Budget Summary: Constellation Is Cancelled Outright

Looks like the line items add up to 6.512 billion
Where is the rest of the money going?

Obama has gutted US manned space flight!
The US will be stuck in LEO for decades! What a joke!
No matter how much lipstick you put on this pig it's still a pig!

So basically Obama is doing the time-honored presidential tradition of punting away the future to some future administration. Short-sighted. Don't give me b/s about funding development of key technologies for future blah blah blah... That's the kind of wording they ALWAYS use when they're unwilling to pursue/fund something truly bold but feel they have to throw some minimalistic bone to us to try to give us a thinly-veiled silver lining to hold on to. Govt's been doing that since the cancellation of Apollo, SEI, space satation downsizing, etc. Fact is, we're getting zip, zilch, nada on the positive side and a whole lot of pain on the negative.

Well, I guess with words like that, it does not leave too much doubt about how well managed a program Constellation was.

Wow, I figures Ares I and V would be gone, but Orion too? And HLV seems to be something that will be a bit more drawn out than a dash to an in-line shuttle derived vehicle. Will ATK, er I mean Congress, stand for this?

If done right it could be an exciting new era of lower expectations but greater fulfillment/success of programs.

I'd imagine that the requisite pork negotiations are going on. The opening gambit, that Obama's willing to cut Constellation outright, should start to sink in to even the most dense politicians.

Bolden's talk at 12:30 should actually be a basic outline of what the administration is willing to go with if certain senators will be reasonable... but it will only be an outline.

But at least that should be when we find out if actual HLV development this year is part of the package offered.

And then we'll have to wait and find out if Congress accepts the proposed deal... or how much and how hard they'll fight it.

And that's not even counting the time spent on the inevitable kabuki from bothe sides.

Here's a very non-descript item in the budget:

"Research and development to support future heavy-lift rocket systems that will increase the capability of future exploration architectures..."

R&D to support future HLVs? Is that active development, or 4 years of more trade studies and presentations before we consider getting serious?

Well, this still has to go through congress. Let the battle for middle earth begin.

[start Mortal Kombat theme song]

Thanks Obama for concealing human space flight. I hope all the anti-Constellation people are happy when they are unemployed.

Well, this is yet another industry America is losing. Our space program is headed the same way as Detroit. In a year Obama has undone 50 years of amazing technical accomplishment.

The un-JFK has won.

The dream is officially over. No need to post anymore.

So, basically, the existing approach was cancelled in favor of the promise that some as-yet unchosen different approach will be better.

That's typical politics for you.

I'm not terribly partisan about Ares, but I do know that changing the plan completely every three years is a guaranteed way to NEVER get anywhere.

I'm fighting this insanity.

And that is what it is!

A giant leap backwards!

I am ashamed an American President could be this visionless especially after he invoked Apollo so many times.
OH wait, that was when he was comparing to himself and his administrations plans.

I will fight this, congress will fight this, space advocacy groups will fight this and it will NOT go down well with many in the American public, many of them vote too.

I can only think that many Obama supportors are shocked too. This is worse then anyone was expecting.

"The US will be stuck in LEO for decades!"

Unfortunately, the US won't even be able to send anybody into space on its own for possibly 1 decade if Orion is canceled (as Obama proposed in a campaign speech).

One could have hoped for a better, more visionary plan for space exploration.

But, "Obama has gutted US manned space flight!"?

No: Constellation committed suicide!

"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."
The only thing I would consider bold would be a heavy-lift SSTO replacement for the orbiters. Anything less would just be treading water. OK, I'd settle for an air-launched to orbit vehicle, as long as it provides a functional reusability.

Oh... here's a starting point for the long-overlooked enabling technologies: radiation shielding.

Solar particles are a problem, to be sure, and a solar event while a crewed spacecraft was out beyond the Van Allen belts could be immediately fatal... but SP events are not nearly as intractable a problem as Galactic Cosmic Rays.

And while the worst of SP events can be mitigated by moderate shielding and perhaps in the future even by electromagnetic shields... none of that applies to the long-term problem that is GCR.

Currently either fast transit times or massive shielding is required to handle GCR... and at this time achieving either would seem to require HLV.

(The physical shielding needed to effectively mitigate GCR to acceptable levels for long term habitation starts at about a metric ton of water or dense polyethylene per square meter of the hull to be shielded.)

