Tag: budget

NASA builds a $349 million test stand it knows it will never need

11:58 pm

SLS marches on! Though Obama cancelled the Constellation rocket program in 2010, NASA continued to build a $349 million engine test stand for that rocket, finishing the tower in June 2014.

The test stand was also significantly over budget. It now sits useless, since the SLS rocket will use a different untested engine in its upper stage during its first manned flight.

It is every important to underline the chronology here. The rocket was cancelled in 2010. Construction on the test stand continued however for four more years, partly because of decisions by NASA management and partly because of mandates forced on them by Congress.

Stories like this illustrate why I think the political clout of SLS is weak. The program is too expensive, is riddled with waste, and it can’t accomplish anything anyway, making it a perfect target for both muckraking journalists and elected officials who want to make a name for themselves saving the taxpayer’s money. And both have a perfect inexpensive and successful alternative to turn to: private space.

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A new Russian heavy lift rocket amid Russian budget woes

10:18 am

The competition heats up: Even as Russia today successfully placed a commercial satellite in orbit on the 400th successful Proton rocket launch, Russian sources indicate that — despite budget woes fueled by the drop in oil prices — Russia is moving ahead with the design and construction of a heavy-lift rocket capable of competing with NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

From the last link above:

By 2013, Roskosmos drafted a very preliminary roadmap toward the development of heavy and super-heavy launch vehicles. Not surprisingly, it matched closely the strategy that NASA had followed since 2011 within the Space Launch System, SLS, project.

…As the American SLS project, Russian super-heavy launcher plans envisioned building a rocket with a payload of 80-85 tons in the first phase of the program. A pair of such rockets would be enough to mount a lunar expedition. In the second phase of development, the rocket would be upgraded to carry unprecedented 130-180 tons of payload in order to support, permanent lunar bases, missions to asteroids and expeditions to Mars.

As much as I remain a skeptic of SLS, it has apparently struck so much competitive fear in the Russian leadership that they are now willing to try to copy it. Much like the 1980s, when the Soviet rulers bankrupted their nation trying to duplicate American projects like the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Space Shuttle, Putin is now repeating that error all over again. His country has experienced almost a quarter-century of strong economic growth since the fall of communism because, during that time, they focused on capitalism, private enterprise, freedom, and a bottom-up economic structure. Now, they are beginning to abandon that approach and return to the top-down, centralized system of government planning.

As it did in previous century, it will bankrupt them again in this century. Though the Russian government is denying the reports that they are going to trim their space budget, their government’s budget is going to suffer from the drop in the price of oil. Something will have to give.

Update: This review of a book about modern Russia is definitely pertinent: The Land of Magical Thinking: Inside Putin’s Russia

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Another reasonable look at this week’s Congressional budget deal.

10:53 am

Link here.

Mitchell correctly notes that this deal occurred because of the reality of divided government. While Republican leaders have often acted like weak-kneed wimps, there still remains a limit on how much they can get, not controlling two-thirds of the government. As I noted earlier in discussing the science budget, the federal budget is no longer growing uncontrollably, evidence that the voters’ wishes from 2010 and 2014 are beginning to be heeded.

Only when we have elected more conservatives will it then start to shrink.

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A more positive conservative take on the budget deal

10:48 am

Link here. I think Lambo nails it. The deal might not be ideal, but it is only the beginning, and was written when Republicans only control one house of Congress, and still pushes back at many Democratic-passed initiatives.

Next year that changes. If we do not see significant cuts in the budget from Republicans when they control both houses of Congress I will then join the many conservatives who justly distrust the Republican leadership and want their heads.

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No more Russian engines for ULA

10:34 am

The heat of competition: The new budget, passed by the House yesterday, includes a provision both banning ULA from buying any more Russian engines for its Atlas 5 rockets as well as providing $220 million to help develop a new engine.

Combined with the likely approval of SpaceX to also launch military payloads, ULA is under significant pressure to get those Russian engines replaces as quickly as possible.

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NIH panel recommends cancelling multi-billion dollar study

10:13 am

An government advisory panel has recommended the NIH cancel a controversial nationwide study to track the health of 100,000 children.

The study has already cost one billion, has had two scientists resign because they didn’t like how the study was being run, and has as yet only enrolled 4,000 children.

Update: The NIH officially cancelled the study later the same day the panel’s report was released.

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Science spending steady in proposed Congressional budget

9:18 am

The proposed budget deal announced by Congress yesterday essentially leaves level the overall spending on science.

