I Smell A Compromise In The Making

Keith,
I'm in your camp on this. I never understood the value to Obama in going to KSC unless he could some how 'win' something. Saying I feel your pain, ala Bill Clinton, is not a win unless there is a pony to offer up to the mob.

I"d like to see some comprise that allows NASA to leverage all it's learned flying Shuttle the last three decades and to also leverage the massive investment that has been made with my tax dollars in the infrastructure and systems folks use to fly STS.

In this way NASA is also showing the CAIB that it is indeed a 'learning organization'

We'll see I guess

The interesting aspect, as I see it, is that this "controversy" is going to make Space visible again to the general public. People have had the economy to focus on, the health care issue, the wars in the Middle East, global warming, nutsy political issues and Tea Parties. What do we want the civilian space program to accomplish, and how, have not been major concerns, except for NASA and industry employees, and a relative handful of buffs.

And now, for a day or two, space programs will get some of the attention -- and some of the passion -- that other major issues have gotten, because Obama has promised to pay some attention himself. That's overdue.

A Presidential visit from Obama to KSC is a most excellent idea - the KSC workforce seems to get the short end of the stick with most things - Nelson & his no earmark policy, the Alabama guy on the appropriations committee, Texas having Level II authority.......so some well deserved recognition and accolades for their decades of hsf success is long overdue, imho

but the DC crowd - NASA & OSTP & NACA apparently have no insight, empathy, sensitivity, or even representation of the KSC workforce and were apparently unaware of Obama's campaign promise to retain ALL of the KSC Shuttle workforce, or failed to fully inform him of the consequences to KSC

Agree with:

"Then there is the "fly Shuttle" crowd - which is of two sub camps. One sub camp simply wants to fly the Shuttle as it is until something else is fully operational to take its place - with human access and jobs being the two main drivers. The other sub camp wants to stretch out the remaining shuttle flights and add some additional flights as they transition from shuttle to a shuttle derived (side mount) architecture that would be cheap, straightforward, use existing resources, and would also preserve human access and jobs."

and either is acceptable.

but note that while the KSC Shuttle jobs are crucial, the KSC CxP jobs are not, and the KSC Shuttle folks are equally motivated by genuine concern for the continued success of the US hsf space program.

Whenever it's not budget time, the phrase I seem to see/hear most often involves "reducing the cost of access to space."

I hope that any compromises brought forward will keep that in mind while trying to balance the equation of future HSF, otherwise we're just going to keep on reliving the status quo.

I don't envy President Obama or any of the policy people in NASA or government. They've got a tough job to do, and no matter how well they do it, there's going to be a whole lot of people hurt.

Keith,
I believe you are partially correct but regardless, if the president does visit the space coast it is only for damage control. Two lingering issues contribute to the visit and these are his campaign promises during his visit to Titusville Fl. and the grilling Administrator Bolden is going through with our representatives. The then presidential candidate made committment to a dedicated following of white and blue collar workers during his campaign trek through the Space Coast and has without explaination has turned face on these dedicated supporters. Secondly, the unilateral decision of the exec. branch to terminate Constellation was without council of the technical body and the Administrator has been less than clear on a committment to what follows. NASA and the dedicated contractors that execute the NASA mission who are all seriously impacted are now an itch that the administration is trying to scratch.

Maybe it's just another of the rumors Keith was talking about, but it does have some logic--the president's trip is timed so he can arrive at KSC after the Falcon 9 launch. This way there is no 'controversy' to televise.

There may be some mea culpa offered to the workers before the cameras roll, but the big message that will be heard outside a 50-mile radius is that there's been a successful launch and that we're on track with the plans he announced in his budget.

The spin doctors can then tell the media that complaints by the workers are nothing more than the fear of change by people who were on the inside of a program that's bloated and expensive, just like Washington is.

It will be the perfect lead in to the #3 thing on his agenda (right after health care and using NASA's budget for improving education)--cleaning up the mess that Washington has become.

With millions already out of work, will CNN focus on 7000 whiners who can "simply" change jobs and move to the commercial launchers or will they broadcast a soundbite of the president saying he's going to fix Washington now that the health-care bill is out of the way and the commercialization he proposed has begun? One well-timed joke to the right reporter about "rocket-scientists" not being smart enough to go where the money is, and the jobs problem becomes a non-event.

I'd like to remind everyone that it's the contractors that are going to get the axe, not the NASA folks. NASA will continue to do what they do best, play with piles of money and paper, with or without a rocket in their backyard.

They will shed crocodile tears when their worker bees are sent off to die in the swamps.