Hey moose, Obama didn't CONCEAL Constellation, he straight up CANCELED it. Learn to spell unemployment because that's where a lot of people are headed.

Here's the info I want:

What was the budget for Shuttle and Constellation in 2010? I think it is somewhere around 6 billion.

So, assuming both programs are ending that would free up at least 6 billion for Human Space Flight and the private companies are going to get 1 billion a year thereabout, where is the other 5 billion ?

Is that 5 billion still being spent for Human Space Exploration or is being given to Earth Science (for example) ?

If that 5 billion is staying under the HSF umbrella, then how is it being spent?

I don't understand why they couldn't have given Constellation 3-5 billion to work on beyond LEO and still given private companies 1-3 billion to work LEO.

They could have simply kept the money and people in place for Constellation and just changed the mission from Moon to Flexible path. Everyone wins that way... But that's just me trying to be reasonable.

Truly unacceptable when the green eye-shades try to sway the day. Technical decisions need to be made on a technical basis.

I sent this to the Obama administration and the senators of Texas, Florida, and Alabama. I recommend you all do the same, speak up or fade away.

Dear Senator,
Obama's new budget essentially guts my future as a software engineer who works at JSC on the new space program. As I went through high school and college I had one desire, and that was to work on taking man into space and return the US to the moon. I got my chance with the new Constellation program and with our PDR completed and development moving forward, despite all the budget setbacks we have had, now Obama has decided to destroy that dream.
His administrations lack of support of the space program is a 180 degree turn from what he told the American people while running for the highest office in our country. I can't fathom how, with his "jobs are number one" approach in his State of the Union, he can stomach the direct attack on the tens of thousands of American jobs his current budget takes.
I can only hope that congress will fight him tooth and nail, and try and salvage what's left of our space program from the edge of the abyss. Otherwise I will go from being a 30 year old software engineer looking forward to great things in humanity's future in regards to our space presence, to just another unemployed American.

Please fight for all of us in the space program,

Michael Wade
Concerned Orion Software Engineer

"$3.2 billion for science research grants and dozens of missions and telescopes studying the planets and
stars – including new missions such as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, missions to study the Moon, and two Mars exploration missions."

Am I wrong, or is the President proposing to transfer $3.2 billion-- a year-- from NASA's manned space program to the unmanned space program?

Marcel F. Williams

I repeat Mr. Wade's sentiment 100%.

This young engineer also completed his education to work on manned space exploration. This *WAS* also a lifelong dream of mine. I worked hard to make it happen.

I can take replacing the launcher, but killing off EVERYTHING?!?!?

Thanks, Prez...

So let me get this timeline right

For years NASA schedules work assuming a budget it doesn't have. The public is given completion dates based on fiction. Even these fictional completion dates slip.

Obama comes along. His staff gets help from some of the greatest minds in their respective fields, including professionals from a non-profit think-tank and NASA itself. They say a moon landing can't happen before 2025, even with more money. They say the new rocket and capsule will have nowhere to go for 10 years. And they say the ISS will be destroyed.

Obama cancels this plan and raises the NASA budget to fund and purchase new vehicles.

People come to NASAWATCH to blame Obama for his insanity, for destroying NASA and their dreams, for ending human spaceflight and stranding America in LEO for decades.

Did I get this about right

Okay, that's it. First, it was pretty unfair for HQ PAO to reschedule the press conference and make it a limited, restrictive, non-visual and non TV-friendly telecon instead. Then, letting Charlie Bolden skip out, unseen, without taking a single question from a reporter was just beyond the pale.

RC, I agree with you 100%. I'm over 60 with over 30 years experience in communications system engineering, and, maybe my age and experience are showing, but, to spacearium, Mr. Michael Wade and some others that express their comments here: there seems to be a lot of childish whining from an otherwise adult, professiona crowd. Get a grip my fellow space cadets, politics and space have been part and parcel of the space program since it began. Different constituencies with differing values have been batteling for decades. use your technical skills to contiribute and further the debate. Don't just whine about your lowley, little job. Be a patriot and a professional and offer your expertise to this discussion on goals & means. And have some integrity, and some rationality and mindfullness and add to the positive further development of space exploration. Grow up guys, we are the leaders of the world in space, now compliment that with responsible dialog that matches that position, not the juvenile complaining & threatening I see here. The road to success is not by ONE route only.