I have a spreadsheet where I track the budgets of the various science agencies in the federal government, and from this I can say that since the Republicans took control of the House in 2010 the funding has remained very steady. Despite the partisan screams from the left that Republicans are destroying science, all these science agencies have pretty much gotten stable funding in the past four years.

Nonetheless, much of this funding could be trimmed significantly, as there is enormous featherbedding and pork among these science agencies. That won’t have a chance of happening until next year, when the Republicans control both houses of Congress. Even then, Obama and much of the Republican leadership will oppose significant cuts, Obama because he wants to see increases and the Republican leadership because they wish to maintain the status quo.

The unending growth in these budgets, routine from the 1970s through the 2000s, has definitely ceased. I also expect the political pressure to cut these budgets to grow with time. The newer Republican members of Congress tend to be much more radical than their leadership, and are much more willing to slash budgets radically.

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Lame duck Congress agrees to $1.1 trillion budget

5:03 pm

Faced with the threat of a government shutdown, Congress has worked out a continuing resolution that will fund the government through its fiscal year ending in September 2015.

There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth among conservatives about this deal. Many wanted the Republicans to fight harder now and limit this deal more. I am less worried. The political winds are clearly favoring conservatives and tea party ideals. Come next year Congress will be controlled by Republicans, and the 2016 budget will be shaped by their concerns. Whatever small gains the Democrats and Obama get now will be stymied then.

And then will come the 2016 elections. I expect an even greater win for conservatives, since Obama is making it clear he will continue to stand firm in support of Obamacare and many other liberal issues that have proved to be poison at the ballot box.

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Orion launch on Thursday given go-ahead

1:30 pm

The Thursday test launch of an Orion capsule has been given the go-ahead.

Many of the news reports this week about this test flight have referred to Orion as “the spacecraft that will take humans to Mars.” I must note again that this is hogwash. No humans will ever go to Mars using Orion. It is too small and does not have the capacity to keep humans healthy and alive for the year-plus-long flight time necessary to get to and from Mars.

The most Orion can ever be is the ascent and descent module for a much larger interplanetary space vessel, used just for getting humans up and down from the surface of the Earth. The spacecraft that will really take people to Mars will have to be something more akin to Mir or ISS, a large assembly of modules put together in low Earth orbit.

One other tidbit everyone should know about tomorrow’s test flight: Though it is being touted as a test of Orion’s heat shield, the company that makes this heat shield has already abandoned this design, so the test itself is for a heat shield that will never be launched again on another Orion capsule. In addition, the flight won’t test the rocket to be used, as the SLS rocket isn’t ready. Nor will it test the capsule’s life support systems, which are not on board.

Which immediately raises the question: Why in hell is NASA even bothering with this test flight?

Sadly, I can answer that question. This is all public relations, an effort to lobby for funding. That’s it.

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A scrambled SLS/Orion flight schedule

12:40 am

It ain’t gonna happen: In trying to figure out what to do with SLS/Orion, NASA has admitted that the earliest any crew mission to an asteroid can occur is now 2024.

I could quote from the article, but then I’d have to quote the entire article and comment on the absurdity of practically every sentence. NASA hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with SLS, it isn’t designed to do much of anything, and it doesn’t have the funding to anything even if they knew what they wanted to do with it. Hence, the constant scheduling rearrangements, all designed to push the actual manned flights farther and farther into the future.

The article does point out how NASA is now planning to fly its first crewed mission on SLS/Orion using an untested upper stage, since the rocket costs so much to launch they can’t afford to spend the money on an unmanned test flight beforehand. Meanwhile, they are demanding that SpaceX and Boeing do all kinds of unmanned test flights with their manned capsules at great cost to these companies, before allowing any astronauts on board.

As I’ve said repeatedly, this rocket is never going to fly anyone anywhere. By 2020 several private companies will be sending humans into space regularly at far less cost and with far greater capabilities. Congress will finally realize that they can spread their pork around more effectively by funding these companies instead, and they will cancel this bloated and wasteful program.

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Billion-dollar-plus NASA medical research contract under dispute

11:24 pm

A bidding dispute has forced NASA to again put up for bid a $1.5 billion contract for space medicine.

The dispute has to do with two dueling contractors, Wyle and SAIC, both of whom want the big bucks.

After Wyle won the Human Health and Performance contract in March 2013, SAIC filed a protest with the GAO, ultimately prompting NASA to reopen the competition.

