Commercial Sector Reaction

Delaying a decision until 2015 on the design of a heavy-lift vehicle, the establishment of its first human exploration mission for no earlier than 2025, as a precursor to a Mars expedition in 2030, threatens to sacrifice a generation of experience and expertise in our nation's human space flight workforce."

There is not delay, The President stated "at least by" If the NASA Engineers and Scientist can make it happen sooner the better it will be! Operations is TOAST!

Griffin always said this was about who was going to get the money. He who gets the money always thinks the plan is good.

Try showing some results Merchant 7 and actually earn some bragging rights.

From the UF college crowd, & they mostly nailed it:

Corin Segal, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UF, said by giving up the ability to travel to space on its own for the near future, the U.S. will be taking a back seat to other countries. "There's no doubt that we are going to lose some ground," Segal said. "The other countries aren't waiting for us...And when the U.S. restarts its program, it will have to retrain an entire generation of individuals.......Obama's plan is short-sighted, Segal said, because it doesn't take into account all the implications..."

Peggy Evanich, a UF aerospace engineer...throwing away a lot of money and jobs with the new proposal. For one, the U.S. will have to pay $51 million a seat on Russian spaceships to get to the International Space Station, she said. That's $51 million NASA could be putting in its own system...Obama's focus on Mars is also naive, Evanich said, because of..."

And my fav:

Bo Gustafson, a UF astronomy professor, said while he disagrees with Obama's fixation on Mars, he approves of the president's plan because it has the courage to scrap the problem-plagued Project Constellation and because it increases the emphasis on cost-effective unmanned missions. "We have fantastic success with robotic missions," he said.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100415/ARTICLES/100419584/1002

Mr. Prez, when the HSF speech and the actions don't match, your credibility is lost-in-space too.......

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it;
If NASA is paying for it and NASA is the only customer, what is 'commercial' about it?
The switch from Constellation to 'the Merchant 7' is nothing more or less than a change in contractor. There is no new way of doing business here.

a most excellent characterization:

Has Obama's NASA Strategy Fizzled at Launch?

...For all this, the only thing that may not materialize is the whole actually-traveling-in-space part of the manned space program...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982475,00.html

ROFL! (not really funny, but this has just gotten too bizaredly absurd - ya really need some better advisors Mr. Prez!)

Ya see how easy it is Merchant7:

Indian rocket tumbles back to Earth during test launch

"The first flight of the new cryogenic stage was recently delayed nearly a year as engineers thoroughly tested and analyzed the system's expected performance... "It is really the effort of 18 years working on this complex technology."

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1004/15gslv/

Of course the commercial guys are for this plan. They just got their billions of dollars in development money that they never could have raised on their own as a truly commercial company. This is not commercial space flight just this administration choosing different winners in the government billon dollar lottery for friends of the current administration.

I am still wondering where the commercial entities who will be making out with this direction of NASA think that thousands of jobs will be created. JOBS WILL BE LOST! I'm sorry but when you subtract 4 from 6 and add 1 you still have a deficit of 1. Where is the accounting here?

I read an earlier comment on another article that suggested that maybe Russia, China and Japan, maybe even Iran, should consider coming here to the US and hiring the engineers and technicians that will be displaced by this 'new direct.' I think I am beginning to agree!

Those of us who have poured our heart and soul into Aerospace deserve better than lip service and dreams. We have homes and families. We are part of the human race and the administration, including Adm. Bolden, has decided to ignore us and just cast us aside.

Do the math when you want to talk about jobs being created!

Mr. President, thank you for your challenge Thursday. Don't pay one wit of attention to these critics. No matter what you do they won't be happy. Time for nitpicking is over. It's time to crank up the innovation that lies at the heart of our space program and LAUNCH BABY LAUNCH!!!

AnObamanaut said: "Try showing some results Merchant 7 and actually earn some bragging rights."

Gee... The last time I checked, Boeing and United Launch Alliance are part of the Merchant 7, and they demonstrate results all the time.

Oh Frank... you are so funny!
I find it so ironic that the last words of your post are LAUNCH BABY LAUNCH!!!
With development of heavy lift not slated to START till 2015 and no manned exploration till 2025 looks like NASA won't be doing any launching for quite a long time!

