NASA: funding of some extended planetary missions depends on additional funding

Full funding of all of NASA’s current planetary science missions is dependent on receiving money above what’s in the baseline request for the agency in fiscal year 2015, a NASA official said Monday.

Speaking at the “NASA Night” town hall meeting at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in suburban Houston, Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, attempted to explain what was, to many in the room, a puzzling aspect of the detailed FY2015 budget proposal: no funding for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) programs in 2015 or beyond. Some had worried that NASA was making a decision on the future of those programs even before a planned “senior review” of those and other extended missions that will take place this spring.

That, said Green, was not the intent of the budget, but instead reflects the fact that funding for extended missions is split between the baseline budget proposal and the additional $885 million requested as part of the administration’s Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative (OGSI); $35 million of that OGSI funding would be used for planetary science mission extended funding. “The President provides a budget for which all our operating missions are covered,” he said. “They’re covered in the two parts of the budget.”

Specifically, he said, LRO and Opportunity would be covered by that $35 million in OGSI funding. “I had an opportunity to grab $35 million for extended mission funding, and balance a budget, create a budget that we can basically execute on and not have any of our balls dropped,” Green said. “When you add LRO and Opportunity, that’s about $35 million.” (Although, according to the FY13 actual expenditures included in NASA’s FY15 budget request, LRO, at $8.1 million, and MER, at $13.2 million, fall well short of $35 million.)

The administration’s overall OGSI proposal has not gotten a warm reception on Capitol Hill, particularly in the House. Green said, though, that funding for LRO and Opportunity was not specifically tied to OGSI: they could still have their extended missions funded if NASA receives only its baseline budget, depending on how well they do in the senior review. “If LRO is on top, or Opportunity is on top, they will be funded,” he said, referring to the ranking of missions that will come out of the senior review. “We’ll reprogram as necessary to be able cover these missions.”

“I’d love to have the community not worry so much about where the money is and how much they’re going to get,” Green said later, “because they need to write a proposal to get it.”

Green also discussed planning for a Europa mission. Earlier this month, NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said NASA would issue in the near future a request for information (RFI) for Europa mission concepts that cost $1 billion or less, or about half of the estimated cost of Europa Clipper, a proposal under current study by NASA. At LPSC, Green said the RFI was coming soon, but did not provide a date. “That’s a phase space that perhaps we haven’t significantly looked at, and we owe it to ourselves to be able to determine if there are any viable missions at a billion dollars or less,” he said.

However, Green sounded a little skeptical that a Europa mission that was scientifically worthwhile could be done that inexpensively. “We owe it to the administration to do that last check,” he said of the RFI, citing advances in technology. “Maybe, just maybe, there’s a way to do the preponderance of the planetary decadal science objectives for less than a billion dollars. That’s important to check, and after we see what the responses are and evaluate those, we will then chart a course to execute the program accordingly.”

Green emphasized that any mission to Europa has to be able to do a “preponderance” of the science goals laid out in the 2012 decadal report. NASA will continue to refine the Europa Clipper concept in the meantime, he said, as well as prepare the release of an announcement of opportunity for risk reduction work on instruments, which will not go out until after the RFI responses are evaluated.

Nelson argues for commercial crew, Brooks and Shelby seek more money for SLS

As relations between the United States and Russia continue to be strained by the crisis in Crimea, Congress is being briefed on its potential implications for space activities, a key member of Congress said late Monday.

“NASA officials have been briefing some members of Congress over the last few days on U.S. plans and options should relations between the two nations deteriorate,” states a press release issued by the office of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee. The release didn’t specify what those “plans and options” are.

Nelson used the release to argue for “properly” funding NASA’s commercial crew program. “We’ve got to properly fund and support commercial space flight so we can keep our space program alive and well, no matter happens with Russia,” Nelson said in the statement. Nelson’s office said the senator is a “proponent of additional funding” for the program beyond the $696 million it received in fiscal year 2014; the FY2015 budget requests $848 million for the program. The release stated at Nelson will meet with Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana Tuesday afternoon “to get the latest updates.”

