NASA, Other

Astronomers grapple with budgetary uncertainty

This week, about 3,000 astronomers are gathered in Long Beach, California, for the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Just one day into the four-day meeting, there have already been major announcements, ranging from a new set of potential extrasolar planets found by Kepler to some of the first results from the NuSTAR x-ray telescope. That excitement, though, it tempered by uncertainty about future budgets both in the near and long term, and what effects those budgets will have on access to spacecraft and telescopes, as well as grants to support research.

At a meeting Sunday of three program analysis groups (PAGs) chartered by NASA to provide community guidance to its astrophysics programs, Paul Hertz, head of NASA’s astrophysics division, argued that the situation facing astronomers today was actually a good one. “It’s a time of opportunity for us in astrophysics,” he told a standing-room-only audience. He said the NASA astrophysics budgets were at a “high level” with a fleet of missions active today or under development. “If we, as a community, complain about how bad things are, we will look foolish.”

However, he acknowledged near-term concerns, since the fiscal year 2013 budget has yet to be completed, more than three months into the year. “The budgetary future is uncertain,” he said, citing the continuing resolution in place through March and the lack of resolution about potential budget cuts from sequestration.

The near-term challenge is managing development of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), whose increased costs have put a squeeze on other science programs at NASA. Hertz noted that, counting JWST, there is actually more money in NASA’s astrophysics program now, and planned for the next few years, than what the most recent astrophysics decadal survey, published in 2010, projected. “But, in parallel with the budget going up, the requirements to complete successfully JWST have increased substantially” beyond previous plans, he said. “That’s the biggest thing that leads us with less money to put on other things in this decade.”

If sequestration or other budget cuts go into effect in the near term, Hertz believed JWST might be insulated from them given its status as an agency priority. NASA and key members of Congress have previously identified JWST as one of NASA’s three top objectives, alongside development of the Space Launch System and Orion, and utilization of the International Space Station. “My interpretation of that is that even if we have sequestration, or flattening of the budget or reduction of the NASA bottom line, successfully executing JWST to its plan will remain a priority, which means JWST will not participate in the budget reduction,” he said, adding that this was his own interpretation and not based on guidance from NASA leadership. Other astrophysics programs, though, could face cuts, he warned.

JWST’s funding priorities have made it difficult for NASA to implement missions recommended in the decadal survey, but Hertz said that should change around fiscal year 2017, when the budget for JWST ramps down as it approaches completion. That would open up a wedge for new missions, including the top priority large mission identified in the 2010 report, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). Several studies are underway on various options for WFIRST, including one that would make use of one of the 2.4-meter telescopes donated to NASA last year by the NRO, as well as other, smaller mission concepts. Those concept studies are due to be completed by 2015 to provide time for NASA to make a decision on what mission to request a new start for in the FY17 budget proposal.

WFIRST, in some form, would be the frontrunner if the budget is there for it, but Hertz cautioned the experience of JWST could make Congress or the White House wary about another large-scale mission. “If we can start start a large mission, that large mission is WFIRST,” he said. “We cannot assume that, when we get to 2015, we will get signals from the people who hold the gateways to our budget that they are comfortable with us starting another large mission so quickly after JWST.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is also facing budget pressures with its smaller astrophysics program: about $235 million in FY12, which it uses to support several ground-based observatories and fund research grants. That budget is being stressed, though, by increased operational costs for its observatories and budgets not matching pace with the projections in the astrophysics decadal report. To address that mismatch, the NSF commissioned in 2011 a “portfolio review” of its programs and facilities. The review’s final report, released last August, recommended NSF divest itself of several existing observatories, including the Green Bank radio telescope and several telescopes at Kitt Peak.

At an NSF town hall meeting at the AAS conference Monday, NSF officials didn’t have much new information about either the budget or the status of implementing the review’s recommendations. “We have to decide what to do by essentially the end of the calendar year 2013 if we’re going to realize any significant savings, any redistributions, by about 2017,” one of the goals of the review, said James Ulvestad, director of the NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences. “No decisions have been made by NSF to date.”

