Obama's "Devastating" Plans for NASA

President to Outline His Vision for NASA

President Obama will seek to promote his vision for the nation’s human space flight program on Thursday, just two days after three storied Apollo astronauts — including Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the Moon — called the new plans “devastating.”

In an announcement to be made at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the president will personally talk for the first time about the sweeping upheaval of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s human spaceflight program outlined in his 2011 budget request: canceling the current program that is to send astronauts back to the Moon, investing in commercial companies to provide transportation to orbit and developing new space technologies.

[...]

Mr. Obama’s budget request called for the cancellation of Orion crew capsule, which was to be used to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and then to the Moon, as well as other components of the current program known as Constellation.

The president will propose that a simpler version of the Orion be used as a lifeboat for the space station. Russian Soyuz capsules currently provide that function. Because the Orion lifeboat would not carry astronauts to the space station, it could be launched on existing rockets.

[...]

“There has not been a well-articulated plan and vision,” said Edward F. Crawley, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served on the blue-ribbon panel that reviewed NASA’s human spaceflight program last year.

Others find the essentials of the plan flawed, not just the presentation. In a letter to Mr. Obama, reported Tuesday by NBC News, Mr. Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11, along with James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of Apollo 13, and Eugene A. Cernan, the commander of Apollo 17, wrote, “For the United States, the leading space-faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second- or even third-rate stature.”

In a letter released Monday, 27 NASA veterans — including Eugene F. Kranz, the flight director who presided over the safe return of the crew aboard the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970 — asked Mr. Obama to reconsider the “misguided proposal.”

The reception from Congress has so far been mostly chilly but mostly from representatives in states that are home to the NASA centers that would be most hurt by the changes — the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Johnson Space Center in Texas and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. [...]

A great deal of money has already been spent on developing the Orion spacecraft and the Constellation program. Cancel that now, and all that money is wasted.

The Orion spacecraft is supposed to be our replacement for the space shuttle. Canceling it leaves us with no spacecraft. We will be 100 % dependent on the Russians for transporting astronauts, and we will have to pay them a fortune to do that for us.

What kind of behind-closed-doors deal has Obama struck with the Russians? This seems to benefit them the most.

I'm all for more private enterprise in our space program, but this is so wrong in so many ways. Wasteful, and the shenanigans with the budget, well, read the whole thing.

Killing our space program. More Change You Can Believe In.


Also See:

NASA's Planned Return to the Moon - Canceled?

NASA's Constellation Program
     

NASA's Planned Return to the Moon - Cancelled?

There's been talk about this since Obama won the election, and now it looks like it's about to happen:

Orion Spacecraft; to launch in 2013 2014? Or... Never?

Obama budget would cut NASA moon plan
Companies to take over space taxi flights
NASA to focus on future technologies for Mars, beyond

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Feb 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's proposed budget gives NASA a $6 billion 5-year boost but aborts early attempts to return to the moon and turns over space transportation to commercial companies.

The space agency's budget would grow to $19 billion in 2011 under the proposed budget released on Monday, with an emphasis on science and less spent on space exploration.

It "adds $6 billion to NASA's budget over five years and draws upon American ingenuity to enable us to embark on an ambitious 21st Century program of human space exploration," the budget proposal reads.

But the plan ends the Constellation program "which was planning to use an approach similar to the Apollo program to return astronauts back to the Moon 50 years after that program's triumphs."

The budget notes that an independent panel found the moon program was years behind schedule.

"Instead, we are launching a bold new effort that invests in American ingenuity for developing more capable and innovative technologies for future space exploration," it reads.

The new budget, which is subject to change by Congress, also extends operations at the International Space Station past its planned retirement date of 2016, suggesting such potential additions as inflatable space habitats.

Obama's proposal hands over more space operations to the commercial sector, saying it will create thousands of new jobs and hold costs down.

