I would argue that it was accurate. It may not have been useful to the conversation, but I would not consider it stupid. I see many comments in this forum that are neither useful or intelligent. I can’t say that you have set the bar with that comment, but you certainly set yourself in a category.

  • As for whether the comment was stupid or not, I would argue that it was accurate.

    How can a question (dumb or not) be “accurate”?

  • Das Boese

    VirgilSamms wrote @ July 11th, 2011 at 8:55 pm

    It doe not matter how much it takes to send astronauts on a BEO mission when there is nothing capable of doing it. It requires hydrogen upper stages and a hydrogen earth departure stage. That is the only way human beings have ever traveled BEO and it will remain so because the laws of physics have not changed.

    You do not have a bloody clue about physics, much less about engineering or economics, that much is clear.

    And by the way, humans haven’t actually traveled BEO yet.

  • VirgilSamms

    “You do not have a bloody clue about physics”

    Really? I know the difference between 130 tons and the 10 tons the Falcon has yet to deliver anywhere. We can build a HLV right now with existing components. The hobby rocket cannot be anything but a hobby rocket.

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