[A spokesperson for Sen. Nelson emailed Tuesday to clarify that the senator is not seeking to take money from other NASA programs to fund commercial crew, but to increase overall NASA spending to accommodate both commercial crew and SLS/Orion.]

However, commercial crew doesn’t have similar statements of support from other members of Congress. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) told the Huntsville Times that while commercial crew is one way to get American astronauts to orbit, the Space Launch System (SLS) “is more important for long-term access and national security,” according to the report.

Brooks was upset with the FY15 budget proposal’s request of $1.38 billion for SLS. “I would like to see SLS receive a minimum of $1.6 billion for vehicle development in FY 2015,” he told the Times. “Anything less than $1.6 billion delays SLS availability.”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has similar views, telling the Times that he feels commercial crew is properly funded despite the growing concerns about access to the ISS should relations with Russia deteriorate. “Vice Chairman Shelby will continue to fight for SLS because it’s the only viable option for America to maintain its leadership role in human space flight,” said a statement provided to the newspaper, referring to Shelby’s position as the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Hagel: Defense Department plans “review” of dependence on RD-180

The Defense Department will perform some kind of review of the dependence of the US on the Russian-manufactured RD-180 engine, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told a House committee on Thursday.

Late in a hearing by the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on the Defense Department’s proposed fiscal year 2015 budget, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) asked Hagel about that dependence in light of what he called the “Ukrainian situation.” “Does it demonstrate it’s time for us to move ahead promptly more with a Air Force/NASA funding to develop additional capabilities for making power rocket engines here in the US?” Aderholt’s northern Alabama district is near both NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and United Launch Alliance’s manufacturing facilites in Decatur.

“You’re obviously referring to the relationship with the Russians on the rocket motors,” Hagel responded, although neither he nor Aderholt mentioned the RD-180 engine by name. “Well, I think this is going to engage us in a review of that issue. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

“Do you feel that this is something that is rising to the forefront now with this Ukrainian situation?” Aderholt asked. “Yes, as I just said, I think there’s no question, sure,” Hagel responded. Hagel did not offer further details about what that review would entail.

Hagel’s comments, though, indicate a stronger degree of concern than previously about the availability of the RD-180 engine, which powers the Atlas V first stage. Last week, United Launch Alliance CEO Michael Gass testified to Senate defense appropriators that there was more than two years’ worth of RD-180s in storage to support Atlas V launches should the supply of those engines be interrupted, and that his company had the capability to manufacture RD-180 engines domestically. “We are not at any risk for supporting our national needs,” Gass said at the hearing.

Earlier this week, Air Force undersecretary Eric Fanning confirmed Gass’s comments, saying there was a stockpile of RD-180 engines that would last into 2016. He added that the US was looking at ways to “ensure a varied supply of the engines,” according to Reuters, including domestic productions. Earlier proposals to manufacture the RD-180 domestically were long ago set aside in favor of stockpiling engines, given the time and expense required to establish a domestic production line.

A European wildcard for EELV competition

The debate on competition for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) class US government launches has focused on SpaceX’s challenge to incumbent United Launch Alliance (ULA). However, this week an executive with a European company expressed his desire to compete for such launches as well.

Speaking at the Satellite 2014 conference in Washington on Tuesday, Arianespace chairman and CEO Stéphane Israël said he believed his company’s Ariane 5 rocket could be competitive for US government launches. “At Arianespace, we are fully ready to compete on the institutional market in the US,” he said. “We are quite sure we would be in a position to offer the best solution for the customer,” adding they would be willing to look at how they could “Americanize” the rocket to be able to compete for government payloads.

Israël emphasized that point in a tweet after the panel session Tuesday:

Such an “Americanization” of the Ariane 5 would likely be needed to comply with national space transportation policy. The latest such policy, released in November, included language from previous policies stating that US government payloads “shall be launched on vehicles manufactured in the United States” unless an exception is granted by the National Security Advisor and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. In comments after the Satellite 2014 panel, Israël didn’t offer many details about how an Americanized Ariane 5 would be developed, but likened it to proposals by Airbus to compete for an Air Force tanker aircraft contract by assembling the aircraft in the United States (a contract Airbus lost to Boeing.)