When NASA reawarded the contract in August 2013, it chose SAIC. The following month, the McLean, Virginia-based firm — which had announced plans the previous summer to split into two companies — rebranded itself as Leidos and spun off its $4 billion government information technology and technical services unit as a publicly traded firm that kept the name SAIC and was slated to get the Human Health and Performance contract.

But Wyle filed its own protest with GAO in September 2013, arguing that NASA should discount SAIC’s lower bid — at $975 million, nearly 10 percent lower than Wyle’s — because it was submitted when the unit was still part of a much larger company with deeper pockets. This time, the GAO sided with Wyle.

The article says practically nothing about what all this money buys me, the taxpayer. And it is an awful lot of money. Is it for medical research on ISS? Is it for monitoring the health of the astronauts? Is it for biological research? What is it for exactly? I honestly can’t imagine how this kind of research or medical monitoring on ISS can cost this much. My skeptical nature has me wondering if this contract might instead be a bit inflated, much like SLS and Orion, in order to funnel pork to congressional districts to employ as many voters as possible.

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Italy’s legislature rejects additional funding for space

12:11 am

The Italian legislature has refused to add an additional $250 million to the budget of its space program, money requested to help pay the country’s share in the development of Arianespace’s next generation commercial rocket, Ariane 6.

The money was also needed for several other ESA space projects. Not having it puts a question mark on Italy’s future in space. The article also illustrates how the committee nature of Europe’s cooperative space effort makes it almost impossible for it to compete in the commercial market.

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Taking a broad look at Tuesday’s Republican sweep

6:33 pm

I don’t have much to add to the numerous reports about yesterday’s election by political pundits far more qualified than I. The Republicans won a big landslide victory yesterday, not only gaining control of the Senate, but winning more seats than expected. They also won more seats in the House than expected, widening their majority there to numbers not seen since the 1920s. In addition, they made it a grand slam by winning a plethora of governorships — many in Democratic stronghold states such as Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland — as well as taking control of more state legislatures than ever before.

What matters to me, however, is not the election but what this new Republican majority does with its majority. In the past, 1994 and 2000, they more or less squandered the opportunity to rein in government. In 1994, they allowed the government to grow but at a rate below the rate of inflation so that in a few years this resulted in a balanced budget and surpluses. But the government still grew in power and size. In 2000 they did not even do this, allowing government spending and yearly deficits to balloon, even though they had a Republican president who would have supported them if they had wanted to cut the size of government.

Thus, while I am hopeful, I also remain very skeptical about what will happen in the next few years. In order to prove to me and the conservative base that elected them that these Republicans mean what they say when they say they want to shrink the size of government, they are going to have to prove it with real action. They are going to have show us that they really do want to repeal Obamacare. They are going to have to show us that they really do want to gain some control over the border. And they are going to have to show us that they really do want to cut the budget and get it balanced.

I understand that the Democrats in the Senate and Obama can still block many of these initiatives, but too often Republicans have used this fact as an excuse to not try at all. This must stop! They must apply strong pressure on these left wing ideologues, make them reveal their politics for all to see by forcing them to veto or block these initiatives. Only by demonstrating a resolve to rein in government will anyone believe the Republicans when they claim that’s what they want to do. And by doing so they will also simultaneously expose the Democrats as the left wing ideologues that they are.

Making these points can only be for the good, politically.

Two more points, often unstated but fundamental to what elections in the United States represent.
» Read more

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NASA treats Congress like a doormat, again

9:34 am

Stupid: More than a month after publicly awarding commercial crew contracts to SpaceX and Boeing, NASA has yet to brief Congress on the reasons for its decision.

“To date, the Committee has not been briefed on the source selection, nor has it received the source selection statement, despite the fact that the offerors have been briefed, details were released to the press, the [Government Accountability Office] is now involved; and NASA has decided to proceed with the contracts,” Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) wrote in a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden dated Oct. 21. Smith and Palazzo chair the House Science Committee and House Science space subcommittee, respectively.

“We hope that NASA will not expect taxpayers to blindly fund billion-dollar programs absent any information related to the procurement or contract,” wrote Smith and Palazzo, who are ardent supporters of the Space Launch System, major contractual details of which were only finalized this year and have not yet been made public.

These elected officials are not NASA’s allies when it comes to commercial space, so giving them too much information is probably dangerous. At the same time, the choice of Boeing was certainly done to ease their concerns, and keeping them out of the loop is only going to turn them against the commercial space contracts. It serves no purpose. NASA should instead be trying to show them why picking SpaceX and Boeing made sense, and how these two multi-billion dollar contracts will bring many jobs to their districts.

