Will Obama Fly Commercial?

September 09, 2009

Here’s a word Americans should learn to become very familiar with: LEO, pronounced just like the zodiac sign, though in this context it’s an acronym for Low-Earth Orbit, a distance of a couple of hundreds miles above the planet’s surface, such as where the space station flies.

It’s the only place we’ve been in space since 1972 when the last Apollo crew returned from the moon and it’s the only place that anyone else in the world that has managed to send people into space has ever gone.

America had high hopes of breaking out of LEO after the shuttle program ends, going back to the moon, maybe out to an asteroid and then eventually on to Mars, the holy grail of human space exploration. NASA got started on the job with great enthusiasm and due diligence, racking up a $7.7 billion tab of the estimated $40 billion needed just to develop a new rocket and capsule for astronauts to ride in.

Along came our new leader, President Barack Obama, who decided to take stock. He appointed a panel of 10 wise men and women, headed by the well-respected former chief executive of Lockheed Martin. They spent three months listening, studying, assessing, analyzing, debating what the country was doing, should be doing and could be doing with its human space flight program.

The panel’s summary report was released yesterday. In a nutshell, it says that without more money for a government-run space program, America will remain in LEO for the foreseeable future. In other words, after building a $100 billion outpost in orbit, our only option is to use it.

I’m sure that the Augustine report will prompt immediate calls to increase NASA’s budget, and maybe that’s a good thing. But say legislators, still slugging it out over health care, don’t take heed and NASA has to live on roughly $18 billion a year. What would it do?

Seems to me like NASA needs a new story line. Yes, seeing people in strange environments is interesting, and we love swelling with national pride, but we’re easily pleased. We’re happy following the antics of robots stuck in Martian soil.

It’s hard to imagine people shedding tears over the fact that they may not live to see astronauts walk on the surface of Mars. It’s easier to imagine the joy on their faces if they’d get to go to space themselves, even (especially!!) to LEO.

Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, told reporters yesterday his firm has collected $40 million in deposits from people willing to pay $200,000 to experience a couple of minutes of spaceflight in a sub-orbital rocketship, which is on schedule to debut in December.

Space Adventures is getting ready to send its seventh tourist to the space station, at a cost of about $35 million, which includes training and transportation from Russia.

Though it was tasked to come up with options for the U.S. human space program, the Augustine panel slipped in a few recommendations, including extending the planned life of the space station, which is scheduled to be finished next year.

 “It seems unwise to de-orbit the Station after 25 years of assembly and only five years of operational life,” committee members wrote in the report.

“Not to extend its operation would significantly impair U.S. ability to develop and lead future international spaceflight partnerships,” they added.

The government has allocated no money for station operations after 2015.

The report also suggests that it is time for the government to stop flying people to LEO, that the commercial sector is ready to compete for this business.  

At an impromptu teleconference as the report was being released, representatives from commercial space launching firms echoed the sentiment.

“Looking at the size of the industry at the moment is not really the question to be asking,” Whitehorn said.

“You’re looking at what kind of industry you’re going to create, what kind of new jobs you’re going to create and what kind of new technologies are going to come out in supplying a “simple” solution to NASA, which can allow it to get on with the more important job in the future of human exploration, unmanned exploration, research and development, and Earth climate change science. These should be the priorities for NASA. They shouldn’t be a ferrying company.”

LEO may be the end of the road for NASA, but for the rest of us, it’s just the beginning.

(America's first lady of space, astronaut Sally Ride, a member of the U.S. Human Space Flight Plans review committee, talks with panel head Norm Augustine before the start of the group's last meeting in Washington, D.C.  Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers) 

 

Next Name on NASA Ballot

April 26, 2009

There’s a new name floating around Washington D.C. to fill the job of NASA administrator: Lori Garver.

You may have heard of her.  She’s the soccer mom who gave N’Sync singer Lance Bass a run for the money to fly as a sponsored tourist on a Russian Soyuz capsule to the space station. In the end, both came up short.

Most recently a consultant, Garver, who will be 48 in May, also served a stint as  a NASA associate administrator, charged with overseeing plans and policy. She holds a bachelors degree in political science from Colorado College and a master’s in public policy from George Washington University.

