Space Policy: No Love On The Hill

Alleluia this is all good news! The bipartisan outrage is spreading nationwide and this so called plan is going down the tubes. Flush, flush...

Thank goodness we have a Marine at the Helm!

What needed to happen is happening! It is difficult to undo from O'keef forward!

hey hey, it is moving out however! Rock & Roll Charles! hang in there.

who the heck is Doc Aerospace anyhow !!! LOL The Stick is DEAD!

'LOL The Stick is DEAD!'

I don't want to hear any whining from you when one of the new-space companies goes bankrupt, and some (misguided, IMO) people start celebrating their failure.

Nelson's plan for keeping Ares-1 as a testbed is just silly. There is no point. Constellation need to be killed. It was ill conceived from the start and has turned into a boondoggle.

moon2mars posted:
"Alleluia this is all good news! "

How is this good news? More politicians haggling over what we should do.

Lets get HSF stuck in the same quagmire that health reform is stuck in. that's a great idea!! NOT!

I think that some of these politicians in Washington are so far removed from the Economic impact that we in Florida will feel its all about political posturing and who gets the biggest check from the government.

The longer there is a debate the further we fall behind in HSF period. A clear direction is needed now not 2 years from now.

Hey

ATK can build the stick on its own now! have at it!

Many aerospace companies have gone bankrupt and/or combined so much so there are only a few left.

This is new fresh start with a level playing field not a napkin figure forced upon NASA to fly to the moon.

such as it is I meet with the FAA tomorrow to discuss my spaceport license!

have a great day!

Fred- The Obama plan was a disaster pure and simple. I agree with you on one thing we do need a clear direction but going nowhere wasn't a direction I want US HSF going!

Lets get HSF stuck in the same quagmire that health reform is stuck in. that's a great idea!! NOT!'

What on earth else did anyone expect? I predicted exactly this (the day before the first of the hearings):

"springing a major change in direction on Congress like this, totally blind-siding them, without working it out in advance with them, is just asking for trouble." Right on the money, no?

Better settle in for a long one, this is going to take at least a year to settle down - and maybe longer if the House changes hands in November. In short, whatever the new direction is, by the time the dust settles, changing directions will have used up a couple of years.

And it could be longer than that: depending on the exact division of responsibilities that is finally arrived at, you might have to re-create all the personal links (both center-center, and NASA-contractor) that we just spent 3+ years establishing.

This wave of resistance isn't a total surprise given the number of vested interests involved, as well as Congress-folk who had invested a signficant bit of their own credibility in the PoR. However, I do think that, in the end, the realisation will be that 'business as usual' is beyond saving.

However, I do suspect that there will be some kind of compromise that will eventually be reached to satisfy as many power blocs as possible. In order of likelihood thse are:

1) Orion continues as the next primary crew vehicle (all arguments about its suitability being waved aside) atop an EELV; ULA's ACES-series common upper stages are also green-lighted with the EELV+ACES being described as the 'interim exploration CaLV'; In this case only, fuel depot research is prioritised;

2) Shuttle extended to around 2015 with D-SDLV-inline/Orion development to start immeidately for a zero-gap transition after shuttle retirement;

3) Shuttle is extended until ~2015 with Ares-I continuing as a test program for 5-seg SRM and J-2X. The final objective will be a 5-seg/J-2X launcher but with the solids side-mounted on top of a liquid fuel tank to reduce the vibration issue - basically a 'Jupiter-Lite' with a 5m core powered by multiple-J-2X rather than SSME.

In all these cases:

* Commercial continues as a 'back-up' option and is planned to ultimately replace the NASA vehicle to the ISS; In practice they will inevitably beat Orion into LEO;
* "Do something BEO by 2020" gets written into law to "stimulate and focus R&D efforts";
* The advanced HLV will continue as an R&D study program but, with the possible exception of the large Kerolox engine, will not progress beyond that stage unless a future administration announces a major BEO program.

To my eyes, any sort of grand compromise will be in name only. The lack of substantial budget increases will simply mean that not only will a Lazarus Constellation continue to be under-funded, but so will all the exciting R&D and demonstrators in this new budget, not to mention its commercial seed programs. The gap will widen and ISS will not get the science money it needs.

