“I can’t see Congress doing it unless it was some sort of national crisis again, either an external threat or some disaster that was so bad (e.g. the SLS test launch takes out Orlando) that Congress decides a fundamental change is required.”

I agree. Sequestration isn’t reason enough, since if I recall the way it’s set up is that every program has to take the same reduction – no favorites.

Inertia in Congress is pretty hard to overcome, and it seems to me that changes are either small and incremental, or the dam bursts loose and Congress goes along with major changes that actually do seem to make sense. Constellation was the later, since it was obvious to Congress that the program was not affordable, and the Augustine Commissions results provided the non-partial justification.

But any major change to NASA is going to have to be pushed by the Administration, and we have yet to see someone develop anything resembling a new charter for NASA. The House proposed bill was laughable, but the Administration hasn’t indicated it wants to make any big changes yet. Yet.

Still early in Obama’s 2nd term, which officially hasn’t started, and this minor issue of sequestration has to get sorted out.

Unless NASA’s charter is changed …

Idle thought … What would it take to get Congress to agree to restructure NASA?

The last time something like that happened was 1958, in the wake of Sputnik. Working with the Eisenhower administration, Congress decided to combine the old NACA with space research agencies in the Defense Department to create NASA.

We’ve been stuck with that model ever since.

In my mind, I’ve noodled with just what would it take to prod Congress into breaking up the current pork-laden leviathan that NASA has become.

I can’t see Congress doing it unless it was some sort of national crisis again, either an external threat or some disaster that was so bad (e.g. the SLS test launch takes out Orlando) that Congress decides a fundamental change is required.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

“Given large-scale deployment of SPS and the related buildup of infrastructure and capabilities all other NASA goals would be much easier to reach.”

NASA’s charter is not to be a power company, and they would be completely inept in trying to “help” companies to develop such capabilities.

While space-based solar power may one day prove feasible, and even economical, right now there isn’t an economics argument to go after it – the supply & demand forces for terrestrial power, plus the comfort level everyone has in current power sources, means that no one is going to want to spend the $Billions needed to prove it out. There is no known ROI.

The best business ideas are the ones where there is a customer ready to pay for a proposed solution – go find that first customer, then start on the funding for building out SPS.

“Given the launching of the space industrial revolution further NASA funding for planetary science and other efforts to advance a solar civilization, could be funded through a tax on space commerce.”

Unless NASA’s charter is changed, there is current legal framework to do that. All taxes taken in go into a general fund, unless Congress specifies otherwise. There is nothing stopping Congress from indexing NASA’s funding to an arbitrary number today, like 1% of the total budget, or $1B for each confirmed yeti sighting per year. A “space industrial revolution” has no real connection to “planetary science”, just like yeti sightings have no connection to budget funding levels.

“The Space Shuttle was a reusable space plane that was radically advancing the state of the art known at the time…”

Well they did try to advance the state of the art, but in the end the Shuttle was an evolutionary dead-end, in that it has no direct progeny or “Mark II” versions that replaced it.

All in all it was a failed experiment that went on for probably 15-20 years too long.

“Even the Saturn V could have been retroactively made reusable using today’s knowledge base and technology.”

You are thinking backwards, in that you are trying to perfect a solution before the problem has been defined.

The Saturn V did it’s job well, which was to be the quickest way to beat the Soviets to the Moon. But once that political goal was reached, there were no other goals that it was needed for. No defined “National Imperatives”. So evolving the Saturn V would have ended having the same problem as building the SLS – there is no defined need.

This is an easy experiment to run at home. Just define the payloads a SLS-class launcher would be needed to lift to LEO (and beyond if you want) over a 10 year period. Then multiply each of those payloads by the estimated program cost (I use the low number of $10B each), and see if it fits within NASA’s current budget profile. And according to NASA, plan for two launches per year (any less would not be safe).

If it doesn’t fit within NASA’s current budget profile, then the programs won’t get funded, and there is no need for an SLS-class launcher, reusable or not. And if those payload missions are no larger than 53mt in mass, then SpaceX can launch them, and NASA can put the money saved towards building more mission payloads.

Does that make sense to you?

X-37