When I met Garver, she was director of the National Space Society, a space advocacy organization. Her husband, David Brandt, who oversaw legislative issues for NSS, used to sit with us in the pressroom at Johnson Space Center and run “Dial-a-Shuttle” which featured ‘round the clock updates about the shuttle missions. We used to call Garver for quotes when Congress came up with a new budget for NASA, or when some issue surfaced that needed some balance from a non-government space-vested source.  She was always professional, though not particularly inspiring.

Before joining the Obama campaign, Garver was a D.C.-area space consultant. After the election, she worked on the transition team and had a reportedly prickly public exchange with former administrator Mike Griffin. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, but it’s not hard to see that those two might have had a personality clash.

Griffin, who prides himself as an aerospace engineer, pilot, businessman, teacher and manager, reportedly questioned Garver’s technical proclivities, though for such a smart man -- he holds six advanced degrees -- you’d think he would’ve realized that engineering artistry and scientific grace are not the deciding factors in space programs, nor much else I suspect.

It may come as a surprise to some that Obama is considering appointing someone to head the U.S. space program who has no technical background, but it wouldn’t be the first time. When George Bush needed to fill the post, he turned to a politico too -- Sean O’Keefe, the man most remembered for canceling the last shuttle visit to Hubble after the 2003 Columbia disaster.

O’Keefe’s successor, Mike Griffin, reopened the issue with a rigorous technical review that came up with several options for flying the mission safely. That flight is scheduled for launch May 11 -- with or without a new NASA chief.

(Lori Garver speaking at a May 2008 space conference representing Hillary Clinton campaign.  Photo courtesy Jeff Foust, The Space Review.) 

Last in Line

January 20, 2009

IF you were listening closely, which I attempted to do given my usual divided attention, I heard Barack Obama talk about “space” exactly zero times in his inaugural address. The topic also didn’t warrant a mention as an Agenda item on the home page of the new whitehouse.gov website -- even under the “Additional Issues” header.

That’s no real surprise, given the competition for Obama’s attention, but anyone entrenched in the notion that the good ship NASA will not have to reset its sails might want to take note of what the new president had to say about government work in general:

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works,” Obama said. “Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”

It also would behoove civilian space program advocates to note that the only mention about space on the government's new website is as Defense issue. On the military’s to-do list:

“Ensure Freedom of Space: The Obama-Biden Administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. They will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.”

Finally, not to make anyone at NASA nervous, but guess who is scheduled to appear dead last in the 13,000-member Inaugural Parade?

The Mike Griffin Fan Club

December 24, 2008

This may be an esoteric issue for most people, but for those who follow the space program, or who even care about it, the person who serves as the administrator of NASA holds a very important job.

Dan Goldin, a former TRW vice president who snagged the post in April 1992 and kept it until November 2001 -- longer than anyone else -- once told me he wanted the job because there was only ONE administrator of NASA. “There are lots of aerospace executives,” he said.

Now Mr. Goldin’s ego was a bit of an issue during his tenure, but he was passionate about space -- some would say a bit overly emotional. Until recently, no one ever used that term to describe Mike Griffin, NASA’s current chief.

Griffin is an articulate, circumspect leader who likes to sit in on the tech-talk and offer his assessments as an engineer, scientist and businessman. He is tempered in speech, so when he uses a word like “jihad” in an email, you can be assured it is no accident.

Politically, he is a rare bird whom I believe will stick to his beliefs even if it costs him his cool government job. (Not that anyone’s asked him to, at least not yet.)

Griffin has been very explicit that he would not be interested in remaining in charge if the Obama administration decides to redirect the U.S. civilian manned space program away from its current course, namely completing the space station, retiring the shuttles and developing the new spaceship that can return U.S. astronauts to the moon.

There’s not much disagreement about the first two items on the to-do list, but the last one has become a bone of contention.

There’s been a bit of what passes for “news” lately, which used to be called “gossip,” that Griffin has been reluctant to share the NASA family jewels with a woman named Lori Garver, who is serving as point person for the Obama transition team on space issues.