FWIW, I suspect that the big losers will be the "NewSpace" companies (no big massive funding injecton) and the advanced propulsion and other advanced BEO technologies projects. NewSpace Commercial might actually be very big losers as I get the impression that Congress has very little confidence that they can deliver a useful product on a reasonable timeline. However, I suspect that, whilst things like DreamChaser will suffer, projects that are further along like Dragon/Falcon-9 should make it through by sheer momentum.

The new plan for NASA appears to pass the Robert Townsend Sure-Fire Innovation Test from Up the Organization (slightly paraphrased):

If you come up with a new idea for your [agency], you can get an almost infallible early reading on it.

1. If everybody gives it something between active indifference and hot opposition, the idea is valid. Also, the importance of the idea will be directly proportional to the amount of passionate opposition it stirs up.

2. If everybody drops dead from enthusiasm for your idea, it's certainly minor and probably wrong. ...

In the zeal to throw out the VSE baby with Bush's constellation bathwater, its an unpredictable situation that's been created.

What we've been gambling on so far is that we either get an international program that is strewn with obligations (to protect the space program from our own politicians) or something so vague that the politicos leave it alone out of fear for exposing their own ignorance... which they wont do of course. They'll just substitute a dozen new plans to fill the vacuum created.

I never liked the former because it means you get saddled with a program that cant change no matter how much technology does. The latter tends to create a multi-headed hydra that is more about pleasing politicians than meeting goals.

The only chance something good can happen here would be if it made NASA into an agency that no longer caters to presidential whims. It needs the stability to pursue objectives that outlast any single administration, and it also needen't be chained to the development directions of other nations.

I'm not sure how it can come to be. But maybe we can hope something less than a monster evolves from this mess.

> lack of a clear objective in space

> "faith-based" belief, in the words of one House member, that a commercial route to orbit for U.S. astronauts is better than the government-managed Ares I and Orion vehicles

These two criticisms can be defused if the planners and PRers at NASA actually watched the hours and hours of HSF review panel meetings and read the report. There are so MANY objectives that people new to the problem (or with sugar plum apollos in their heads) are lost. PS: trusting anyone is faith.

The new plan has a handful of new objectives to achieve in 5 years, a few more to achieve in 10 years, a rough idea of how to colonize mars in 30 years, and the ultimate goal of off-earth life that is economically and physically sustainable, humane, and productive.

To assure those concerned with uncertainty, all the dream systems need to be spelled out and penciled into the 5-10-30+ year plan. They've been written about for 100 years, but will be new and strange to most, just like the new plan. No more flags and footprints, the new tech is more like star trek...

Materials research, composites, tethers, power beaming, ISRU (all to use the moon for resources)...

Closed-loop life support, aeroponics, artificial gravity centrifuge, radiation mitigation (all to sustain life in space)...

Super photovoltaics (DARPA VHESC), nuclear thermal, fission, new ion and plasma drive tech (new in-space propulsion is required to humanely cross the frontier)...

Flyback boosters, modular TSTO, linear aerospike and high-pressure staged combustion research, turbojet scramjet hybrid (DARPA VULCAN) testbeds (all high cost, high risk technology R&D that needs to be accelerated by government for the critical goal of lowering the cost to space)...

Incremental and scalable combined system tests where you never go a bridge too far like Constellation (think Falcon 1 -> Falcon 9 -> Falcon 9 triple body -> Falcon 9 with high energy upper stage -> Falcon 9 with RS-84-derived engine -> wide body Falcon)...

So consider rockets with new propulsion, cargo tugs, transit habitats, mass-produced robotic rovers and new semi-autonomous management softwares to scale down the controllers involved and scale up the people (schools) who can get time on the system, in-space telerobotic operations, orbital life science centrifuge, even a Van Allen belt animal test.... (..maybe Russia can do that one..)

And partners on the critical path to share cost and risk. (..and so Russia builds the nuclear reactors..)

And all the things left out... fuel depots and autonomic rendevouz and....

Some of these things can be done sooner and some later, but the goal is supporting sustainable life in space rather than re-living the past. Use cost-concerned incremental development and government prizes. Government only does the work that is not already being done. No more competing with entrepreneurs.

This is all old news that never got funded because NASA spends its money on payroll to run big rockets. Bolden can sit down with Augustine's panel and figure all this out lickity split. Pencil in a wide "flexible path" that can withstand some projects going belly up and delivers lots of interesting new milestones. People like new things. And people like life.

