Letter: Armstrong, Cernan, and Lovell Support NASA Authorization

This is good news, especially with Buzz Aldrin doing an op-ed yesterday in support of the Compromise.

With Astronauts who were on different sides of President Obama's policy coming out with endorsements of the Compromise may well be the key factor making this happen. Hopefully more will add their endorsements shortly.

Of course they'll like it: the baby gets its rattle back.

Does nothing to fix the ailing aerospace industry but fund the usual cabal and rewards Marshall for failing again.

SLS is to Constellation

as

ISS is to Freedom

The Shuttle will still be shut down at the very point when it is finally working superbly. The huge sums spent on keeping obsolete Constellation derivatives going will still be wasted. The only thing that might be useful is the new RLV space launch technology initiative hidden in the aeronautics budget.

Understandably, perhaps, Armstrong is living in the past. He still thinks the taxpayers are going to pay for another Apollo program, i.e. VSE. They won't.

The problem with these ex-astronauts, a very smart and accomplished group of individuals, who try to sway political actions is that they are living in a different age under much different circumstances than their glory days. I personally would love to see us return to the moon and believe it would be very valuable, but also know that it needs to be undertaken responsibly in the present economic and global environment and that many things are much different from both those perspectives than they were in the 60s. A great impediment to any program that makes efficient use of the financing is simply the inefficient NASA bureaucracy that wastes time and money so easily. I just spoke with a friend who besides being a real rocket scientist, also is a big space history geek, and he told me that during the Apollo 6 mission they had the first stage pogo problem manifest itself. They also had the Apollo 11 first stage on the test stand at Marshall. Within 3 weeks they had designed, implemented, and installed a fix and tested it. If NASA could do that in a year now that would be a miracle. So all that time and money is wasted and far too many people get involved also driving costs up. Until this fundamental problem is resolved (highly unlikely) we cannot go back to the glory days. But for these astronauts to simply sit back and write these letters based on their 60s experience is not actually too smart nor realistic. Hopefully something good will come of this new budget direction and hopefully NASA can half way reasonably implement it.

How come we can already have a national space and aeronautics program that is done completely by commercial companies (i.e., the Air Force), and everyone's happy with that, but somehow NASA is different? Or to put it another way, why is it cost effective for the Air Force, and not for NASA?

The sad thing is, I'm worried that asking the above question might make Congress change the Air Force approach rather than NASA's.

Never mind the other glaringly obvious problem, that Congress has said that instead of working on one rocket to reach ISS with a crew in 2014 that was already going to cost more than Congress would appropriate, now they think NASA should build a BIGGER rocket, in about the the same time (2016, with start date of 2010 or 2011), with essentially the funding they had for the smaller rocket?

The senate plan is preferred by 70% of the folks participating at a poll over at nasaspaceflight.com.

So far 200 participants of a pretty informed crowd.

I suspect that the old ex astronaut living in the sixties demographic of that poll is near nil.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22308.0

Senate 134 (69.8%)
House 3 (1.6%)
FY2011 as proposed 49 (25.5%)
None of the above 6 (3.1%)

Total Voters: 192

"The Shuttle will still be shut down at the very point when it is finally working superbly."

At the begining of 1986, I'm sure there were some people that were saying that the major kinks of the shuttle had been worked out, and it was operating smoothly.

At the begining of 2003, I'm sure there were some people that were saying that the shuttle was a mature program, and it was at the top of it's game.

In 2010, people said...etc etc etc.

Just because we've had several successful flights since Columbia doesn't mean there's not the potential for another disaster. With a vehicle as complex as the shuttle, there's still plenty of unknowns.

Mr. Armstrong was used by the opponents to Obama administration. He approved this bill but this bill is not so different from Obama's plan, except for immediate development of heavy lift launcher and cuts to commercial crew transportation. Cuts to commercial crew transportation will be put back on eventually because there are many Shelbies in the Congress.

The thing is with VSE NASA and established space firms were in control with Obamaspace NASA lost relevance and the NewSpacers were going to be placed in the driver's seat.

The NASA Reauthorization Act is a compromise. NewSpacers wants to see NASA done away with.

Given that Rocketplane Kistler joined the ranks of failed NewSpace firms last week - this bill is very wise. We should not bet on all of one or the other - rather a mixture.

However, commercial supporters want it all their way and this is why they're unhappy.

