By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 22 at 6:54 am ET Several news outlets yesterday reported on the release of a letter by former senator and astronaut John Glenn, who called for extending the shuttle beyond this year. (Here’s the full text of the letter.) “Why terminate a perfectly good system that has been made more safe and reliable through many years of development?” Glenn asks in the letter. He also claimed that flying the shuttle would not cost significantly more than continuing to rely on the shuttle and avoid the risks of a Soyuz failure.
What few pointed out, though, is that this is hardly the first time Glenn has advocated for extending the shuttle. Back in May 2008 Glenn called for extending the shuttle, saying that the shuttles are “still working very well” and that it will be “expensive to contract with the Russians”, themes similar to what he expressed in Monday’s letter. Glenn also recommended a shuttle extension when he testified before the House Science and Technology Committee in July 2008, as well as extending the life of the ISS. Elements of that written testimony are very similar to Monday’s letter.
The claim in his letter retiring the shuttle would result in “minimal, if any” cost savings don’t appear to add up, something overlooked in media accounts of his letter. The shuttle program currently costs NASA about $3 billion a year, according to NASA budget documents. Assuming an average of six NASA-purchased Soyuz seats a year (half those available on the four Soyuz flights to the ISS) at $55 million a seat the price starting in 2013, that’s $330 million a year. One can add to that cargo costs from the CRS contracts ($3.5 billion to Orbital and SpaceX through 2016), but that adds up to no more than about $700 million a year. Even if you’re able to reduce shuttle operations costs to about $2 billion a year, as some suggest, shuttle operations still appear significantly more expensive.
In the letter Glenn has mixed impressions of the administration’s new plan for NASA. It’s clear he supports plans to extend the ISS to at least 2020, and he also agrees with plans to defer a return to the Moon. “To establish a lunar base is extremely expensive and can wait, at least for now,” he writes. “Other expenditures pale beside that one.” He is more critical of plans to rely on “smaller, less experienced companies” for commercial crew access, saying that “at this early stage of their experience they should be phased in only after they demonstrate a high degree of competency and reliability, particularly with regard to safety concerns.” (No word on what he thinks of bigger, more experienced companies like ULA and Boeing.)
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 19 at 9:22 am ET In his speech at the Kennedy Space Center in April, President Obama announced that $40 million would be made available for economic growth and job creation in the Space Coast region of Florida around KSC. Since then a Presidential Task Force on Space Industry Work Force and Economic Development, co-chaired by NASA administrator Charles Bolden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, has been meeting to develop a plan to spend that money; at a public meeting in Orlando earlier this month Bolden said that $30 million would be used for regional economic growth and the other $10 million for job training activities. That, plus a separate $15-million Department of Labor grant to the Space Coast region, has generated criticism elsewhere, particularly in Texas, where the focus on the Space Coast is seen as political favoritism of a swing state versus solidly Republican states like Alabama, Texas, and Utah, who will also feel the impact of the end of the shuttle program and the proposed cancellation of Constellation.
Late Friday the administration made a move that appears intended to blunt some of that criticism. The president sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi containing a number of amendments to its budget proposal, including one for NASA. “This request would fund an initiative to develop a plan to spur regional economic growth and job creation along the Florida Space Coast and other affected regions in furtherance of my Administration’s bold new course for human space flight, which revitalizes NASA and transitions to new opportunities in the space industry and beyond,” the president wrote in his letter.
The amendment, contained in page 15 of the document, includes the $30 million that will go to the Commerce Department for regional economic growth on the Space Coast and the $10 million that will go to the Labor Department for job training in that region. The amendment also includes an additional $45 million that will go to Commerce for regional economic growth “in other areas affected by job losses associated with programmatic changes in this account” and $15 million more to Labor for job training in those other areas. All the money—$100 million total—would come out of the Exploration portion of the budget, although the document doesn’t specify what specific areas of Exploration would lose money to fund these initiatives (the original $40 million was to come from Constellation closeout costs.) Despite effectively getting its budget cut by $100 million, NASA put a positive spin on the amendment: a spokesman told Space News that the money was “essential” to helping the workforce and regions most affected by the agency’s changes.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 18 at 6:33 am ET Last week the House Science and Technology Committee asked NASA for more details about its Orion plans, including the cost and schedule of the “lifeboat” version of the spacecraft that the administration announced two months ago, as well as other elements of the agency’s revised plans. The committee asked for that information by the close of business Wednesday. That deadline came and went, without any information provided by NASA.