NASA already has spent $9 billion on Constellation and likely would owe millions more to cancel existing contracts. Prime contractors on the Ares rocket program include ATK Launch Systems, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Boeing Co. [...]

The Constellation program fell behind, because George Bush failed to deliver the funding that he promised for it.

I actually like the idea that they are talking about involving the private sector more in the space program, to create more jobs. They should have done it long ago. But talking about skipping the moon and going on to Mars in nonsense.

Any astronauts sent to Mars would best be trained on lunar missions first, where they would gain experience. Also, the moon is much closer, useful, and doable; Mars is very far away, and I believe manned missions to Mars are even farther away still. Pie in the Sky, at this point. And if we can't even make it back to the moon, then we have no business even trying to go to Mars. The moon is the stepping stone to the rest of the solar system. It would be foolish to skip it.

Besides, if the Constellation program is canceled now, the billions that have already been spent will be wasted. Why not revise the program to include more private sector involvement and investment?

I know some people think manned space exploration is wasteful, yet look at how small NASA's budget is, compared to other government spending:



Unlike entitlement spending, the space program creates jobs, and new technologies that can be adapted to other uses to improve our lives here on Earth.

Opening up our space program to more private sector involvement IS change I could believe in. I just want to see the Constellation program continue, under those changes. Let the seed money the government has already spent on it be invested, not wasted. Let it be used instead to jump start a new partnership with NASA and private sector companies, to streamline the Constellation program and keep it on track, on time, and within it's budget.


Also see:

Will Obama cancel NASA's Moon Mission?

     

Is a Big Shake Up going to happen at NASA?

It looks like big changes are very likely comming their way:

Panel Urges NASA to Reset Priorities

A blue-ribbon panel is recommending that NASA shelve its goal of rapidly returning to the moon and instead focus on nurturing a robust commercial space industry that can handle short-term objectives of the nation's space program, such as ferrying cargo and crew to the international space station.

The panel, called the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, headed by former Lockheed Martin Corp. Chairman Norman Augustine, was convened by the Obama administration earlier this year to provide an independent assessment of the priorities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It presented its findings to the White House Tuesday.

[...]

It calls for sweeping changes in the way NASA does business and envisions a dramatically expanded role for private enterprise in human space flight in the coming decades beyond anything proposed previously.

Some of the details of the study were reported in The Wall Street Journal last month. However, a summary and excerpt of the report became available Tuesday. The panel urged NASA to shift its goal from returning to the moon and to focus instead on the more long-term objective of reaching Mars, though it didn't set any specific time frame. [...]

I don't see how they can scrap the Moon mission, and go for Mars. The moon is much closer, more realistic, less expensive, and our astronauts would need that lunar experience, I would think, before tackling a Mars mission.

But perhaps some of the changes at NASA might really be for the better. Consider this:

[...] After the report summary was released, Elon Musk, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., one of the companies vying for commercial contracts to start ferrying cargo and astronauts to the station, said sticking with NASA's current priorities "flies in the face of reason and common sense." In a teleconference with reporters, Mr. Musk also said development of his company's Falcon 9 heavy-lift launcher – which could start ferrying astronauts to the space station before the middle of the next decade for less than half of Russia's prices -- is about a year late. But "in the space business," he added, "that's early."

In addition to the emphasis on commercial solutions, the report hits heavily on the need to reorient NASA's leadership and the mindset of many of its engineers and scientists. The committee, according to the summary, "strongly believes it is time for NASA to reassume its critical role of developing new technologies" aligned with a revamped "exploration mission that will last for decades." If properly funded and executed, the report concludes, such a technical roadmap would "re-engage the minds at American universities, in industry and within NASA" for manned space efforts.

The report's opening paragraph sets the tone. America's human space flight program "appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory, " the committee found, because it is "perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources." Even before release of the summary, NASA officials were studying possible changes to existing plans, including downsizing a proposed space capsule and revising rocket programs in order to lower costs by reusing some space shuttle-derived technologies and facilities. Other NASA officials, according to a Reuters story Tuesday, have devised a 30-year stepping-stone strategy – still in its early stages -- to develop technology and generate public support with the goal of eventually reaching Mars. [...]

