Full Draft Text of House NASA Authorization Legislation

Having gone through both bills the Senate bill is all around better then the House bill.

The only major change I would make to the Senate bill would be to eliminate the prohibition on procurement for commercial crew for FY2011 and delete the laundry list of reports/studies that are needed before it goes forward. Really, the human rating study is the only one you could make a real argument for since its probably needed for the RFP. But 60 days is a good timetable for it (as opposed to a year in the House Bill!!!) and the standards shouldn't be any stricter then for the SLS/Orion.

I suggest advocates start a strong push for the Senate bill. It the best deal on the table for everyone.

Just looked at it quickly and noticed that this appears to be 5 year authorization as opposed to the Senate 3 year version. Don't think I have ever seen a 5 year authorization before!!! Is this fairly unprecedented??

Does any one know what other differences there are between this and the Senate authorization?

By the way, I can not find any mention at thomas.loc.gov (the Library of Congress site that deals with legislative affairs) of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. Does anyone know what the bill number is? The only official evidence I can find for this bill is the press release from the Senate committee. The press release says that the vote was unanimous (which suggests 25-0 since committee has 14 Democrats and 11 Republicans), but I would like to know if all 25 (including such Senators as Sen. Boxer (D-CA)) voted for it????

Nor have I seen anything official from the WH about its support for the Senate bill as Senator Nelson said would occur. Did such a statement from the WH occur? If so, does anyone have a link to this statement/press release?

To me, all this seems very unusual. I wonder if we are seeing some very historic events in terms of how the WH and Congress interact? I am not just talking in terms of NASA but in terms of all government discretionary spending.

I am not a total expert on how Congress works, but I have followed the authorization bills of NASA for the past 6-7 years and done some research on earlier years. For many years during the late 90's and early 00's there was no NASA authorization just appropriations. I am not sure legally how an agency operates under such a scenario, but obviously an agency can function because NASA did not shut down those years for which it had appropriations but not specific Congressional authorization. (I think there is some tradition or policy or legal ruling that in this case gives default authority based on previous authorizations. I think under such scenarios the authorizing committee pretty much cedes its voice to the Executive Branch and the appropriations committee.) Does anyone know more details on all this??

I think these are very unusual times indeed.

Forrest

This document states that the house committee wants the maximum use of orion development effort to date and that the Orion developed for ISS be evovable to a deep space vehicle over time,
so the spiral is back
Orion lite
then Orion deep space

The House bill is more reasonable than the Senate
bill in that it doesn’t go into as much detail as to
how and when the HLV is to be done. It is a more
generalized bill and as such easier for the
administration to work with. It still drastically
underfunds space science and commercial.

I think I see a compromise the administration can
live with here. The administration could pick up the
one time costs of facilities refurbishment with
remaining stimulus funds and redirect the money in
the NASA budget for these costs to the commercial
crew and space science.

Ofcourse this would require a more benign attitude
toward commercial crew and advanced in space
propulsion than I think congress/corporate interests
have.

heavy lift vehicle to be shuttle derived and ready by the end of this decade

this makes the most since, by the end of the decade orion lite has become orion deep space

The Augustine commission recommendation for loans to commercial crew with a promise to purchase the services is in this language,
this makes commercial crew development costs off budget in the near term
brilliant!

I will take ether one
the senate version gives us side mount
the house version is vague and would allow the NASA leadership team to come up with the same solution,a recent 700 page report from the ESMD backs up my contention that side mount with EELV upper stages makes the most economic and programmatic since, this report over at nasaspaceflight also states side mount is evolvable over time to a inline version "if needed"
side mount can perform the fuel depot mission, lunar mission and side mount block III and fuel depot can perform the NEO and deep space mission.
off course the fuel depot mission and commercial and deep space crew is still best performed by EELV alone based on cost!
so in my mind side mount is a cargo to ISS/deep space launcher only

I guess this shows how hard it is to make these bills.

President, Senate, House. Three different bills. Which would you choose?

I agree, but look at the numbers. Where is the money
to purchase the services commercial providers develop
with the loan money? Not enough in the budget for even
cots cargo. I like the longer term budget as it provides
for some of the out years not mentioned in the Senate
bill. NASA still needs more latitude in developing the
HLV and more money for space science development. No
more spam in a chemically powered can beyond LEO.

infocat13

The Senate bill requires the HLV to have to evolve to 150MT to LEO. Do you really think that is possible with Side-Mount?

GREverett,

Do you really want NASA to be involved with the design and certification of private human spacecraft.