Arianespace officials had recently also noted that they believed that Ariane 5 launches of Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) spacecraft offered a more cost-effective approach for delivering cargo to the International Space Station than SpaceX does under its current Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. “We would be happy to take over their contract and lower the price per kilogram for delivering cargo to the ISS,” Arianespace’s Clay Mowry told Aviation Week. However, there are no current plans to build additional ATVs after the fifth and final ATV spacecraft launches to the ISS later this year.

Crimea crisis becomes new argument for commercial crew funding

While the Crimea crisis has been on the back burner for the last several days, the threat it has to worsen US-Russia relations has become an argument used by some to support funding for NASA’s commercial crew program to eliminate US reliance on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft for transporting crews to and from the International Space Station.

“Congress faces a choice between making an essential and overdue investment in regaining U.S. access to space, or keeping Putin in the pilot’s seat — and paying through the nose cone for it,” argued the Orlando Sentinel in an editorial Wednesday. The paper claimed that Congress had not made restoring US human space launch capabilities a priority, based on cuts it made to previous years’ budget requests for the commercial crew program, and warned that additional cuts would jeopardize the current 2017 launch date. “This shouldn’t be a tough call, especially now,” the editorial concluded. “It’s time for lawmakers to open the throttle on the U.S. commercial space program.”

In an op-ed in The Huffington Post, former astronaut Clayton Anderson expresses skepticism about claims by NASA officials, including administrator Charles Bolden, that US-Russian space relations are unaffected by the current crisis. “While 14 years of apolitical U.S./Russian operations in space is noteworthy and calming, NASA can only speculate that ‘everything’s OK,'” he writes. “On one thing we can agree: The situation clearly illustrates the need for speeding up the ability of U.S. commercial companies to ferry our astronauts to and from the ISS.” Elsewhere in the essay, though, Anderson said “it’s going to be a while” before those companies will be ready for transporting crews to the ISS.

In comments Wednesday during a panel about “new space actors” at the Satellite 2014 conference in Washington, Richard DalBello of the Office of Science and Technology Policy did not make an explicit link between the current crisis and commercial crew, but did put in a pitch for fully funding the program in the 2015 budget. “On the issue of private innovation support for commercial space enterprise, we’ve seen clear bipartisan support for a long number of years,” he said. “I think what we need Congress to do this year is to fully fund the commercial crew program. Let’s get American astronauts flying back to the space station on American launch vehicles.”

Space lobbying today in Washington and Tallahassee

Two organizations will be meeting with national and state legislators today in separate events to convince them of the importance of key space issues. In Washington, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) will be holding its annual Congressional Visits Day, as members meet with congressional staff members and others to raise “awareness of the long-term value that science, engineering, and technology bring to America.”

AIAA has issued its list of key issues for this year’s event, which include several items related to space policy. AIAA calls for “ensuring a robust U.S. human spaceflight program” that includes “stable long-term funding” for the Space Launch System, Orion, and other systems needed for human missions, with the long-term goal of a human mission to Mars in the early 2030s. AIAA also calls on Congress and the White House to “state clear priorities for linking NASA Human Spaceflight activity to national goals related to foreign relations, economic growth, education, and technological achievement.” AIAA also seeks to raise awareness about the threat posed by orbital debris, including methods to track and catalog items as small as 1 centimeter (current systems cannot reliably track objects smaller than 10 centimeters) and to work on the technical and legal issues of removing space debris.

While AIAA members are working on Capitol Hill, representatives of Florida’s space industry will be meeting with state legislators in Tallahassee for “Florida Space Day.” Their agenda includes support for a $10-million budget for state space agency Space Florida and $1.5 million for space industry tourism marketing, as well as more general support for a commercial launch site proposed north of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and commercialization of excess KSC assets, including the Shuttle Landing Facility there, which Space Florida seeks to operate. The event will have a little space star power: former astronaut and KSC director Robert Crippen “will be making scheduled appearances throughout the event,” according to a press release.