Ulvestad noted that the NSF “divesting” these observatories doesn’t necessarily mean they would close, if other organizations are willing to take over operations. Unlike the report, which only considered complete divestment of these observatories, he said the NSF would be open to continuing partial support of some of them if other organizations could handle most of the costs of running them.

Ulvestad said he received criticism from the community that the two budget scenarios in the portfolio review were too pessimistic. One, “Scenario A,” had a near-term 10% drop that gradually rose back to 2012 levels by the end of the decade; the other, “Scenario B,” featured a 20% cut followed by flat funding. Scenario A, he said, “is effectively the best we’re going to do” in the current budget environment. “We can’t just operate on hope.”

41 comments to Astronomers grapple with budgetary uncertainty

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    JWST – The project that ate SMD!

    • E. P. Grondine

      Hi Ben –

      Please leave James Webb out of this one. Instead, call the telescope by its correct name, the Ed Weiler Space Telescope.

      Since ATK is building the EWST’s truss structure, clearly NASA is building Orion and SLS for the repair operation to get the damned thing to finally work.

      Think of the EWST as the Hubble Space Telescope on steroids…

  • Robert G. Oler

    If this were not sad it would be funny.

    it is as if NASA seems to be stuck in the Star Trek the next episode where time kept repeating itself with the various conventions that people go to playing the role of the card game…the only difference is that there is no Data to eventually tell them to “go another way”…

    All the words (“wow if we count the program that is eating everything else alive our budgets have never been larger”) are all left over from the shuttle era. and of course so will be the results

    MSL has landed on Mars consumed billions of dollars and there is no hint of earth shaking discoveries, ISS is floating around consuming lots of federal dollars and NASA promises that “this year will be the start of the great science” YAWN

    In the end as long as the agency does the same things over and over promising the same things over and over and never delivering not only will there be the same results (mediocrity as far as the rest of the public is concerned) and of course they promise that the next project will be different.

    It is an amazing time…eventually sequestration will likely save us. RGO

  • amightywind

    NASA and key members of Congress have previously identified JWST as one of NASA’s three top objectives, alongside development of the Space Launch System and Orion, and utilization of the International Space Station.

    How can you not make the wildly successful Mars rovers a higher priority? What on earth are they going to do on the ISS that they haven’t done in the last 10 years?

    there is no hint of earth shaking discoveries

    Profound ignorance, even for you. We have for the first time observed on another world:

    1. angular unconformity
    2. Alluvial sediments
    3. Stream valley and badlands

    I’ll stop at 3. This is first order exploration of a new world that would make Columbus’s head spin. There are dozens or others. It is almost like Southern Utah, and we had no idea until we plopped a rover on it. Beats the heck out of fish experiments on the ISS. I guess you are one of those low information voters Rush talks about. I had no idea they really existed.

    • Coastal Ron

      This highlights a situation that has been going on long before the creation of NASA, which is that Congress (and both the Senate and House) can have different ideas than the President for the direction of the nation, as well as sub-parts of that. Not even Reagan got everything he wanted.

      One of the few areas of agreement you and I have is on robotic exploration, which in this case I agree that the success of the Mars robotic exploration program should be expanded upon. I mean, why else are we sending robotic explorers to Mars except as a prelude to future human visits, so we need to understand and perfect a myriad of things before humans will ever make that journey. Besides, robotic exploration is far more economical at this point than sending humans.

      With that in mind, since the SLS isn’t forecasted to be needed for robotic exploration beyond LEO, let’s cancel the sucker and use part of it’s funding for more robotic exploration. I wouldn’t mind even sending some rovers to the Moon.

      …low information voters Rush talks about. I had no idea they really existed.

      I thought it was obvious – how do you think Romney got 47% of the vote? ;-)

      • amightywind

        Problem is we need large rockets to get astronauts to Mars. I would support cancelling SLS in favor of building a large rocket, like the Ares V.

        • Coastal Ron

          amightywind wrote:

          Problem is we need large rockets to get astronauts to Mars.

