By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 26 at 9:56 pm ET If there was one surprise from Wednesday’s hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee about NASA’s human spaceflight plans, it was the news that NASA was reassigning Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley, who will now be the associate director for strategic capabilities at the Johnson Space Center. What was particularly surprising was how the news was announced: not by NASA but by a member of the committee, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who chairs the space subcommittee. “Recently we just received word that the Constellation program manager was removed from his position,” she said towards the end of the hearing’s first panel, with NASA administrator Charles Bolden as the sole witness. “Is that correct?”
“That is probably correct, ma’am,” he responded. Pressed by Giffords, he went on to say, “It was not an action that I took or directed. It would be an action that would be taken by the Exploration [Systems] Mission Directorate head, Doug Cooke, and Johnson Space Center director Mike Coats. I have been in consultation with them about that, and my understanding was that they were going to get together with him this morning.”
NASA officials later confirmed the reassignment, stating that Hanley will be tasked with keeping the center’s human spaceflight capabilities intact during the end of the shuttle program and the planned closeout of Constellation. However, the timing of the move—literally while the agency’s head was being grilled on Capitol Hill—’can hardly be considered wise.
Giffords said she was worried this was a sign that NASA was not committed to working on Constellation, which remains funded through the end of the year. “[W]hen the Constellation manager is removed from his position, it frankly makes me personally very dubious” that the agency wants to make progress on the program in FY2010.
Hanley, Bolden said, “is an incredibly talented individual. Jeff and I have spoken for quite some time, since I became the NASA administrator, about his future.” Bolden wasn’t able to continue that statement because the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bart Gordon, cut him off. But Giffords got one more comment in: “It’s of great concern to us that you take the manager out of his position and reassign him to another position, and I just want to let you know that I’m very concerned by that.”
Other members of Congress also took note of the reassignment. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) told the Huntsville Times he sees the move as an effort by NASA leadership to quash dissent in the ranks. “NASA leadership removed a capable program manager in its continuing efforts to suppress internal voices of dissent to their visionless space exploration plan,” he said. “This action furthers an atmosphere where NASA’s leadership team has become a key impediment to space exploration moving forward.”
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), in a press release issued late today by the Senate Commerce Committee, where she is the ranking member, also raised concerns. “I am deeply troubled to have learned that the program manager for the Constellation program was removed from his post,” she said in the press release, which hasn’t yet appeared on the committee web site as of Wednesday night. “The timing of the program manager’s removal raises significant concerns about whether NASA is continuing to implement the authorized program as directed by Congress.” She added she would ask the NASA Inspector General to perform “a full and thorough investigation” of the reassignment.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 26 at 6:11 am ET Norm Augustine wasn’t expecting a warm reception when he spoke at an AIAA luncheon in Huntsville on Monday; in fact, he was expecting “deep concern, even hostility”, the Huntsville Times reports. He reassured the audience that the Marshall Space Flight Center “is going to be having a very big role” no matter what happens with the proposed FY11 NASA budget. Asked about whether he thought NASA should continue with a series of Ares test flights, he begged off: “I don’t really have an opinion,” Augustine said. “It comes down to money.”
One organization that would be perfectly happy with never seeing Ares fly again is Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), who released an “issue brief” about Constellation this week. The document mostly reviews the history of the Vision for Space Exploration and Constellation, from the Vision’s origins in 2004 though the Augustine Committee and NASA FY11 budget request. CAGW backs the White House’s proposal to end Constellation: “The Administration has taken a step in the right direction by proposing to cancel the unsustainable Constellation Program in favor of looking to increased reliance on the private sector and investment in technologies that can lower the cost of human space exploration.”
CAGW also took aim at Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), one of the leading supporters of Constellation, for his effort to put language into a supplemental spending bill restating an existing provision that keeps NASA from terminating Constellation contracts this fiscal year. Noting Shelby’s penchant for earmarks, CAGW states that “it is no surprise that he is abusing the appropriations process by slipping the Constellation program into the emergency spending bill.” (Constellation, it can be argued, isn’t being “slipped into” the bill; the provision is designed to ensure that money already appropriated for Constellation this year is spent on it.) CAGW, though, isn’t fond of spending money in general, or at least on software licenses: the footer of the report includes the line: “You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 26 at 5:43 am ET Today wraps up the two-day NASA Exploration Enterprise Workshop in Galveston, where yesterday NASA teams briefed attendees on studies the agency has undertaken on various aspects of the proposed new plan for NASA, ranging from robotic precursor missions to commercial crew. NASA also got some good news: those efforts are not considered illegal.
