NASA’s safety panel fears the consequences of the present confusion in space policy.
And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? The agency is asking for billions more to build the Orion capsule.
The lead spacewalker for the next shuttle mission, the long-delayed last flight of Discovery, has apparently broken his hip in a bike accident. Key quote:
NASA does not train backup crews and a replacement, even a recently flown veteran, would need time to rehearse spacewalk scenarios and receive mission-specific training for Discovery’s flight. How long that might take, if required, and what impact it might have on the shuttle’s launch date is not yet known.
More battles in the space war over NASA:
NASA has named a backup to Endeavour’s commander Mark Kelly for the shuttle’s last flight, now set for launch on April 19. This is “to facilitate training for crew and support teams,” while Kelly focuses on the recovery of his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Earlier this week NASA submitted a report to Congress reviewing the design and construction status of the heavy-lift rocket and manned capsule that Congress has required them to build and launch by 2016. NASA’s conclusion: the space agency doesn’t think it can do the job in the schedule or budget that Congress has provided.
NASA does not believe this goal is achievable based on a combination of the current funding profile estimate, traditional approaches to acquisitions and currently considered vehicle architectures. . . . We will not commit to a date that has a low probability of being achieved.
NASA’s conclusions here are not surprising. The agency had been having trouble building Constellation on the much bigger budget and longer schedule given to them by past Congresses. For them to build the-program-formerly-called-Constellation for less money and in less time is probably impossible.
Nonetheless, this was the response of the Senate Commerce committee:
The production of a heavy-lift rocket and capsule is not optional. It’s the law.
This is why I have been saying that the money for this program is nothing more than pork. Congress knows that nothing can be built on this budget, but wants the money spent nonetheless, to keep people employed in their districts.
Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, Space Adventures yesterday announced a new deal with Russia, whereby the Russians have agreed to build and launch one extra Soyuz capsule per year, beginning in 2013, to fly 3 tourists to ISS. In addition, there is this report today about how SpaceX is successfully meeting all its milestones in building its cargo ferry for ISS. An earlier report last week also noted how Orbital Sciences is also moving forward with its cargo ferry, with a planned first test launch by the end of 2011.
All in all, this news is not good news for NASA. The space agency’s manned spaceflight program appears to have two futures, neither of which will involve it continuing to build rockets or fly humans into space. In one option, the new Congress, when it finally sits down to write a budget, will decide that pork and happy constituents are more important than a balanced budget, and will appropriate the money for the-program-formerly-called-Constellation. NASA will struggle hard to build it, but will not succeed. Thus, no government-built manned space program.
In the second option, Congress will agree with me and decide that it just doesn’t have money for pork, especially considering the terrible state of the federal budget. Moreover, seeing the success of the private efforts of SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Space Adventures, Congress will wonder why it needs to pour more billions into a vain effort by NASA to build something it can’t, when there are other private companies that can do it, and do it for less. In this circumstance, it will be very easy for them to cut the-program-formerly-called-Constellation. Once again, no NASA manned program.
Neither scenario is actually a bad thing. What we are actually seeing play out here is the free competition of different companies attempting to provide a service to a customer, and the customer eventually picking the best company from which to buy the product. NASA, as a government agency, simply can’t compete, and unless Congress decides to provide them welfare, will lose this competition hands down.
The U.S. will still have the capability of getting into space, but for far less money. And having multiple private companies competing to provide this service will also encourage innovation, something the rocket industry has sorely needed these past five decades.
NASA has submitted its Heavy Lift rocket proposal to Congress. However, NASA also noted bluntly that:
“Neither Reference Vehicle Design currently fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.”
In other words, they can’t build it for the money or in the timeframe they’ve been given by Congress.
Didn’t someone say this already? Several times?
The shooting in Tucson might cause NASA to drop Congresswoman Giffords’ husband as commander of Endeavour’s last mission this spring.
Some squeals from the right: Don’t cut defense.
As much as I think it necessary to aggressively fight the wars we are in, I have no doubt that the budget of the Defense Department could be trimmed by significant amounts, without harming our capabilities in the slightest.
NASA management has once again delayed the launch of Discovery, pushing it back to late February in order to finish repairs to its external tank.
Today NASA administrator Charles Bolden spoke at the AIAA meeting in Orlando. According to Florida Today, he said two things of interest:
Considering that his administration has done nothing to save the program, and in fact has almost seemed eager to shut it down at times, his sadness seems incredibly insincere and self-serving.
As for his second comment about the shuttle’s safety, I wonder how he knows this, especially since his own engineers are currently struggling to pin down the root cause of the external tank cracks that have delayed the last flight of Discovery, and appear to be a chronic problem that needs to be fixed before any shuttle can once again fly.
Keith Cowing: Reorganization at NASA: More smoke and mirrors.
Updated and bumped: The inspections reveal four additional cracks on Discovery’s external tank.
NASA engineers have finished a series of x-ray scans of Discovery’s external tank.
