Budget Watchers Nail NASA

April 18, 2009

The Congressional Budget Office published a report this week with a fairly bleak forecast that NASA will meet a 2020 target date to return U.S. astronauts to the moon, as part of the new U.S. manned space program called Constellation.

Based on past experience, NASA’s programs end up costing bout 50 percent more than original estimates. The agency currently maintains reserves to cover cost overruns of about 25 percent, the report found.

 So without additional funding from Congress, the shuttle replacement vehicle likely would not be ready to fly until late 2016 and the first mission to the moon delayed from 2020 to 2023, the CBO said.

Cost overruns also will force NASA to scale back its robotic program as well, with 15 fewer missions occurring through 2025 than what the agency has planned.

The outlook is even more dire if NASA is ordered to keep the space shuttles flying, past 2010. Proposals to keep flying the shuttle until the new Orion ships are ready so far has not struck a chord with the Obama administration. The CBO calculated that for the United States to maintain its ability to put astronauts in orbit through the transition from the shuttle to Orion, keep the space station operating past 2015, and keep the new spaceships and rockets on track for a 2015 debut would require a 25 percent annual increase in NASA’s budget, up to about 23.8 billion.

A second report on NASA from its safety watchdog group reitered its support for retiring the shuttle as planned upon completion of the space station.

“Continuing to fly the Shuttle not only would increase the risk to crews, but also could jeopardize the future U.S. Exploration program by squeezing available resources (and, in the  worst case, support) for the Constellation program,” wrote the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Marsgate, Revisited

August 08, 2008

A few days have passed since the buzz about what is or isn’t on Mars and NASA’s handling of the matter so it seemed reasonable to have a think for a bit about what happened.

First and foremost, it’s striking that so many people apparently care whether there is or isn’t life on Mars, though why knowing whether some bit of bacteria absorbed energy, made microbial pee and/or poo and spun off 2.5 microbial kids is a bit hard to explain in this age of opposite-speak and skepticism.

Second, to the extent that my personal and professional integrity extends, I can state that there was no government cover-up about what information to release and when to release it, so if you’re totally into conspiracy theories, you can stop reading here.

Third (and if you’re into conspiracy theories you might enjoy this), the buzz that initially cast NASA as the villain for hiding information, not only allowed the government to step into a role most beloved by Americans -- the vindicated -- but also exit the drama with heightened awareness, even accolades, for its work. For anyone missing this subtlety, NASA spelled it out for us: “Phoenix Mars Team Opens Window on Scientific Process,” was the headline on the agency’s Aug. 5 press release laying the matter to rest. In addition to world-wide media coverage, the clan following the mission on the Twitter text-messaging network grew by more than 300 members.

Finally, will it happen again? Indubitably. That is the price we pay for our Freedom of Speech. It can make for an uncomfortable moment or two, but when it’s lacking, guess who is the first to take note?

“We strongly believe societies which allow the free expression of ideas tend to be the most prosperous and the most peaceful.”

-- President George W. Bush
Aug. 8, 2008
at the dedicated of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China

Let's Steal the Soyuz

June 11, 2008

Well not “steal” it exactly, just do what Japan has done to our automobile industry, China to textiles and India to tech support. Import it, then re-label ‘Made in America.’ It’d be a neat way around the prohibition against buying Soyuz from the Russians, who are being punished -- not really -- for providing technology and dangerous ideas widely available on the internet to Iran, which is next door to Iraq and probably what the Bush Administration was really aiming for when they got us embroiled in the bruhaha over there.

And the U.S. really needs a spaceship because we can’t afford to fly the shuttles and simultaneously develop safer ships that can transport people to the space station as well as beyond low-Earth orbit, which we’ve been going ‘round and ‘round in since 1972, the last moon landing.

Unfortunately it took a national tragedy to buck up to the fact that the shuttles are too expensive and risky to fly forever, wonderful machines that they are. Problem is, it’s going to take five or six years to get the new crafts flying after the shuttles are retired. NASA has taken to calling this period “the gap.”

Leaving aside the fact that right now NASA is banned from purchasing Soyuz after its current exemption expires in 2011, the United State’s plan for staffing the space station during the gap is to get another exemption to buy more Soyuz. We’ll need twice as many as before, in fact because next year the size of the space station’s crew doubles to six. The Soyuz can hold three people.

Now comes the news today that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has plunked down $5 million for his own Soyuz so that he and another tourist can go visit space. (Apparently the Congressional ban doesn’t apply to private companies.) The firm arranging the jaunt will even hire a full-fledged Russian cosmonaut to pilot the rocketeers.

Which brings me to this: Why not import the Soyuz or get a license to manufacture them here? Florida, which just lost out to Virginia to be the launch site for a proposed commercially developed station cargo hauler, would be game. Might even get our Congressional delegation focused on an issue they need to be concerned with, like trade, economics and foreign affairs, rather than deciding if an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer dark matter device should fly on the shuttle or not.

Just a thought ….

Phoenix, Descending

May 26, 2008

Phoenix's arrival at Mars did not go unnoticed... this image of its parachute descent toward the northern arctic region was captured by a sister spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Welcome to Mars

A view from Phoenix

Good night, Mars

May 25, 2008

This time of year, the sun never sets on the northern polar region of Mars. But it does here, so I'll leave you with this. (Can't wait for the color views!)

Meanwhile, Back on Earth

Was just about to post these when the Phoenix pcts started coming in ... so back on Earth, here's what the mood was like in the control room when folks learned the spacecraft had landed: