By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 16 at 7:24 am ET The Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on “Realizing NASA’s Potential: Programmatic Challenges in the 21st Century”, featuring as witnesses six of the agency’s associate administrators, from space operations and exploration to education and mission support. The hearing didn’t result in any major revelations about the agency’s plans, but did seem to underscore a theme of uncertainty, about both how the agency will implement the directives of the authorization act and how it will be funded in 2011 and beyond.
A major focus, not surprisingly, is the agency’s plans for developing a heavy-lift vehicle as authorized in last year’s act. Senators, including subcommittee chairman Bill Nelson (D-FL) and full committee ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), made it clear they were not satisfied with the report NASA delivered in January outlining their initial plans for development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) for the ISS. They pressed agency officials for more details about those efforts, and were told that an updated study on development of the SLS and MPCV, including their estimated schedule given projected funding, would be completed by late spring or early summer. (Nelson went so far as to ask Doug Cooke, the associate administrator for exploration, to “step on some toes” at OMB and OSTP if necessary to expedite their approval of those studies, since Cooke will be retiring later this year and thus didn’t have anything to lose.)
Complicating matters is the current budget environment, with another three-week continuing resolution (CR) set to be enacted later this week. That CR keeps in place language that keeps NASA from terminating Constellation programs. Pressed on how much money NASA has “wasted”, in the words of Sen. Nelson, on Constellation programs as a result of that provision, Cooke would only say a “small amount” had been wasted, without giving a specific amount, saying that work was being phased on existing contracts so that it can be used to support SLS and MPCV work. Still, he said, “Certainly we would be happy and less constrained without the restrictions.”
Hutchison did indicate that the continuing series of CRs may finally be reaching its end. “I believe that the sentiment on the Hill now is that this would be the last temporary continuing resolution that we will pass,” she said, “and that we must go to the long-term continuing resolution that takes us through the end of the fiscal year.” The new CR would extend funding to April 8, giving Congress just over three weeks to figure out what the final FY11 funding levels should be.
Senators also expressed concerns that the FY12 budget request does not match up with the authorization act levels, particularly for the SLS and MPCV; some asked, given the January report that indicated that fielding the SLS by the end of 2016 is not feasible at authorized spending levels, why the administration would then go and request less money for those programs, while requesting additional funding for commercial crew. “I do hope that you can help us see that perhaps we’re mistaken, that perhaps you are not going back to just focusing on the commercial side and leaving our basic NASA missions without the priority that Congress has put on the agency,” Hutchison said in her opening statement.
“You’re conflicted,” Nelson told the witnesses at one point. “You’ve got to defend the president’s request and yet and there’s a law, and it’s called the NASA authorization law, and the two are in conflict.” Nelson then went on to predict: “The president’s budget is not going to be enacted.” He didn’t specify how Congress would change that request, but then, it’s tough to think much about NASA’s FY12 budget when the agency still doesn’t have a final FY11 request.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 15 at 6:30 am ET There’s one thing that both NASA’s leadership and key Congressional figures can agree on: none of them are particularly happy about having to rely on Russia for access to the ISS. They disagree, though, on the best way to eliminate that dependence.
NASA on Monday issued a press release about a new deal with the Russian space agency Roskosmos for Soyuz seats to the ISS, with a mouthful of a title: “NASA Extends Crew Flight Contract With Russian Space Agency Administrator Bolden Repeats Call For American-Made Commercial Alternative”. In the press release, NASA administrator Charles Bolden used the deal, which prices ISS access at a new high of $62.75 million a seat, as a reason why NASA needs to press ahead with commercial crew development. “This new approach in getting our crews and cargo into orbit will create good jobs and expand opportunities for our American economy,” he said in the statement. “If we are to win the future and out build our competitors, it’s essential that we make this program a success.”
Earlier Monday, though, The Hill published an op-ed by Congressman Ralph Hall (R-TX), chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, where he argues that NASA should focus its energies—and funding—on building the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lifter and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) spacecraft, fielding both by the 2016 deadline mandated in the 2010 authorization act. “Failure to do so will result in continued reliance on the Russians’ Soyuz to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. This is unacceptable,” Hall writes. “NASA should give highest priority to developing the SLS and MPCV programs that build on the tremendous investments that have already been made in the Constellation systems.”
