Whew! That’s a relief.

Seriously, I never expected them to do anything, as the sanctions NASA has imposed, excluding ISS, are so minor that they mean nothing to Russia. The only people NASA really hopes will react to these sanctions are Congressmen and Senators when they realize how dependent we are on the Russians to get to space.

To quote:

NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration’s for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches – and the jobs they support – back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we’re now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It’s that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America – and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same.

Though I agree with them about accelerating manned commercial space, I can’t help wondering if this suspension of activities was actually instigated to generate this lobbying effort. ISS comprises the bulk of the U.S.’s cooperative effort with Russia, and by exempting that from this suspension the Obama administration essentially exempts practically everything, making the suspension somewhat meaningless.

What the suspension does do, however, is highlight our fragile dependency on Russia, just as Congress begins debate on the 2015 budget.

The article linked above is mostly about Boeing’s effort with its CST-100 spaceship, but within it was this significant paragraph:

Last week, the House Appropriations committees approved $500 million and Senate appropriators $775 million for commercial crew development as part of NASA’s 2014 budget. The first figure is well below the Obama administration’s $821 million request, a figure NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has characterized as essential to meet the 2017 objective. Nonetheless, agency and company managers believe legislators are losing their skepticism over a program that has so far committed $1.4 billion to competing vehicle designs from SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Boeing and others. [emphasis mine]

Congress is still insisting that NASA spend far more for the Space Launch System (SLS), but they do appear to be increasingly less interested in cutting the new commercial crew program. Eventually, a light will go off in their dim brains and they will realize how much more cost effective this program is compared to SLS. I expect this to happen sometime in the next three years, It is then that SLS will die.

Note that I don’t have any problems at all with the above cuts to the commercial program. It is far better to keep these private efforts on a short leash, thereby forcing the companies to stay lean and mean, than to give them a blank check (as has been done in the past and with SLS) and thus allow them to become fat and lazy.

I just finished reading it. Boozer’s introduction and opening two chapters provide one of the best detailed summaries explaining clearly why the United States today cannot launch its own astronauts into space, and why we are threatened with the possibility that we won’t be able to do it for years to come. And while his perspective is mostly from an engineering perspective, he also gives some of the political background behind this situation.

His later chapters are not as effectively written, but the opening is still worth it.

I will give a hint about his thesis: it involves comparing the Space Launch System (SLS) with private commercial space. And SLS does not fare well.

Most of the talks today were engineering related. For example, one described in detail the engineering advantages of building ion engines and solar sails at the molecular level, nanotechnology to the max. Another talk, which I found astonishing and exciting, was an analysis of the orbital mechanics of getting to Mars. This analysis found that using constant acceleration as low as .01 G it would be possible to get to Mars in weeks, not years, and without the necessity of waiting for the perfect launch window. You could launch almost anytime. Though we don’t have engines that as yet can provide this much constant low acceleration, these numbers are not so high as to make it impossible. With some clever refinements, it might be possible to come up with propulsion systems capable of these constant Gs, and to do it in the near future. If so, it will open up the entire solar system to manned exploration very quickly. Not only will we be able to travel to the planets in a reasonable time, the constant Gs would overcome the medical problems caused by prolonged weightlessness.

It wasn’t these interesting engineering presentations that got my juices flowing however. Instead, it was presentation on public policy issues that completely surprised me and made me think the future of the American aerospace industry is really going in the right direction. This significant take-away was further reinforced by the audience’s reaction to my lecture in the evening.

The presentation was by the local AIAA Orange County public policy vice chairman, Kamal Shweyk, on the AIAA’s efforts to influence Congress in how it spends its money on aerospace. Each year they have a day in which members of the AIAA descend upon Washington, visiting Congressmen and Senators to explain and educate them on the importance of aerospace to the nation. This is essentially a lobbying effort by American citizens, though they are very careful not to use that word because if they do, they might be required to register as officially lobbyists, something they understandably want to avoid.

Historically, AIAA has not been considered a New Space organization. Its members mostly come from the older aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Since these companies have generally been hostile to the new commercial space companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic — seeing them as a dangerous and competitive threat — I would have expected an effort by AIAA to influence Congress would mean they are trying to encourage funding for Big Space projects like the Space Launch System (SLS). In the past it has been these Big Space projects that has filled the coffers of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The contracts for these project have been cost-plus, meaning that they have been able to rake in a lot of cash, whether or not they even build anything.