Garver isn’t an engineer, not that there’s anything wrong with that. She’s best known for competing against N’Sync singer Lance Bass for a sponsored seat as a space tourist on a Russian Soyuz visit to the space station. The blonde boy-band star had better backing than Lori “Soccer Mom in Space” Garver, though in the end, neither ended up flying. She makes her living as a consultant on space issues, technology and business. She is 47 years old. I have no idea whom she personally or professionally prefers be the head of NASA.

Griffin’s backers include Neil Armstrong, whom I’m told has emailed several people at NASA informing them that he intends to write a letter to the Wall Street Journal advocating Obama retain Griffin. (Personally, I’m not sure why you’d tell people you were going to do something instead of just going ahead and doing it and let the deed speak for itself, but that’s another issue.)

A more grass-roots effort was launched today by Scott Horowitz, a former space shuttle commander whose last job with NASA was as the associate administrator for the agency’s new exploration initiative, which includes the development of the controversial shuttle-derived Ares rockets, along with Apollo-style capsules called Orion. Horowitz has started an internet-based “Keep Mike” petition drive. When I checked it a minute ago, eight people had signed up.

David Mould, Griffin’s top spokesman, said he hadn’t heard of the drive and that there had been no invites from Team Obama as of yet.

“(Griffin) has said recently he’d be both honored to serve and willing to talk,” Mould added.

So, Merry Christmas, Mike. Be careful what you wish for.

The President of Free Space, Part 3: Hope or Fear

September 24, 2008

Silly me. When I embarked on this project to chase down strings of rationality in the race for the U.S. presidency, using the space program as my fishing reel, I made a bad assumption. I thought rationality MATTERED to all people. You know?  Fact-gathering, logical reasoning, analysis, verification … the processes of science? Please stop chuckling. I know I should have known better.

So forget about the LOGICAL thing to do for NASA, let alone the country. I've realized what counts most in our society is a good story. We love drama. If it was our gross domestic product, we'd have so much money Sarah Palin would be writing us checks from the Treasury, just like they do with oil revenue in Alaska.

Now I know that (supposedly) the most important thing in the universe right now is our national financial situation. The question is what we are going to do about it? What will solve it?

I've learned from NASA that there is really only one way to go about solving a problem. It's called the scientific method, but I'm not really sure if it's being taught in school anymore. It's what got this country to the moon FORTY YEARS before our sisters, Japan, India, China (and I'm sorry if I'm forgetting anyone) had a clue how to do it, much less a program. Our only peer was the Soviet Union and we were scared to death they'd get there first. (They shouldn't have worried. Apparently, all they needed to do was wait until we became diverted, and in exchange for losing the moon race we'd build them a castle in the sky; for I'm told that Russia will be left sole occupant of the $100 billion International Space station unless our elected officials take a break from handling the NATIONAL FINANCIAL EMERGENCY and approve an exemption for NASA to buy rides to the station on Russian Soyuz rockets.  Perhaps that's why NASA's very erudite leader, Michael Griffin, used a most unscientific word in his officially acknowledged leaked email alerting the world to our IMPENDING NATIONAL SPACE CRISIS. He termed its handling a "jihad.")

I don't know if the proposed  $700 billion GREAT GOVERNMENT GIVEAWAY of 2008 is the right thing to do or not. I don't know if time is of the essence. I don't even know how you decide that, but I hope and pray that it is made with some degree of rationality. My Libertarian friends are even kind of exited by the stir, hoping it will rouse the good but sleepy citizens of this land we love to stop watching American Idol and reruns of Gilligan's Island (but by all means, please keep tuning in to Discovery Channel).

In a Democracy, APATHY is a cancer.

No offense intended, but we might want to question the sanity and motivations of John McCain and Barack Obama for wanting to take on this mess. (You too, Bob Barr!) There's no question they have balls: We've seen the pictures, watched the grainy films of handsome, young McCain in the POW camp and we can only imagine. And as far as Obama, well would YOU want to be a black man in America, much less one running for PRESIDENT??