Detailed NASA budget request offers details on SOFIA decision and more

NASA released late Monday its detailed (713-page) fiscal year 2015 budget request, containing many additional details about its proposed budget now available last week. Some highlights:

The budget document provides more details on the decision to cut funding for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) airborne telescope, which will result in the facility being put in storage if NASA can’t find partners to pick up the slack. “The original case for compelling ‘Great Observatory’ science from SOFIA assumed an overlap with the Spitzer Space Telescope for complementary science observations and at least one year of operations prior to the launch of the Herschel Space Observatory,” said the document. However, SOFIA has suffered several years of delays, which NASA concludes means it “will no longer provide the kind of scientific impact and synergies with other missions as once planned. Additionally, the James Webb Space Telescope, planned to launch in 2018, will provide data at mid-infrared wavelengths, partially mitigating the absence of SOFIA.”

The budget proposal provides breakouts for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, revealing that NASA is seeking less month for both than Congress appropriated in FY14. NASA seeks $1.053 billion for Orion, versus $1.197 billion appropriated for the current fiscal year; SLS would get $1.38 billion versus $1.6 billion in 2014. The budget doesn’t go into details about how the SLS funding would be spent, as the program is pending a milestone known as Key Decision Point C (KDP-C). “Once the SLS Key Decision Point (KDP)-C is completed (expected in April 2014), NASA will provide this [budget] data in a revision to the Congressional Justification,” the document states.

Planned spending for ISS operations will result in the “elimination” of one planned cargo mission to the ISS in fiscal year 2015, according to the document, which doesn’t specify if that mission is one flown by Orbital or SpaceX. “NASA is currently updating cargo requirements as part of the FY 2016 budget planning process, and assessing the full impacts of the FY 2014 appropriations,” the document states. As part of the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative (OGSI), NASA is seeking $100.6 million for ISS operations to “prevent additional Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) flight deletions.”

The budget document provides some details on changes to NASA’s Space Technology programs. A planned in-space demonstration for its Cryogenic Propellant Storage and Transfer project, seen as key to potential future propellant depots, will now be done as a series of tests on the ground. NASA also plans to restructure its Laser Communications Relay Demonstration project “to encourage the greater involvement of industry.” The Sunjammer Solar Sail project will be delayed as it finds a new launch opportunity.

The budget projections for NASA’s Mars program do not, curiously, including any funding for the Mars Exploration Rover program (the Opportunity rover) for FY15 or beyond. MER, like other ongoing missions, is subject to the upcoming senior review to determine if it will continue operations, but other extended missions that will also be part of the review, like Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, do have funding listed for FY15 and beyond.

The budget also includes no funding for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) instrument, planned to make use of spare parts for the OCO-2 spacecraft but be flown on the ISS. “In light of other planned spaceborne carbon dioxide measurement missions, the development of OCO-3 will cease, and no funds are requested for OCO-3 in FY 2015,” the document states. However, the additional OGSI funding includes $29.3 million to continue work on OGO-3.

Besides funding for ISS resupply missions and OCO-3, the OGSI section details how NASA would use this additional funding, if provided. The OGSI funding includes $35 million for additional planetary science mission extended funding and $15 million for accelerating work on radioisotope power systems. The $100 million for Space Technology would be used for a variety of programs, from additional support for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to cooperation with DARPA on a robotics competition.

Russian tensions add a sharper edge to EELV hearing

Wednesday’s hearing by the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee on “National Security Space Launch Programs” unfolded, as many expected, as a debate between United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX. ULA defended its work as the only company currently in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, noting its commitment to mission success and its efforts to lower costs to the government through a block buy of Atlas V and Delta IV rocket cores. SpaceX, seeking to gain business from the Air Force, argued that it could provide far greater cost savings through commercial contracts for its Falcon launch vehicles.

However, another factor entered in Wednesday’s debate whose prominence wouldn’t have been expected even a few weeks ago: the potential of deteriorating relations with Russia because of the crisis in the Crimea, with the potential to disrupt supplies of the Russian-manufactured RD-180 engine that powers the Atlas V’s first stage. The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), raised the issue with ULA CEO Mike Gass, asking him to assess “the reliability of that engine being available from Russia in the immediate future.”