          That has not been demonstrated. What has been demonstrated is that we can assembly very large structures in space using current rockets.

          I would support cancelling SLS in favor of building a large rocket, like the Ares V.

          How bizarre. NASA can’t even afford to build a constant stream of payloads for a 70-130mt rocket, and you think they should upsize to a 188mt version?

          Show me the money for the payloads, THEN we can talk about how we’re going to get them to space. But a government-built, government-owned transportation system should be the LAST thing someone like you should be proposing…

          • The only thing more wasteful than SLS is cancelling SLS and going back to the Ares-V. (Don’t get me wrong, Ares-V was a somewhat better design than the SLS since it used engines already used on another rocket, creating economies of scale.) We need neither rocket. For the money we are spending developing a super-rocket without a payload, we could launch (literally) twenty or more EELVs and Falcons every year, and assemble truly gigantic Mars spacecraft (and telescopes or Mars landers or whathaveyou). If we want to explore space, we should go there with the rockets we have, rather than not go there while building new rockets no better than our old rockets.

    • E. P. Grondine

      Hi AW –

      “We have for the first time observed on another world:

      1. angular unconformity
      2. Alluvial sediments
      3. Stream valley and badlands”

      Actually, we have not, as the processes on Mars responsible for the features seen there were very very different than the processes involved in the creation of similar looking features on Earth.

      The “enthusiasm” generated by the “blueberries” on Mars comes to mind in this regard.

      I am enjoying the new Martian crater counts, though.

      • amightywind

        Actually, we have not, as the processes on Mars responsible for the features seen there were very very different than the processes involved in the creation of similar looking features on Earth.

        You should comment on only what you know. Actually, they’re not. Rounded pebble conglomerates of the kind observed at Glenelg are formed by fast flowing water, either a river or arroyo. The gullies observed on Mount Shape for formed by the same. The large scale cross bedding observed on Mount Sharp are cross sections of dune deposits formed by the wind. Nothing different or exotic about it.

        The “enthusiasm” generated by the “blueberries” on Mars comes to mind in this regard.

        Blueberries are iron oxide concretions formed in brine saturated fine sediments on Mars and earth. No mysteries here either.

        • E. P. Grondine

          Oh yeah, AW. Blathering on about an Earth-like Mars, and promoting a Mars Direct type architecture.

          What part of the NSF report did you not understand? Most people in this country simply do not share your “vision”‘s.

          I am more interested in keeping people alive on Earth than spending billions to fly a few people to Mars.

          While you’re on the couch here, what exactly is it that you think a few people on Mars will be able to accomplish?

  • Robert G. Oler

    The NASA budget at all levels is like the DOD budget; it is being hallowed out by supporting 1) legacy programs (SLS/Orion/Webb etc) that dont really have any relevance to today other then they keep the space industrial complex humming…and 2) projects whose operational cost are enormous.

    What is dying in the process is R&D toward projects and industry that might actually work. For instance the BEAM effort by Bigelow which has generated some recent news…could be done for about the 1 month effort on SLS and if a Falcon9 1.1 launches it…another month gets you into orbit. RGO

    • Coastal Ron

      Robert G. Oler said:

      1) legacy programs (SLS/Orion/Webb etc) that dont really have any relevance to today…

      I would agree that the SLS is pure pork, and the Orion is the wrong vehicle to build, but the only sin of the JWST is that it had poor management during the Griffin era. But otherwise, the JWST is part of the science effort that NASA should be pursuing.

      2) projects whose operational cost are enormous.

      Quantify “enormous”? I know you’re partly referencing the ISS, so let’s focus on that. No doubt NASA needs to balance their R&D and new program budgets with operational budgets, which include all the active robotic exploration program going back to Voyager. As with all programs, the science output needs to be compared to the budget to see whether it’s worth continuing the operations of the program.

      In the case of the ISS, there is no doubt that it is performing the mission it was intended to perform. We have learned far more about the problems and solutions for living and working in space WITH the ISS than we would have only visiting space with the Shuttle. We certainly are not ready for Nautilus-X type spacecraft that would be able to go beyond Earth’s protective influence, but with the ISS we are getting closer to figuring out what will be needed.