Now, the committee has upped the ante. As Space News reported last night, the committee is now asking for all supporting documentation for the budget request. (A copy of the letter is available via SpacePolicyOnline.) “Unfortunately, despite your personally giving your assurances to the Committee that details would be forthcoming,” the letter to NASA administrator Bolden reads, “NASA has failed to provide the budgetary and programmatic information necessary for the Committee to assess the Administration’s proposal.”
The letter, signed by the chair and ranking members of both the full committee and the space subcommittee, asks (or, rather, demands) NASA for “all records” related to the FY11 budget proposal, the April revision that restored Orion, and related analyses, including “all other records NASA deems relevant to the support of the Administration’s human spaceflight plan.” Those records are due to the committee by next Friday, June 25. Any records NASA elects to withhold “will be documented, item by item, with the express legal basis for the privilege claimed for each item clearly noted.”
“We sincerely hope,” the letter concludes, “NASA engages this Committee and this Congress in a more cooperative manner.” We’ll soon find out.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 17 at 7:11 am ET One area of debate about NASA’s proposed new direction that has gotten less attention than the future of Constellation or commercial crew is development of a heavy-lift launch vehicle. The proposed plan would defer a decision on an HLV until as late as 2015, while working on technologies that could either be utilized by it or otherwise affect such a vehicle. However, in the outline of the authorization bill being contemplated by the Senate Commerce Committee, development of an HLV would be moved up to 2011, in part to serve as “a contingency capability to the ISS” in some manner.
In a brief white paper released Wednesday, Marshall Institute president Jeff Kueter examines this issue. While he calls the administration’s approach “reasonable enough”, he notes the criticism that it “lacks focus” and has uncertainties and potential delays associated with any such effort, as well as the impact of a delay on the industrial base. “The risk with the current approach is that the U.S. will be left without a viable program for deep space exploration in the latter years of this decade and the early 2020s,” he writes. He suggests something of a middle ground: don’t pause the development of an HLV, but also continue the R&D program proposed in the new plan in some form in parallel, acknowledging that “cuts to existing programs, reallocations from new initiatives, or new funds will have to be found to accommodate it.”
The Planetary Society, which has endorsed the administration’s plans for NASA, also addressed the HLV question this week as part of a broader update on the FY11 budget proposal, but doesn’t take a strong stand one way or another. “We at The Planetary Society strongly support a heavy-lift (deep-space) rocket, but should it be funded now, five years before we really need it, given that there are no funds yet available to build the spacecraft that will use heavy-lift?” they ask. “Both sides of this argument have merit.” However, one of the society’s board members, Neil deGrasse Tyson, endorsed an accelerated HLV development in a letter to Congress last month “provided it does not compromise the budget projections the White House has given for the agency.”
Eric Sterner, in a Space News op-ed posted online Wednesday, sees the HLV strategy as part of a broader lack of direction, and potential lack of funding, for the agency’s proposed exploration plans. “It’s like deciding you’re going to begin studying the internal combustion engine so you can make an informed decision about whether or not to purchase a car five years from now with the expectation that you might then use the car to go someplace interesting, without committing enough resources to complete your studies,” he writes.
One issue, though, is often overlooked in the debate about when to start development of an HLV: what, exactly, is a heavy-lift launch vehicle? Is it something similar to the Ares 5, designed to carry as much as 188 metric tons to LEO? Or would something smaller—125 tons? 100 tons? 50 tons?—be sufficient, given that a smaller vehicle would presumably be less expensive to develop and operate? While, as Kueter notes, five years’ worth of technology development might not develop a propulsion breakthrough (getting an American equivalent of an RD-180 engine might be more realistic), technology demonstrations elsewhere could affect the sizing of an HLV. For example, as others have noted, on-orbit propellant depots could eliminate the need for an Ares 5-class vehicle entirely since propellant could be launched by smaller vehicles and transferred to a spacecraft headed beyond Earth orbit, rather than launched together with the spacecraft on a single HLV. Of course, that depends in part in knowing exactly where you’re going beyond LEO, and how.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 16 at 7:22 am ET In a press conference yesterday, Huntsville mayor Tommy Battle made it clear he was not happy about the latest effort to cut back work on Constellation this fiscal year, let alone plans to cancel most of the program, given the impact it will have on his city. “It’s not a time to tell our citizens who have been the leaders in space technology and leading our country in manned space flight that they are out of a job and getting pink slips,” he said, as quoted by local TV station WAFF. “It seems that NASA has ignored the spirit of the law. The administrations course could be the long slow death of NASA. Congress has to step in and act at this time,” he added, according to WAAY-TV. Battle said he’s written letters both to President Obama and NASA Marshall director Robert Lightfoot; on in letter he asks Lightfoot to “stop any and all public announcements regarding potential job terminations or contract changes until his office and the Alabama Congressional Delegation can be appropriately briefed on the steps to be taken.”