From page 49 of the House Bill

[[[NASA INSIGHT AND OVERSIGHT PROCESSES.—
Any company that seeks to provide commercial crew transportation services under contract to NASA shall enter into an arrangement with NASA that allows NASA to obtain ongoing insight into the design methodologies, processes, technologies, test data, and production and quality control practices employed in the development of the commercial crew transportation system throughout the development, test, demonstration, and production phases. NASA may offer early warning of conditions that could lead NASA to withhold certification of the crew transportation systems for the flight of United States Government personnel or to decline to enter into a contract for services. NASA may not require the company to make changes to its design, technologies, or processes during the development, test, demonstration, or production phases. ]]]

I wonder how Elon Musk will like NASA looking over his shoulder making "suggestions" on the design of Dragon...

And on page 50, certification of the vehicles

[[[(1) CERTIFICATION OF SAFETY AND RELIABILITY.—Before entering into a contract for the use of commercially available commercial crew transportation or crew rescue services for United States Government astronauts, the Administrator shall certify that a commercial ISS crew transportation and crew rescue service provider with which a contract is planned has demonstrated the safety and reliability of its systems for crew transportation and crew rescue to be equivalent to NASA-promulgated safety and reliability policies, procedures, and standards for human spaceflight. Individual certifications made under this paragraph shall be provided to the Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate.]]]

No wonder the House is offering loan guarantees. The firms will need that money to build their spacecraft to NASA specs. Of course the kicker is the federal government would hold superior rights on its loans which will make it very difficult to get private loans to cover the other 25% of costs, since NASA basically takes ownership of the firm if the firm defaults on the NASA guarantee loan leaving the other borrowers holding the bag.

From page 56 of the House Bill

[[[(2) the amount of the obligation (when combined with amounts available to the borrower from other sources which shall be a minimum of 25 percent of the total expected project development cost)is sufficient to carry out the total development project.

(e) SUPERIORITY OF RIGHTS.—The rights of the Administrator, with respect to any property acquired pursuant to a loan, shall be superior to the rights of any other person with respect to the property.]]]

Really, you need to read both bills in detail, the House bill especially which have a number of these very specific requirements. When you do you will realize that the Senate bill is a very good Compromise all around and should be the basis for moving forward.

Yes. I do. Moreover, they already are. Moreover, Elon Musk
wants them to and needs them to. You better believe that
any aircraft or spacecraft that flies with an American flag
on it has been designed, tested, and built with the tight
oversight of the FAA, and in the case of spacecraft, NASA
and USAF. The reason a person might feel relatively comfortable getting inside a Dragon and riding it to the ISS is because he knows the people designing and building it had to meet strict criteria.

The House and Senate bills do seem a bit punitive in there intent when it comes to oversight. There clear intent is to delay if not kill commercial space outright. But yes I expect the government to be deeply involved in private aircraft and spacecraft R&D and operations.

My father was a barnstormer in the Midwest in the 1920s &30's. He flew his Wako 9 for the first time the day he bought it after one checkout flight. Many others did that as well, and died early deaths for it. When the FAA was formed and you had to get a license, most of the pilots of the time were thrilled.

GREverett,

The FAA and NASA are separate agencies.

Currently the FAA Associate for Space Transportation regulates commercial launches, not NASA. VG's Spaceshiptwo will be licensed by the FAA AST, not NASA.

What the House bill threatens to do is set up two different regulatory systems, one for NASA commercial crew contractors governed by NASA using the financial power of the commercial crew contracts they are offering and the FAA AST regulations that will govern the same firms flying non-NASA passengers. Perhaps even on the same flight... Don't you see some problems with such a dual set of requirements? Or if the FAA AST just adopts the NASA ones?

After reading this bill and associated stories it is now clear that President Obama, the hero to almost all Cx haters, has shown no interest or leadership since February 1 on this issue. His "plan" was no such thing. It was a disaster created by OMB. This means that all of you Obama supporters need to realize that regardless of the outcome of the elections in November there will be NO leadership from the Whitehouse on space issues during his presidency.

Cx had a lot of problems and now we have a rocket designed by Congress.

Way to go Mr. Obama. Thanks for nothing. You had a chance but failed to deliver a plan to Congress, so they took the ball and ran with it.

Dear spacedout,

How can you say such things about President Obama. Didn't you hear him tell us on April 15 while at the Kennedy Space Center that there is no bigger supporter of manned space flight than himself. And that it has been that way for him ever since when he was a young child perched on his dear white grandfather's shoulders, he witnessed the Apollo astronauts come back to the good old USA in Hawaii after splashdown. That certainly has made him way more "spacedout" than yourself - shame on you. And for goodness sake, the man is that way even though he admits sheepishly that he "doesn't even like Tang". Surely you can see that with such statements that the President is a true space enthusiast. Why else would he ask the NASA administrator to go to Cairo for an outreach mission and then deny it. Please lighten up.