Read the whole article for the details. I can't be completely negative about it, some of the proposed changes actually sound pretty good. It will be interesting to see which of the proposed changes the Obama administration goes with. If they choose wisely, it could work out well in the long run.

If NASA can be straightened out, then maybe we can use a similar plan to get the rest of our government off of it's "unsustainable trajectory", and break it's habit of "perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources." Wouldn't that be great? What's good for the Space Program, might be good for Congress and the White House too!


Also See:

NASA's Mission to the Moon may be Scrapped

NASA goes Back to the Future

     

Orion Spacecraft Changes; Budget Problems

In an earlier post, I looked at the plans for the new Orion spacecraft that is supposed to replace the shuttle and take us back to the moon. NASA was still trying to decide whether or not it would touch down on land or on water:

Re-entry Dilemmas; the Orion Capsule and SS2.

At the time, opinion seemed to be leaning toward land, because the spacecraft would then be re-usable, and would save a lot of money in the long run. So I was kind of shocked to see this recently:

NASA keeps Orion landing reassessment results secret

NASA's work to resolve its Orion crew exploration vehicle's (CEV) landing system mass problems is being prolonged as one key study's deadline has been extended by six months, pushed back from March to the CEV's third quarter preliminary design review.

On 16 November 2007 NASA changed the Orion's nominal landing from land to water because of the mass penalty of carrying the necessary airbag system to the Moon and back. But the agency also decided it needed an emergency land landing capability. [...]

I'm shocked because landing on land was supposed to mean reusable capsules, and big savings in the long run. Aren't those savings now voided by going back to ocean landings? Also, this change has caused budget over-runs. That, combined with the fact that the Bush Administration failed to deliver the funds that were promised, has now put the entire project behind schedule:

NASA could delay plan to land astronauts on moon

[...] NASA's internal plans had called for Ares V to go to the moon in 2018, though the agency had announced a public goal of 2020. Internal deadlines are used by NASA to keep programs on track and to provide a margin of error for developmental problems.

But because of growing budget woes, the agency is resetting its internal date to 2020. And privately, engineers say that means the public 2020 date to send humans back to the moon is in deepening trouble.

[...]

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin in a speech last week blamed the White House -- especially the Bush administration. He said that money available for Ares V and other moon projects had dropped from roughly $4 billion through 2015 to just $500 million.

"This was to be allocated to early work on the Ares V heavy-lifter, and the Altair lunar lander," he told the National Space Club annual Goddard Memorial Dinner. "With only a half-billion dollars now available, this work cannot be done."

[...]

The 2020 lunar launch date is a policy objective set by President Bush in 2004 and recently reaffirmed in President Obama's 2010 budget proposal. It's part of what the Obama team in February called a new chapter of "robust human and robotic space exploration." [...]

President Obama is supporting the project so far, but as it continues to fall behind, it's not looking very hopefull. Read the rest of the article for the details.

     

Will Obama cancel NASA's Moon Mission?

Let's hope not. I've written before about NASA's Constellation Program, which aims to replace the space shuttle with Ares rockets and the Orion spacecraft, which can also be used to bring us to the moon again. Will the financial crisis affect this program? What will an Obama administration do?

Mock-up of Orion spacecraft with Lunar Lander
The space program has always been a target for budget cutters. Many people view it as an extraneous waste of money. Many Democrats in particular, think the budget for the space program would be better spent on social programs.

It's quite natural that we should wonder what Obama's plans are for NASA and the Constellation Program in particular. It seems there has been a lot of tension between NASA's current administrator, and Obama's transition team:

NASA has become a transition problem for Obama

CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

In a heated 40-minute conversation last week with Lori Garver, a former NASA associate administrator who heads the space transition team, a red-faced Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama, according to witnesses.