I'm not a big fan of Obama's plan, but I am very displeased at the way Congress is cutting down the start-up space companies. The mentality of the zero-sum game/slit the other guy's throat in order to survive has got to stop.

The Garver/Obama plan is over before it started...

Referring to the space programme as bipartisan, subcommittee chairman senator Bill Nelson of Florida says of the opposition to the Obama plan: "I have never seen [Congress] as unified as we are now."

For myself, I have to ponder, why was this so poorly thought out? so poorly introduced? it was never "socialized" before key congress critters to get a feel of what the reactions would be.
It surprised everyone, upset many, and has caused a space policy civil war.

Bolden takes responsibility he says, but we know he is being a Marine there.

"why was this so poorly thought out? so poorly introduced?"

My thought is that it's related to a lack of either political, manager, or executive experience in the administration. This strikes me as similar to something proposed by a novice engineer and torn apart by the more experienced engineers.

It is likely a scientific experiment on policy.

have fun engineering it!

we are restoring science to its rightful place. On March 9th, I signed an executive memorandum with a clear message: Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. (Applause.) Our progress as a nation –- and our values as a nation –- are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. It is contrary to our way of life. (Applause.)

That's why I've charged John Holdren and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with leading a new effort to ensure that federal policies are based on the best and most unbiased scientific information. I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions -- and not the other way around. (Laughter.)

NASA's potential contribution to the start up company money is tiny ($1.2 billion a year). So I think it will survive. But the administration made a mistake by making this an issue of private companies vs. NASA. There's no logical reason for NASA to have to use an unnecessary corporate middle man in order for government workers to reach a government funded space station.

NASA needs to have its own space flight capability, even to LEO. And private industry needs to have its own spaceflight capability. Just because private industry owns and operates its own planes doesn't mean that the Air Force, and Air Force One, can't own an operate their own planes.

Marcel F. Williams

NASA does need to have its own spaceflight capability. However, that doesn't mean it needs to have its own launch capability however.

Taking your Air Force example, the Air Force does have its own planes -- fighter jets, bombers, large cargo planes, and private jets for VIP transport. However, if a USAF employee is needing to get from Washington to LA and an extra few hours won't end the world, they're going to be taking a United flight from Dulles, not getting a C-130 to fly them there. USAF has planes for unique parts of their missions, but will use commercial solutions when it makes sense. If there is any non-NASA market at all for launch services (other countries, not necessarily space tourism) then this will bring down the costs.

This also neglects the fact that USAF has no problem being forced to use commercial middlemen for all of their launches.

'The mentality of the zero-sum game/slit the other guy's throat in order to survive has got to stop.'

I understand (and sympathize with) where you're coming from, but.... Given that basically the entire market for 'manned to LEO' is from the government, it's necessarily the case that if one organization gets the seats, another organization loses them.

Its pretty obvious that the space program was never a high priority for the Obama administration.
Obama would probably be content with just continuing the Space Shuttle and the ISS. But then he got lured into the, 'just let private industry do it' free lunch scenario and also by the 'lets just discover some break through technologies' free lunch.

There ain't no free lunch! And you don't simply throw away your knowledge base for high hopes in the future.

Let's use what we've learned from the shuttle and ISS programs to:

1. immediately develop an inline directly shuttle derived HLV for heavy lift and as a man-rated back up booster to LEO

2. immediately develop a man-rated space plane (Dreamchaser or the X-37) capable of placing at least 6 astronauts into orbit. There's no need to go back to the future with an Apollo style capsule (I strongly agree with Buzz Aldrin on this point).

3. develop large ISS module derived space stations that can be launched by our new HLV and placed in convenient orbits for US launches to orbit or placed at a Lagrange point. Private industry could lease these stations from NASA for days or weeks at a time for tourist destinations or have them customized and launched by a NASA HLV for their own private purposes. The large diameter of such stations (8.5 meters) would enable NASA to finally test on board 'short radius centrifuges' to see if they can actually keep astronauts healthy for several months at a time in a microgravity environment which is extremely important if we ever plan to travel to Mars.

4. develop an EDS stage that can be used for beyond LEO activities.