In an opinion by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) dated May 21 but published online yesterday, the office determined that NASA is not violating a provision of the FY2010 appropriations bill that prevents the agency from any use of exploration funds that would “create or initiate a new program, project or activity”. Several members of Congress asked the GAO in March to investigate whether those study teams constituted a new program, but the GAO found it did not. “The teams did not create any new programs, set up new program offices, or hire or permanently reassign any staff. The teams did not award any contracts or bind NASA to taking any future course of action,” the GAO determined. “Thus, to date, NASA’s study teams have conducted only planning activities and have not brought into being a new program, project, or activity.” The GAO did caution that NASA must be careful that those efforts “do not evolve into activities that would create or initiate a new program, project, or activity.”
NASA is not completely out of the woods with the GAO yet, though. The March request to the GAO from 16 House members covered three issues, of which the activities of the study teams being just one. The GAO decision said it would separately evaluate the other two issues the House members raised, the ability of NASA to cancel or suspend planned contracts, and contract termination liability costs.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 25 at 7:03 am ET It’s a little quiet on the policy front right now, although that will change tomorrow when the House Science and Technology Committee holds a hearing on NASA’s proposed human spaceflight plans. The hearing is very similar to the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the topic earlier this month, including repeat appearances by Charles Bolden, Neil Armstrong, and Gene Cernan; also appearing will be Tom Young. It’ll be interesting to see if this hearing covers any new ground compared to the Senate hearing two weeks ago.
One difference is that the hearing will coincide with the second day of the two-day NASA Exploration Enterprise Workshop in Galveston, Texas. Today will feature a number of presentations from NASA officials on studies performed to date within NASA on various aspects of the new plan, some of which have already led to the release of RFIs, such as one for commercial crew released on Friday. Today’s sessions will be webcast, and the slides for those presentations are already available.
Later this week the International Space Development Conference, the annual conference of the National Space Society, kicks off in Chicago. Notable speakers include Charles Bolden (the dinner speaker Friday night) and NASA deputy administrator (and former NSS executive director) Lori Garver at Saturday’s luncheon. Jeff Greason will be speaking about “The Augustine Committee and U.S. Space Policy” on Friday as well. Saturday afternoon features what conference organizers are calling, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, “The Great Debate”: after a presentation by Scott Pace of GWU’s Space Policy Institute on the president’s new NASA policy, Rusty Schweickart and Bob Zubrin will debate it, taking the pro and con positions, respectively.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 21 at 7:21 am ET Nearly six years ago, several months after President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration, a group of space organizations announced the formation of the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA), a loose federation designed to drum up support for NASA’s new space exploration mandate. The SEA is best known for running a series of legislative “blitzes” on Capitol Hill, where members of SEA’s organizations have briefed congressional offices on NASA’s exploration plans, but little else beyond that.
Now, a few months after the release of the FY11 budget proposal that redirected NASA’s exploration plans, a group of organizations have also come together to support the agency. A “Joint Statement by Space Organizations on the FY 2011 NASA Budget” is a one-page document endorsed by a dozen organizations. In the statement the organizations endorse the topline FY11 budget for NASA and “increases in science, aeronautics and technology initiatives”. They continue: “We believe this is an opportunity for NASA to craft the exploration strategy in partnership with science and applied science that includes the International Space Station, safe and cost-effective access to low earth orbit, robotic precursors, and other missions.”
The statement doesn’t delve into specifics about the plan, though. While it states that “destination, milestones, engagement and story matter” for human exploration, it doesn’t specifically endorse the president’s statements last month about mounting a human asteroid mission by 2025 or Mars orbit mission a decade later. The statement also endorses “safe and cost-effective access to low earth orbit” but doesn’t explicitly support commercial ventures to provide that access, a key part of the agency’s new plan.
The document might be deliberately vague to attract a broad cross-section of organizations, which range from advocacy organizations like the National Space Society, The Planetary Society, and the Space Frontier Foundation; to academic and research organizations like the AAAS, American Astronomical Society, and the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology. Some of those organizations are not part of the SEA, while some SEA organizations are not signatories to the joint statement (including the Mars Society, whose leadership has been critical of the new plan.)
The statement grew out of a closed meeting NASA held with leaders of a number of organizations in Washington a few weeks ago. It’s not clear if these organizations will do anything more jointly to support the plan beyond yesterday’s statement. But then, SEA did not do that much to harness support for the Vision, and has been relatively quiet about the new plan: the latest update on their web site is a statement congratulating Buzz Aldrin for appearing on “Dancing with the Stars”.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 20 at 7:25 am ET Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has made it clear, including last week at KSC, that he would like to see additional tests of the Ares 1 (or at least of an Ares 1-like rocket) to demonstrate its technologies as well as preserve jobs at KSC. Yesterday NASA administrator Charles Bolden made it clear he doesn’t agree with his friend the senator on that. Speaking to reporters after an appearance at the COMSTAC meeting in Washington, he said he couldn’t afford to keep testing the Ares 1. “It is incredibly costly for me to go off and try a series of Ares 1 tests to support a heavy-lift at the present cost of solid rocket motors,” he said, as quoted by the Orlando Sentinel. A solution, he said, would be to find some way to reduce the cost of the solid motors used by the rocket. “ATK says they can do that. But we’re not there right now.”