NASA administrator Charles Bolden, though, has a different perspective on Constellation. In an interview with Patt Morrison on Southern California Public Radio last Friday, he said that Constellation was in effect too limiting, since it had become a Moon-only program. “Constellation was not about more human exploration,” Bolden said. He noted that when President Bush unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, it “was almost identical to what President Obama is advocating now, but because the administration chose not to fund the program fully, then the destinations withdrew and it became the Moon.” He added, “If you look at the Constellation program today, the program of record, it is a lunar program. President Obama’s program is a deep space exploration program that will probably involve more flights for humans than we would have done under Constellation.”
He reiterated late in the interview that the “ultimate goal” for human exploration is Mars, but added a cautionary note. “Humans will get to Mars, we will definitely be—unless the nation gives up,” he said. “I have to caveat it. The nation could give up on it. The Congress could say, ‘I don’t care what President Obama says, we’re not going to Mars. We’re going to go back to the Moon and we’re going to stay there.’ That is a decision we could make. I think it would be an unwise decision.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 15 at 7:10 am ET In a letter Monday to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chair of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, outlined the key aspects of a NASA authorization bill his committee his drafting. The key elements of that bill, as described in that letter, include:
- Support for extending operations of the ISS to at least 2020;
- One additional shuttle mission (the “Launch on Need” contingency mission for the last currently-scheduled mission), which would fly only after “successful completion of an independent safety review”;
- A “walk before you can run” approach to commercial crew transportation, funding additional risk reduction activity patterned after the current Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program as well as completion of “a number of studies, assessments, and milestones”;
- Mars as the long-term goal for human spaceflight, but with NASA working with international partners “to define near-term missions in the lunar and high-Earth orbits of space” that would include development of new capabilities and infrastructure;
- Begin development of a heavy-lift vehicle in 2011 that would support exploration as well as “serve as a contingency capability to the ISS”; and
- Direct NASA that the heavy-lift vehicle and crew exploration vehicle “leverage the workforce, contracts, assets, and capabilities of the Shuttle, Ares I, and Orion efforts.”
These provisions are not surprising, based on what Nelson has said in the past: he has specifically mentioned, among other things, adding one (and only one) shuttle flight and beginning immediate heavy-lift vehicle development, as well as expressing skepticism that commercial providers could provide crew capabilities in the near-term. He mentioned in the letter that these elements are based on discussions he has had with other committee members, including ranking subcommittee member Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and the chairman and ranking member of the overall committee, Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), to create a “bipartisan foundation” for the authorization bill.
One thing the letter does not mention is how much funding the committee would authorize for these programs or the agency in general. Continuing heavy-lift vehicle development in parallel with commercial crew programs, as well as the additional funding needed to maintain shuttle operations at least through mid-2011 (the likely launch date of the additional shuttle mission) will put a squeeze on other NASA programs unless the authorizers add to the NASA budget proposal—and even then, there’s no guarantee that Sen. Mikulski’s appropriators would follow suit.
Update: Sen. Mikulski did have a response to Nelson’s letter: as reported by Space News she said that Nelson’s plan was “an alternative framework for NASA’s human space flight program that could snap us out of the ‘stagnant quo.’” She added that she looked forward to additional details and promised to work with Nelson as they worked on their respective appropriations and authorization bills.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 11 at 6:36 am ET Nearly two months ago, the administration revised its plans for Constellation by reversing plans to cancel the Orion spacecraft, instead electing to retain Orion as a crew return vehicle for the ISS. Since then, though, NASA has provided few details about how that lifeboat variant of Orion would be developed, and now Congress is getting impatient.
Space News reports that the House Science and Technology Committee has demanded additional details about Orion, including its cost and schedule as well as whether the agency will modify an existing contract with Lockheed for Orion or hold a new competition for the spacecraft. The letter from committee chairman Bart Gordon to NASA, issued Thursday, demands answers by June 16. NASA administrator Charles Bolden did tell that committee last month that he estimated the cost of the Orion CRV would be $4.5 billion but has not offered additional details, including where the money would come from to pay for it as there was no money for Orion in the original budget request. At both that hearing and a Senate hearing earlier last month Bolden said a revised budget request was forthcoming, but apparently has not yet been released.
