Senate Prepares To Throw Road Block At NASA Policy

I'm still wondering why Obama/NASA HQ hasn't been looking for a compromise. It should be obvious by now that there's a lack of support in congress for the new policy, and it won't fly as-is. Do they think it'll just work itself if they pretend there's not a problem? Congress may end this feud one-sidedly if Obama/NASA HQ isn't willing to meet halfway...

Thank god that some common sense has emerged from this morass.

It is hoped that the space community can finally unite around this apparent decision by the representatives.

With the speeding of a HLV, we can it least tell our grandkids that together we will watch images of US astronauts back on the moon or on an asteroid or on a moon of Mars.

From my observations, kids are not so much excited about the space station or a trip to nowhere (L5). But when you say that we are landing on the moon or on an asteroid, then they are excited. They even get excited about piloting a Human-looking robot on the moon.

It would also slow down a rush to invest in commercial rockets

Whoa! Slow down there, NASA! Don't rush in to flying on those commercial rockets. You know, the launch businesses that the Defense and Intelligence communities have relied on for over a decade to launch multi-billion dollar payloads.

You know, it's only been since 1984 that Reagan signed into law the Commercial Space Launch Act and since 1990 that George H. W. Bush signed into law the Launch Services Purchase Act.

If true, perhaps there is some hope for sanity. While far from perfect, this plan would give us a real spacecraft, and a heavy lift vehicle to take us somewhere worth exploring. And, we can start doing that right now, not in some never, neverland. We can keep building the spacecraft that is just passed its preliminary review. I fail to understand why the majority of lawyers running the society can't see the intrinsic value in maintaining steady year-to-year funding for technology development and space exploration. Or why they think going to no place, is better than going someplace interesting ... like to the Moon, just because its cheaper. However, if Congress can come up with the stones to stop this disaster... we'll take what we can get. It sort of like the dog that plays checkers, he doesn't do it very well ... but one is astounded that he does it at all! So, I say all those politicians, put your knee braces on, stop shaking and do the right thing. Given us back our space program. Even an anemic one is better than nothing.

Listen, I hope Space X does a bang up job delivering cargo to the ISS. I think it's totally appropriate, and hope that they can progress to crew transfer. But these guys have got to walk before they run. The score right now is NASA = 163 manned launches/Space X = 0 manned launches. That is pretty thin to put all the country's chips on. The NASA budget as a percentage of the total Federal budget has been decreasing almost continuously since the start of the Clinton Administration. Maybe before that, I just got tired of doing the calculations. I understand the people in the opposition think the Obama Administration and the OSTP are trying to do you a solid, but I honestly believe that they are just trying to do you. Full stop. Everybody on both sides of this argument are space advocates, but I believe you guys want something so bad, you believe everything they say. I read Robert Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon" too, but you are a very long way from making a successful business model for anything more than the most elementary of orbital operations. The analogies that you guys use don't hold water. This isn't Jamestown or Botany Bay or the Louisiana Territory. You could breathe air, drink the water, and eat anything you could kill in those environments, and even so we lost people by the thousands. I think we can all agree space is a much more unforgiving environment. When Captain Ulysses Grant was being transferred to California via the Isthmus of Panama before the Civil War, he lost a third of his command making the transit. What do you think the public's response would be to losing a third of your mission personnel while making a trip to the Lagrangian points with Wing & A Prayer Rocket Company? I predicted not good, especially if you're not constructing your vehicles to NASA human rating standards. And to get all the savings you guys are imagine, corporations will either have to cut corners or invented a replicator (Reference British Petrolium). Let's face it, for the foreseeable future space exploration is going to be a difficult and dangerous environment to work in. The rewards that our country will reap, will eventually be commensurate with the risk. It's our job to convince the politicians that is certainly worth 7/10 of 1% of the Federal budget. If we can't do that, then we'll be just like the Ming Dynasty.

Finally a glimmer of some real Hope and Change...

OK, let's take an inventory...
-- NASA has been gagged to preclude it from crafting it's own coherent policy;
-- The President is more interested in patronizing the Muslim world to boost their intellectual ego than he is in continuing human space exploration;
-- NASA needs third world nations to assist America beyond Earth orbit, "because we can't do it";
-- And now Congress is crafting NASA's exploration objectives and space infrastructure.

Did I get that about right??? Discuss amongst yourselves....

I hate to say this, especially since I voted for Obama (I am an independent)...but I think we are going to need another Reagan to reconstitue America after Obama's finished with Her, just like we needed Reagan after Carter.

IMHO, Obama's gutting of NASA's HSF program(s), along with his other Social "advancements", are leaving this Country weaker rather then stronger.

As has been said many times before, by others here on this site, NASA has exmplefied the best in American creativity, ingenuity and advancement in aeronautical and space technologies. Human Space Flight is an integral part of NASA's charter, and the most important.

To think that we will soon find ourselves in a position of relying on the Russians to ferry our Astronauts to the ISS is simply sad. And I don't buy into the argument that the Constellation program is to blame for this breakdown in American access to Space. I lay blame equally at the foot of both Obama, as well as former President Bush.