The fact is that down deep, most NASA at KSC really don't care what happens that much, they have very little skin left in the game. Your not going to see hordes of disgruntled NASA engineers leaving in disgust during the extended "HSF Gap".

They are quite happy living large in Florida with their federally protected and inflated paychecks.
The ones that really cared about HSF have given up, mostly. There are a few windmill tilters left around but they are painfully out of touch with reality.

I gotta predict no compromise. He's decided, and it was the right decision. He doesn't subscribe to the sunk cost fallacy. He does think that if he explains the decision he will make it more palatable.

Think any astronauts whose lives actually go on the line will get to ask critical questions?

Yeah, me neither.

You would probably never fly again.

Do you really expect this administration to come forward with a compromise after their reconciliation shenanigans that imposed their healthcare plan on a nation who's sizable majority didn't want it? This upcoming summit is likely as much political theater as the healthcare summit was: create the illusion of discussion as the already-decided-on plan rolls forward. Let us not forget what Obama the candidate's first space policy pronouncement said: roll back Constellation. Isn't that what this policy does?

I think I smell wishful thinking on your part, Keith, not compromise.

You're assuming there's 7000 jobs in commercial to transfer to, which is a pretty big fallacy. SpaceX at the cape I think has maybe 50 or so people working there, and I hardly expect that number to rise much higher than that.

Trust me, if there were the jobs to transfer to at the cape, there wouldn't be half the anger that there is now.

Editor's note: where did I say that there are "7000 jobs in commercial to transfer to" ? I never said that. There will be no where near 7000 jobs created. Read carefully before you start putting words into my mouth.

"--the president's trip is timed so he can arrive at KSC after the Falcon 9 launch. This way there is no 'controversy' to televise."

Right. If it fails however...since when people mention "commercial", "SPACE X" follows in quick succesion...we could have a falling flat situation with people screaming Commercial can't hack it...NASA is the only org capable etc, etc. PR disaster coming up?!?

I defer to your experience, but I don't see why Obama would back down here when he just won on health care.

Killing Shuttle and Constellation was and continues to be the right decision. There is more evidence for this than there was for the last invasion of Iraq.

It was reported today that Falcon 9 will not fly until at least late April.
http://flametrench.flatoday.net/2010/03/first-falcon-9-flight-likely-to-slip-to.html

On a related matter does anyone out there think our fearless leader will ever bother to attend one of the last shuttle launches? I think not!

If the health care summit with the GOP is any indication I see "trivial" compromise...ie one last shuttle mission and some sort of study of an HLV...it is not Obama's style (at least so far on the big issues) to significantly change course. SpaceX might or might not have launched (or gone to orbit or blown up) but I suspect that the entire affair will get not so much press coverage (outside the cable networks). Robert G. Oler

Count me among those who predict that he won't compromise.

Also, even if Keith Cowing's compromise idea were the one rolled out (and I happen to think it's a good one, as far as compromises go), there's still no guarantee that Congress would fund it.

You are "right-on" with your comment here. NASA somehow has always managed to keep all their Centers and maintain or grow their work-force. However, the Contractors in private industry are the ones who will suffer with massive layoffs.

Look at the line-items in the NASA 2010 budget. There is no reduction in the budget for each and every NASA Center!

"Editor's note: where did I say that there are "7000 jobs in commercial to transfer to" ? I never said that. There will be no where near 7000 jobs created. Read carefully before you start putting words into my mouth."

Keith, please read the comments before commenting. If you had read mikengiordano's comment, he was replying to reqmtsjockey's comment that said

"With millions already out of work, will CNN focus on 7000 whiners who can "simply" change jobs "

Keith, my comment was aimed at someone a few posts above me and not on your article. It's the one talking about CNN and such.

Editor's note. My bad. That's what I get for using the little screen on my iPhone on the Metro to run NASA Watch ...

There are plenty enough semantic contortions that can have the appearance of a “compromise”, yet in all such cases there are some facts, some hard realities and some very probable future events to deal with.

One fact is that Exploration still has a $4.3 Billion dollar budget proposed by President Obama’s plan for 2011 climbing to $ 5.2 Billion by 2015. By 2015 nearly $4 Billion of this is proposed to be for Exploration “R&D” whereas $1.3 Billion would be going to “Commercial Space Flight” (the later being for crew, there being a separate line item for the International Space Station cargo and Soyuz).

To get lawyerly, about semantics, it is not a stretch to say that with no change at all in any of the 2011 proposed budget lines, a heavy lift vehicle development which is what Constellation already included, is still in the budget. Call it Ares V lite, call it Jupiter, call it a new heavy open to using RP, it’s in there. In a sense, Constellation has not been canceled, only part of it has.