Bolden also said that solid rockets, right now, aren’t being considered for a future heavy-lift vehicle, hence the lack of interest in continuing Ares testing. “Right now, we’re leaning toward liquids,” he said. “And if you’re leaning toward liquids, why would you spend a lot of time using Ares I as a development vehicle if that’s not going to part of the mix?”
Bolden’s comments came after he spoke to—or rather with—COMSTAC meeting attendees. Rather than giving a canned speech and taking a few questions, he largely opened the floor to questions for 45 minutes, taking on topics ranging from contracting mechanisms to concerns by some attendees that not everyone at NASA is on board the president’s new plan for the agency. “I have a very strong sense of urgency about enabling you to take over low Earth orbit access,” he said late in the discussion. “It’s critical. We’ve got to do that, but we’ve got to do it safely. I think we’re headed in the right direction.” That transition, he said, has to be “incremental”, but “it can’t take ten years.”
Nelson, meanwhile, is being challenged for his general support of the president’s plan by a member of his own party. As the Miami Herald reports, Senate candidate Jeff Greene criticized Nelson for supporting the plan because of the jobs that will be lost in the state. “I was kind of disappointed when I saw Sen. Nelson flying down with President Obama to terminate those jobs,” Greene said in a South Florida appearance, referring to last month’s visit to KSC by the president. “I would rather see the space program stay here because the space program has spawned lots and lots of high-paying, great jobs in that area.” Greene didn’t elaborate on what his stance on the agency is. Greene, to be clear, is not running against Nelson (who does not come up for reelection until 2012) but for the seat currently held by George LeMieux—who, ironically, might run against Nelson in 2012.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 19 at 8:47 pm ET Last week Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 3356, which the bill’s description describes as “to increase the maximum age for children eligible for medical care under the CHAMPVA program, and for other purposes.” The first section of the bill alters the maximum age, and the second section (of two) does, well, “other purposes”:
SEC. 2. CANCELLATION OF HUMAN LUNAR MISSION UNDER CONSTELLATION PROGRAM OF NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION.
(a) In General- Except as provided in subsection (b), the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may not obligate or expend any amount to support a human lunar mission, including any such mission under the Constellation Program of the Administration.
(b) Exception- The Administrator may use amounts obligated or otherwise made available before the date of the enactment of this Act for a human lunar mission, including amounts for a human lunar mission under the Constellation Program, to wind down any activity or operations related to such mission.
I contacted Sen. Feingold’s office for more information about this bill, including why the Constellation provision is in the bill (given that the president’s FY11 budget cancels Constellation other than the reconfigured Orion) and why that provision is in this bill, which has nothing to do NASA. I haven’t gotten a response yet beyond a note that Sen. Feingold introduced a similar provision in S. 1808, the “Control Spending Now Act”, last fall. That provision would have delayed a human lunar mission to at least 2025. However, that bill was introduced before the White House released its FY11 budget proposal.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 19 at 6:07 am ET Today is the semiannual meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), an industry group that provides advice to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The meeting, in Washington and open to the public, features NASA administrator Charles Bolden as the keynote speaker, likely discussing the role the commercial sector will play in NASA’s new plans. There will also be presentations on commercial launch forecasts and working group reports.
The most interesting part of the meeting, though, may come when the COMSTAC membership is asked to consider a pair of statements supporting NASA’s commercial crew plan. The first states that COMSTAC “strongly supports” the commercial crew program in the NASA FY11 budget request as a means of both meeting NASA’s needs as well as providing “economic and other benefits” to the country. The second states that COMSTAC supports FAA retaining its role of licensing commercial human spaceflight activities, while acknowledging that NASA, like any other customer, can levy its own contractual requirements on top of that licensing process.
The statements were discussed and refined during a meeting Tuesday morning of COMSTAC’s RLV Working Group, chaired by Brett Alexander of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. One challenge facing the adoption of the statements is that, by COMSTAC’s nature, the statements require unanimous approval. That could be a challenge given COMSTAC’s diverse membership, which includes not just representatives of established and entrepreneurial space companies but also spaceports, industry organizations, consultants, and insurers.
COMSTAC’s chairman, Will Trafton, attended the working group meeting and expressed support for the statements. “It’s time for COMSTAC to stand up and play a significant role in the development of commercial space transportation in this country,” he said. “It’s absolutely appropriate that we support this initiative.”