WOW!!!
POTUS really gave KSC the back of his hand.
No tour of the facilities but a tour of SpaceX launch pads. Did he even meet with the KSC director?
Then he tells the workforce here's $40 mill in parting gifts and a years supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat, and he's off to Miami to hob-nob with Gloria Estevan and friends.

Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

"LAUNCH BABY LAUNCH"

Now in Russian...

Frank, I could not agree with you more. In a democracy, not everyone will be pleased. We are excited and ready to embark on this journey. Let's turn it on and go.

I won't mention any names...but some people posting here give new meaning to the phrase "whistling in the dark". I'm all for optimism, but I'm also in favor of maintaining some contact with reality. And I'm definitely not in favor of pretending that the enemies of everything that I believe are saviors, and doing nothing to oppose them!

I will believe in commercial space's efficacy when ULA, or Boeing and/or Lockheed join the fray.

Of course, they are still licking their financial wounds from the last great privatization effort, EELV. Doesn't seem like they will be joining the party for LEO delivery of humans anytime soon.

I'm confused about the "reliance on Russia" comments.

Under Constellation, Bush, and Griffin, was the plan not, since 2004 timeframe, to have a 5 year gap where we pay the Russians for access to ISS?

Cx plans included an Ares 1 launch no earlier than 2015 with crew for rotation at ISS.

Cx plans called for the retirement of the Shuttle in 2010 to free-up cash, people, and facilities for Ares&Orion.

Cx plans showed the shifting of budget in 2016 from ISS to Cx to support the lunar development that would be going on in paralell.

Cx plans did not include ISS after 2016.

And yet, somehow, all of this has been forgotten, and blame has been placed on the FY2011 budget. As if somehow it is the reason Columbia broke up over California, lead to the wind-down of the Shuttle, and the decision to use Soyuz&Progress to maintain ISS.

You know what I find laughable? All of your selective memories.

Had Obama said nothing, and we continued our march on Cx, you would still be paying the Russians for about 5 years, and you would be looking at an IOC launch to ISS somewhere in the 2015-2017 timeframe.

So you tell me, who's fault is this again?

Oh that's right, not one commenter on here can remember much further back than 1 Feb anyway...

The hypocrisy here is so rampant it's funny. Not two years ago everyone and their mother was bucking for the review of the Ares launch vehicles. Almost everyone was up in arms about Cx delays, bogus PDRs, and projected cost increases. But hey, as soon as their cushy CS or Ctr job goes on the line, suddenly their program was in tip-top shape, performing admirably.

The only saving grace, is for those of us who can remember, and have been around, the arguments are completely transparent, as are the motivations themselves.

You can't have it both ways, and neither can NASA.

Where was all of the dissent when Constellation was obviously going to ground us for years and not takes us out of LEO for over a decade? Where were all of the cries of how horrible the President was when he promised to veto any bill providing additional funding to NASA in 2007? Throughout the discussion on NASA Watch the same guys who are so opposed to all of this plan are the same ones I have seen rail against the authors for their criticism of the terrible management that got us into this mess.

The total number of $s to NASA has increased, any argument to the contrary is foolish. This is being done in a time when other government agencies are being threatened with funding stagnation and decreases. There is no new money beyond this coming to NASA. There is no way to build more ET's without more money. There is no shuttle extension. Therefore there is no SDHLV. Blame Bush, blame Griffin, but you can't blame the current guy.

Dislike the methods all you want, but it is the way of things now. What will not surprise is if Congress tries to change it, the President vetoes there changes. If we allow this to be fought by Congress, the President won't be loser, the Congress won't be the loser. NASA will be. If you work in the industry, figure out a way to fit in the new way of things. If you don't sit back and watch, let those of who do make the most of what we have.

I agree with you regarding the gap. For anyone to suddenly bring this up as an issue is being disingenuous. Personally I would rather cut government funding of commercial crew (it's not required)and just put out a promise that if they can develop it on their own nickel we will look at buying it if it provides more value then Soyuz. Given our budget constraints it makes more sense to keep buying Soyuz if that is the cheaper way to go and put our moeny and resources into going BEO.

"Had Obama said nothing, and we continued our march on Cx, you would still be paying the Russians for about 5 years, and you would be looking at an IOC launch to ISS somewhere in the 2015-2017 timeframe.
So you tell me, who's fault is this again?"