Exploration has been re-directed to move the heavy lift development to the left, to skip over the smaller Ares I, and to add some competition into the mix for the spacecraft. This is defendable merely by asking what the budget was actually set at before the 2011 proposal, then staying close to that at the top-line level of the entire NASA, but then being more realistic about what could actually be done for that amount of money.

I was once in a meeting after Columbia where a there was some rather simmering disagreement, of that under the surface kind, where 2 camps were looking at each other with a certain disbelief, bordering on loss of respect. The issue was the Shuttle launch plans after Columbia. One camp was of an opinion that you schedule a certain number of launches, say 7 a year, regardless of the data that indicates this has never been a sustainable flight rate over any stretch. This prior camp had little if any historical data, but had the plan well developed, a schedule and great detail there, possible roadblocks to work, and so on. Another camp had loads of historical data and analysis saying barely 5 flights a year was realistically achievable, and their view was that over time some outliers have historically crept into events so the actual number of flights over any given time would very likely be a little less. This prior camp thought of issues as certain to affect outcomes, rather than converting them into “given assumptions” which would “have to be worked”. If you can imagine two alien races that had just bumped into each other and who did not understand each other’s language or purpose you’d get the picture of the look each side had for the other. (You know which side won out, and psyche 101 types can talk endlessly about “top-down oriented personalities” as compared to “bottoms-up oriented personalities”).

In a sense I feel we are there again. In that meeting.

Now back to some facts. There is no significant change in the NASA top-line going out to 2020. The original pre-ESAS Aldridge report would have set NASA on course for a $ 22.5 Billion dollar budget in 2020. The pre-2011 budget with Exploration/Constellation as planned, would have reached a nearly identical figure of about $23 Billion a year. The current plan 2011 forward proposed by the White House goes out only to 2015, but if you extrapolate it out linearly, that is taking the growth from 2011 to 2015 and drawing a straight line through those points to 2020, you again get to about $23 Billion in 2020.

Now consider the outcome of trying to squeeze 25 pounds into a 5 pound bag as Constellation was trying. Realize again, no extra money was forthcoming. The budget target for the year 2020 has not changed within about a half a billion give or take since Aldridge in 2004. Under the old Exploration/Constellation plan what we faced were monies being taken from Space Systems R&D as well as from the other NASA enterprises to feed a systems development that even once achieved would have had a recurring production and operations cost (expended elements & parts, plus mission & ground ops) as great as the entire Human Space Flight budget. (Think “eating your seed corn.) Shuttle would have gone and its recurring yearly funds would go to development. Later that entire $3 Billion from Shuttle and the original $3 Billion from development would all be required just to launch the new system a couple of times a year. Yet even that would not have sufficed. The ISS under the old plan would have ended in 2015 and the couple of Billion a year there would have also been moved into the next systems development. To emphasize, that entire $3 Billion from Shuttle and the original $3 Billion from development and then the entire $2 Billion a year from ISS would all be required eventually just to launch the new system a couple of times a year to the Moon. This according the old Exploration/Constellation programs own documents, and even then with low confidence levels. A minor smattering of other odds and ends in mission centric human space flight R&D may have remained.

The 2011 budget recognizes this upper limit to funding. It recognizes the detrimental effect of one enterprise cannibalizing others. Most importantly, and this is the part not often being appreciated in the debate, it recognizes that any new program for a space transport after the Shuttle must be an R&D program first before it is a formal, more well defined program later. The budget is a fixed quantity, remember, and this budget is clear about not tolerating the sacrifice of necessary parts of a technology agency, such as Space Systems R&D, Science or Aeronautics, or initiatives that encourage and sustain competition, just to feed a single program that had lost site of recurring cost constraints as a goal to design around.

This point about being an R&D program first before being a formal program is important to understand. Constellation as a formal program had defined costs, an architecture, and dates for major milestones. But, the costs had not been defined consistent with other necessary parts of the Human Space Flight enterprise, and even counted on raiding enterprises outside Human Space Flight. The performance requirements were growing without regard to costs, with costs being an output rather than in input that would force R&D to balance performance gains against improvements.

In its simplest terms, a “heavy” and Beyond-Earth-orbit exploration, assuming the same top-line growth pattern, more or less as set since 2004, gets approved as a formal program once the business case, built on R&D, and demonstration, shows a clear path to an architecture that costs only a few billion dollars a year to produce and operate. Yes, that’s about what we spend on the low-Earth-orbit capability with the Shuttle now.