While Bush layed out the Vision, he basically turned his back to it, and left it flapping in the breeze with inadequate funding. Now, the final nail in the coffin is Obama's veritible DISMANTLING of the entire NASA HSF infrastructure.

With the knowledge that STS is winding down, soon to be retired, full support should have been put into the immediate development of an HLV program (wether that was ARES V or some other Shuttle dervied vehicle). I also strongly feel that research and subsequent development of space nuclear thermal power generation as well as nuclear propulsion should have already been under way.

VASIMR looks like a promising propulsion solution in order to reach Mars much quicker then via chemical propulsion. However, if it is going to be used for crewed transportation beyond Earth orbit, it will need megawatts of power that can only be achieved with a suitable nuclear power plant.

I am happy to read about this bi-partisan initiative to re-set American HSF capabilities, and its focus on immediate development of a HLV.

I don't understand enough about American politics to know how serious this is, but if they succeed it will be one of the world's shorter Pyrrhic victories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory).

Both Musk and Bigelow are attracting non-government investors (US government that is), they are pretty determined and in control of their own budgets.

So, unless lawmakers actually plan to outlaw independent action by private business, it looks like people will be flying in space soon enough. (Don't bet the house on them failing. Underestimating the competition is a loosing game.)

The only problem will be that they won't have a NASA badge or Old Glory on their spacesuits. Which, all things considered, would be pretty sad.

And I am not sure how NASA itself would survive such a victory either, which is even sadder.

> Obama's veritible DISMANTLING of the entire NASA HSF infrastructure.

I assume you are referring to the cancellation of Ares I. I don't think anyone in the know ever considered Ares I to be the NASA HSF infrastructure. Shuttle is a big part of it, but Obama didn't dismantle that.

Personally, as long as the Flagship Tech Demonstrators and robotic science missions keep their funding more-or-less intact, I think I could work with this.

Also, it appears Ares is (finally) gone for good, given that there's no mention of it.

People are reading to much and to little into this. There will be no budget this year. There will be a continuing resolution. The action is in the FY 2012 budget where the administration will have a free hand in cutting the NASA budget if it cares to, do to the findings of the budget commission (to report in 12/10). So the administration doesn’t have to do anything to appease Congress. Congress almost never votes more money for discretionary spending than the administration requests. Occasionally they vote more money than the administration requests for defense spending, So the negotiating will happen in the next FY budget. The administration will cut all funding for anything other than their own bare bones budget, and Congress will have to come to the Executive Mansion to see what they can salvage for the corporations that own them. If Congress isn’t reasonable, then the administration can always wait for the FY2013 budget. It just doesn’t mean anything like as much to them as it does to Congress and there corporate masters. How soon we have a new NASA Budget is how soon Congress gets this. Early on I think the administration realized that if it was going to attempt revolution in a low profile budget item, the real enemy was congress and you don’t Invite to king to the revolution.

I thought that SpaceX did a fine job with their initial attempt at proving their capability to deliver astronauts to LEO.

Yes, there is a lot of work yet to be done, but the bottom line here is that OSC and SX are going to succeed, and probably sooner rather than later. And, again, we have yet to see ULA join the game formally, but it is more than reasonable for them to project into the manned arena with their current suite of well-proven boosters.

As for telling NASA to speed its HLV, all I can say is that talk is cheap and if they are serious, then show us the money -- not this year but in the following years and especially when difficulties arise. BTW, who does Congress think will ultimately provide this hardware? Never seen a NASA-owned rocket manufacturing facility, so I am guessing it might be -- gasp -- private industry.

it is hardly a roadblock
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Mr. Obama’s plan has not gained wide support in Congress, but neither has there been a groundswell to keep the current moon program, known as Constellation, which would need a large increase in financing to put it back on track.
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Not sure why the mention of Mr rather then President. As expected there is still room for movement and CxP is not coming back!

Lets face it, the FAA, DOE, DOD, NASA and NIH, NSF are finally talking again as is others in the mix with the State Department taking the lead for international activities the given the NASA mission.

I'm actually taking Summer Vacation this year! I could not be happier!

The admin has burned bridges with congress and it will not get better.

ObamaSpace is clearly fading from the map and the precious heart of Constellation...Orion in BEO config will survive. Something new is risig in spite of Obama, not because.
Congress is doing the "heavy lifting" for him.

Kavanagh is right, the industry isn't as helpless as NASA's vested interests would like to portray, nor is the policy new. The problem with this "compromise" is that NASA funding isn't going up. Promising to do human space with inadequate funds is a recipe for continued failure in human space flight, and a continued theft of funds from NASA's other (science and technology) missions.

"I'm still wondering why Obama/NASA HQ hasn't been looking for a compromise."

Because (and this came as a great surprise to me when I realised it) Obama isn't the compromising sort. It is his way or the highway and he has shown that he has the ruthless single-mindedness to force through his agenda.