Commercial providers, Hall continues, should focus on transporting cargo to the ISS. “Ultimately, perhaps they will demonstrate their capability also to safely transport astronauts,” he states. “Space exploration, however, is too important to be placed at risk for failure, so we must continue to support a robust program at NASA, which has a record of success.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 11 at 7:55 pm ET House appropriators released today details of their next planned continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded for three more weeks after the current CR expires on a week from Friday. The CR includes $6 billion of spending cuts, including $63 million from NASA’s Cross Agency Support account. The CR specifically targets what NASA calls “Congressionally directed items”, better known as earmarks; the FY10 appropriations bill contained $63 million of such items, which carried over into FY11 under the ongoing series of CRs.
The text of the proposed new CR contains no other NASA-related provisions. That means that current language from the FY10 appropriations bill that prevents NASA from terminating Constellation programs will remain in force under the new CR, which extends to April 8. Last week, members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the appropriations committee told NASA administrator Charles Bolden that they would get the agency “some immediate clarification” on that provision, but the new CR is silent on the subject.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 11 at 7:16 am ET Earlier this week the Senate rejected dueling FY11 spending bills, including both HR 1, which the House passed last month, as well as an alternative from Senate appropriators. Now it appears that the next step will be another short-term continuing resolution (CR), as the current CR expires next Friday. This CR would run for three weeks and include $6 billion in spending cuts, at least as proposed by House Republicans, who will release more details about their plans today.
One ongoing concern regarding the budget deliberations has been the lack of funding for the agency’s revamped space technology program. The FY11 budget proposal included over $570 million for space technology, but neither the recent House or Senate bills included any explicit funding for the program. The statement from Senate appropriators when they rolled out their budget plan last week noted, almost apologetically, that “NASA will not be provided any funds for requested but new long-range space technology research activities.”
However, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said yesterday that claims about the demise of the space technology program are unfounded. “Our understanding is that we have the flexibility to conduct, for the most part, the space technology initiatives we want to do as long as we can go in and communicate with our stakeholders in the Congress and help them understand why we’re putting a priority on this,” he said in response to a question after a speech about innovation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. That is based, he explained, on the fact that the language in the proposed full-year CRs gives NASA the flexibility to allocate funding within its various accounts, so long as it communicates those plans with Congress.
“So the space technology was not zeroed out in the continuing resolution. They didn’t plus it up and they didn’t take anything off,” Bolden said. “As long as we satisfied their concerns that we not waste the money, I have the flexibility to move the money around.”
Separately, Bolden said he was trying to convince Congress that it’s not feasible for NASA to move ahead directly to a 130-metric-ton launch vehicle for the Space Launch System authorized by Congress. “We’re not going to build a 130-metric-ton heavy-lift vehicle. We can’t,” he said. “We continue to negotiate and discuss with the Congress why that is not necessary.” The 2010 authorization act requires the initial development of a vehicle capable of carrying 70 to 100 tons into LEO, with later enhancement to 130 tons. The Senate full-year CR, though, suggested that the heavy-lift vehicle “shall have a lift capability not less than 130 tons”.
Bolden also strongly endorsed plans for commercial crew development, stating that by doing so, “we not only create multiple means for accessing low Earth orbit, we also spark an engine for long-term job growth.” He cited in particular two companies with first-round CCDev awards, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada, as examples of the types of innovation he’s seeking. “We have to embrace the innovators who may be able to do things more cheaply and effectively than we can,” he said, referring to NASA. “New capabilities in commercial space for crew and cargo must, must succeed, and I have every confidence they will.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 10 at 7:00 am ET The space shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday, wrapping up its 39th mission—and also its final one, as the shuttle program approaches its end later this year. Several members of Congress, and one former member, used the occasion to both congratulate NASA on the completion of the mission and express their views about space policy.
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), the ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, which has oversight of NASA’s budget, said he called NASA administrator Charles Bolden shortly after the shuttle landed. Fattah said he congratulated Bolden on the mission and also “pledged to Bolden that he would be working to resolve outstanding budget issues involving NASA”, according to the statement from the congressman’s office. “Today’s end of mission is the beginning of NASA’s ‘tomorrow’ – a range of new missions and innovation that will serve as a continuing investment in our economic and technological future,” Fattah said in the statement. “As a NASA appropriator I am pledging that we will continue to provide the space agency with the resources it needs to retain world leadership in space exploration and to ensure the broader benefits that all our citizens will realize from these efforts.”