      The open question at this point is not whether any science is getting done, but how do we accelerate the amount of science and knowledge we are getting from the ISS. All things considered, I see the ISS as a worthy investment for $3B/year, but only if the U.S. intends to be committed to keeping our citizens in space.

      What is dying in the process is R&D toward projects and industry that might actually work. For instance the BEAM effort by Bigelow…

      OK, I think that is a good project too, but without the ISS it would have to be a much bigger effort. So you can’t on the one hand argue that nothing happens on the ISS, and then promote low-cost R&D programs that rely on the use of the ISS.

      Overall there is “waste”, and over the course the Republic there always has been. It even happens in private industry, so I don’t see the point in making NASA seem special in this regard. One solution is to remove the incentives for politicians to use NASA as a funding stream for their pet projects, and certainly one way to do that is to reduce the number of large pork opportunities, such as turning transportation into a service (NLS, CRS, etc.) instead of a program (i.e. SLS). Because without addressing the root cause (i.e. political pork), we’ll never be able to solve the problem long term.

      • Neil Shipley

        Hi CR.
        I’ll pick up on a point you’ve raised and that is about how to get more science done on the ISS. Perhaps the issue here is that the present crew is expected to do both the science and the maintenance work. I think that’s right. Seems to me that NASA should be sending up the researchers to do the science and mechanics, engineers, etc to do the maintenance rather than combine the jobs. Perhaps this is not possible with the current crew transport arrangements but perhaps NASA needs to address this as a means to an end and accelerate the CiCap Program.

        • Coastal Ron

          Neil, the current NASA plan is to boost the complement of the ISS crew from six to seven as soon as the first operational Commercial Crew flight, which is tentatively planned for the end of 2016 (per info on NASASpaceFlight.com). That person should be able to devote the majority of their time to science.

          So really, if you think about it, the ISS is not currently limited by what it is possible of doing yet – we have not maxed out it’s capabilities. What limits the output and usefulness of the ISS is our lack of crew transportation – poor logistics. Adding more Soyuz is not an option, or at least not an easy one, since it would require putting a Soyuz docking port on a non-Russian module.

          Once we have a better crew transportation system, then the ISS partners could look at adding more capacity for more crew (something NASA had to cut because of Constellation), which would boost the ISS utilization even more.

          My $0.02

          • Neil Shipley

            Hi CR.
            Yep my point was that in order to utilise the ISS properly, NASA really needs to accelerate their commercial crew program. Current research returns do not justify $3 billion a year.
            That said, your point of being able to apply only 1 person out of 7 full time to science on the ISS once said transportation is up and running is disturbing. Seems like maintenance expenditure (human time) is out of kilter with research time which I thought was what the ISS was actually about. If true, then this sounds like someone severely stuffed up the ISS design. I know of no other facility anywhere that requires such maintenance down-time versus operational-productive time.

        • amightywind

          The bureaucrats at NASA have been trying to align themselves with ‘serious science’ for over a decade. What do we get? Fish experiments. Astronaut fecal samples. Yeah, let’s knuckle down and do some more ‘science’.

        • Paul

          The problem with ISS and science is that science was always a very dishonest justification for the thing. Science is slow to get started there because there’s not all that much science that’s worth doing there.

          As a specific example, look at protein crystallization. This has gotten a huge yawn from everyone not feeding on NASA grants. Between improvements in terrestrial protein crystallization (for example, the demonstration that growing the protein crystals at the top of a container rather than at the bottom completely suppresses convection), and advances in x-ray lasers (which have gotten good structures from nanocrystals, and have the potential to get structures from individual protein molecules), protein crystallization on ISS looks like it will never deliver anything of much value.

          • Coastal Ron

            Paul said:

            The problem with ISS and science is that science was always a very dishonest justification for the thing. Science is slow to get started there because there’s not all that much science that’s worth doing there.