To my joy Mr. Shweyk’s presentation described something completely different. Instead, the AIAA is gung-ho for commercial space, and is doing everything it can to encourage Congress to come up with the money to fund the efforts of new companies like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, and Boeing to build new cheap cargo and manned ferrying spacecraft to low Earth orbit. The Space Launch System was not on their agenda. They had no interest in promoting it. Instead, they wanted money to go to the new efforts, so that more rockets and spaceships could be built by more companies, for less money.

For this organization, dominated as it is by the big and older aerospace companies, to push this agenda suggests to me that the culture truly has shifted, and that private space is definitely winning the political and cultural battle.

I had further proof of this during my evening keynote banquet lecture, in which I also tried to explain from a historical perspective the advantages of commercial private space. The audience was generally enthusiastic and interested. There was some skepticism expressed, but no hostility. Instead, the skepticism was merely an effort to better understand how the industry was changing, and where it was heading.

Had I attended the Space Hackers Conference, I am sure that I would have heard everyone talking about the importance and significance of private space. This really wouldn’t taught me anything, however, since everyone there is already a true believer. By going instead to this AIAA conference, however, I saw evidence that those who formerly had been doubters were now convinced. Private space, built on the concept of free competition, has apparently won the day.

With the AIAA backing private space to Congress, the days of big NASA projects like SLS, expensive and not very effective, appears to me to be very numbered.

The company just opened a 185,000-square-foot addition, bringing its North Las Vegas plant up to about 350,000 square feet. It slashed its work force from 150 before the recession to 50 during the downturn; now, it’s looking to jump back up to 90 workers by Christmas. It’s hiring structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as chemists, molecular biologists and workers who craft composite spacecraft parts.

Hat tip to Clark Lindsey at NewSpace Watch.

Essentially, NASA has finally conceded with this agreement that it has no control over a private space launch that is not flying to a NASA facility. That the FAA continues to have as much regulatory control is bad enough, but getting NASA out of the loop will at least ease the bureaucratic burden for private companies.

First, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) released this short statement:

I was pleased to see the successful launch of the Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft this morning. This launch has been a long time coming, and I am happy to see this very challenging mission begin. There are many crucial milestones to be reached and capabilities to be demonstrated during this flight, all of which we hope leads to a demonstrated ability to provide cargo service to the International Space Station. Reliable cargo delivery is critical to fully utilizing this magnificent National Laboratory capability, in which we have invested so much as a nation and as a partnership.

Hutchison has consistently tried to trim the commercial space program in favor of the Congressionally mandated heavy-lift and very expensive Space Launch System (SLS). That her comments focus so much on cargo supply to ISS fits with her general hostility to using competitive independent companies to ferry humans to and from space instead of a pork-laden NASA-built rocket/capsule like SLS. However, she can’t ignore SpaceX’s success, though she can hope to limit its political impact against the programs she loves.

Second, Congressman Ralph Hall (R-Texas) issued this statement:

I would like to congratulate SpaceX on its successful launch. This was a momentous launch, and I am hopeful that the Dragon spacecraft will successfully complete its mission to supply cargo to the International Space Station and safely return to Earth. The unmanned launch, which took place early this morning out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, is the first of its kind. This is a complex mission, and if successful, will be a giant step forward in commercial cargo capability to the International Space Station.

I have long supported the development of commercial cargo spaceflight, and while we still have a long way to go before American astronauts can fly aboard a commercial spacecraft, I hope SpaceX can build upon this success.”

I will continue to support those who can access the International Space Station, and want to keep the door open for our future successes.

Hall was one of the key figures behind the House budget that insists that NASA make a quick decision on which company will provide ferrying services to ISS. He has also shown a great deal of skepticism about commercial space during House hearings. It is obvious from his statement that SpaceX’s success has placed him under political pressure to adjust his position. He might not like it, but if commercial space gets the job done, he will have little choice but to give commercial space its due.