Forrest

Obama never had a vision for Nasa. He always ran with the crowd that saw little value in manned space flight. That he did not want a heavy lift desin before 2015 (toward the end of a possible 2nd term) and push out vague goals until 2030 says it all. Since there will be no major breakthoughs in rocket technology between now and 2015, I appauld the senate commitee recommendation to start on a HLV design now. That some senators want to push technolgy that supply jobs in their states is to be expected (refering to Hatch's comments about solid boosters). But Hatch's comment's is not without merrit, considering that we now have solid fueled rockets being testing capable of 3 million pounds of thrust per booster. Combined with Shuttle main engines, and or the Delta 4 RS-68 engines, a compeling agrument can be made about using solids in a heavy lift design. Now safty and that you cannot shut them down once lite is another story, but solids need to be seriously looked at.
That said it still saddens me to this day that we threw away the best HLV ever made, the Saturn 5 after only 20 were made (18 flown, two laying on their sides having never flown). What a massive waste on money conidering that 20 billion in 1960 dollars was spent on Apollo. It ultimatly cost us another 100 billion (cost of the ISS using the Shuttle to assemble the station). If anyone have the foresight to keep the Saturn 5 production line open, even if it meant only producing one or two per year, we could have had an more capable space station that ISS using only 2 or 3 Saturn 5 launches in the 80's (kinda like Skylab on steriods)instead of something like 30 Shuttle flights. Not to mention what type of robotic missions we could have had. Saturn 5 with improvments in design could have boosted Orion in deep space. Ok back to reality....

Idiots. 20 years from now former ATK and NASA execs will have comfy pensions, and anyone who goes to space will be buying tickets on Russian and Chinese vehicles.

a recent Boeing SD HLV study and a recent 700 page internal NASA SD HLV study suggests that you can evolve the side mount into inline later on.

Don't know why you would think I dont know that the FAA
and NASA are different agencies.

Yes as I said. Both the House and Senate bills seem punitive to me when it comes to to regulating commercial. That is what the "delay if not kill" part of
my previous post was.

So what are you saying? That this surprises you? They
are out to stop commercial space. The only ones in
commercial space' corner are a few more independent
members (notably Sen. Boxer and Warrner) of the Senate
and the WH.

I hope they can do some good. Otherwise, I hope the
WH can negotiate a better deal on commercial in
reconciliation, and failing all that, that the WH
can get a clean CR of the 2010 budget, and negotiate
something better next year or the year after.

House proposal would set back America's space program another decade. Wasting money on aged technologies rather than embracing the opportunities of change.

Rep Bart Gordon cannot really be believing his words; "...provides the nation with a credible, sustainable and worthy space and aeronautics program."

It does not.

It accepts the same fallacies exposed by the Augustine Commission and denies every American the best space program we are capable of.

This a worse mistake than the Senate was making.
Invest in commercial!
Invest in new technologies!

or your wasting my tax dollars, again!!!

*Why* must we "[build] on the investments made to date in the Orion, Ares I, and heavy lift projects and other activities of the exploration program in existence prior to fiscal year 2011 rather than discarding them?"
It's not proven or self-evident that those investments are relevant anymore to the future of HSF in the US, particularly the commercial part. And it's certainly not up to Congress to make such a technical judgment.

GREverett,

What I am saying is if you want to keep commercial space commercial you keep it away from NASA. NASA's space launch needs are different then for commercial spacelift. And military needs are different from both although it has more in common with commercial needs then NASA.

So I don't expect NASA funding of commercial crew to create a golden age of commercial HSF. Instead it may well delay it as the firms most likely to provide the spacecraft for commercial human spaceflight industry end up being distracted by meeting NASA requirements.

Papa you are so wrong stating "And it's certainly not up to Congress to make such a technical judgment." This is NOT a technical discussion anymore. Cx could get us a heavy lift, shuttle derived can get us heavy lift, and many other things could. So the only discussion to be had is a policy discussion. And Congress has a lot to say about that. If Obama had given Congress even an outline of a plan with real goals and dates then this would not happen.

Many of you forget that all of these key senators and representatives have already approved Cx through numerous authorization bills. Then team Obama comes in and says, "hey your baby is ugly". What did you expect the reaction would be from people who have huge egos to begin with?

The Sidemount offered NASA the opportunity to quickly return to the Moon at an affordable cost. However, since we're currently not going to the Moon, it would seem more logical just to build the inline version.

You could probably increase the payload capacity of the inline shuttle derived rocket up to 150 metric tons by simply adding two more 5-segment SRBs (LOX/LH2 core rocket + four 5-segment SRBs + EDS stage). They could probably add an additional 20 tonnes of payload if those SRBs were expendable.

Marcel F. Williams