He could have committed to jumping in his DMC, traveling back to 2005 and stopping Griffin from becoming NASA administrator at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.

I guess the issue here is if you're just angry over cancelation of Constellation, it's much easier to lie and claim that's causing the gap than it is to admit the gap was always there and canceling Constellation does not change that one whit. ("but we'll now NEVER have another spacecraft! no company will ever be able to build one!" - right)

The main thing is that crying over "Obama killing manned spaceflight and 'giving' it to the Russians" makes a better story than reality. No one would want to explain the actual reality of Constellation.

"I'm confused about the "reliance on Russia" comments."

We're just practising for being politicians. :-)

But you have a great point.

Didn't the Augustine report project that Ares 1 would carry astronauts no sooner than 2017?

And an addition:
Obama's "2500 jobs" claim is the *improvement* over the POR. The terrible loss of space jobs that has gripped Florida lately has actually been in the plans since 2004. Bush set that missile in motion, and he staunchly defended the flat NASA budgets that kept it on course. Obama's plans include substantial funds and tasks to reduce that pain. It ain't the same as flying STS indefinitely, but that wasn't among the options. It still sucks for Florida in the short term, but it's better than CxP. In the meantime, I think it's a much better direction for the country.

Amen. Been wondering the same thing. Also the Cold War-era "the russians will blow up our satellites and take our astronauts hostage" mentality is mind boggling. So embarrassing.....

"Personally I would rather cut government funding of commercial crew (it's not required)"

Never mind not required, it is one of the primary objectives.

Unless you're one of the astronaut corp, and one of the lucky ones at that, there's no chance of the US government giving you or I a ticket to space.

Until private industry get involved for commercial reasons, space will remain for the select few.

"The main thing is that crying over "Obama killing manned spaceflight and 'giving' it to the Russians" makes a better story than reality."

Well, the reality is that contrary to Obama's claim of getting to space quicker with commercial companies, there is no evidence to support that and it is more likely to take longer.

The problem is the lack of reality by those that believe the false claims of quick return to space by those wanting government handouts.

"Didn't the Augustine report project that Ares 1 would carry astronauts no sooner than 2017"

That was if the program was still being underfunded. The report clearly shows that the program was underfunded $1 to $2 billion each year from original budgets in 2005.

If memory serves me right, and I think it does, the original gap was only a year or so. The gap between Shuttle and Constellation grew as President Bush and Congress did not appropriate additional funding. Those of us on the Shuttle program saw this and wondered what would happen when the Shuttle was retired. But we had Constellation.
RFPs for Ares V and Altair were going to be awarded toward the end of 2009 but were put on hold pending the outcome of the Augustine Commission. These RFPs were canceled so there were fewer programs to work on after Shuttle.
On Feb. 1st, President Obama canceled Consetllation with some vague R&D projects. This decision ends the U.S. human spaceflight.
This is why there is dissent.
President Bush decided to retire the Shuttle in 2010 and abandon ISS in 2015 to free up money for Constellation. President Obama decided to extend ISS until 2020 and continue with Shuttle retirement. President Obama could decided to also extend Shuttle.
The underlying problem is that the money is not there to fund NASA human space flight to do evertything we have asked it to do. The money wasn't there in 2006, it is not there in 2011 and it will not be there in 2015 unless U.S. spending priorities change.

"The Gap" is not about five years of using Russian access, it's about retaining our skilled spaceflight workforce. The Constellation program, for all it's flaws, retained the workforce. Obama's plan scatters the workforce, and their institutional knowledge to the winds. Rebuilding that knowledge will cost more in money, time,trust, and astronaut lives that the cost to retain it with a SDHLV built today.

That was the whole point of DIRECT, to preserve the skilled workforce with the money and parts currently available. That is "The Gap" they, and I want to see closed. And it can be closed. Build more ETs, stretch shuttle manifest, and build a good SDHLV instead of a hope and change rocket with unobtainum technology that will just be decided on in 2015.

If Space X, et. al. come up with a better flight tested solution in the mean time, then we can always close down the proven shuttle hardware to switch to the proven Dragon. A good solution today is better than a perfect solution tomorrow.

No more of this, "We choose to chose something in 2015 and do some other things, but only if I'm still president" hog wash.