None of this is surprising. The political winds favor commercial space. The federal debt places great pressure on Congress to find programs that can be trimmed or cut, and SLS is definitely a cash burner with little payoff. Moreover, the opposition to commercial space has generally come from Republicans, who are under even more pressure to find ways to cut spending, coming from a party heavily influenced by tea party advocates.

If SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are both successful this year in their test flights to ISS, it will become increasingly obvious to these elected officials that commercial space is a more cost effective choice. I expect the funding for SLS to die, either next year or the year after that.

The number of ways this action is counter-productive almost can’t be counted.

To begin, here is the relevant section of the report, in full.

Commercial crew.—The Committee supports the goal of achieving independent and redundant access to the International Space Station (ISS) but remains concerned about many aspects of NASA’s approach to the commercial crew development program. First, the Committee believes that the program’s total estimated development costs of $4,868,000,000 are too high given that the current commitment to the ISS leaves NASA with only a few years to make use of commercial crew services and no sufficient additional market has been clearly demonstrated in the absence of NASA as a base customer.

Second, the current structure of the program has insufficient safeguards in place to protect the government’s interests in intellectual or physical property developed with Federal money in the event that companies are terminated from or opt to leave the program. As such, there is a risk of repeating the government’s experience from last year’s bankruptcy of the solar energy firm Solyndra, in which the failure of a high risk, government subsidized development venture left taxpayers with no tangible benefit in exchange for their substantial investment.

Third, the Administration appears to be pursuing potentially inconsistent goals for the program: (1) the achievement of the fastest, safest, most cost effective means of domestic access to the ISS, and (2) the ‘‘seeding’’ of a new commercial spaceflight industry. Given the overwhelming importance of the first of these goals, any funding, time and effort expended in pursuit of the second is potentially a distraction from other necessary work, and, in an environment of fiscal constraint, a dilution of limited resources.

Finally, the program’s current acquisition strategy lacks any defined plan to transition from the planned Space Act Agreement (SAA)-based Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) round of awards to a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)-based certification and service contract. As a result, the strategy presents a significant risk of costly, lengthy delays as NASA attempts to retroactively assess competitors’ designs on safety and other standards and companies attempt to make changes in fully mature integrated designs to address instances in which NASA cannot verify that a necessary qualification criterion has been met. The Committee believes that many of these concerns would be addressed by an immediate downselect to a single competitor or, at most, the execution of a leader-follower paradigm in which NASA makes one large award to a main commercial partner and a second small award to a back-up partner.

With fewer companies remaining in the program, NASA could reduce its annual budget needs for the program and fund other priorities like planetary science, human exploration or aeronautics research. In addition, an accelerated downselect would allow NASA to focus its remaining funds and technical assistance resources on the most promising contender, potentially enabling that competitor to produce a final capability faster than otherwise possible. It would also allow NASA to return to its previous acquisition strategy of holding an open competition (to include current funding recipients and new entrants) and following a more traditional FAR based management approach, avoiding a complex transition from SAAs late in the development process and allowing the government to better protect its interests in intellectual and physical property developed with taxpayer funds. Finally, this strategy is more consistent with current overarching fiscal guidance included in the fiscal year 2013 House budget resolution. In a climate of decreasing non-defense discretionary spending, the Committee does not believe that the Administration’s proposed budget runout for commercial crew is sustainable.

For all of these reasons, the Committee believes that the advantages offered by an immediate downselect and a return to FAR based contracts outweigh the potential benefits of maintaining the current program structure. As a result, the Committee directs NASA to execute the program as described above and in accordance with a fiscal year 2013 funding level of $500,000,000, which is equal to the level agreed to by Congress and the Administration in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–267). [emphasis mine]

For Congress to micro-manage this program so tightly is guaranteed to increase costs. There is no way these Congressmen can know that now is the appropriate time for NASA to pick one commercial company and let the others sink or swim on their own. In fact, considering how early it is in the development of these space vehicles, it is almost certainly too soon, and by demanding that NASA make its decision now illustrates clearly how little these Congressmen know about the state of commercial space.

Moreover, down-selecting to one company will eliminate the healthy competition NASA now enjoys in this program. Having multiple companies competing for the final contract can only keep costs down, as each company knows that if they spend too much and go over budget, NASA is likely not to chose them in the end. And the proof that this is so can be seen by how little this program has actually cost NASA, especially when we compare it to the budget for the Congressionally-mandated Space Launch System (SLS), which is budgeted six times higher and will not launch its first human into space for almost a decade. Meanwhile, the commercial space program is producing five different spaceships, all of which intent to launch within the next five years, for a total budget that is far less than SLS will spend in only two years.