These are the core vehicles and habitats that we need for LEO, the Langrange points, and lunar orbit. And once these space habs and vehicles are fully operational, it would be much easier for future administations to fund and develop the additional space craft and fuel depots that are probably going to be stationed or launched from a Lagrange point for journeys to the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, and beyond.

Marcel F. Williams

There's simply not enough manned spaceflight traffic to the ISS to sustain more than one private company. So you'd pretty much be setting up a monopoly. The real moneys in space tourism and commercial satellite launches.

Plus providing manned launches to the ISS requires all kinds of government regulations and standards to their vehicles which could pretty much turn such a private company into a NASA clone. Do you really want that?

Private manned space launch companies need to avoid the ISS like the plague, IMO, and just take the NASA space development money and do their own thing with it, their own way. That would be better for NASA and certainly better for private industry.

Marcel F. Williams

The safety rules and quality control that will allow a spacecraft to dock with the ISS should also work for other spacestations. This will save a lot of crashes whilst the commercial firms develop their own rules. The NASA rules can be modified for something cheaper, simpler and safer at leisure.

@Marcel

I'm tired of reading the blithering nonsense that space "was never a high priority for the Obama Administration." If it wasn't a priority, they would first ignore it, then assign it to the Vice President in line with tradition, who would quietly delegate it to OMB, who would cut it down a little without changing anything, citing the deficit.

If Congress didn't put the money back, a few contractors would get laid off and no one in NASA would make a fuss because traditional NASA HSF managers don't care if their programs stretch out to the right. Stretched programs just guarantee longer job security. Feh!

Traditional NASA HSF managers also don't care if their programs are ever used for anything, as long as they stay employed. Proof of this is the lack of protest when the research programs for ISS were cut to the point of severe under-utilization and the further lack of protest when Griffin decided to destroy ISS only five years after it is completed. The NASA HSF old guard doesn't care one bit that we spent 25 years and tens of $ billions building ISS. They also don't care about stabbing a dozen partner nations in the back. On to the next taxpayer ripoff!

Please note that there is no money in Constellation's budget to actually do anything on the Moon if they ever got there. This is actually reasonable, since there was no chance that Constellation would ever get there. It's just more proof that NASA HSF has no intention of ever doing anything in space. They just spend money on the way to retirement.

It's long overdue for old guard NASA HSF managers to suffer some consequences for screwing up their programs.

"why was this so poorly thought out? so poorly introduced?"

Bolden has owned responsibility for the poor roll out, so clearly he had some say in the lack of sufficient roll out; it wasn't just Obama.

I'm wondering if this is because, as a Marine General, I can't believe in the military culture, before a big change in direction, the commanding General sits down and talks with the troops about their 'feelings' about the change, or attempts to get buy in before moving out. The General knows his men/women are trained to take orders. Perhaps he felt the NASA workforce, would just 'get in line' and execute, no matter the plan, confusing the culture for that of the military.

It's hard to see anything that has gone well for this new direction, except perhaps from the pov of the merchant 7.

Missing leadership everywhere. Not bad, not wrong, just missing.

This has really become an acid test on whether the Congress can make itself a valid independent arm of the government. In the last decade we've seen one unpopular policy after another slide through congress with little more than token debate in it's chambers. We've lost civil liberties, we've created a completely unsustainable tax structure, and we've entered into two wars who's need has not been completely accepted by the American populace at large. Health care is the current marquis subject and we can't seem to get either side to address the issues on which there is bipartisan support (yes, there are a few of them).

Here's an issue where there appears to be widespread bipartisan support. There also appears to be widespread agreement among non-advocate experts. The Obama plan, while truly bold, is extremely risky (I guess that's what makes it bold). There's no credible debate on this point from any established space policy expert I've heard. This brings us to the true measure of an independent legislative branch. Can congress really come up with a bipartisan compromise plan that mitigates some of the risk while assuring some sustainable progress? We'll see. Our history with the congress certainly doesn't give on much hope for a satisfactory outcome. I would love to be pleasantly surprised. I may even putty-knife by bumper sticker that says "Vote them all out" if this happens.

So Congress is going to ignore an option provided by a panel of space experts and generate their own plan? That should be good for a laugh anyway.

First of all, I'm not an advocate of the Ares I/V architecture since there were plenty of alternative architectures that were much cheaper.