Why the few billion a year as a recurring cost target? Again, because the top-line is a given, alongside recognized needs to preserve space systems R&D at healthy levels, and to keep one NASA enterprise from cannibalizing others. By definition there are challenges in promoting the “-ility” of affordability to the front and center as this has never been done before. These challenges require R&D. In the interim, a more innovative competition for getting a low-Earth-orbit crew capability will be taken on as a practical matter, again extremely aware that the funds are what they are and innovation for costs that is still mindful of safety is a requirement.

By promoting “affordability” in this zero-sum game the longer term “-ility” of sustainability is also promoted. Never again would NASA get itself into a situation where one program so affected other parts of the agency as to create an un-sustainable situation. Sustainability requires R&D around possible next steps in advancing spaceflight, development and demonstration of the most promising products from R&D, and a recurring capability to launch and gather human space flight experience in expanding frontiers. Sustainability requires all this go on, all this be funded, at the same time always and forever.

This version of sustainability may sound like a lack of focus to some, yet consider how we got where we are today. Lack of R&D into technology favoring the “-ilities” of human space flight (affordability, reliability, maintainability, etc), once the Shuttle had suffered its second loss of a crew, left few options on the table on what to do next. Assuming Shuttle continuity was only for something worth the risk, like completing the Space station, all that was on the table at an adequate level of maturity were some expendable vehicle and some Shuttle parts. None of these parts operated at the level of affordability or safety required going forward, at least not in a zero-sum game, with budgets on linear growth paths, and the recent re-direct is an admission of this. The alternative was a given – develop the new systems that will have the “-ilities” in mind. Constrain any outcome more clearly by saying “hands off other programs and R&D”, and “begin as an R&D program” so you don’t over-constrain yourself too early in creating a beyond-Earth-orbit capability that can’t, by definition, cost much more than the current low-Earth-orbit Shuttle capability.

The constraint of architecture and dates has been lifted in the 2011 budget, and the constraint of the total budget, and the portion thereof for Human Space Flight, has been reaffirmed. The notion of sustainability, meaning preserving a healthy level of space systems R&D always, has been reaffirmed. As formal program will go forward and “ramp up” once it’s defined a system with recurring costs that are affordable, as part of a business case that has been built to with confidence by R&D, test and demonstration.

It’s time to get to work on the “-ilities” for a change. That’s what this FY 2011 budget reaffirms. And yes, some people don’t like it. Those “-ilities” – they seem so ill-defined, and the notion they kick in at the start of a technology cycle that can surface anything, eventually defining your design – heresy! It would be so much more peaceful around here to have a defined architecture and performance, with some lip service paid to eventual costs, to completion, or to operate, and with some schedule pressure to spice things up. Yet consider this last observation – as budgets come under increasing pressure due to many, many Federal budget issues (Medicare, social security, interest on the national debt, demographics of aging, immigration, oil & energy, etc) – which budget prepares NASA best for likely not even reaching that 2020 level of $ 23 Billion or so a year? Admitting the constraint of cost, balance, and sustainability postures the agency for the future that may not look anywhere near as good as the current budgets. Now imagine future events had imposed themselves as we proceeded down our prior path.

Obama is only going to Florida because he knows Alabama and Texas are already lost.

Keith,
Thanks for the opinion. You wrote that "the President offers some sort of bridge wherein money slated for use in HLV studies is added to the shuttle budget. The shuttle is flown perhaps twice a year as a shuttle-derived cargo capability is brought online - all while commercial means - including perhaps human-rated EELVs are brought online. Constellation is cancelled, commercial capabilities come online and prove their value, and NASA gets a HLV"

I got a little confused when you said that the money for HLV studies gets shifted to the shuttle budget but then in the last sentence that NASA gets a HLV. Where do you think they get the money for the HLV then (since in your view the HLV study money goes to shuttle)?

Also, if they do what you propose and keep shuttle around for "x" years while building a HLV, do you think the cancelled Constellation program moves those workers to design the HLV (instead of Ares class)? Because if the shuttle stays then those workers will have to keep working the operations side of the house and the development side of the house would probably build the new rocket IMO(Constellation workers).

In the way I read it shuttle and Contellation workforce are both utilized going forward (operations today and future = shuttle workforce, engineering today for Ares = Constellation workers, engineering for Shuttle HLV = Constellation workers)...

Or do you see it some other way?

I agree with pawn. What happens in or to NASA has no more to do with the conquest of space than do events at the Department of the Interior.

The other sub camp wants to stretch out the remaining shuttle flights and add some additional flights as they transition from shuttle to a shuttle derived (side mount) architecture that would be cheap, straightforward, use existing resources, and would also preserve human access and jobs."
and either is acceptable.

