By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 7 at 12:59 pm ET The historic snowstorm that hit the Washington DC area over the weekend with over two feet of snow in many locations (I measured 24″ as of mid-afternoon Saturday and just got my power back at home after being without it for over a day) has claimed a space advocacy casualty: the Space Frontier Foundation’s “Take Back Space 2010″ lobbying effort (originally, and controversially, known as “March Storm” and later renamed “First Flight”). The Foundation’s Michael Heney notes via Twitter that the event, which was to have a training session today followed by a week of meetings on the Hill, has been scrubbed by the weather. “Go NSS, ProSpace, and AIAA – we’ll try again later in the spring,” he writes.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 5 at 6:42 pm ET As Washington hunkers down for a snowstorm of epic proportions (20-30 inches of snow forecast through Saturday), some reading material to help you to put off the shoveling:
When word came yesterday that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) had placed a hold on all current Obama Administration nominees awaiting Senate confirmation, some wondered if this was a hardball tactic to overturn the administration’s plans to cancel Constellation, given his outspoken opposition to the budget proposal immediately after it was released. Not so: Shelby is instead protesting the bidding process for the KC-X tanker as well as funds for an FBI center that would be built in the state. It raises the question of whether this battle will enhance or diminish his effectiveness in later attempts to overturn the administration’s new plans for NASA.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), meanwhile, “tempered” his criticism of that plan during a speech at the University of Florida on Friday, the Gainesville Sun reports. The real problem with the plan, Nelson claimed, “is he did not set a goal for NASA.” And what should that goal be? Not the Moon, Nelson argued. “We know where we want to go — we want to go to Mars.”
Congressman Parker Griffith (R-AL), who switched parties in December and as a result gave up his post on the House Science and Technology Committee, won’t be returning as a GOP member. Griffith instead will be assigned to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which deals in issues ranging from healthcare to technology, but not space. Griffith tried to put a positive spin on the assignment, but others criticized the appointment in a Huntsville Times report. “When North Alabama’s pressing need is job protection for NASA, Parker can spend his time dealing with the Toyota recall,” said Doug Dermody, chair of the Madison County Democratic Party.
Homer Hickam is so unhappy with NASA’s new direction he’s asking for key officials to resign. In a letter Friday to the House Science and Technology Committee the Rocket Boys author said he had written to OSTP director John Holdren and NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver, asking each to resign. “They are the principle [sic] architects of the decision to cancel the American lunar spaceflight program known as Constellation,” he states. “Garver and Holdren are political activists and gadflys who have no business making serious space policy. They should leave.” Curiously, he makes no mention of NASA administrator Charles Bolden at all in his letter: perhaps he doesn’t classify him with Garver and Holdren as “political activists and gadflys”, but that would seem to imply that he thinks Bolden is more of a figurehead—which doesn’t seem any more flattering.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 4 at 6:48 am ET Yesterday’s House hearing about “Key Issues and Challenges Facing NASA” wasn’t explicitly about the FY2011 budget proposal and the changes it makes to NASA’s human spaceflight programs, and much of the discussion was on other topics. However, the hearing did give members an opportunity to express their opinions on the budget, with most—but not all—opposed to or at least concerned about the plan.
Some committee members, like Reps. Ralph Hall (R-TX), Pete Olson (R-TX), and Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), had already spoken out against the plan’s core proposal to cancel Constellation. “I can hardly read this damn thing, I’m so mad,” Hall, the ranking member of the full science committee, said at one point after stumbling over his opening statement. “For the life of me, I cannot understand how this administration can rationalize its decision to scrap Constellation and simply start anew, especially given the strong support it’s received from Congress, Republican and Democrats. It’s naive to assume that a do-over will somehow offer a safer, cheaper system faster than the current path we’re on.”
“I am extremely concerned about some of the lack of direction that we might have in the policy as put forth in the President’s budget,” Kosmas said. “I don’t see a vision, I don’t see an inspiration, and I see a major loss of workforce and workforce skills.” Later, she warned, “I think you’re going to see, based on what we’ve heard here, that Congress is going to fill in some of the blanks with what we see as our vision.”