Though I personally haven't given up that rationality will prevail when it comes time to vote, I've realized that that's a pretty high standard. As a steppingstone, I've designed a little quiz to help choose the next president, who as the leader of what we like to call The Free World, will be the President of Free Space, with the potential to galvanize what our space policy -- and our country -- will become.  Open or closed? Driven by fear or hope? Logical or emotional? Privately pioneered or not? Breaking ground or following footsteps? Creative or reactive?

Since I realize this cannot be objective (and frankly I find it a little exhausting trying to figure out which administration would be better for the country, the Big Government Republicans or the Big Government Democrats) I'm basing this quiz on things that matter to me. Ready? Here goes:

Who has the better sense of humor?

Who is smarter?

Who is more tolerant of dissenting views?

Who solicits and loves feedback?

Who can better control his behavior?

Got your candidate?  Good. Oh, one last question, if you don't mind. Does this change your vote?

The President of Free Space, Part 2: Legacy of George Bush

September 02, 2008

The inertia that defines the George Bush presidency may be a blessing for the space program. I’m not saying that facetiously. For all I know, Bush’s passivity (some may say willful blindness) may be a skill he
has honed throughout his life, like a parent practicing patience. The Iraq flak at least should have taught him the dangers of going off half-cocked.

I refer to presidential candidate John McCain’s request for Bush to suspend the shutdown of the space shuttle program, pending further study (post election.) McCain is listening to folks who are 1) scared of losing their jobs; and/or 2) outraged that America, the leader of the free world, the king of off-planet pursuits, will soon be in the unseemly position of depending on foreigners for rides to space.

Personally, if McCain is such a maverick and really concerned that riding in Russian spaceships is poor form, especially with Russia thumping its neighbors, I think he should look into using Chinese spaceships to taxi crews to the space station. I’d bet that would get the Russians attention.

The fact is that unless the military has a secret space plane, or someone in the commercial sector lets loose a fly-pod, there will be five or more years when this country will have no means to launch people into orbit. That’s the price we pay for choices already made. It may be of some consolation to know that the people who FLY the shuttle for a living believe it is in the country’s best interests to let it die. It’s become a Terri Schiavo.

Chances are, the Bush space legacy will be a boon for whoever wins the presidency. All Bush has to do is do nothing and the shuttle shutdown will continue undisturbed. If it gets too uncomfortable in the gap -- the years between the shuttle’s retirement in 2010 and the debut of a replacement ship in 2015 or so -- the new prez can honestly claim it’s not his fault, though the last thing we need in this country is another poster child for victim mentality.

Finally, rather than mooning over the past and trying to delay the inevitable, McCain could rally around space workers who have taken the plunge into new careers and explain how their big brains and disciplined behaviors are now helping businesses create new economic engines to drive this country out of recession. It happened once before after the Apollo program. Obama has been making good use of its progeny to wind McCain’s clock. It’s called the digital revolution.

The President of Free Space, Part 1

(George Bush waves good-bye to a television picture of astronauts in orbit after a congratulatory phone call. White House photo by Paul Morse.)

The President of Free Space, Part 1

August 29, 2008

I’m not a gambling lady, but if I had to pick right now, I’d say the Democrats just lost the election. Now, don’t get me wrong -- I’m a registered Democrat, which I’m assuming is OK for you to know even though (especially?) because I’m a reporter and have had it drilled into my head by the hard-core teachers at the Medill School of Journalism (a sort of Hogwarts for reporters-in-training) who implored their protégés to live an objective, detached life, particularly in the political arena, for professional integrity.

Thirty years have passed since I set foot in the door and I’ve decided it’s OK to shed the cloak for a higher calling. I’ll tell you straight up what happened: While my son plowed through Tess of the d’Urbervilles for his high school IB English Class, I entered the world of Ayn Rand with my first reading of Atlas Shrugged.

If you haven’t read the book, it’s not going to help you much to read the Cliffs Notes , or Wiki report. Like sex, or watching rockets launch , you just have to experience it. I’d be happy to give you a book report on it another time, but suffice it to say it’s a POWERFUL portrayal of what happens when rationality and scientific processes break down.

Now back to the story of the day -- John McCain’s selection of 44-year-old Sarah Palin of Alaska to be his running mate.