In addition, Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

Griffin’s resistance is part of a no-holds-barred effort to preserve the Constellation program, the delayed and over-budget moon rocket that is his signature project.

[...]

The tensions are due to the fact that NASA’s human space flight program is facing its biggest crossroads since the end of the Apollo era in the 1970s. The space shuttle is scheduled to be retired in 2010, and the next-generation Constellation rockets won’t fly before 2015.

Nearly four years ago, President Bush brought in Griffin to implement a plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 as a prelude to going to Mars. Griffin and his team selected Constellation, with its NASA-designed Ares I rocket and Orion capsule, as cheaper and safer than existing rockets. Constellation – especially Ares 1 -- is the center of what Griffin sees as his legacy to return humans to the frontiers of space.

Griffin has made no secret that he would like to stay on but only, as he recently told Kennedy Space Center workers, "under the right circumstances," including being able to finish Constellation.

But budget problems and technical issues have created growing doubts about the project. Griffin has dismissed these as normal rocket development issues, but they’ve clearly got the transition team’s attention.

When team members arrived three weeks ago, they asked the agency, among other things, to quantify how much could be saved by canceling Ares I. Though they also asked what it would take to accelerate the program, the fact that the team could even consider scrapping the program was enough to spur Griffin and his supporters into action

According to industry officials, Griffin started calling heads of companies working for NASA, demanding that they either tell the Obama team that they support Constellation or refrain from talking about alternatives. [...]

I would like to see the Constellation program stay on track. The Orion spacecraft is needed to replace the aging shuttle fleet, and will be more economical in the long run. It's needed to service the ISS too, so I suspect it may continue on schedule. But the return to the moon, I don't know. It would be nice if Obama were to look on it the way JFK did.

Back to the moon by 2020. Will we make it?
A great deal of time and resources have already been expended on the current plan; altering it significantly could throw a lot of that investment away. Also, NASA is providing jobs in the high tech industry, even in the private sector, and creating spin-off technologies that help us in so many ways. There is so much going right with it presently, I'm hoping that an Obama administration will choose to build on that rather than subtract from it.

I know Obama's team has to ask questions and make assessments. As to what he will do, I'm hoping he's going to be a JFK kinda guy in this regard.


Ares I rocket propelling Orion space capsule
The Constellation program will ultimately be not only less expensive, but safer for our astronauts too. It can service the ISS, AND get us to the Moon again, as well as assist us to getting to Mars eventually. Hopefully Obama can make it part of his plan and his presidential legacy, too.
     

Congress delays Orion Spacecraft launch date

The Orion Spacecraft, which is scheduled to replace the Space Shuttle as America's premier manned spaceflight transport vessel, was due to be launched in 2013. The date has now been moved to 2014.

NASA abandons plan to fly new spaceships by 2013

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - NASA has abandoned plans to get its replacement for the retiring U.S. space shuttles into service by 2013 because of a lack of additional funds and technical issues, officials said on Monday.

[...]

"The window of opportunity for us to accelerate Orion has closed," program manager Jeff Hanley at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston told reporters during a conference call.

The United States will be without a means to transport people to and from space after the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010 until the new ships are ready to fly. It intends to rely on Russia to ferry crews to the space station and on private companies to deliver cargo during the gap.

NASA had hoped to minimize the gap, but additional funding to do so has not been approved by the U.S. Congress. [...]

(bold emphasis mine) Our wonderful congress at work. I suspect many of them would like to scrap the manned space program, and use the money for pork programs to buy votes. But to be fair, there were also concerns about safety, that have lead to some people at NASA seeing the later launch date as a good thing. So hopefully the Orion will be ready to fly to the ISS by 2014, and on to the moon by 2020, if congress will stop obstructing and get with the program... the Constellation Program.


Related Links:

Asteroid mission concept unveiled

A Nasa scientist has proposed using the replacement to the space shuttle to visit a near-Earth asteroid.