Other members also chimed in. “I do share the concerns expressed by my colleagues about the proposed budget and the impact on human spaceflight, and essentially decimating America’s human spaceflight capacity,” said Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), vice-chair of the space subcommittee. She added she saw an “inconsistency” the President’s desire for technology and jobs development and the decision to end Constellation. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) saw a different contradiction: between NASA’s plans to end Constellation and its mission to explore the universe and inspire the next generation. “We’ve invested a lot of money into NASA, and particularly into the Constellation program, and I would hate to see that completely scrubbed and taken out of this budget.”
The chair of the subcommittee, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), was a little more subtle in her criticism of the budget. “As I reviewed the President’s budget request, I found a quite glaring omission,” she said, that being a lack of a broad vision for the agency. “My concern today is not numbers on a ledger, but rather the fate of the American dream to reach for the stars.”
One exception to this criticism, though, was from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). “We’re all pretty shocked about the President’s budget, one way or the other. There are some good things in it, there are some things that we really need to discuss,” he said. He took particular aim against Constellation, engaging in debates with one of the witnesses, ASAP chairman Joseph Dyer, about the efficacy of Constellation versus commercial alternatives.
“We have had one test on all of this research that has been done on Constellation,” he said later, referring to the Ares 1-X test flight last October. “One test that had no new technology and hardware… and that brought us to $9 billion that we spent on the program that is now being suggested that we scrap,” he said. “This does not speak well of using our government as the vehicle for getting human beings into space.”
“If we’re going to have human beings in space, which I believe in, we’re got to get serious about this,” he concluded. He didn’t believe in relying on NASA alone to do it, he said, “because obviously it’s not working out.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 3 at 7:22 am ET A reminder that the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee will host a hearing today at 10 am on “Key Issues and Challenges Facing NASA: Views of the Agency’s Watchdogs”. The hearing is not explicitly about the FY2011 budget proposal issued Monday, and the hearing charter states that “Separate hearings are planned to address NASA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request as well as the administration’s human space flight strategy after they are announced”, although one would expect that questions about the change in course for the agency will come up at some point in the hearing.
One subject that will come up is a GAO report on management of large-scale NASA projects released on Monday. The report found that 9 of 10 projects that have been in an “implementation phase” for several years encountered cost growth of up to 68 percent and launch delays of up to 33 months. “Many of the projects GAO reviewed experienced challenges in developing new or retrofitting older technologies, stabilizing engineering designs, managing the performance of their contractors and development partners, as well as funding and launch planning issues,” the report’s summary notes.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 3 at 7:05 am ET The first opportunity for members of Congress—well, one member of Congress—to grill the administration about NASA’s new direction came Tuesday at a hearing by the Senate Budget Committee about the FY2011 budget featuring OMB director Peter Orszag. (The video of the hearing is available on the committee’s hearing page; skip ahead to about the 68:40 mark.) Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told Orszag that “I want to ask you a friendly question, and I want to ask you an unfriendly question.” The first question—the “friendly” one—dealy with NASA’s overall funding levels. Nelson said that the budget “accepted the recommendations” of the Augustine Committee “with the exception of what they said for meaningful human spaceflight for the future for what you had to spend,” that is, its options which increased NASA’s budget by up to $3 billion a year. “Do you want to explain?”
Orszag noted the $6-billion increase in the next five years, and that Norm Augustine himself issued a statement supporting the new plan. “I choose to disagree with that characterization,” Nelson responded, referring to Augustine’s memo. “It was a namby-pamby watered-down statement that was oblique at best.”
Orszag defended the budget, saying that it wasn’t necessarily a case of not being able to afford a $3-billion increase but instead reflected the change in course for NASA, with greater emphasis on technology development and related efforts to “leapfrog existing technologies and allow us to have human spaceflight to different parts of the solar system.”