The lack of details about Orion’s future, as well as NASA’s push to cut back work on Constellation to over contract termination liabilities, has some members of Colorado’s congressional delegation nervous. The Denver Post reports that six members of the delegation, including senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, wrote to President Obama on Thursday, asking him to stop NASA’s effort to stop Constellation work. They write that they’re concerned that NASA is “jeopardizing the Orion workforce at a time when we need to be creating new jobs” by pushing to slow down work on the program.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 10 at 8:32 pm ET When the Orlando Sentinel noted in its article about NASA’s memo about cutting back work on Constellation that the announcement “caps a bitter, three-month behind-the-scenes battle”, the first thought that ran through my mind on how Congress would react was a line from Animal House: “Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is!” And sure enough, members of Congress are making clear this decision does not “cap” this debate at all.
In a statement late today, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said NASA was “skirting the law” with its plan to cut back work on Constellation to comply with the Antideficiency Act. She cited the memo as the latest evidence that NASA was “working to subvert Constellation”, along with letters sent to contractors about termination liability and the reassignment of Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley. Hutchison also released a copy of an email sent to Hanley on May 21 that contained direction and even language similar to Bolden’s letter to Congress this week (although Bolden’s letter contained additional specifics about the impact of the plan on each element of Constellation.)
“At best, this demonstrates that, at least three weeks before briefing members of Congress about issues related to funding challenges, NASA’s leadership had already taken steps to implement a course that today leads to the loss of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jobs,” she said, comparing this week’s letter with last month’s email. “At worst, it shows an agency that is willfully subverting the repeatedly expressed will of Congress. In either case, the result is the same. The leadership of the world’s preeminent space agency has strained its credibility to the breaking point and something has to change.”
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) also provided a statement to Huntsville TV station WAFF, included in an article about Constellation-related layoff notices Boeing plans to issue next month. “NASA is reprioritizing funding based on a future budget that has not been supported, or approved, by Congress,” Shelby said, adding that language included in a supplemental appropriations bill the Senate approved last month is a “reaffirmation of Congressional intent to continue Constellation funding”.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) also made a brief statement about the Bolden letter prepended to a copy of the Sentinel article (which, I’m sure, Bishop’s office got permission to reprint.) The decision to cut back work on Constellation, he said, “is nothing more than a disingenuous legal maneuver to circumvent statutory language that was put in place to prevent this very type of action.
Bishop also issued a separate statement Thursday reacting to a comment in an interview with Elon Musk where the SpaceX CEO said that Utah is the “one state that is going to suffer from the Obama plan”. “Elon Musk is right that Utah will suffer under the Obama plan, but so will the rest of the country” because, among other things, the plan “severely handicaps our security and missile defense,” Bishop said. “In the end, all of us in America suffer under that scenario, and that is unacceptable.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 10 at 5:39 am ET Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t speak out much about space issues, issued a press release Wednesday congratulating SpaceX for last Friday’s successful launch of the first Falcon 9. Calling the launch “an enormous success” and “a glimpse of the future of space transportation”, she said it was a sign that “California will continue to lead the way for technological innovation and space flight”.
While NASA and other US agencies prepare to examine what programs they may have to cut in future budgets, the European Space Agency is facing a budget squeeze as well, Spaceflight Now reports. With ESA’s budget frozen for 2010 and 2011 at €3.35 billion ($4.05 billion), the agency is modifying contracts to stretch out payments and hasn’t ruled out delaying programs.
The mood on Capitol Hill regarding NASA “has shifted from seizing partisan advantage to pursuing at least some political pragmatism”, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday. In a letter that will go to the White House later this week, a group of congressmen is asking for changes in the White House proposal to create a program “that continues our elite astronaut corps, preserves an irreplaceable workforce, protects our defense industrial base and ensures that the U.S. will leave low-earth orbit within the decade.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 June 10 at 5:22 am ET This week Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) distributed a “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow members that included a copy of a letter he received last month from Roger Tetrault, who served on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). In the letter (published by the Huntsville Times) Tetrault argues that for crew vehicles “safety must be the primary consideration above all other design parameters – including performance, cost, reusability, and advance space operations.” (emphasis in original) Constellation, he argues, was designed with that lesson in mind, but that is being rejected by the administration’s new plan for NASA. “There is no clear mission or direction given to NASA, and the use of proven-technologies [sic] is being shunned,” he wrote. “Further, the choice to commercialize our launch capability provides insufficient safety for the brave men and women that will be asked to ride these rockets.”
Another person who served on the CAIB disagrees with Tetrault, though. John Logsdon told Space News that Tetrault is making “an ideological judgment, not a technical statement” by concluding that commercial providers would provide “insufficient safety” for crewed launches. “You can’t make such a judgment in advance of something being done.”
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