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the ranking member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, also congratulated NASA on the mission but said the agency needs to press ahead with a successor system. “In celebrating an historic era of Space Shuttle Discovery flights, we must not lose sight of our commitment to move forward without delay on the next generation of United States human spaceflight systems that will sustain our leadership and continue to inspire new achievements in the human exploration of outer space,” she said in the statement.
Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL), whose district includes KSC, pledged her continued support for human spaceflight in a post-landing statement. “As this era comes to an end, it is more important than ever that we don’t lose sight of NASA’s human spaceflight program, and that is why I will continue my efforts in the House to keep human space flight as a top priority of NASA,” she said.
A similar sentiment came from Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX), whose district includes JSC. “America has always been the leader in human space exploration and we must continue that commitment with the next generation vehicle that will surpass the glory of Discovery and the shuttle program. That is the purpose and benefit of our nation’s investment in science and exploration,” he said in a release.
Former Sen. Jake Garn (R-UT), who flew on Discovery on mission STS-51-D 1985, is mourning the end of the shuttle program, telling the Deseret News that it is a “huge, huge mistake” to retire the orbiters. He told the paper that “the congressional will to de-fund the [shuttle] program is a decision ‘I don’t even comprehend.'” (He doesn’t offer a strategy for finding a way to both pay for continued shuttle operations and develop a successor system, especially in an era of fiscal conservatism, beyond noting NASA’s budget is a tiny part of the overall federal budget.) He concludes: “I am sad not only for Discovery, but sad for the technology we lose in all of this.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 9 at 7:18 am ET The president of Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne had a blunt warning this week for policymakers: get a plan in place for NASA’s future now or industry will suffer the consequences.
“NASA has a very short period of time to work with Congress and come up with a unified position and get their act together, and let industry know what’s going on,” Jim Maser told reporters in a roundtable Monday in Washington. “We’ve got to pick something, we’ve got to move on.”
Maser said he was concerned about the effect of extended uncertainty about NASA’s future plans on an industry already challenged by low flight rates and an unstable supplier base. He described one specific supplier of a component for the RL-10 rocket engine that still does business with him because the owner “wants to be part of the space business”. That owner, he added, is in his 80s, and his heirs don’t share that passion.
“With this uncertainty I would think there’s a fair number of second- and third-tier suppliers” who are rethinking their commitment to the industry, he warned. “In the absence of a decision in the next four to eight months, I think companies will be making decisions about space.”
Any future architecture needs to be aligned with the prospects for flat—at best—budgets in the future. “Constellation had a plan that was more than the budget that was going to be allocated,” he said, and backers assumed there would be a “future Hail Mary” from Congress that would provide that additional funding. “Ultimately, I believe that’s why it was canceled, because it couldn’t be achieved on what was likely to be the realistic budgets provided.”
“We have to recognize that the budget is the budget, and we have to pick an architecture that’s aligned with it, a timeline that’s aligned with it, and a mission that’s aligned with it. We do that in business all the time,” Maser said. “My point over the next four to eight months is that we need to pick that now. We’re running out of time.”
“To me, the shuttle ending is a huge scenario that this industry has never faced,” he said. “I don’t think people understand what we in business will have to do to accommodate that without a follow-on… To me it’s all very predictable and, at this point, very avoidable. But we have to change the uncertainty, and right now there’s just arguing.”
Maser came to the media roundtable after he and other industry executives met with NASA administrator Charles Bolden and deputy administrator Lori Garver. Maser said he communicated that same message in that meeting. “Pick something, run a competition, pick winners and losers, and let’s move on, that was basically my message, because we’re out of time.”
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 8 at 7:42 am ET The good news: planetary scientists have come up with a fascinating list of missions they have identified as their top priorities for the coming decade. The bad news: there may not be any money for the most ambitious of those proposed missions.
Late Monday the National Research Council released the Planetary Science Decadal Survey, a study identifying the highest priority missions for the study of the solar system during the 2013-2022. The missions are divided into various classes based on their cost, with flagship missions as the most expensive. The survey picked the Mars Astrobiology Explorer Cacher (MAX-C), a rover designed to collect samples for return to Earth on a later mission, as the top priority flagship mission. It was closely followed by the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO), a mission to study the icy Jovian moon Europa. Following JEO is a Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission, and then concepts for a Venus Climate Mission and an orbiter to Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Those recommendations, though, are not without significant caveats. Noting the cost growth experienced by many NASA missions in past years, this survey tapped the Aerospace Corporation to perform independent cost analyses. Thus, its recommendation for MAX-C is only valid if the mission is “dramatically descoped,” in the words of Steve Squyres, chair of the survey committee, during a presentation Monday night at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in Houston. The survey recommends MAX-C only if $1 billion can be cut from the independent estimate of $3.5 billion. Likewise, JEO is recommended only if it is “substantially descoped”, according to Squyres, as its cost estimate is $4.7 billion.