Nelson then turned to his “unfriendly” question, which wasn’t really a question at all but instead a criticism of the plan to rely on commercial crew transportation providers. “The problem is that you have put all the eggs in the basket of assuming that those commercial rockets are going to work,” he said, ending the “testing and development of an alternative rocket”, presumably a reference to the Ares 1. “If those commercial rockets don’t work, then for the foreseeable future of the next decade or so we’re going to be relying on the Russians just to get to and from our space station.”
“I want you to take that for consideration,” Nelson concluded, “and that’s got to be changed, Dr. Orszag.” Orszag didn’t have a chance to respond before Nelson’s time expired and the committee moved on to other topics.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 2 at 7:12 am ET A space program suffering from long-running problems, including schedule delays and cost overruns, is radically reshaped in the FY 2011 budget proposal announced Monday. And hardly anyone notices.
Obviously, we’re not talking about Constellation.
Instead, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (NPOESS) underwent a shakeup in the budget proposal, right down to its name: it’s now called the Joint Polar Satellite System, at least on the NOAA side. NPOESS has been a joint effort of NOAA, NASA, and DoD to develop a new generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites that can serve both civil government and military weather forecasting and climatology needs. NPOESS, though, had suffered from serious problems that resulted in billions of dollars and cost overruns and schedule slips that caused some to worry about the continuity of weather data from such spacecraft.
Now, instead of being a single combined program, NOAA and NASA will split responsibility for the program with DOD. NOAA/NASA will be responsible for the satellites that will fly in “afternoon” orbits (because they pass over sunlit regions of the Earth at local afternoon) while DOD will take control of the spacecraft that will go in early morning orbits. The two groups will procure their satellites separately; for the civil government side, NASA will perform the acquisition management in much the same way it handles such tasks for NOAA’s geostationary weather satellites.
OSTP has more details about this shift, including details on the responsibilities of the various agencies in the post-NPOESS environment; NOAA’s budget document has some additional information. The change, though, has attracted very little media attention so far: thanks at least in part to NASA’s big announcements, no doubt.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 1 at 8:13 pm ET Some people hate the proposed NASA budget. Some people love it. Others are undecided. Some samplings of opinions in all three categories:
Love It
As you would expect, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation “welcomes” the proposal and its emphasis on commercial crew transportation. “President Obama has given NASA a bold and exciting new mission: to once again push the limits in technology and exploration, promote innovation, and foster a vibrant commercial spaceflight sector,” said CSF president Brett Alexander in a statement.
The Planetary Society asks Congress to endorse the budget proposal in a statement. The organization believes that the new approach, including both commercial crew and NASA technology development initiatives, “should enable human space exploration to move ahead more realistically and even more quickly than previous plans,” in the words of executive director Lou Friedman.
The X PRIZE Foundation also sees positives in the budget proposal. “While many are calling President Obama’s proposed grounding of NASA’s program to return to the Moon the ending of an era for space travel, the X PRIZE Foundation sees this new budget proposal as a visionary step for NASA and an opportunity to forge new ideas, develop much-needed technology, and channel the American Spirit spurring innovation and entrepreneurship.”
Hate It
Sen. Shelby isn’t the only member of Congress to issue a statement opposing NASA’s change in direction. Fellow Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions is also opposed to canceling Constellation. “This ill-advised decision, which comes on the 7th anniversary of the sacrifice of the space shuttle Columbia crew, abandons our nation’s nearly five-decade commitment to human space flight and will likely result in NASA taking a back seat to China, Russia, and India in space exploration,” he states. He predicts a “long, difficult battle” over the FY11 budget and the agency’s future.
Speaking of battles, the mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, Tommy Battle, vows to “do everything we can” to restore funding for Ares. “I respectfully ask you to please, sir, not give up on the Constellation program,” Battle states in a letter to the president. “Doing so does not just negate the billions of dollars already invested in safe, manned space flight – canceling this program puts limits on the dreams of our country.”
Several other members of Congress were, as one might expect, opposed to canceling Constellation, including Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), and Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX). All has previously expressed their concerns about the NASA budget and Constellation last week.