A lot now depends on how wedded he is to his policy in the area of space. If he will not accept any alternative, then expect a pocket veto for anything other than his stated plan.

The problem is Obama's policy is at odds with itself.
Its throwing out an HLV, a base, a lander, and all the trimmings in favor of a smaller more efficient program... but oh, by the way, lets only save the gold plated capsule with no booster as the one thing you're going to need to make this happen in fifteen years.

I think what congress sees is an obvious path forward being replaced by a giant question mark on the eve of what is going to be a very public retirement of the shuttle system, plus the hit to their local pocket books and popularity.

Using the veto pen on a space proposal is more likely to turn this into an ugly piece of business than finding a workable compromise.

Congress is not going to allow an increasingly unpopular President to trash the government's manned space program-- especially a President that has shown so little interest in the program.

Many in Congress will probably still be in office long after President Obama is no longer president. So they really have to choice but to act responsibly on this issue.

Immediately funding a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle could actually get us back to the Moon, and beyond, a lot sooner than the Ares I/V architecture since the development of the Ares V wasn't supposed to start until after the Ares I was completed.

Marcel F. Williams

I fully understand that American voters selected a political ticket led by Obama. IMHO, it is the
*hardliners,
*recalcitrant personalities,
*political hacks and policy wonks
who have never even overseen/managed/designed/developed/operated a science or HSF activity, and the "lets kill NASA - or at least drastically re-shape, that bloated bureaucracy" zealots who are dead-bent on reforming NASA that have the (current) power and authority to develop and deploy the country's space policy and the VERY SPECIFIC direction to NASA on how to implement this vision (long sentence, sorry). The President receives all the credit and criticism, but it is these functionaries that are driving the new vision, that have worked for NASA, OGA, and the A&D industry, that developed and crystallized the new policy (writ large).
Who amongst us really believes that the President himself spends more than 15 minutes a week thinking about NASA, our (shrinking) A&D industry, or the longer term implications on a continually shrinking industrial base? Haven't we learned, or at least observed over the past few Administrations, that it is the functionaries and the COMPANIES/ORGANIZATIONS that have access to them (on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue) that will help shape the current debate to best support their individual POV.
The re-birth of a manned vehicle on April 15 makes my case.

The admin has burned bridges with congress and it will not get better.

Yea right, Given the Admin and Congress must work together the Govt will fall into anarchy with CxP taking over the WhiteHouse

I think they should mandate a manned landing on the moon by July 20th 2019. I can't imagine celebrating the 50th anniversary without almost live HDTV from the moon.

Landing would be difficult and expensive, mostly because of the costs of developing a lander in parallel to maintaining the ISS. However, I am completely sure that, if the directive were given, an Orion could be orbiting the Moon on December 25th 2018. HDTV Earthrise, anyone?

But even if congress gets it's way over the administration and is able to move up the HLV program, would it still be Ares V? Is the whole architecture question back on the table? Would there have to be another compromise in that a less expensive HLV will be chosen? Which will it be? 160MT AresV, 92MT Jupiter, some sort of 100MT side mount?

Can the argument still be made that multiple launches of a smaller, already developed rocket, can do the same job for far less money? I mean, we did build ISS (350MT+) basically 25MT at a time.

Yes we did, and it took forever and a day! With tons of tediously planned space walks. With a Saturn V class vehicle much of the assembly could be accomplished in Terra Firma and save a lot of time and money.

Much remains to be set in stone (or at least in a bill to put before the Senate). However, it is my understanding that Senator Nelson wishes to authorise a directly-derived SDLV. This would likely come in LEO and BEO versions and would have an IMLEO of greater than 75t. He is also keen to use the five-segment SRM and the J-2X upper stage engine.

This would seem to suggest the D-SDLV that has recently appeared in leaked MSFC documents seen on NASASpaceflight.com, which would have a Jupiter-style SSET-derived core and an upper stage that is a modified Ares-I upper stage. It has been estimated that such a machine coudd launch 95t into LEO or 45t through Earth escape velocity.

On second thought:

After reading Nelson' comments on the provisions of
the Senate budget, there is nothing here that gets in
the way of the administrations critical path. With the
possible exception of the first stage main engines for
the HLV. Their really needs to be a cheaper way to do
space but a heavy lifter won't have a high flight rate,
so starting out with an R-68B, is not that critical a
cost issue (or use of the remaining SME's). While the
core stage is redesigned to use a new hydrocarbon
engine, for use when the flight rate picks up. I think
it is much more important to have a cheap engine for an
Atlas V class launcher. Most of the development work
the administrations program invisage dosn't require a
heavy lifter, and flight rate is much more important to
it than throw weight. And if all else fails, Space X
has a design for a cost effective 1.2 million pound
thrust engine. And a separate heavy lifter design that
would use it's current technology. If coupled with a
heavy second stage, that would give you all the through
weight you really need.

So OK. I think the Nelson proposal might work for the
administration as long as the details can be worked out.
It slows things down but it stops nothing but Shuttle
and Constelation.