Side mount Shuttle-C proposals are a Trojan horse for Shuttle orbiter life extension.

".. preserve human access .." -- Get the drift there?

I enjoyed that. Keep sustaining, NASA guerrilla warrior!

It still remains to be seen what is understood to be a 'compromise'. There's a huge difference between a 70-100T and a 30-50T HLV (the latter too large for LEO, too small for BEO) and, also, this alone does not resolve the issue of human LEO access IF Dragon/Falcon-9 ends up not proving it's reliable.

I wouldn't hold my breath given the administration's track record for real bipartisanship.

I think the President might not necessarily feel the pressure on this one. Like others said, he might very well go in there and defend the budget... maybe with a very small compromise. What sucks about the compromises is that they all seem to delay/slow down any next generation technology and future exploration (with no increase in dollars). Putting all your eggs in the commercial basket for LEO is actually the only solution to that. Even if there are failures, they'll eventually get it because there is money to be made. I don't know if I agree with that approach but I understand it, and although painful, I see it working. It would be nice to see something more concrete for NASA doing beyond Earth orbit exploration. Go to an asteroid whatever way you can and bring back lots of rock.

Peeling back the onion on the post from “That NASA Engineer@KSC”, let’s compare Orion/Ares development costs with Orbital and SpaceX, using available on-line data.

Page 2 of the FY10 ESMD budget shows the FY11-FY14 budgets for Orion and Ares I are $7.7B and $8.1B, respectively. So the NASA-developed crew capsule and launch vehicle have a combined development cost to go of $15.8B. This is a low-ball estimate of the total future funds needed to get the first flight unit of Orion and Ares I. Some FY15 money would also be required for the first flight unit (but that data isn’t in the FY10 budget), and this analyses does not include the “Program Integration and Ops” line (another $6B for SE&I, EVA suit development, and costs for getting Ground and Mission Ops ready to go). The latter was not included as a portion of this is presumably also required for SpaceX.

At the March 18, 2010 Senate Committee Hearing, Frank Culbertson (Senior VP at Orbital, flew on 2 Shuttle flights and on 3rd Expedition to ISS, Managed Shuttle-Mir program) stated that Orbital estimates they could develop a crew taxi for $3B. Frank said this value came from Shuttle $/payload figures, and should be significantly less with today’s technology. Frank indicated the $3B was a good upper bound.

Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX President) was also questioned about development costs. She indicated that the $6B in the FY11 budget for crew taxi development would provide 5-10 suppliers using SpaceX costs. Doing the math, Shotwell claims the development costs are in the range of $0.5B to $1.2B. These incredibly low numbers are consistent with the overall low costs at SpaceX. For example, their existing $1.6B Space Act Agreement with NASA to develop an ISS cargo transport and fly 12 cargo missions to ISS. In her testimony, Ms. Shotwell explained that to minimize costs, their Dragon concept is applicable for both crew and cargo transport. Thus, they are able to leverage their development costs for the cargo transport with their crew transport vehicle. Shotwell discussed the five elements needed to be added to Dragon to safely fly crew (launch escape system, vehicle health monitoring / abort triggers, life support system upgrade, crew accommodates – seats and manual control system, and gantry access at the launch pad).

To summarize the development costs for a crewed taxi to ISS, we have a gov’t option (Orion/Ares) low-balled at $15.8B, Orbital less than $3B, and SpaceX in the 0.5-$1.2B range. Even if SpaceX is off by a factor or 2 or 3, it is hard to ignore these dramatically lower costs for crew transport to ISS.

NASA FY10 Budget: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/345955main_8_Exploration_%20FY_2010_UPDATED_final.pdf

March 18, 2010 Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee Hearing on “Assessing Commercial Space Capabilities” http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings&ContentRecord_id=97c4a99a-40e3-47dd-a956-d1afded3ca06&ContentType_id=14f995b9-dfa5-407a-9d35-56cc7152a7ed&Group_id=b06c39af-e033-4cba-9221-de668ca1978a

Bill Nelson seems to be fairly certain he has bent the presidents ear and has been very vocal about it recently. From what he is saying it does sound compromise but not exactly along these lines. Nelson seems to, very rationally, have accepted that shuttle needs to end. I would assume primarily because of the cost, the inherent gap, and the inherent danger in flying it. He has stated though we should do that one extra mission using the existing hardware, not hardware that would have to be built causing this gap. He also said that Obama should give a verbal goal himself of Mars as the destination and immediately begin development of the HLV whether totally new or derived. That $2B or so each year spent flying a couple of shuttles would definitely help with new projects. Nelson also seems to feel commercial should be heavily involved. A final consideration is that shuttle is going to function simply as a large supply vehicle. We will still be required to purchase Soyuz for crew changeout and emergency return so keeping shuttle does not remove that cost. But we shall see what Obama says when he gets here. Congress has far more people from states not directly benefiting from NASA money who could go along with the president rather than with those from the space states.

The president did, as so many others have, kind of renege on what he said here during the campaign. However I don't believe he promised to save shuttle and the reality of the federal budget disaster has limited what he could do. I am certain if he had loads of money to spend he would have given quite a bit more to NASA. However, Brevard county was significantly Republican in their vote so as far as losing political support in Brevard county, 54 to 44 per cent Republican. And I doubt he could change that much either way, this county is very red as I learned living here.

Keith - I know this is a bit off topic but could the image you used to tag this story with be a subtle way of saying that President Obama has turned his back on Human Space Flight?

(couldn't resist)

Editor's note: it is STS-130. Sorry. ;-)

chrish and keith,

I saw the same thing, very subtle.

BTW- Nelson is toast.

Keith...I actually like the image you put together of Obama and the Shuttle launch. Is there a way that you could provide a larger version, perhaps as a link off the one here? What really makes it is the lighting. It all matches up in a very poignant way. Thanks!

Editor's note: actually I made it at 72 dpi quickly for the web - so that's it for now. Might re-do it at some point.

Hats off to the NASAEngineer@KSA for actually digging into the budget and providing some sober and realistic analysis of what the Administration is actually doing, which is making difficult short-term decisions that will pay big dividends for our children. They are NOT gutting human spaceflight! Go back and read the Blue Ribbon Commission Augustine report and you will see there very few realistic options. Congress is simply ignoring reality.

While the HSF situation is of great interest to everyone associated with HSF, based on what I have seen in the media and in my trips around the country, the HSF situation is of little concern to the media outlets and of just about no concern at all; most people are not even cognizant; to the people of the nation outside of the areas around the space centers or contractor's facilities.

... a 30-50T HLV (the latter too large for LEO, too small for BEO)...

Does your "T" mean metric tons or short tons? In either case, please explain why this payload in Earth orbit would be inadequate for travel to the Moon and back.

Keith,
I believe you are partially correct but regardless, if the president does visit the Motor City it is only for damage control. Two lingering issues contribute to the visit and these are his campaign promises during his visit to the Saturn factory at Spring Hill, TN, and the grilling our current CEO is going through with our representatives. The then presidential candidate made committment to a dedicated following of white and blue collar workers during his campaign trek through the Great Lakes industrial heartland and has without explaination has turned face on these dedicated supporters. Secondly, the unilateral decision of the exec. branch to terminate Hummer, Pontiac, and Saturn was without council of the technical body and our new CEO has been less than clear on a committment to what follows. General Motors and the dedicated contractors that execute the GM mission who are all seriously impacted are now an itch that the administration is trying to scratch.

Editor's note: Huh? When did I suggest that Obama was going to Detroit?

The Augustine commission suggested a $3 billion increase in the manned space budget. So where's the money?

The only thing the Obama administration is offering is a continued mission to LEO program which is pretty much what NASA has been doing for the last 38 years.

When it came to the space program, I thought Obama might be the New Kennedy. But so far, he's turned out to be the New Nixon!

Marcel F. Williams

Dear David Davenport,

NO,NO,NO,NO!

Shuttle sidemount, as far as Buzz and I have proposed, IS UNMANNED. It is not any form of way to keep the manned spacecraft flying indefinately. They fly only as long it takes to start up the cargo vehicle. Otherwise, who do you expect to build the damn things if the workforce is wiped out for five or longer years.
Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Or Direct fantasies.

I think there will be more compromise from the original DOA plan then most here are expecting.

Editor's note: Huh? When did I suggest that Obama was going to Detroit?

You didn't, Keith.

That's my attempt at satire.

I'm trying to point out the similarities between NASA and the agonies of the tireless NASA work force at Huntsville and Houston and Kentucky Fried Space Center, compared to Gooberment Motors and the travails of the United Awful Workers Union.

No need to worry, Obama gonna take care of all God's children!

The only, ONLY reason Obama would think he needed to compromise was if it actually looked likely that Congress was going to significantly rewrite (i.e., reject) the OSTP/OMB budget proposal for NASA - which seems more and more probable.

"The Augustine commission suggested a $3 billion increase in the manned space budget. So where's the money?"