ATK, a company closely tied to the Ares 1, issued a statement in response to the budget proposal that, indirectly at least, expressed disapproval about the budget. “It is not clear why at this time the nation would consider abandoning a program of such historic promise and capability – with so much invested,” the ATK statement reads. “In the weeks and months ahead we are hopeful that the Congress and Administration will work together to deliver a budget that supports a program that capitalizes on the investments the nation has made in the Constellation program, closes the gap in US capability to return to space, and best assures continued US leadership in space.”
Undecided
Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, said that the NASA budget request “requires deliberate scrutiny” but didn’t pass judgment on it. “We will need to hear the Administration’s rationale for such a change and assess its impact on U.S. leadership in space before Congress renders its judgment on the proposals,” he states.
The Coalition for Space Exploration adopted a neutral tone in a statement, saying that it “awaits collaboration between the White House and Congress” on the budget proposal. “We urge the White House and Congress to come together under the proposed budget increase for NASA to develop a sustainable, long-term strategy,” it adds.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 1 at 12:36 pm ET NASA has posted its more detailed documents for the FY11 budget proposal. Start with the overview document, which includes these details:
- $19.0 billion for NASA in the FY11 request, rising to nearly $21 billion in FY15;
- Just under $600M a year in FY11-14 for heavy-lift and propulsion research, rising to about $750M in FY15;
- Robotic precursor missions will go from $125M in FY11 to nearly $1B in FY15;
- Commercial crew will start with $500M in FY11, but quickly go to $1.2-1.4B/yr through FY15;
- $2.5B in FY11-12 for Constellation closeout costs;
- Relatively steady funding for space sciences.
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 1 at 11:24 am ET No surprise: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is not pleased at all with the White House’s FY11 budget proposal for NASA. “The President’s proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of US human space flight,” he states in the release. ” The cancelation of the Constellation program and the end of human space flight does represent change – but it is certainly not the change I believe in.”
And about commercial crew transportation? No surprise here, either. “We cannot continue to coddle the dreams of rocket hobbyists and so-called ‘commercial’ providers who claim the future of US human space flight can be achieved faster and cheaper than Constellation,” he says. “Those who believe that it is in our nation’s best interest to rely on ‘commercial’ space companies need only examine their current track record.”
“I will never support a NASA budget that does not have a robust human space exploration program grounded in reality,” he concludes. “Instead, it is the time to cement our leadership in space with a program we know will keep America at the forefront of space exploration. Constellation as envisioned successfully delivers that objective.”
By Jeff Foust on 2010 February 1 at 10:28 am ET OMB released the high-level FY2011 budget proposal documents this morning, including a summary of the NASA proposal. Some highlights include the following assessment of Constellation:
NASA’s Constellation program—based largely on existing technologies—was begun to realize a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria, an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its Moon goals had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations. The President’s Budget cancels Constellation and replaces it with a bold new approach that invests in the building blocks of a more capable approach to space exploration.
That building block approach includes heavy-lift launch vehicle R&D, “vigorous” technology development work in areas like automated rendezvous and docking and propellant transfer, and a “steady stream of precursor robotic exploration missions”.
The budget also includes, as expected, an ISS extension and support for commercial crew transport to and from the station. From the document:
Commercial launch vehicles have for years carried all U.S. military and commercial—and most NASA—satellites to orbit. The Budget funds NASA to contract with industry to provide astronaut transportation to the International Space Station as soon as possible, reducing the risk of relying solely on foreign crew transports for years to come. A strengthened U.S. commercial space launch industry will bring needed competition, act as a catalyst for the development of other new businesses capitalizing on affordable access to space, help create thousands of new jobs, and help reduce the cost of human access to space.
There’s also support for enhanced Earth science missions, “green” aviation technology, and infrastructure upgrades at the Kennedy Space Center.
More details will come later today when NASA releases its detailed budget documents, along with the telecon with Administrator Bolden.
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