Exacerbating the problem is the projected NASA budget for planetary science. When the survey was putting together its plan over the last year, it was working off budget projections from the FY2011 NASA budget proposal, which showed modest growth for planetary science programs through 2015: from $1.49 billion in the FY11 proposal to $1.65 billion by FY15. The FY12 proposal, though, is very different: while the outyears projections are “notional”, they show declining budgets: from $1.54 billion in FY12 to less than $1.26 billion by FY16.
“If that budget were actually implemented,” Squyres said of the FY12 proposal, “it would mean the end of flagship-class science at NASA in the planetary program.” Squyres had previously explained that the committee had put in “decision rules” into their report if funding fell below their earlier projections, with flagship missions the first to be cut in order to protect smaller, more frequent missions under the Discovery and New Frontiers programs. “If we get into a program where the only missions we are flying are flagships that return data in 10 years or 15 years, or get samples back in 20 years, that leads to an unacceptable stagnation of our program,” he explained. “We must preserve Discovery, we must preserve New Frontiers, so the first thing to go after are the flagships.”
Squyres, though, was unwilling to concede the loss of those flagship missions, calling on planetary scientists and other advocates to contact their members of Congress. “Those of us who care about planetary exploration have not just the right but I believe the obligation to speak to our congressional representatives about the planetary budget and to make it very clear what program we would like to see,” he said. He added he briefed staffers on the House and Senate appropriations committees last week about the survey. “One message that I got from them loud and clear is that they do support planetary exploration and see this as one of the great things this nation can do… But the question that they asked me is, ‘where is your community?'”
“That has to change,” Squyres said.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 8 at 6:42 am ET The Senate Appropriations Committee has released the full text of its proposed full-year continuing resolution (CR) for 2011, one that funds NASA at just over $18.5 billion. The table below compares the Senate’s proposal with what the House passed last month (amounts in millions of dollars, subject to rounding and other errors):
| Account |
2011 House CR (passed) |
2011 Senate CR |
| Space Operations |
$5,946.8 |
$5,741.8 |
| Exploration |
$3,746.3 |
$3,746.3 |
| Science |
$4,469.0 |
$4,819.0 |
| Aeronautics |
$501.0 |
$501.0 |
| Education |
$182.5 |
$182.5 |
| Construction |
$408.3 |
$397.3 |
| Cross-Agency Support |
$2,833.0 |
$3,111.4 |
| Inspector General |
$36.4 |
$36.4 |
| TOTAL |
$18,123.3 |
$18,535.7 |
The Senate CR explicitly states that in the Exploration account, $1.2 billion will go to the “Orion multipurpose crew vehicle”, while $1.8 billion would go to the heavy-lift launch vehicle, specifying a minimum payload capability of 130 tons. The Senate CR also includes language rescinding the prohibition on terminating any elements of Constellation.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 5 at 9:34 am ET The Senate Appropriations Committee released on Friday highlights of its proposed continuing resolution (CR) for the remainder of FY2011, a response to the House version, HR 1, that passed last month. Under the Senate bill NASA would get $18.539 billion, $461 million less than the $19 billion requested by the administration over a year ago and later authorized by Congress in the NASA authorization act. That amount, though, is $412 million more than what the House provided for NASA in HR 1, the release notes ($298 million of the difference is the amendment approved by the House to transfer money from NASA’s Cross Agency Support account to a community policing program within the Justice Department.)
Breakdowns by account are not included in the release, although it appears that space technology will bear the brunt of the Senate’s proposed cut. “At this level, NASA will not be provided any funds for requested but new long-range space technology research activities that have the potential to lead to new discoveries and new technologies that could improve life on Earth,” the committee release notes. A separate release by the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) subcommittee also states that the proposed CR “Does not provide for requested, but new, long-range space technology research activities.” The administration had requested $572.2 million for Space Technology in its original FY11 budget request and the authorization act approved $350 million for Space Technology.