If NASA doesn’t do this basic political massaging, these guys are simply going to try to cut commercial space out when it comes time to negotiate the budget, as they have already tried to do several times in the past.

But then, when it comes to politics this behavior by the Obama administration is par for the course. They might have the right idea, farming out space exploration to the private sector, but their political implementation has often left much to be desired.

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Management problems at NASA’s asteroid hunting program

11:15 pm

An inspector general report today criticized NASA’s program to find potentially hazardous asteroids, finding it disorganized and poorly managed.

The report faulted the NEO Program’s lack of structure, and said its resources are inadequate for handling its growing agenda. In addition to the program’s Washington-based executive, Lindley Johnson, NASA funding goes to support six employees at the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts and six more at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the inspector general’s office said.

The report said the program’s executive fell short when it came to overseeing progress in the asteroid-tracking effort. What’s more, there were no formal partnerships with the Defense Department or the National Science Foundation, or with international space agencies. Those groups could make significant contributions to the effort, the report said.

I do not doubt that this program has management problems. What government agency today doesn’t? And any that are managed well are the exception to the rule. However, the report’s conclusion that “resources are inadequate for handling its growing agenda” is typical Washington-speak for “Give us more money!” which almost never solves the management problems that made the program a failure in the first place.

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New York dumps NASA contract because of cost overruns.

8:26 am

New York Mayor de Blasio has fired a team of NASA consultants that had been hired by the previous mayor to lead the overhaul of the city’s 911 system after costs skyrocketed and the project fell far behind schedule.

Up to 20 NASA consultants had spent the past two years working on the project, at average annual salaries of $250,000. They’ve conducted technical designs for new radios and computer dispatch systems. That technology will eventually link police, FDNY and emergency medical system dispatchers and field units to the city’s main emergency call center in downtown Brooklyn, and to a still-unfinished backup call center in the Bronx.

City officials did not say they were dissatisfied with NASA’s performance. They simply believe the work can be done cheaper in-house.

Why does this sound familiar?

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Review panel approves extensions for seven planetary missions.

5:19 pm

In approving extensions of seven NASA planetary missions, a review panel concluded that the Curiosity rover wasn’t doing the best it could, and that the project scientist didn’t work hard enough to change their minds.

The Mars Science Laboratory’s Curiosity rover landed on the red planet in August 2012. Equipped with a drill to gather surface samples and spectroscopy equipment to analyze the samples, the rover has collected and analyzed five surface specimens so far and, according to the extended mission proposal just approved by NASA, would analyze another eight over the next two years. That is “a poor science return for such a large investment in a flagship mission,” a 15-person senior review panel chaired by Clive Neal, a geologist at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, wrote in a report published Sept. 3.

The report also chided John Grotzinger, the lead Curiosity project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for neglecting to show up in person during a Mars-focused senior review panel meeting in May. “This left the panel with the impression that the [Curiosity] team felt they were too big to fail,” the senior review panel wrote.

This sounds like a pissing war between scientists. Grotzinger didn’t give them the required deference so they slammed him. No matter happened, however, we know they weren’t going to cancel Curiosity’s funds.

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Battle of the heavy lift rockets

9:44 am

Check out this very detailed and informative look at unstated competiton between NASA’s SLS rocket and SpaceX’s heavy lift rocket plans that are even more powerful than the Falcon Heavy.

Key quote: “It is clear SpaceX envisions a rocket far more powerful than even the fully evolved Block 2 SLS – a NASA rocket that isn’t set to be launched until the 2030s.”

The SpaceX rocket hinges on whether the company can successfully build its new Raptor engine. If they do, they will have their heavy lift rocket in the air and functioning far sooner than NASA, and for far far far less money.

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Free gym memberships for Homeland Security desk jockeys

9:25 am

It’s good work if you can get it: Homeland Security is spending almost a half a million dollars to provide free gym memberships to bureaucrats in Washington.

TSA also announced more gym memberships for its employees in Phoenix.

What this tells us is that the Washington elite still consider the federal budget a blank check designed to make their lives wonderful, even as the rest of the general public struggles to make ends meet and federal government and the general economy goes bankrupt.

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Congress applies pressure to ULA and the Air Force

8:58 am

Two congressional committees are holding up approval of a budget revision for the Air Force’s launch program because of concerns about cost overruns and the program’s dependency on a Russian rocket engine.