As I’ve said, it’s all pork: NASA’s Ares rocket is supposingly dead, but the continuing resolution from Congress requires NASA to spend $500 million more for it.
It is also a mess, but I’ve said that before also!
Maybe Shakespeare was right about lawyers: A San Francisco bookshop owner is being forced to close her store because of an ADA lawsuit.
The space war over NASA: The continuing resolution puts NASA where it was back in February, with everything uncertain.
The space war will continue until March: Unable to pass a real budget, Congress has instead passed a continuing resolution that, among everything else, freezes NASA’s budget at 2010 numbers through the spring.
More evidence that the American government manned spaceflight program is dying: NASA is considering a merger of its Exploration and Operations directorates. Without a shuttle, there really is no need for Operations.
The space war over NASA continues: The continuing resolution being offered by the Senate would freeze NASA’s budget at 2010 numbers through March. Also,
NASA would be prohibited from initiating new programs, and could be required to continue spending about $200 million per month on the Moon-bound Constellation program.
As I’ve said repeatedly, the whole thing is a mess.
NASA will be conducting tank tests today on the Discovery’s external tank in an effort to find the cause of the recently discovered cracks.
O joy! NASA, in releasing its preliminary regulations for “human-rating” a manned spacecraft., has also given the regulations a new name. They should not be called “human-rated.” This should solve everything! Also:
The five 1100-series documents outline mandatory crew transportation certification requirements, technical, safety and crew health specifications, the roles of NASA and industry and how to achieve government certification, design reference missions and goals for a space station human transportation system, and ground and flight operations processes. While the broad certification document released Dec. 10 only runs 39 pages, the 1100-series specifications reportedly run hundreds of pages each.
NASA’s inspecter general has found fraud, waste, and abuse in NASA’s small business research program. Nor is this new news:
Problems with NASA’s SBIR program have been repeatedly criticized in recent years by the agency’s inspector general. Of some 46 investigations related to the SBIR program over the past decade, 17 percent resulted in criminal convictions, civil judgments, or administrative action, the inspector general told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last year.
In an article today on spaceref.com “NASA: It’s Our Space Station – Not Yours,” Keith Cowing has some harsh words for NASA and its management of the research on ISS. Based on what he witnessed at a NASA meeting, it appears that NASA wants to retain control over all research on the space station, while denying access to outside other researchers. Key quote:
In addition to prohibiting the ISS National Laboratory contractor from getting its hands on human-based research, Mark Uhran also stated that any proposal that proposed to do anything with spacecraft systems or engineering would be similarly deemed non-responsive. In other words two of the most interesting things you can do on the ISS – the sorts of thing you’d want a larger research base to focus on (assuming you are really interested in outside participation) are off limits due to executive fiat.
Where is NASA’s justification for limiting the ability of the private and educational sectors from making full utilization of the amazing capabilities that are offered by the ISS? Answer: NASA made it up. Truth be known, NASA was dragged kicking and screaming into supporting this National Laboratory concept. Congress had to enact a law to make them do it.
None of this surprises me. NASA is a government agency, and as a government agency it is going to protect its turf, come hell or high water. It is for this reason I think it a bad idea for the new space rocket companies to take any NASA money, up front. If they do, NASA will immediately use those funds as a club to force these new companies to do things as NASA wishes, rather than being free to compete and innovate on their own. In other words, NASA will use the funds to maintain control of all space exploration.
Better the new companies build their rockets and spaceships on their own, and then sell these new inventions to NASA or whoever else wants to use them. Let the profits pay for the work, not the needs and regulations of a government agency.
Not only will this free competiton produce a lot more creativity and innovation, it will almost certainly help to reduce the cost of space travel, as these companies fight to gain market share. And most importantly, it will frame the future exploration of space in the context of freedom rather that a state-run endeavor.
And isn’t freedom the principle that the United States of America stands for?
Lockheed has won a $171 million NASA contract to pack cargo for ISS through 2017.
My question however is this: How do they plan on getting the cargo into space?
Today’s announcement by the Obama administration of their choice for NASA’s new chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, reveals once again how much climate research guides their thinking, not space exploration. Key quote:
His research has focused on the study of polar ice cover using satellite and airborne instruments. He has led or participated in nine field and airborne campaigns in the Arctic and the Antarctic.
This is not a criticism of Dr. Abdalati. His research interests, however, make very clear where the Obama administration really wants NASA to look: down at the Earth instead of up beyond Earth orbit.
Those TSA patdowns sure are working, aren’t they? A unidentified man was arrested (not by the TSA) after bringing a boat — flying a foreign flag with Arabic lettering — into a restricted area of Cape Canaveral.
The continuing space war: A draft version of NASA’s budget suggests that the lame duck Congress will more or less follow the recommendations of the authorization bill passed in September.
Our government in action! Inspector general notes that NASA sold excess computers without deleting the sensitive data still on them.