Other key NASA programs would not be as adversely affected by the Senate’s proposal. The CJS subcommittee release states that the budget “Preserves NASA portfolio balanced among science, aeronautics, technology and human space flight investments, holding NASA’s feet to the fire to build the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle and the heavy lift Space Launch System.” And the full committee release, apparently referring to funding for Cross Agency Support, notes that it avoids cuts “that would disrupt ongoing science missions and cause layoffs of 4,500 middle class contractors who provide landscaping, IT, janitorial, and other services for NASA centers.” Janitors, yes; gamechanging technology, not so much.
By Jeff Foust on 2011 March 4 at 11:00 am ET For the second day in a row, NASA administrator Charles Bolden made the trip to Capitol Hill to discuss the agency’s FY2012 budget request, this time to members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. During the lengthy hearing (nearly three and a half hours, without breaks) members again quizzed Bolden on the agency’s priorities in an era when the agency’s fiscal resources may be mismatched to its plans.
“Last year at this time we were in the early stages of what turned out to be a very lengthy, contentious debate about the future direction of NASA’s human spaceflight program,” subcommittee chairman Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) said in his opening statement. The passage of the NASA authorization act last year was supposed to end that debate, but now, he said, the question is whether NASA can implement the act. “No amount of authorizing language can hold NASA to a particular goal or commitment if that language isn’t backed up by the budget.” He added that the funding levels in the FY12 budget for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) “virtually guarantee that NASA won’t have core launch and crew capabilities in place by 2016,” the deadline in the authorization act.
Bolden repeated previous statements that NASA was funding all the programs included in the authorization act, but that the agency had to make “some difficult choices” because of the current fiscal environment. “Reductions were necessary in some areas so that we can invest in the future while living within our means.” He reiterated this during questioning by Wolf, saying that when the agency’s FY11 budget proposal was submitted just 13 months ago “the world was different, and our fiscal situation was really different.” Bolden said NASA put its highest priority on spending on safely flying out the shuttle, followed by providing safe access to the ISS over the next decade through commercial cargo and crew programs. “If we lose the International Space Station, we’re dead in the water” in therms of future human space exploration plans, he said later in the hearing.
Nonetheless, committee members sought to find ways to adjust those choices in spending priorities. Several asked about potential duplication of Earth sciences work between NASA other agencies, such as NOAA and USGS; Bolden said that there was no evidence of such duplication, citing a October 2009 GAO report that found no evidence of duplication of NASA programs with those of other agencies. Later, asked about any excess or underutilized properties that NASA could sell to raise money, Bolden said that a facilities master plan is being updated to identify such properties.
Committee members did promise some relief in one area, though: the 2010 appropriations language that prevents NASA from terminating any element of Constellation, even those not aligned with the new direction given in the authorization act. “One thing I hope we can do is to, in one of the short-term CRs we’re dealing with, is get you some immediate clarification on that,” Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) said.
Bolden tried to walk a fine line in regards to current spending tied to Constellation programs, as members of Congress cited a report from NASA’s Inspector General (IG) earlier this year warning of wasted spending. “I disagree that we are wasting money,” he said, saying that they have tried to focus spending on those programs on efforts that could be applicable to future efforts, but made it clear he wants the language removed. “I do agree with the IG that [with] the soon-as-possible relief from the restriction of terminating the Constellation programs, the better off we’d be.”
Wolf also said he would work to preserve a provision in the HR 1 spending bill for FY11 the House passed last month that would prevent NASA and OSTP from spending any money on cooperation with China. Later in the hearing Wolf spoke for several minutes about Chinese human rights abuses, and went so far as to predict that the Chinese government would fall in a democratic uprising like those taking place in the Middle East. “I will fight to the death for this language,” he said.
Late in the hearing, Culberson asked about the planetary sciences Decadal Survey, scheduled for release late Monday, and whether NASA had funding to support top missions identified in the survey. He was making a push in particular for a Europa Orbiter mission, a mission identified in the last survey and, he believes, will be a top priority in the new survey. Bolden said they agency will look at the missions identified in the survey and see how they match up with projected funding. (A Space News article published after the hearing, though, suggests funding for a Europa mission will be hard to come by given current budget projections.)
One minor bit of news that Bolden made at the hearing regarded the disposition of the shuttle orbiters once the fleet is retired. Asked about this by Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA), the ranking member of the full committee, Bolden said NASA was planning to make an announcement on April 12, the 30th anniversary of the launch of STS-1. (Dicks also used his question to play up the bid by Seattle’s Museum of Flight; another subcommittee member, Rep. Steve Austria (R-OH), made a pitch for the Museum of the Air Force in Dayton.)
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