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) is due to make its maiden flight in 2014, with the eventual aim of ferrying astronauts to and from the Moon.

Dr Paul Abell said such a mission could help efforts to protect against an asteroid on course to hit Earth.

Currently, the project is envisaged to include two or three crew members and last a total of 90-180 days.

Dr Abell presented an outline of his mission concept here at the Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Houston, Texas.

The plan would be to visit an asteroid in the sub-kilometre size range, perhaps about the size of asteroid Itokawa (535m) which was visited by Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft. [...]

Wow. This also sounds like it would be a good practice step towards a Mars Mission. Read the rest of this fascinating article for more details.

Below are two links to prior posts about the Orion spacecraft:

NASA goes Back to the Future

Re-entry Dilemmas; the Orion Capsule and SS2

     

NASA goes Back to the Future

I remember when I was a teenager, when the first American Space Shuttle was unveiled. It was kinda fat and chunky looking, but it was still a real spaceship. It was a beginning. I was sure that within my lifetime, we would eventually have spaceships like the elegant Orion Space Clipper that was featured in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey":




Wow. Well, here it is, 2008. NASA is going to retire our clunky space shuttle by 2010, and introduce a newer, next-generation spacecraft to replace it. Coincidentally, it's going to be called "Orion", and will be used to shuttle astronauts to and from the International space station, AND to the moon and back. That's right, we're going back to the moon, and it's scheduled to happen no later than 2020. Then, on to Mars...

Fabulous! Soon we will get to see this new Orion spaceship, which is being built right now. But we don't have to wait until it's finished to see it, NASA has already made the plans public! So here it is, the NEW Orion space shuttle:




But, but... that's an APOLLO space CAPSULE, isn't it? Well, it's a similar design. It's actually 2 and 1/2 times larger than the Apollo version, it can hold up to six astronauts for shuttle missions, and four astronauts for Lunar missions. Here is a picture of the Orion with a lunar module attached:




Looks familiar, doesn't it? I had trouble deciding wether to call this post "Back to the Future" or "Everything old is new again".

So what happened to our beautiful Orion Space Clipper? Why are we going back to designs from 40 years ago? There's two major reasons I can think of: cost, and safety.

These old designs are tried and true. We know they work. Update them with new technology, and they work really well. I also suspect that with new technology, they are cheaper to build than anything else. Here is a picture of the new Orion capsule with it's solar cells and antennae dish deployed:






We are simply building on old technology, using what we know works, and making it better. Click here for more pics of the Orion spacecraft.

The space shuttle aircraft we've used for the past three decades are made from a more bold and ambitious design, but are also more complex and fraught with dangers. Consider the Challenger accident, the shuttle that exploded after launching; the Columbia burning up while returning to earth.

The Challenger crew could not be saved. However, with the new Orion design, the crew can be saved if the rocket explodes on the launch pad, or in the air. The capsule has a rescue rocket on top, to lift it way from danger.

The Columbia crew died when their damaged heat shield failed on reentry. The Orion capsule's heat shield is protected from damage during liftoff, and is a round shape that is easier to build and maintain.

Every time astronauts die, people call for an end to the space program. By going back to old designs and improving them, we are saving both money and lives. It's hard to argue with that. So I may not see this in my lifetime:





But hopefully I will see this:





If we have to sacrifice elegant design for the safety of our astronauts and the efficiency of our space program budget, then so be it. As we learn more we can get fancier; but we need to grow into it at a natural pace. Slow but steady progress with it's attendant successes will get us where we want to go.

The new back-to-the-moon mission is called the Constellation Program. The link goes to NASA's website, where you can find out lots more details about the mission and photos of the various spacecraft being developed. I had lots of fun looking around there. If you are a space fan, be sure and check it out.






It's back to the future... are you ready? I am, let's go!





First, the moon once again. Then look out Mars, here we come...