Why is it "blind optimism" to take the challenge given us by a sitting President and make it come true/ JFK made a similar challenge in 1961. Months later congress funded it and kept funding it until 1965. Should we wait to execute the Obama deep space mission planning until the political winds tack in our direction? This is a challenge greater than that which we faced in 1961, followed in September 1962 even JFK said the new alloys needed in the Saturn V didn't yet exist. You didn't hear people say back then "this is unrealistic and impossible-don't even try". Our fathers didn't have no in their lexicon.
To make "yes we can" in space work will require a certain suspension of disbelief. it was once called patriotism. Buzz asked last year in the Glenn lecture "America, do you still believe in yourself? Are you still capable of dreaming great dreams?"
Time we had an answer.

To call support for B.O.'s abandonment of manned space flight "patriotism" is like calling the Nazi's "final solution" social reform. Not that Constellation was much better...

The attempts to pretend that B.O.'s plan to kill the U.S. manned space program (such as it is) is the exact opposite of that, are getting ludicrous. I can't help but wonder what motivates them.

What exactly is Commercial Space Federation. Is it from Star Trek? Is it just another Wash DC political group? ...or has it ever produced any actual results for AMERICA's space industry?

Under von Braun, Saturn IBs were built at Marshall Center. This worked just fine...but then it was von Braun who was in charge. Since then, the Government has paid private companies to build rockets. These companies have by now built a lot of rockets, and have gotten the hang of it. (Unfortunately, these rockets have all been very primitive ones, in no way better than those von Braun was building so long ago.) Now, under B.O.'s revolutionary plan, the Government will pay companies that have never built rockets to build rockets. I wish someone would explain to me how this is an improvement. For the life of me, I can't see how it is anything but the Government paying amateurs to try to do exactly what the Government has been paying professionals to do.

On Feb. 1st, President Obama canceled Consetllation with some vague R&D projects. This decision ends the U.S. human spaceflight.

Hold it. You're speaking in mental shortcuts. Obama didn't end US HSF, he changed course. You added your own assumptions -- that commercial will fail -- in order to conclude that HSF is dead. That's an assumption, not a fact.

Let's try on a success-oriented scenario. In a month or two, if Falcon 9 makes orbit, will you revise your prediction or probabilities? Presumably Orion-lifeboat will be spec'd to ride on Atlas V; what if money becomes available to work toward man-rating it? After 4-8 cargo flights of F9/Dragon, it'd be a pretty good bet for astronauts, right? At what point would you decide HSF is not dead after all?

President Bush decided to retire the Shuttle in 2010 and abandon ISS in 2015 to free up money for Constellation. President Obama decided to extend ISS until 2020 and continue with Shuttle retirement. President Obama could decided to also extend Shuttle.

C'mon, there's no money for this. Restarting STS production lines today would cost money that we don't have, and it'd suck up funds that could have been used to dig our way out of this predicament. There's a reason STS was supposed to stop in 2010 -- to make room for other things that needed to happen to move forward.

The underlying problem is that the money is not there to fund NASA human space flight to do evertything we have asked it to do. The money wasn't there in 2006, it is not there in 2011 and it will not be there in 2015 unless U.S. spending priorities change.

Agreed. Said another way, NASA has been asking for things the country won't pay for. We should have spent our time working on something we could afford.

"I can't see how it is anything but the Government paying amateurs to try to do exactly what the Government has been paying professionals to do."

I find it funny that people refer to SpaceX and Orbital as "amateurs". Orbital currently operates 2 lines of rockets that send payloads into orbit--DoD & NASA have been paying them for YEARS to do it. And as far as SpaceX goes, do you really think Elon Musk went out on the street and picked random idiots that don't know the first thing about the aerospace business or do you think he poached some pretty talented/smart guys from ULA, USA, DoD, NASA, and academia ? Hint......its the latter. How about doing a little research (including maybe reading some company bios) before you post false accusations like this ?

The reason many of us feel like HSF is dead is that we don't consider being stuck in LEO a real HSF program. I don't consider commercial flights to ISS (which will happen later then promised)a marker of a healthy and growing HSF program.