"His staff gets help from some of the greatest minds in their respective fields... They say the new rocket and capsule will have nowhere to go for 10 years. ... Obama cancels this plan and raises the NASA budget to fund and purchase new vehicles."

Now if the station is only going to be in space until 2020 and it takes until then for the COTS spacecraft to be operational, where is it going to go?

So what happens to MSFC and JSC and Stennis?
Anyone?

wtbard, Lori Garver said on the telecon A) at least two companies believe they can have commercial crew ready in 3 years, and B) the ISS funding to 2020 is not a deorbiting date like the 2015 number was, and there will be no strict date set for ISS deorbiting.

So your theoretical situation is too far-out to bother speculating about!

I think Obama did the right thing. Out here in California, most people seem pretty positive about the new plan. Maybe its because manned space flight has been so detrimental to basic science and robotic missions (in spite of the soaring successes of these programs in the last 10 years). Or maybe its because I just don't see the mission as an entitlement program. Or maybe it's because I am female and under 35, and generally feel that many people in this agency need to take the sheet of their heads. It's a brand new day fellas.

@ RC: The pathway to getting an unmanned ELV on the NLS is not easy. No one on the robotic side wants to be the first user of a new ELV. Only after there has been a steady stream of successes will NASA manifest one of it's $500M babies on a new rocket. Space X/Falcon has a way to go before they show up on the robotic manifest. To that end, I can't believe anyone is going to have a rocket safe enough for an astronaut to strap into in 3 years, unless there are dozens of launches in those 3 years, which seems unlikely. If Lori and gang are believing that commercial space can get a manned rocket through the necessary wickets in 3 years, they are making decisions that go against a long cultural history at NASA wrt new launch vehicles. Challenger and Columbia have altered the mind set that was present when Crippen and Young flew on the first flight of the Shuttle.

Government employees ride in commercially produced aircraft and in commercially produced automobiles without a problem. Why should astronauts have special treatment? Just to support a thinly disguised jobs program, it appears.

Cancellation of Constellation is perhaps the first major decision from the current administration that makes sense.

Privatization will lead to more human spaceflight, not less. And the scientific benefits will come sooner and with be more expansive than would be the case with a government run program. Furthermore, privatization will mean more jobs for those in engineering and manufacturing.

But not all will win. Management jobs will see a large net drop, I'm sure. Non-performers of all stripes will have a hard time finding a replacement position under the new rules. And those involved with launch support will have to take early retirement when all the birds relocate to Equatorial Guiana.

heck, lets just make the leap to warp drive right now

RC,

I'd be surprised that any company could have a commercial crew ready in 3 years. I wonder if that was something those wanting the contracts provided or someone with experience actually looked into it.

It looks like NASA has spent some money for the companies to begin looking at it now so that helps move things along, but I'm not sure RFPs and contracts can be put out until Congress OKs it. That might be late this year.

So how would this progress?

NASA puts out a request for services. Let's assume that this early money allows the companies to do some early planning and that NASA awards a contract in early 2011. That's 1 year from today.

Building a crew capsule and launch escape system would be new designs. I would think it would take at least a year to design it and at least 2 years to fabricate test capsules and begin qualifications. Questions such as where do you put the seats and cabin instruments would need to be resolved. Also, don't forget it needs a heat shield that caused problems with Orion. Unless the design is very similar, I doubt much can be reused. That's 4 years from today.

Testing would involve vibration and pressure tests, escape tower tests, splash down testing. Then you also have launch site preparation and probably some test launches to verify it works. And then there are the redesigns when problems are found. Maybe that's 2 years? So that would be 6 years from today.

I don't have any experienced in spacecraft design and fabrication, but I suspect that for a new company with no manned space flight experience, the likelihood of delays would be high.

Without heavy spares brought up to ISS, I suspect that it will be difficult to have ISS last much past 2020 if it can to then. Questions regarding this are how will the heavy spares be brought up? I thought the airlock O2 and N2 fall into this as well as gyros. The later are a high failure item so this will need to be resolved by 2015 I would think.

I'd like to see some real estimates by those experienced in quoting space craft development instead of a bureaucrat with no real experience.

From the language in the summary re the R&D aspects of the new direction, we sure could use someone who knows something about 'spiral' development!

He took'r jawbs!!