            As a specific example, look at protein crystallization.

            Just like there was the dream that the Shuttle would be able to be turned around in one week, and flown 50 times per year (thereby lowering the $/lb to orbit tremendously), so too did some people think that space manufacturing would be a significant output of the ISS.

            However I didn’t see the value of the ISS as being a manufacturing facility (and it wasn’t the main justification), I saw it’s value in being a research and test facility to figure out how we’re going to be able to live and work in space. From that standpoint, it’s doing pretty good.

            And though the ISS has challenges in increasing the amount of science it can do, the reasons for that are not because it’s not capable of doing more, but because we have horrible logistics to support the ISS. We can’t currently fully staff the ISS because we only have the Soyuz to keep crew in orbit (the Shuttle couldn’t keep crew in orbit, only rotate crews), and because we’re limited to no more than two Soyuz being docked at any one time, we are limited to six people, and sometimes only three.

            The solution for that problem is the upcoming Commercial Crew vehicles, since all of them can carry up to seven passengers. NASA is reportedly planning to increase the ISS crew complement to seven as soon as the first operational Commercial Crew flight, and that will allow an additional man-year for science work. After Commercial Crew is going, then NASA and it’s ISS partners can address the other factors limiting how many people can be supported on a full-time basis, and by addressing those limitations the science output and usefulness of the ISS can be increased even more.

            Without the ISS, we won’t be able to field test the technologies and techniques that we need for expanding our presence out into space. Certainly not in any cost-efficient way.

            And in any case, what’s the alternative? Splash it in the ocean like all the other disposable space systems we’re built? It’s time for us to start keeping assets in space usable as long as possible – to maximize our financial investments. So if changes do need to be made, the ISS is very modular, so let’s change out what we need, but let’s not throw it away and expect the U.S. Taxpayer to pay for more disposable space toys…

          • DCSCA

            “The problem with ISS and science is that science was always a very dishonest justification for the thing.”

            Precisely. It was conceived as part of a geopolical Cold War strategy; labeled an ‘aerospace WPA project’ by the late Deke slayton and first broached in a Reagan SOTU speech nearly 30 years ago. It has more in common with the Berlin Wall and Minuteman missile silos that the geopolitics of today in this austrer fiscal era. Label it a ‘success’– and splash it. LEO is a ticket to no place, going in circles, no where fast.

      • Robert G. Oler

        Coastal Ron
        January 8, 2013 at 7:07 pm · Reply

        Webb actually in my viewpoint has many sins…the first is that it is way over its budget. If a program is proposed and given a budget and then you go say 2 times over the total proposed then its time to simply stop and figure out why that happened. Now a lot of times particularly at NASA its “buy in”…ie well we cant stop now because we would waste all the money before hand…sometimes like in the case of the station it is just flat out lying…but in any event when you reach the times 2 moment then there needs to be a rethink of the entire thing.

        I came to this conclusion during the debate on the Reagan SCSC…Mark Ruckman (is he around?) who was in the trade read my arguments to continue the thing and kindly sent me some “red team” analysis of what it was going to cost to finish it and why…and well when you are off by 2 then you simply dont know what you are doing.

        In Webb’s case I am pretty sure its not just bad management; that in reality the damn thing is going to cost double digits before it is over…and that in my view is just to much.

        “Quantify “enormous”?”

        Right now the space station is consuming more “ground person hours” then the combined complement of four maybe five Aegis cruisers. that is just in the US…that makes the people on the ground to Americans in orbit number enormous and if you are generous and say “people on ground in the US to the entire crew” OK its slightly smaller. But of course if we are going to count the entire crew then we should count the people in Japan, Russia, Europe Canada etc all who are “paid” out of the “keep the space station flying fund”

        It is probably the largest “teeth to tail” ratio in history.

        And we are not getting any results that even remotely justify that expenditure. Two ways to fix that; up the results or delete some of the ground people. Why cant we get it down total to say 1 person on orbit and 50 on the ground?

        On a good week, the folks on orbit get about 30 hours of “science”…thats out of well 6 multiplied by 40 is 240 hours…weak.