So I just wanted to check up on this, as it's a good point. What was "recommended" by Augustine (in quotes as they kinda avoided overt recommendations and instead gave options) - for Options 3 through 5 was:

"This budget increases to $3 billion above the FY 2010 guidance by FY 2014"

The 2010 guidance was just about $17.8bn. What the proposed budget does is this:

2010 -> $18,724.3
2011 -> $19,000.0
2012 -> $19,450.0
2013 -> $19,960.0
2014 -> $20,600.0
2015 -> $20,990.0

That's actually just about $3bn by 2014, exactly as suggested in Options 3-5 of Augustine. So in short, that's exactly where this money is.

If you look at where that $3bn goes, about $2bn goes to the ESMD and $1bn goes to "Space Technology."

Nixon, conversely dropped the budget from $21bn in 1969 to $11.5bn in 1974 (all 2007 dollars). So comparison here is not reasonable.

With all due respect, the flaw in this analysis is the asumption that the might and oversight of NASA, DCMA, etc. comes without cost for a commercial provider. The term "commercial" will be thrown out of the window the second anything is funded through the NASA administration. We always estimate a burden of 40 to 60 percent to host the NASA customer and their requirements. Now, throw on top of the heap "manned rating" of a vehicle the burden becomes the significant cost driver. Space-X and the other privateers becomming prime contractors with NASA are in for an awakening.

The manned spaceflight related budget in 2009 was about $8.4 billion. That's $3 billion for the space shuttle program, $2 billion for the ISS, and $3.4 billion for the Constellation program. If you added $3 billion to that, as recommended by the Augustine Commission, that would have given NASA $11.4 billion a year for manned spaceflight, $57 billion dollars over a 5 year period.

Under the Obama plan, only $22 billion is invested in manned space flight over that same 5 year period, a $35 billion dollar difference in funding. So the Obama administration is only supplying NASA with about 39% of the manned spaceflight budget that the Augustine Commission recommended and only about 52% of the manned spaceflight funding had remained at the 2009 level.

So the Obama budget dramatically reduces our investment in manned spaceflight. Dramatically!

Marcel F. Williams

No one, NO ONE I know takes those cost estimates by Orbital, SpaceX, etc. seriously.

But, it will be easy to see if THEY believe it. Sign them up for a fixed-price development contract, fixed passenger costs to the government for 10 years with penalties for late product delivery. Prediction: they won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

Having worked in the manned space industry and at Johnson Space Center in Houston, rumors are always commonplace. This is because the culture of the industry and NASA there in Houston has always been very political. Worse, there is now an old boys' club that crosses company lines down there. They very jealously guard their interests and are always on the lookout for things that could empty their rice bowls.

Now along comes Obama with a large-scale emptying of these rice bowls. I applaud this move, because the politicos who were suckling off the federal teat have turned manned spaceflight into a sort of jobs program. Economically speaking, federal monies would be much better spent facilitating the emergence of a private space sector rather than propping up an inefficient operation. To compromise would allow these politicos to stay in business and devise ways of knocking off the private space sector and going back to the old ways. To close them down entirely is the only way to guarantee reform here. Obama should not compromise when he travels to Florida.

The only compromise that would make sense is a temporary continuation of Shuttle, in combination with beginning the development of a Shuttle derived heavy lift launcher.

If Orion is a strong candidate for earth to space transport, let LM come in on commercial terms along with the other potential commercial providers. Personally I'd rather see LM come back with their winged fly back mini-Shuttle which offers a much more commercially viable transport for long duration crew. By all means, keep NASA away from interfering in the commercial endeavors as this is the only way we will ever get beyond the current outrageous US costs for transport into orbit and return.

The heavy lift will be needed, whether to support ISS over the long term or for future systems, and Shuttle derived maintains the current knowledge-base and provides a new capability that is greater than EELVs can provide.

Miles, you are DEAD SPOT ON!!! This, IMHO is the only compromise that makes any sense and would help all of those whose jobs are threatened. A Shuttle-based architecture for heavy lift can help accelerate its development, keep costs restrained, and preserve some element of the current experience based work force. It is a compromise, after all, which means everyone gives up something. Temporarily.

The old boys clubs are alive and well - actually a couple different versions of it are cross-pollinated; you have the astronaut club which especially has ties into industry, and you have the mission ops club, which has now infiltrated every JSC organization's management and much of Space Ops at Headquarters.

These clubs are what really made Constellation the disaster it became. It was one thing to have to delay aspects of the program because of budget availability, but moving ahead with unsupportable designs and ill-defined requirements, which is what they did on Orion through multiple iterations, happened precisely because they supported one another so well that they were afraid to tell the emperor that he had no clothes.

The situation is not new and did not begin with Constellation. Its gone on now for many years. The same behavior caused both Challenger and Columbia.