This may be the only chance for COMSTAC to take a stand on this issue, as the next full meeting of the committee will not be until October, at which time the debate regarding commercial crew may have wound down, one way or another—with the added concern that this may be “our last opportunity in a long time” to build up the American commercial space transportation industry, in the words of Patti Grace Smith, a consultant and former associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the FAA. “If we don’t get it done tomorrow,” Alexander said yesterday, “we’re going to miss the boat. Six months from now doesn’t matter.”
Update 6:15pm: As it turns out, a unanimous vote was not required for COMSTAC to approve the statements; Trafton said at the beginning of the meeting that only a simple majority was required. As noted in the comments, both statements did pass after some tweaking of the language, with (I believe) one no vote for each – not from the same person.
[Full disclosure: my employer does work for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but does not serve on COMSTAC.]
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 18 at 6:58 am ET One of the most documented ironies of the new plan for NASA unveiled by the White House in February is the clash of ideologies: a president widely regarded as a liberal (or even by some as a socialist) is supporting a plan to turn over to the private sector one aspect of NASA—transport of astronauts to low Earth orbit—that has previously always been done by the government. In turn, many conservatives who would seem, from an ideological standpoint, to be predisposed to support the plan find themselves opposing it because it also cancels most of Constellation. What’s a right-minded conservative to do?
According to an op-ed in the Orange County Register by UC Irvine business professor Peter Navarro, with contributions by grad student Greg Autry and Mojave Air and Space Port general manager Stu Witt, the answer is to support both. They’re not fans of “our socialist space model”, but worry about the ability of companies to follow through on schedule with plans for commercial crew transportation. Also, they believe that “pressing matters of national security also call for a continued U.S. government presence in space”; in particular, they’re concerned about efforts by other nations, in particular China, “to weaponize space and seize a strategic position on the moon.” Continuing Constellation would somehow deter this, although they’re a bit vague on the connection besides providing “a credible deterrent with ongoing robust and responsive manned and unmanned space programs.”
So, faced with a choice of commercial versus Constellation, they choose both. They justify a decision that seems at odds with conservative fiscal philosophy by noting the benefits that come from space, including the claim that combined civil and military government space budgets “come in at less than the annual fuel savings generated by use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in interstate trucking.” (They don’t source that claim, although a 2008 report finds that the potential fuel savings for interstate trucking fleets “could reach $53 billion” if all took maximum advantage of GPS-enabled technologies.) But would conservatives agree that savings by the private sector justify additional spending by the public sector?
By Jeff Foust on 2010 May 16 at 11:04 am ET Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) attended Friday’s launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on what is currently scheduled to be its final mission, and made the rounds of the press site before and after liftoff. He slipped into the post-launch press conference there and, afterwards, could be seen talking with NASA officials, including shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach, about prospects for adding an additional shuttle mission next year.
He then talked with reporters about that and other issues. “I keep recommending it, and I will keep asking the White House to go ahead and do that,” he said of an additional shuttle mission, which would use components planned for the “launch on need” support for the last currently scheduled mission. That launch, carrying the AMS instrument to the ISS, is now planned for late November, but Nelson said he believed that launch would slip into early 2011. That additional mission, if approved, would likely fly in mid-2011, according to NASA officials.
Turning to Congressional issues, Nelson said that his subcommittee planned to markup a NASA authorization bill by the middle of June. He said he didn’t know yet whether he would hold another hearing on the subject before the markup. Even if the authorization bill doesn’t make it through the whole Senate, he claimed, it would still provide direction to appropriators.
One key issue is likely going to be the emphasis in the administration’s plan to rely on commercial providers for crew transportation to the ISS. “You heard the skepticism among the members the other day about the commercial boys being able to man-rate their system without NASA basically having to do it for them,” he said, referring to Wednesday’s hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee. “I think, if I had to guess, I would say that you boys are going to have to show us that you can walk before you run,” he added, meaning that commercial providers first had to demonstrate the ability to transport cargo to the ISS before they could be considered for carrying astronauts.
In an earlier interview with a local television station, Nelson suggested that commercial crew funding in the budget proposal might be better used for continued testing of heavy-lift vehicles based on the Ares design. Nelson has advocated continued testing of Ares (or at least Ares-derived) vehicles as one way to mitigate job losses at the Kennedy Space Center with the shuttle’s pending retirement, as well as accelerate a 2015 deadline for a decision on a heavy-lift concept. “I think the question is out there whether or not we’re going to man-rate commercial rockets and instead use that $6 billion trying to do a shuttle-derived man-rated system such as Ares,” he told Central Florida News 13.
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