        What the frack are the rest of the people doing? If its “keeping the damn thing going” wow…thats enormous.

        Go look at a nuclear sub or say an oil rig…the teeth to tail is far far smaller. And they do things there. RGO

        • Ben Russell-Gough

          Just a note: “Keeping the thing going” is an achievement – and an objective – in its own right for ISS. No-one really knows how to keep a sophisticated machine like that running for decades in space.

          The Russians did a lot of work with the third-generation Saluts (including Mir) but never got it quite right. Building a vehicle that can operate reliably and be maintained by a crew for >50 weeks in freefall with no resupply from Earth is something that has to be learnt if deep space flight is to be a reality. A lot of these technologies have never been tried before (the US Segment toilet is a good example) and this is the flying dry run. Actual operational data needs to be gained to design the more reliable and longer-lasting machines that will be needed for deep space.

          • Robert G. Oler

            BR

            well if that was ISS goal it could have been done a darn sight cheaper then it was…and we should be making some improvements in the “keeping it going” plan.

            For instance lets set a goal this year of getting the person in space to the people on earth ration down to say oh 1 to 200. RGO

          • I agree. The main achievement of the ISS was building it; any science will be a nice side benefit. Learning to build large structures in microgravity is a requirement for doing much of anything big in space, and a lot more difficult than, say, a few quick dashes to Earth’s moon. Now, we know it can be done, and we know how to do it, and we’ve developed a lot of the skills and technologies required to build similar structures more quickly, easily, and cheaply. Yes, the ISS should have been built for a lot less money (to put it mildly), but it was built and the benefits of that are manifest however wastefully they were achieved.

        • amightywind

          If a program is proposed and given a budget and then you go say 2 times over the total proposed then its time to simply stop and figure out why that happened.

          No question. But if the program has merit, and JWST does, it is best to reform the project and replan, not cancel it.

          Go look at a nuclear sub or say an oil rig…the teeth to tail is far far smaller.

          They have the benefit of repetition and refinement. This is why I have always stressed technical continuity among NASA science programs. I have been critical of JWST for this. What a bizarre design! JPL has wisely kept the Curiosity team in tact.

          • Robert G. Oler

            Wind wrote

            ” But if the program has merit, and JWST does, it is best to reform the project and replan, not cancel it.”

            well the reform and replanning was to simply accept the price hike…it does not good and NASA is full of examples of this, to have a project that comes in at the start stage at say 1 billion then doubles to 2 billion so the “fixers” go in and say “wow this project has merit so we are going to cap it at 4 billion but lets proceed”

            So the big lesson for the next project is “come in low”.

            They have the benefit of repetition and refinement. ”

            as did the shuttle and all that happened with it is that the person power numbers grew and grew and kept on growing

            failed agency RGO

          • E. P. Grondine

            Hi AW –

            What exactly is it that the EWST is supposed to do?

            Discover the home planets of the little green men and the grays?

        • Coastal Ron

          Robert G. Oler said:

          Webb actually in my viewpoint has many sins…the first is that it is way over its budget.

          I wouldn’t have cried if they would have cancelled it in 2010, since fear (i.e. loss of funding) can be a good motivator.

          Right now the space station is consuming more “ground person hours” then the combined complement of four maybe five Aegis cruisers.

          So what! You are comparing the ISS to a very mature platform that operates in a very benign environment – there is no comparison.

          What does it take to live and work in space for decades? The ISS is the only platform that has survived as long as it has, and it is doing exactly what many hoped it would – things break, so we can learn what breaks, things work, so we can learn what works, hardware is evolved, humans are manipulated. Propose, test, evaluate – it’s what every good lab does.

          I think it’s funny for people to think we can jump into space and do exploration without knowing anything ahead of time. This is kind of the continuation of the Apollo Cargo Cult, since Apollo missions were so brief people go the idea that space was benign. They were easy compared to what we want to do next.