Such requests must be approved by each of the four congressional defense committees, and so far, the EELV proposal has won the support of only two. The Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee and the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee have green-lighted the plan, while the House and Senate Armed Services committees have deferred approval, according to budget documents dated July 25 and July 31, obtained by Defense News.

[The Senate Armed Services Committee] (SASC) asked the Air Force to draw up a plan, by Sept. 30, “that leads to the production of a liquid rocket engine by 2019,” according to one of the documents, sent to Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord by SASC Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

Meanwhile, others legislators are questioning the program’s cost overruns. Though only hinted at in the article, this hold up is also related to SpaceX’s demand that the bidding for Air Force launches be opened up to competition.

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House slashes budget of National Security Council

10:09 am

Pushback: The House has approved a one third cut to the budget of the National Security Council in response to its mandate that agencies withhold information from Congress.

As I said yesterday, when an agency of the federal government decides to defy Congress, elected by the people, than the best and most effective action for Congress to take is to use the power of the purse to reduce or eliminate that agency’s funding. Without money their power disappears, and Congress takes control.

It has been decades since Congress used its power in this way. The more it does this now, however, the more it is going to realize how powerful it really is.

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The House slashes IRS budget

9:51 am

The Republican-controlled House has slashed the IRS’s tax enforcement budget by 25%.

The cuts reflect GOP outrage over the agency’s scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status and frustration over the agency’s failure to produce thousands of emails by Lois Lerner, the official formerly in charge of the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

“The use of a government agency to harass, target, intimidate and threaten lawful, honest citizens was the worst form of authoritarianism,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., author of an amendment to cut the IRS tax enforcement budget by $353 million. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., followed up with an amendment to cut $788 million more.

The Democratic floor leader on the funding bill, Rep. Jose Serrano of New York, opposed the amendments but opted against demanding a roll call vote. [emphasis mine]

This is the right way to deal with the IRS abuse of power. Cut their funds. Use the power of the purse. I also highlight the Democratic position because it illustrates several things:
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Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.

8:46 am

Senator Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.

Essentially Shelby wants to require the commercial companies to follow the older paperwork requirements used by NASA in the past. Presently, the contract arrangements NASA has used for these new companies have been efficient and relatively paperwork free, allowing them to build their cargo freighters (Dragon and Cygnus) and their manned spacecraft (Dragon V2, CST-100, and Dream Chaser) for relatively little.

The older contract rules are what NASA has used for Constellation and SLS as well as all past attempts to replace the shuttle. In every case, the costs were so high the replacement was never finished. In the case of SLS, the costs will be so high it will never accomplish anything.

Why has Shelby (R-Alabama) inserted this language? He wants pork, and SLS is the way to get it. Rather than cut the cost of SLS to make it more competitive (and which will reduce the pork in his state) Shelby instead wants to make the new commercial companies more costly, thus making SLS appear more competitive. It will still cost too much and will not accomplish anything, but this way he will be able to better argue for it in congressional negotiations.

Shelby illustrates clearly that the desire to waste the taxpayers’ money is not confined to the spendthrifts in the Democratic Party. Republicans can do it to!

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Aerojet Rocketdyne says it can replace the Russian rocket engines used by American rockets for $20 to $25 million per engine.

7:43 pm

The competition heats up: Aerojet Rocketdyne says it can replace the Russian rocket engines used by American rockets for $20 to $25 million per engine.

Including legacy systems and various risk-reduction projects, Aerojet Rocketdyne has spent roughly $300 million working on technologies that will feed into the AR-1, Seymour said during a June 3 roundtable with Aviation Week editors. The effort to build a new, 500,000-lb. thrust liquid oxygen/kerosene propulsion system would take about four years from contract award and cost roughly $800 million to $1 billion. Such an engine is eyed for United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rocket as well as Orbital’s Antares and, possibly, Space Exploration Technology’s Falcon 9 v1.1.

This is roughly the same price cited for the cost of standing up U.S. co-production of the RD-180 engine, which is manufactured by NPO Energomash of Russia and sold to ULA for the Atlas V through a joint venture with Pratt & Whitney.

Unfortunately, this announcement is part of a lobbying effort to get Congress to fund the new engine rather than a commitment by Aerojet to build it themselves. Thus, I fully expect them to go over budget and for the engine to cost significantly more once in production, facts that will make it less competitive in the future.

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