Secondly, the Augustine Commission suggested a $3 billion increase in the annual NASA budget. Last years expenditures for the Constellation program was $3.4 billion. You add $3 billion to that for the cancellation of the shuttle program, that would giver you $9.4 billion dollars a year for developing the architecture for returning to the Moon. That's plenty of money!

Once that architecture is completed, you can then use those $9.4 billion a year in funds for lunar operations. You add $2 billion to that for the termination of the ISS program in 2020, that would give you $11.4 billion a year for lunar operations. $11.4 billion dollars a year is plenty of money to operate a lunar base program. Plenty!

Marcel F. Williams

Who within NASA was part of the planning for this budget? The personnel composition of NASA internal decision making teams are not as far as I've ever heard, considered as nondisclosable based on the discussions being "pre-decisional". Content may not be disclosable, but attendance rosters? Please! And Charlie Bolden was basically denying answers to congress based on this artifice.

This is an apolitical agency, there should be nothing to hide. Is there a precedent for this from NASA?

A serious turn: We now have a handful of aerospace companies that have been cited by NASA as intended recipients of NASA and taxpayer largess as part of this change in NASA's direction. There is an either/or problem for NASA: Either lobbyists from these companies were involved with the white house in developing the plan, or these companies were shocked and surprised to find out that NASA needed them to support NASA's critical path. Take your pick, NASA's decision making was either influenced or rash.

Agree or disagree with the direction change, the way it was performed seems to be utterly irrational. Let's agree that we need to stop stonewalling congress and show some transparency into how we got here, and how we go forward. The easy path, NASA should freely disclose who was involved with this budget formulation.

The hard path, Congress should subpoena all of Bolden's direct reports, President Obama's science advisors, and copies of attendance rosters for all "pre-decisional" meetings.

That atrocity was never recommended by any commission. It was cooked up by Holdren, Garver, and the wraiths from OMB. Ugh! It's a clever little plan to transform and eminently doable but underfunded plan for a stepwise exploration of the Moon and beyond, to a bouquet of interesting technology research that can be easily cancelled once the national flag is off the project. The rest of the doe will go as science grants to Holdren's friends in the Academy. It's a lot easier to reprioritize funds away from the Vasimr Project, than it is to say America is turning its back on lunar exploration and development. I've got a great idea! Why don't we just tell them our ultimate goal is Mars, and we'll go there too…just as soon as we get the Warp Engine perfected.

If this a 20 year Mars plan or a 30 year Mars plan, someone needs to have the guts and nuts to step up and say it instead of blathering all this feel good ultimate R&D corporate spaceflight BS.

Hey Obama, hey Bolden, hey Garver and Holdren: You want American kids to make sure America succeeds in the 21st century? Look them all in the eye and tell them that we're leading an international colonization expedition to Mars in 2030.

This plan isn't "Star Trek", its a waste of the last 50 years.

Cancelling Orion is a grave mistake.

> That atrocity was never recommended by any commission.

That is incorrect. The HSF review contains a few different options, one of which suggests that NASA "operates the Shuttle into FY 2011, extends the ISS until 2020, funds technology development and develops commercial crew services to low-Earth orbit."

There is even more in the HSF review that is also in the budget. Including all the destinations that Bolden has been wishy-washy about, the soonest being an asteroid docking in the early 2020s.

...You see now why he is wishy-washy about those destinations. Because the experts say they are 10+ years away. That is off any politician's radar, isn't it? There is only so much one 4 year plan can plan right? Thus the whole "flexible" idea the experts came up with?

The two main differences I saw between the report and the budget are that the HSF review demands more money, and it doesn't cancel Orion.

As far as the money is concerned, the report says that commercial heavy-lift "has an advantage of potentially lower operational costs, but requires significant restructuring of NASA." Maybe NASA wants to save money there so it can actually go somewhere. That would be smart.

And for Orion, since the first exploration can only happen in the 2020s... well that right there is why they cancelled it. Orion is a spacecraft designed in 2005 for flight in 2014. If Orion is finished it will have nowhere to go for longer than it took to build it. Nowhere to go for a decade. Obviously NASA thinks that money is better spent elsewhere right now.

"That atrocity was never recommended by any commission," he says. What a thing that is...