          But space is not benign, it’s very hard to survive in, and it’s very costly. As I pointed out on another post, the reason we don’t spend more hours on science at the ISS is that our transportation infrastructure (i.e. the Soyuz) limits us to only six people max on the ISS. The ISS can host seven, so the first Commercial Crew flight will show it’s immediate ROI by increasing the ISS crew complement, which will dramatically increase our science output.

          As to the number of people supporting the ISS on the ground, who cares? The more important metric is how much it is costing us, and whether that amount is viewed as worth the investment. And keep in mind the goal here – if we are not planning to expand human presence out into space, then we should shut down NASA as a whole, and not just the ISS.

          My $0.02

          • Robert G. Oler

            CR writes:

            “As to the number of people supporting the ISS on the ground, who cares? ”

            we all should at least those of us who care for a space faring civilization.

            If it takes what it takes now on the ground to support 6 people in orbit then we are done. There wont be any mnre efforts at keeping people in space for long periods because it is unaffordable.

            I would be OK with this number if it were coming down and coming down significantly. I dont think it is…and for all the talk about “not a mature system” ISS is about as mature as it is going to get given the current constraints of keeping all the people on the ground “busy”

            Obviously things can be done with less…but there has to be the motivator to do it RGO

            • Coastal Ron

              Robert G. Oler said:

              If it takes what it takes now on the ground to support 6 people in orbit then we are done.

              You continue to be shortsighted about this. The ISS is a pathfinder, not the model we’re going to use for expanding our presence in space.

              I would be OK with this number if it were coming down and coming down significantly.

              I’ve already pointed out the gating issue for increasing the utilization of the ISS, and everyone knows what NASA is doing to solve it – the Commercial Crew program. Somewhere around late 2016 NASA will be able to add a person who will be dedicated full-time to research. Using your calculations, that should reduce the percentage of support hours by 50% or so, which is significant.

              In fact, the Commercial Crew vehicles would be able to support adding four more people (for a total crew of 10), if they added to the ISS the additional facilities and equipment it would take to permanently support that many people. That would again improve the support number you seem to use as the only metric of success.

              And by the way, what is the support ratio for the Antarctic bases the U.S. has? How many people does it take to support one C-17 rescue flight in the dead of winter? How many people does it take to keep the support ships in working order? Those also have fixed costs that don’t vary much based on how many people actually visit or stay at the bases. You seem to ignore that here on Earth we have shared infrastructure that has been built up over generations, but we’re only just starting to do that in space. You need to adjust your benchmarks accordingly.

          • Neil Shipley

            Ok these are very good points however I still think that even given the unknowns and harsh environment, the science time is not a good return on the investment.
            RGO also has an argument regarding ground support personal and I find that more disturbing. If they are truly supporting the ISS that smacks simply of organisational bloating. I cannot imagine, for one moment, what they can all be doing.
            ISS utilisation ratios and support costs should be of concern to NASA. They are facing reducing budgets in real terms in the future and if they wish to undertake future missions, they need to learn how to do it in a more rational manner both in terms of efficiencies and effectiveness.

            • Coastal Ron

              Neil Shipley said:

              RGO also has an argument regarding ground support personal and I find that more disturbing. If they are truly supporting the ISS that smacks simply of organisational bloating. I cannot imagine, for one moment, what they can all be doing.

              I don’t mind debating a topic, but I don’t see a lot of facts supporting this supposition you and RGO have.

              What are the facts? What are the problems?

              • Neil Shipley

                Ok so the basic problem as I see it is one of cost.
                NASA is in for flat or declining budgets, missions are becoming more expensive and demands are not reducing. NASA therefore has to find ways of delivering programs more efficiently whilst maintaining the effectiveness of what they deliver.

                Labour is a large component of that cost overhead therefore if it costs $3 billion a year to keep the ISS flying and savings in the program are required in order to deliver other equally important programs, clearly you’ve got to investigate where your labour is being spent. NASA’s a bureacracy and therefore inevitably there will be redundant and superfluous activities. That’s really a truism. Labour can be reduced and the attendent cost savings can be used for the other programs.
                Show me a government department, agency anywhere and in any country that doesn’t suffer from the above. Believe me, I’ve worked in a few. You won’t convince me NASA doesn’t suffer from this issue as well.