First off, if the Republicans want to absolutely STOMP the Democrats, they would cancel the upcoming convention in Minnesota, or at least scale it way back and donate the money to any one of a billion worthwhile causes. That will show they have a heart, which is mostly what folks hold against the party. The Democrats, on the other hand, have always won my vote, though the candidates sometimes seem to lack a brain, because they positively ooze with compassion, empathy and those highly valued Judeo-Christian attributes of caring for those who can’t care for themselves. Besides, what’s the convention going to accomplish that hasn’t already happened?

Rational thought, the foundation of science, the reason why there are rovers scratching the sand on Mars today, has been largely absent from the American political scene, and perhaps the American way of life for a long time now. Institutions created to solve specific problems, became incarnated (think FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society) and never went away. That’s what NASA is fighting now. Its leaders know the agency needs to dematerialize, shed its expensive and deadly shuttle program, and return to its core roots of space exploration. (You can read here what administrator Michael Griffin and others have to say on this subject.) Will they be successful? Who knows.

McCain’s selection of Palin brought the Republicans to the Democrats’ dinner table. She diversifies the ticket; she’s easy on the eye; she’s even a former reporter. What’s not to like? The only team that would have been more attractive would have been if Barack Obama had picked her.

So now that the beauty and ethnic portions of the presidential contest are over, let’s move on to a discussion of substance: Free Space will explore in the coming two months the single issue of space exploration as a window into how the candidates view the world. It's not about what they say or what they promise, but about their processes (or lack thereof) and whether they are rational, i.e. scientific, or based on emotions.

You could take any topic -- education, business, foreign policy -- and do the same, but I happen to know a lot about space and I happen to believe it’s cool and important. Plus, for you (us) nationalists, it's just about the only major enterprise where America still reigns supreme.

We talk a lot about freedom in this country, criticize its absence abroad, but do we really practice it? As a Democrat who has taken a sharp turn to the right, I’m often as confused as anyone about the road ahead. We often cannot pick our path, but we can choose our travel partners. I pick my old J-school buddies, Morality and Integrity, and invite you to journey with us on a scientific quest to illuminate the meaning of free space. I'd prefer to not do this in a vacuum (pardon the pun) so please use your hands or whatever tools you use to communicate these days, and be generous with feedback.

McCain, Obama Weigh in on Space

August 18, 2008

The highway to space cuts across dozens of districts but few are more vested in America’s off-planet endeavors than central Florida, home to the Kennedy Space Center, the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and blueprints for a state-run commercial space zone.

Perhaps that’s why after visits to the area last week both John McCain and Barack Obama released statements clarifying their visions for space exploration. If you’re looking for an issue that delineates some of the differences between the presidential candidates, keep looking: Both McCain and Obama advocate a strong civilian space program and agree with the current administration’s plan to retire the space shuttles and develop a new family of boosters and capsules under a program NASA calls Constellation.

Obama gets into a bit more detail than his Republican rival, calling for at least one more space shuttle flight beyond the 10 already on the books. This presumably would be used to fly an internationally developed physics instrument called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which has been spearheaded by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from MIT named Samuel Ting.

Both candidates talk about closing the five-year gap between the shuttles’ retirement and the debut flights of the new ship when the United States will be without means to launch people into orbit. Neither, however, detail how to pay for keeping the shuttle flying beyond 2010 while still maintaining or even increasing funding for its replacement.

Obama also mentions a new role for NASA -- leading efforts to break the country’s dependence on foreign energy sources. He also plans to revive a top-level space advisory group to “oversee a comprehensive and integrated strategy and policy dealing with all aspects of the government’s space-related programs, including those being managed by NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Commerce Department, the Transportation Department, and other federal agencies.”

McCain may be fleshing out his plans after a pow-wow on Monday at Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Fla., with aerospace executives and regional economic development advisors trying to find ways to offset the thousands of job cuts expected as the shuttle program winds down.

Here’s hoping someone has some ideas besides asking our broke Uncle Sam if he can spare another few hundred million or so.

Click here to read Obama’s plan and here for McCain’s.