Gass tried to assure Durbin and the committee that the RD-180 would be available for missions for at least a couple years even if the supply of those engines was disrupted. “First and foremost, we have two years of ‘safety stock’ inventory—actually, today we have greater than that—in country, and our ability to launch any of the near-term satellites that we need to do for national security” remains in place, Gass said. He added ULA had “another product” that can launch such payloads, an oddly indirect reference to the company’s Delta IV rocket. “We are not at any risk for supporting our national needs.”

Asked by Durbin about producing the RD-180 domestically, Gass said that ULA had that capability. “We’ve done that over several years, we invested hundreds of millions of dollars to prove that we have the capability to demonstrate our ability to build that exact engine,” he said. However, he didn’t say how long it would take to actually start producing that engine, or at what cost; previous plans to domestically produce the RD-180 had long ago been set aside in favor of simply buying and stockpiling engines built in Russia.

Musk was sharply critical of ULA’s reliance on Russian engines, as well as other components manufactured outside the US, for the Atlas V, going so far to suggest that the vehicle line be cancelled. “In light of Russia’s de facto annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region, and the formal severing of military ties, the Atlas V cannot possibly be described as providing assured access to space for our nation when supply of the main engine depends on President Putin’s permission,” Musk said in his opening statement.

Later, he argued that there was sufficient demand to maintain two vehicle families, but not three. “Currently ULA has the Atlas and the Delta, but those are redundant, we don’t need both of those rocket families,” he said. “I think it would make sense, for the long-term security interests of the country, to probably phase out the Atlas V, which depends on the Russian engine, and have ULA operate the Delta family and SpaceX operate the Falcon family.”

Beyond the debate about reliance on Russia (and the, at least for now, unlikely prospect of retiring the Atlas V), the hearing focused on the issue of whether competition could truly reduce costs to taxpayers while ensuring critical military payloads were launched safely. “I believe that leveraging the demand of the commercial sector is smart, but relying on commercial demand to enable national security carries huge risks, both to the rucket supplier and to its government customers,” Gass said, recalling the initial plan to maintain two separate EELV providers, Boeing and Lockheed, based on projections of commercial launch activity in the late 1990s that failed to materialize.

Musk argued that his company’s Falcon 9 could offer launches for $90 million (including about $30 million in military-specific mission assurance costs not charged to other customers), a small fraction of Atlas and Delta costs. (The Falcon 9, though, can’t launch all the payloads carried by the Atlas and Delta, something that SpaceX plans to remedy with the larger Falcon Heavy.) He said the certification process with the Air Force was going well, but was concerned that there would be fewer launches available for competition than previously planned: perhaps only one this year, versus earlier plans for five. “If our rockets are good enough for NASA, why are they not good enough for the Air Force? It doesn’t make sense,” Musk said.

While the hearing wrapped up in less than 90 minutes, the debate is far from over, even for this particular hearing. Durbin said he took the unusual step of asking Gass and Musk to submit ten questions they’d like to ask each other, with their responses to be submitted for the record. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of the full appropriations committee, said he would also be submitting additional questions for the record at the end of the hearing.

Gass, at one point, suggested that he would be addressing for the record some comments from Musk he helt were factually incorrect. “I heard Mr. Musk use all kinds of numbers that were categorically wrong, and I’d be glad to share with the committee the right calculation,” he said, without specifying what figures he felt were in error.

Arizona and Colorado legislatures consider space industry legislation

The Arizona House approved this week legislation to provide liability indemnification for commercial spaceflight operators in the state. The bill, HB2163, passed unanimously Wednesday after goes on to the state Senate. The bill is similar to laws in several other states that requires spaceflight participants to sign a liability release agreement, and protects companies in the state, including both operators and suppliers, from lawsuits in the event of an accident, with the usual exclusions in the event of gross negligence of intentional actions.

According to the East Valley Tribune, the legislation improves the state’s “chances of landing a spaceport.” However, the primary beneficiary is World View Enterprises, the Tucson-based company that announced plans last year to carry people on high altitude balloons, and do so under an FAA launch license. The company has proposed performing those flights from near the northern Arizona city of Page, although the company is also considering potential locations in Nevada.