                I don’t have insight into NASA’s cost structure so I’ll have to utilise my argument above rather than any specific facts but I do recall (think it was a Space Review article) where a number of NASA administrators were interviewed and admitted that NASA had too many centres. Some really needed to close for efficiency and effectiveness however it was all too hard and they felt it wasn’t worth expending their political milage on something they felt they might not achieve anyway.
                If you can provide a counter-argument and /or facts, happy to discuss.
                Cheers.

              • Coastal Ron

                Neil Shipley said:

                NASA is in for flat or declining budgets…

                Agreed.

                …missions are becoming more expensive…

                Considering each mission is not like any other, this is really a supposition. While I do agree that inflation would indicate that costs will always go up, SpaceX is showing that some things can actually go down in price over time.

                Labour is a large component of that cost overhead therefore if it costs $3 billion a year to keep the ISS flying

                What is “large”? More undefined suppositions

                I don’t have insight into NASA’s cost structure so I’ll have to utilise my argument above rather than any specific facts but I do recall … where a number of NASA administrators were interviewed and admitted that NASA had too many centres.

                OK, but that has nothing to do with the ISS support costs.

                If you can provide a counter-argument and /or facts, happy to discuss.

                I’m not seeing enough information to make rational arguments for or against anything… but I’m not seeing anything from RGO either, so maybe we’ll just have to move on to the next topic. Hey, how about that overweight Orion capsule, huh? ;-)

              • Neil Shipley

                Ok guess so but was discussing NASA not SpaceX.
                Missions more expensive? Yes? Just the launch vehicle costs are rising at a rate far exceeding general inflation. Recent articles on DOD launch costs for EELVs.
                But if you want to get into facts then as mentioned above, I don’t have the specific numbers but I’d accept any bet that RGO and I have the right of it. On the other hand, I believe that NASA’s numbers are pretty rubbery any way so actually getting those numbers might be difficult or maybe next to impossible.
                Is the MPCV overweight? Oh, sarcasm??!!

              • Coastal Ron

                Neil Shipley said:

                Missions more expensive? Yes? Just the launch vehicle costs are rising at a rate far exceeding general inflation.

                Uh, didn’t I just point out that SpaceX, who is now one of the options that NASA has for sending hardware to space (per the NASA Launch Services II contract), is lowering costs for NASA?

                But if you want to get into facts then as mentioned above, I don’t have the specific numbers but I’d accept any bet that RGO and I have the right of it.

                Everyone is allowed their own opinions, and as I’ve stated before, I have a different one than RGO does – likely one of those glass half-empty vs half-full things…

                Not worth you losing any money… ;-)

              • NeilShipley

                Ok. Here’s the burning question. How do you insert the emoticons? This is the really important stuff AND something we actually have some control over.
                Cheers.

              • @NeilShipley
                “How do you insert the emoticons?”

                Type colon and right parenthesis for a “smiley face”.
                Semicolon and right parenthesis for a winking “smiley face.

                The emoticon will not appear until the comment is published.

  • E. P. Grondine

    I am so glad that these astronomers agree among themselves on the priorities of the US space program.

    Its no secret that NEO astronomers are treated as rather slow by the wanna-be physicists who practice cosmology.

    Of course, real physicists have a very different view of the impact hazard.

    I used to be able to generate some outrage and adrenalin when I compared the billions of dollar$ NASA spends elsewhere with the pennies NASA spends on finding the next piece of stuff from space before it hits us.

    If the US NEO detection budget and impact studies budgets were anywhere near adequate, then I suppose one could smile at Ares 1, the EWST, and very costly Mars rovers.

    • amightywind

      I don’t give a hoot about the asteroid hazard hysterics. They are just another species related to climate change nuts. But I think highly of the radar guys and the guys finding the tiny asteroids. Since Obama proposes that asteroids become the centerpiece of human exploration we ought to take interest.

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