Maybe the worse part of this committee report is the demand that NASA use its older more traditional “FAR-based management approach” rather than the simpler less expensive SAA contracts that the agency has been using to successfully subsidize the entire commercial space program. Insisting that NASA use the FAR contractual system will only guarantee that costs will rise, as those contracts require a great deal of paperwork and documentation as well as intense micromanagement by NASA. Elon Musk has already said that if NASA uses the FAR contracts he would be unable to work with NASA and would pull out of the deal.

So, why are these so-called conservative Republicans doing this? The clue is the demand to go to FAR contracts. They are likely being advised by people in NASA who don’t like the fact that the commercial space program is not really under their control. By switching back to FAR, the NASA bureaucracy will regain power over the construction of these private spaceships, thus justifying their jobs as well as bringing a lot more of the money into NASA rather than giving it to these companies.

This report must not stand. If the United States is going to have a real aerospace industry, NASA and the government have got to get out of the way.

It is very unclear from this article why the Senate panel proposed this shift. They claim it will save money but I don’t see how.

What I can guess is that there is probably a turf war going on in Congress over this money. For example, shifting these weather satellites to NASA almost certainly means that the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland will get more money, which is almost certainly why Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) is for it.

One thought however: NASA generally focuses on individual missions, not long term operational stuff like weather. I suspect it probably is not a good idea to give this work to NASA.

The same article above also outlined the panel’s proposals for other areas of NASA’s budget. To me, the key issue is the budget for commercial space. The White House requested $830 million. The Senate panel has instead proposed $525 million.

Though I (and others) expect the House might try to cut this number further, I actually am encouraged by this news. First of all, the program survives. I was worried by earlier hearings that Congress might try to kill the commercial space program. It is clear from these Senate proposals that they will not.

Second, it is probably better that these commercial companies don’t get as much from the government as the Obama administration wants. Too much money would almost certainly encourage waste. By having a short budgetary leash these new companies will be forced to find ways to do things more efficiently.

Having less money would also reduce their dependency on the government. Better they have to go out and find other customers to make a profit. Not only will that reduce the power the government has over them, it will encourage the development of a real industry, with real customers.

Overall, the NASA budget is cut by about a half billion dollars, the total matching what the agency got in 2009. The key figures are $406 million for commercial manned space, $3 billion for NASA’s in-house heavy-lift rocket and capsule, and $529 million to finish the Webb telescope.

I predict that the $3 billion will be a waste of money, the project getting cancelled before completion.

As much as I am for these new commercial companies, I do not think it a good idea to fund them at these high levels.

For one thing, the government is still broke. It can’t afford to spend that much money. It is therefore unseemly for a website that uses the “tea party” label to advocate more spending at this time.

For another, the more money the government commits to these companies, the more control the government is going to demand from them. Far better to keep the government participation as small as possible. Make it just enough to allow the companies to succeed but not enough so as to make the whole effort a government program.

This is what I have thought might happen since last year. The tone deaf manner in which the Obama administration has implemented the private space subsidies is leaving all funding for NASA vulnerable.

The political needs of Congress encourage them to fund the pork of the program-formerly-called-Constellation because it maintains the jobs that already exist in their districts. Unfortunately, the program-formerly-called-Constellation will not get us into space, and when that program fails over the coming years it will become increasingly likely that Congress will eliminate it entirely, faced as it is with terrible federal deficits and a crushing debt.

At the same time, those same political needs give Congress little incentive to fund the new private space efforts. As these companies are new, they have no vested interests in Congressional districts. Faced with the need to find things to cut, it is very easy for Congress to cut or trim these subsidies.

The result: all funding for NASA goes away.

As I have said repeatedly, this might not be a bad thing. Eventually freedom, competition, and the need to get into space will force the creation of a new space industry, and to have that industry blossom outside the control of government is certainly a better thing in the long run.

The problem will be that it might take five to ten years for that to happen. And that is going to be a very painful time for those space cadets out there who desperately want the United States to explore the solar system.