If JSC is going to survive, and assuming it is meant to be more than just a jobs program, they need to get beyond this and the only way they are going to do that is by getting some qualified, experienced, forthright and outspoken people into the management ranks.

If they are just going to take a bunch of similarly inexperienced people out of one or two organizations, then they will not make it.

Obama is going to announce with great fanfare that the management of the commercial (COTS) is being moved to KSC. The 50 JSC billets will be moved and will probably be increased under Ed Mango leadership.

The hopey changey thing is that commercial cultivates trees that grow gold.

Nelson can now say look what I did, Tex and Al as stated in other posts are red states and will get none of the redistributed NASA exploraton budget.

In his own words, "I won!"

Similar rumor is running around JSC shuttle world although more genric in that Obama promised to move a bunch of JSC jobs to KSC to placate Nelson and Florida voters and hopefully keep them in the Democratic fold for 2010 and 2012.

What exactly about the astronaut club and the mission ops club caused the Constellation program to be a failure? If you are saying they didn't have development or project management experience then that's a false arguement because no one in NASA has that experience and I would agree with you that NASA doesn't give people the training or the expereince to do that job at the level of a major aerospace program. So the real issue isn't what part of NASA they come from but how they are devloped and trained for the project management position.

Just a note that to become an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer in the Navy (uniformed acquistion, development, and project management specialists) you had to be a naval aviator with at least one, preferably two operational flying assignments before you would be selected. Concept is that you have to have done the job before you can make good decisions on the requirements and capabilities of new systems. After selection follow on training and job assignments gave you the necessary techncial and project management skills and experience before being assigned a major project management position 8 to 10 years later.

As a taxpayer I object to utilizing tax payer money to fund development of private rockets. If there is a business model for commercial rockets then they can come up with their own development money, develop their rockets, and then once operational then they can market them to NASA or anyone else in the government.

That's the rub. There isn't such a model, at least for crew launchers.

Right now, commercial human spaceflight has only one customer - the government. We're back at the start of the 20th Century with heavier-than-air aviation R&D. The difference is that commercial HSF has costs orders of magnitude higher and thus requires far more government grants to survive long enough to develop a product.

You might be right that no one at NASA has adequate experience any longer though I suspect there are enough of the old guard left that could have done the job.

In the case of Constellation, much of the management 'team' was made up of flight controllers and a some ex-astronauts but in strategic positions.

I believe this was the fatal flaw in the management structure, because they were always in such total agreement with one another. And much of the technical work and decisions were being made solely within the program office rather than by technical personnel in the field organizations.

It should have been set up as an adversarial relationship with program management, safety, and the CM/requirements manager questioning the validity of every number and demanding proper rationale.

But when its all done within the program office, mostly by your fellow former mission operations friends, and especially with the culture that has developed over the last 10-20 years where the program feels they hold all the cards, and no one has the right to question their decisions, lest they get their job taken away or their budget cut, that is when a proper technical discussion and decision is lacking.

Sounds like the compromise will be an effort to develop the Ares V launch vehicle, judging by Charlie Bolden's comments to Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post. It would be a shrewd split, letting commercial provide launch services for payloads up to the shuttle capacity (United Launch Alliance's Delta IV rocket can transport almost as much tonnage as the Space Shuttle), while government develops launch vehicles that are beyond the interest of the private sector.

A good compromise that may create new levels of co-operation between commercial companies and NASA may be the following:

NASA has a pivotal role to play for beyond low earth orbit exploration. While different commercial entities may compete for low earth orbit access, for beyond low earth orbit (LEO) exploration different commercial entities work together with NASA and with one another to create a space faring eco-system.

NASA has always had a human space flight program. If this compromise is adopted, NASA will retain it for beyond low earth orbit (LEO) exploration and provide the expertise necessary for commercial entities human LEO access.

What if the compromise looks like this: NASA would keep a shuttle-and-CxP-derived heavy lift booster in work, but NOT for humans beyond LEO exploration, but for space-based solar power experiments ?

Great principle, but it's fuzzier than that in practice. Corporate IRAD programs (internal R&D) in aerospace are funded out of DCMA-approved percentages added onto government contract work. The idea is to help the government get better bids in the future, incorporating these new technologies. It's a modest but time-honored practice in old-school aerospace companies like mine.

I think you're in favor of letting private venture capital carry the entire cost of product development, which does happen sometimes -- but only with a business plan that includes customers. The Obama proposal positions the government as an anchor customer, on the notion that this favors such development without necessarily carrying all of it. That declaration, added to a possible civilian transport market, might knock some venture capital loose. I gather that SpaceX has made it this far on exactly this kind of mix of government technology development support and venture capital.