"NewSpacers wants to see NASA done away with."
Yeah, sure. Because NASA do not want to pay at least 1,6 bln$ for commercial space services.

"Given that Rocketplane Kistler joined the ranks of failed NewSpace firms last week"
Check, how much fallen automobile manufacturers lay at beginning of car technology. Or aviation companies on beginning of airplane tech.

Failure in itself means nothing. Maybe I said it wrong. It is rather that: lack of failure means that no one TRY to do it.

Or, perhaps new commercial space firms are failing because Congress keeps competing them against the US government for NASA missions. I don't know what "New Spacers" are, but if NASA was purchasing services or equipment from commercial companies to accomplish its mission, like other government agencies, I'm pretty sure none of the vendors would want to see their customer "done away with."

$6B to multiple companies seems to be a mixture; more so than relying on NASA, or single NASA centers, to build one vehicle.

Again, commercial aerospace has been shown to work - with the Defense Department. Who, by the way, already have purchase deals set up with what you seem to be calling "New Space" firms. I see no reason why NASA is a different model. For human spaceflight, NASA obviously has a bigger role than for cargo, primarily in the life support, etc., since this is a NASA specific mission, but many of the launch vehicle technologies for either type of system are the same, and could be commercially produced to specifications defined by NASA. Just as the rest of the government does it, including piloted aircraft.

"this bill is not so different from Obama's plan,"

I'm not seeing how that can be at all. ObamaSpace killed Orion as BEO spacecraft and put off building heavy lift for years. He flat out said we were not going back to the moon. "been there before" a flippant and irresonsible dismissal of a goal that five years of national efforts were working towards.

There would have been no NASA human spaceflight rockets and vehicles being built for years, or likely even at all given the years of planned delay on heavy lift under ObamaSpace.

Commercial was not going to build BEO capable craft.

The differences are large, and that is why you see people that were greatly opposed to ObamaSpace really getting behind this compromise.

It makes it possible to fly BEO this decade, We could be doing Apollo 8 style missions stretching Orion's legs and future admins could easily flip the Altair switch on. There will now be heavy lift to carry a lunar landing missions hardware.

A critic called this new plan "son of Apollo on steroids". Obviously meant in a derogatory way meant to highlight past mistakes.

He did touch of something there inadvertantly.

This plan is for the "sons of Apollo", and daughters.

The children of the space age that remember or marvel at those past NASA journeys, and are ready to return. They want to run with that torch handed to them.

The truth is,
We are moonbound again under this plan, and other destinations as well. There was no serious committment to doing something right now from ObamaSpace towards BEO goals.

That is why you see Armstrong and others signing on.

The machines to get us there are now and going to be built in the next few years.

ObamaSpace is swiftly headed for the pile of failed and unpopular policy proposals.

Good riddence. There is much work to do now.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

The Space Shuttle is 30yrs old and it's construction technology is 45 yrs old.

The time for it's retirement is upon us.

Spiff Out..........

NewSpacers are the Scaled Composites, Rotary Rockets, Orbital Sciences, Rocketplane Kistlers and SpaceXs - the new and in some case start-up space firms.

As for done away with - meaning may of these firms view NASA and the old way of things as an obstacle.

It is not what I call them - this is what they are called and what they call themselves. It's called Google - (instead of making it like I'm inventing a term) - you should try it.

The issue appears to be not with commercial rockets (as all rockets are built by commercial groups, Lockheed, Boeing, etc) but rather NewSpacers (you can also find the term on wikipedia) feel that they are not allowed to compete.

The Obama plan appeared to be a reversal with these new firms given the greelight and older, established firms being placed back near the end of the line. A TRUE mixture would have been a combination of the experience of the older firms with the energy of these new startups.

The NASA Reauthorization Act requires these new firms prove their technology before they are given any contracts.

Also, comparing launch vehicles to aircraft is like comparing apples to oranges. The strict requirements to 'man-rate' a shuttle or even an EELV are very prohibitive.

Given that Aldrin and SpaceX have signed onto this bill - it appears that more moderate thinking is taking hold and a more balanced, rational approach may go forward.

Wow - did you just try to compare an F-1 engine to a Model-T? Or even a Lockheed Constellation (pun intended).

Trying to compare the production of a space shuttle to a car produced at the turn of the LAST century - wow.