The original budget roll out did look like the exact plan to kill off BEO efforts. The emerging details offer some hope. What happens with the HLV effort is telling. If we start designing it right away and in 2015 decide to start building it then we can be successfull in pushing out beyond LEO in 2020. If it we just do the R&D make work and don't start designing till 2015 that's a good sign that this administration isn't serious about BEO and HSF is in jeopardy.

So don't placate me with LEO and let's see if we get a truly challenging future in BEO or endless research.

The reason many of us feel like HSF is dead is that we don't consider being stuck in LEO a real HSF program.

I see a different distinction: between arriving in LEO flat-broke and arriving in LEO with a few bucks to spend. Or arriving in LEO at $10,000/lb vs. $1,000/lb, twice a year vs. twice a month or twice a week. (Making up numbers, but just to illustrate a point.)

If commercial HSF pans out, and I'm optimistic, then arriving in LEO with money left over can be an incredibly powerful advance. Having a big SUV is great, but having money to drive it somewhere is at least as important. Having multiple vendors is another powerful advance (see Stern's article).

The original budget roll out did look like the exact plan to kill off BEO efforts. The emerging details offer some hope.

Not much has changed, so I think this illustrates perceptions being driven a lot by expectations. There wasn't really enough information on Feb 1 to rule out many theories, so people found what they brought with them. You have been pretty fair, open-minded and factual, but many people looked for something to hate and found it; others looked for something to love and found it. The truth is somewhere in between.

What happens with the HLV effort is telling. If we start designing it right away and in 2015 decide to start building it then we can be successfull in pushing out beyond LEO in 2020. If it we just do the R&D make work and don't start designing till 2015 that's a good sign that this administration isn't serious about BEO and HSF is in jeopardy.

Research and trades can be an essential part of getting this right. Do it too long and it chokes the program, but do it too little and the costs will balloon once you discover your mistakes. I think a long and well-managed Phase A can be the best thing for a big program. I work on NASA science programs, where this is the current way of thinking.

So don't placate me with LEO and let's see if we get a truly challenging future in BEO or endless research.

Let's see how the planning documents turn out. Some details will help clarify the future.

SpaceX isn't a hobby rocket club, but it's a long, long way from the organizations that build the Delta IV and the Atlas V...and have been building rockets for more than 50 years. But regardless of degrees of competence, all that B.O. proposes to do is to use Government money to pay private companies to build rockets, exactly as we've been doing for more than 50 years. This is "commercialization"? Some people will fall for anything!

This is a bit of a stereotype, but it's true enough to mention.

When NASA tries something, the solution tends to grow more and more beautiful and capable and elegant, while costs climb; and often there are not a lot of incentives to restrain that tendency.

When NASA defines requirements and asks for bids, the contractors fall all over themselves trying to drive the cost down. The incentive is competition. If it's a fixed price contract, even better: the amount of profit rides on efficient and effective engineering decisions. The key is getting good requirements at the start. Our experience working with SpaceX is that it's hard to convince them to do something they aren't required to do. No Christmas trees there.

I don't think it'd be easy to create incentives like that for a team at a NASA center.

But, Papa, no one is proposing that NASA design and build rockets. Those days are long gone. For today's NASA to attempt anything of the sort would be a disaster.

If you're suggesting that the less meddling with contractors by NASA, the better the results, I couldn't agree more. But why should we expect NASA to meddle less with SpaceX than Boeing? Probably it would be the other way around.

"Research and trades can be an essential part of getting this right. Do it too long and it chokes the program, but do it too little and the costs will balloon once you discover your mistakes. I think a long and well-managed Phase A can be the best thing for a big program"

I agree but it seems to me the whole HLV thing has been studied to death already. Do we really not know what are high level requirements are? Do we really need 5 years of trade studies to figure it out? It's not like we are starting from scratch.

We can take the 5 years but don't expect to be going to an asteroid in 2025 because it can't be done without a massive increase in funding to Apollo levels which isn't realistic.

"I don't think it'd be easy to create incentives like that for a team at a NASA center"

Have to disagree. We are doing it now on ISS operations. In 2008 we were given challenge to reduce costs by 30% to help fund Constellation. We have revamped how we do ISS flight control and training and are on track to meet our cost reduction goals by the target date of 2012. In fact MOD management is creating an environment of continuous improvement with a focus on becoming more efficient and reducing cost. All you need is good leadership and a challenging goal.