In Colorado, officials with several business organizations pressed the state’s legislature to approve a set of bills to support various industries in the state in a rally outside the state capitol on Thursday. Among the bills they support is HR1178, which would provide a sales and use tax exemption for “qualified property used in space flight.” The bill, introduced in the Colorado House late January, has yet to be considered by the full House, although its finance committee did favorably report it out last month and referred it to the appropriations committee.

Europa on five (hundred thousand) dollars a day

The good news for planetary scientists in NASA’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal is that the agency is seeking funding for the first time for “pre-formulation” work on a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, where some scientists speculate life could exist in oceans beneath the moon’s icy surface. The uncertain—and potentially bad—news for those scientists, though, is that proposed mission may not be nearly as big, and as scientifically compelling, as they would like.

The budget request includes only $15 million for the Europa mission planning, which is much smaller than the $80 million Congress earmarked for such work in the final FY14 spending bill; Congress also provided $75 million for Europa mission work in its FY13 spending bill. In both FY13 and FY14, though, NASA had not requested any funding for a Europa mission.

At the FY15 budget briefing Tuesday, NASA CFO Beth Robinson didn’t provide details about NASA would spend that $15 million, or how much the overall Europa mission itself would cost. “We are in that early pre-formulation state, so I know people have asked about the total size, and we’re frankly just not sure at this point,” she said. “We’re going to be going to the science community for different concepts to meet the central scientific goals that were laid out in the decadal [survey].” She did say she anticipated a launch of such a mission in the mid-2020s.

In the planetary science decadal survey, scientists identified a Europa orbiter mission as its second highest large, or flagship, mission priority, behind a Mars rover to cache samples for later return to Earth. However, the study estimated the cost of such a mission at $4.7 billion, which the study’s leaders said was too expensive, and recommended that the mission be descoped to lower its cost.

One approach to descoping that Europa orbiter mission is a concept called Europa Clipper. Instead of going into orbit around Europa, the spacecraft would go into orbit around Jupiter and make multiple flybys of Europa. Most recent cost estimates have pegged the mission at around $2.1 billion, which would keep it a flagship-class mission, albeit far less expensive that the orbiter concept in the decadal.

Comments a day after the budget rollout by NASA leadership, though, indicated that the agency is at least planning to look at Europa mission concepts that are much less expensive that even those lower-cost proposals. “We have committed to flying a mission to Europa in the decade of the 2020s,” NASA administrator Charles Bolden said during a question-and-answer session following a speech at the Goddard Memorial Symposium Wednesday in Greenbelt, Maryland. “What I’ve asked people to do is I want the science community to come together with industry, academia, and our international partners, and my desire, to be honest, would be to target a Europa mission that we could fly for a billion dollars or less.”

In a later panel at the conference, NASA associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld confirmed NASA’s interest in a relatively low-cost Europa mission, with plans to issue a request for information (RFI) for such mission concepts soon. “One of the things we’re going to do post haste is to put out an RFI for ideas, as Administrator Bolden said, for if we were to do a Europa mission at the New Frontiers category—about a billion dollars—what would you like to see, what what you do,” he said. “That’s part of forumlating the cost bogey for a Europa mission.” That request for information would be part of activities funded in FY14, and Grunsfeld added that some of the $80 million in FY14 funds earmarked for Europa would likely carry over into FY15 since it can’t be all be spend before the fiscal year ends.

The idea of a billion-dollar Europa mission has raised some eyebrows in the scientific community, who wonder if such a mission is even feasible given the technical challenges of flying to Europa and operating there in Jupiter’s strong radiation environment. There’s also the question of just how useful such a mission would be scientifically, if the lower cost reduces the payload of instruments it can carry.

Bolden, in his comments at the conference Wednesday, left open the possibility that a billion-dollar Europa mission might not be feasible. “That may or may not be possible,” he said, “because the one thing we don’t want to do is fly a mission of a certain amount of money that has no valuable scientific return.”

If it turns out that a scientifically usable and technically feasible Europa mission requires a budget of closer to $2 billion, like the Europa Clipper concept, with a launch in around 2025—11 years from now—that works out to an average cost of about $500,000 per day (if you’re wondering about the title of this post.)