Let me say that the comparison - doesn't hold. Which is why so many NewSpace startups fold. The costs to produce these vehicles is enormous. Heck Boeing and Lockheed had to COMBINE under the ULA umbrella just to survive!

Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything about the term other than that I hadn't heard it. It wasn't important enough that I Google it, just to confess I hadn't heard it.

It was my understanding that ULA could, and was expected to, compete in the commercial launch undertaking in the original proposed budget. But that multiple awards were to be given, which meant that the larger firms couldn't get all of the funds.

At the systems level, a human rated vehicle is a human rated vehicle. Or, to put it another way, the same person will eat the apple or the orange, if you will. The cost of human rating between a plane and rocket are different, of course, as it is for everything else about them, but programmatically, I don't see why that should justify a different approach to building vehicles.

Commercial aspects aside, the other disturbing part of the "compromise" in my view is the immediate construction of a launch vehicle larger than Ares 1, which was behind schedule and over the budget allotted by Congress, in a schedule comparable to the Ares 1. Presumably, the argument will once again be to use old technologies, in some cases older than the Shuttle, and to decimate research to make the budget, as was done in the Constellation program. Regardless of the program, the goal doesn't make sense to me.

Also (referring to a separate poster), I thought Mike Griffin was the one that called Constellation "Apollo on steroids", not a critic.

The truth is,
We are moonbound again under this plan, and other destinations as well. There was no serious commitment to doing something right now from ObamaSpace towards BEO goals.

The truth is, we are not moonbound any more than Feb 2. There still is no commitment to any particular BEO goal, specifically pledging sufficient $$ to keep an ambitious schedule. In the Compromise we already have a self-evident disconnect between what's being built, who's doing it, when it'll be finished, and how much it'll cost. It doesn't matter when Congress says the new HLV will be ready, if it keeps the $$ faucet on "low".

Face it -- this is not your father's NASA or your father's moon program. It's still a much smaller fraction of GDP than we spent in the 60s. So this is just keeping STS/CxP technology warm, moving toward an HLV at a $$-limited pace, throttling back the future of LEO HSF, and duct-taping the NASA status quo together through another election.

ObamaSpace is swiftly headed for the pile of failed and unpopular policy proposals.

What I like best about Obama's original proposal is fostering a commercial HSF enterprise to make LEO flights on the airline model. Cheap HSF for $$ will be done anyway, by some country; but American industry can do it safer and cheaper than any other country, as long as the US gov't fosters it with present and future launch contracts, and doesn't stifle it with in-house competition from the centers. I think that part of "ObamaSpace" isn't dead yet, but the Compromise swings a sword at it. That sword needs to be sheathed in committee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/the-way-forward-achieving_b_651648.html

While typically Buzz is pretty far out, he makes much more sense than any talk of continuing Orion and Ares.

I don't see anywhere in the letter where it says that Armstong, Cernan and Lovell "endorse" or have "signed on" to either of this bills. When you read it closely it's a carefully worded statement. When they say "Each of these pending bills represent tremendous progress relative to our concerns expressed earlier to the Congress, and we hope that you will continue that progress" they are referring to the grave concerns that they expressed in their earlier letter. The fact that they still expect "progress" tells me that not all of their very serious concerns have been alleviated.

By the way I am disappointed in some of the ageist comments that I keep seeing directed towards these three men whom I think deserve at least a little bit of respect. Even if you don't agree with their opinion you don't have to assume that they must be either addled or living in the past. I believe all three men are staying current with everything that is happening, all three are probably smarter than most of us, and they have a lot of contacts not only in NASA but outside as well, and by the way many people share their opinion. So there is no need to insult them just because you don't agree with them.

"Jane! Stop this crazy thing!"

You're correct Mike Griffin did coin that phrase (to the best of my knowledge).

Ares 1 was behind schedule as was the Falcon 9. I'm no wizard with all the answers. I would like to see a balance between the massive ULA-type organizations as well as the tiny tSpace and Space Dev types. I think the polarized nature of Washington - won't allow that to happen however.

Personally? I think our best bet (for now) is Orion - with a universal mating adapter. We should coincide funding for EELVs, Delta IV Heavys, Flacon 9s and Atlas Vs. That way if we have another Challenger or Columbia-type accident - we could continue the program - just switch the launcher (if that's the problem).

This compromise - is a far cry from perfect - but it's better than what came out on Apr. 15.