The Difficulty of Dismantling Constellation

Last month, we discussed news that President Obama's 2011 budget proposal did not include plans to continue NASA's Constellation program, choosing instead to focus on establishing a stronger foundation for low earth orbit operations. Unfortunately, as government officials prepare to shut down Constellation, they're warning that it won't be a quick or simple process due to the contracts involved. From the Orlando Sentinel: "Obama's 2011 budget proposal provides $2.5 billion to pay contractors whatever NASA owes them so the agency can stop work on Constellation's Ares rockets, Orion capsule and Altair lunar lander. But administration officials acknowledge that this number is, at best, an educated guess. ... Many inside and outside of the space agency, however, think the number is too low. The agency has signed more than $10 billion worth of contracts to design, test and build the Ares I rocket and Orion capsule that were the heart of Constellation. But government auditors said last year that the costs of some of those contracts had swelled by $3 billion since 2007 because of design changes, technical problems and schedule slips. How much NASA will owe on all those contracts if the plug gets pulled is unclear. Many of the deals are called 'undefinitized contracts,' meaning that the terms, conditions — and price — had not been set before NASA ordered the work to start. That means the agency will need to negotiate a buyout with the contractor — and that can be a long and painful process, according to government officials familiar with the cancellation process."

Comments

Of Course

[DarkKnightRadick]

We could continue the Constellation project - or sell out to private companies - and quit letting the government take over health care.

Since neither will happen, not sure what else we can do. We've lost our backbone for adventure as we've continued to reinforce the entitlement mentality that is draining our country dry of resources.

Re:Of Course

[Kral_Blbec]

One of the best lines I have heard in a movie in a long time is from The Incredibles.

They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity!

I should put that on a bumper sticker.

Re:Of Course

[Nyeerrmm]

In case you didn't notice, Constellation in many ways was a much bigger sellout to private companies -- these undefinitized contracts seem to be a handy way to funnel money to the big contractors with little oversight.

Space exploration is not about adventure for its own sake -- for that we can send all our astronauts to climb Mt. Everest instead. Its about advancing the frontier, and learning to live and work sustainably in space, and Constellation wasn't doing that. Even at the time of Apollo, Von Braun et.al. knew that that architecture was not the way forward, because each mission was individually incredibly expensive. Rebuilding Apollo in the form of Constellation was always doomed to repeat flags and footprints with little else, and without the political impetus of cold war and a mission from a martyred president, it was quite frankly stillborn. A cheap LEO launch vehicle with true spaceships that never re-entered the Earth's atmosphere was always a better long-term plan, it just couldn't get built as quickly, so didn't fit the goals of the time.

This was what the original Bush VSE said, until CxP hijacked it, and its what the Augustine commission said. Sustainability is key, and the FY2011 budget, despite the piss-poor PR to go along with it, lays out a path for sustainable, flexible exploration.

Re:Of Course

[Kral_Blbec]

Ya, then I would get hit with a cease and desist letter and lawsuit for infringing Pixar's copyright. Thanks a lot.

Re:Of Course

[FleaPlus]

It would be quite bad for NASA to continue the Constellation project, as it miserably fails to achieve any of the goals which were set forth for in the Vision for Space Exploration; the VSE is what Constellation was ostensibly designed to fulfill. From the 2004 VSE:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf

Goal and Objectives
The fundamental goal of this vision is to advance U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests through a robust space exploration program. In support of this goal, the United States will:
* Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and
beyond;
* Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations;
* Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and
* Promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.

Let's look at these original goals one by one and compare them to Constellation vs. the new plan:

Implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and
beyond

Constellation was pretty much the opposite of sustained and affordable, with costs constantly increasing and an ever-slipping deadline. Not only that, but Constellation's going overbudget resulted in the cancellation of many human and robotic projects which would have contributed to making exploration sustainable and affordable.

The new plan for NASA places sustainable and affordable exploration as its primary goals, allowing us to make steady progress towards expanding into the inner solar system, with key near-term development and in-space tests of technologies like propellant depots, cost-effective access to orbit, nuclear propulsion, lightweight manned modules, in situ resource utilization (asteroid/moon mining), and nuclear electric propulsion. All of these things were unfunded under the old plan.

Extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations

According to the Augustine Committee's report, Constellation wouldn't have been able to even produce the Ares I (essentially an in-house duplicate of the existing Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 rockets) by 2017-2019, which would have only been able to transport astronauts to the ISS several years after the ISS had splashed into the ocean. They wouldn't even be able to develop a lunar lander until "well into the 2030s, if ever," or the mid-2020s if NASA got a massive funding boost.

Under the new plan, IOC for several competing commercial crew vehicles is 2014/2015. The precise plan is still being formulated, but it's likely to involve propellant depots in low-Earth orbit and the EML-1 lagrange point in this decade, which makes the Moon (and near-Earth asteroids, and Phobos, and ultimately Mars) much easier to access for both robots and humans, using already-existing rockets.

Develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration;

If you read through the documents which established Constellation, innovative technologies were deliberately excluded, as they didn't want to have to re-adapt the 15/20-year program if any of those technologies worked out differently than expected. Avoiding innovative kind of makes sense for short-term projects, but for a long-term project pretty much guarantees that your end product is going to

Re:Of Course

[Eravnrekaree]

The fact is, the US spends twice as much per capita on health care than ANY country with a socialised system. If we got rid of private health insurance companies and socialised health care in this country we would be able to cover everyone for what we pay already on health care. Government run health care would actually improve quality and access and reduce costs.

I also believe we should place primary priority on human life. A large number of people either cannot find jobs or work very hard for low pay. The amount people make has no relation to how hard they work, otherwise we would have people like Bill Gates penniless and the hard working factory workers would be millionaires. Capitalism, is based on greed, and this means exploitation of other people to enriches a wealthy elite that control capital.

People need to get out of their ayn rand fantasy land and her destructive ideology which worships greed, arrogance, cruelty and corruption, and leads to a society where everyone is out to exploit others, one that eventually tears itself to pieces. This can be seen with the real estate speculators who so overpriced housing that average families could not afford it, and ignoted the bomb that was the over leveraged financial system created by greedy bankers. Most real technologies and developments came from compassionate, passionate people who intensely enjoy what they do and like making the world a better place and achieving useful things, not people who look to get rich with as little real contributions as possible. Ayn Rand cannot imagine a world where people are not driven by greed. The fact is, the world is kept running by people who put compassion and responsibility to the common good before greed. Einstien was not interested in money, money was only the means, not the end, he was interested in making the world a better place to live and expanding knowledge.

undefinitized contracts

[Manfre]

They seriously signed a contract that stated "do work and we'll pay you"? I know a pretty good way of getting the budget under control. Don't do that!

Re:undefinitized contracts

[Bruiser80]

In our business, it's called a "Time and Materials" project. Keep throwing money until the buyer gets a finished project, or they run out of money.

For projects like this, they probably set up contracts to do the engineering and development to manufacture with a promise of a minimum quantity of product ordered once finished. Cutting the contract at this point should just be a simple matter of paying the contractor for the work already accomplished and NASA getting any drawings, models or work produced in exchange (if specified in the original contract).

The sticky question is defining how much work was done and how much will be paid out to these companies.

"negotiate a buyout with the contractor"

[larry bagina]

Like they negotiated the bank bailout ("you will take this money or we will spend the next 10 years auditing you")? Like they negotiated the GM bailout ("sorry bondholders with a legal contract, we're fucking you over in favor of the unions")? Or like they negotiated the Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, and AIG bailouts ("how much money do you want? Let's triple that just in case. Come back in 3 months and we'll give you some more.")?

false dichotomy

[mdwh2]

I wish there was more money for space, but for heaven's sake - if it really was a choice between socialised healthcare for people, or socialised manned space travel, I'd still put the former first.

But it's not one or the other. Curiously this false dichotomy is used by people against manned space travel. After all, the argument against the common "But the are more important things to spend money on than manned space travel" is not to somehow argue that manned space travel is more important than people living and having basic needs, but to point out that there can be money for both. As one example, perhaps if they spent slightly less on a socialised military, there'd be plenty of money for both socialised healthcare and socialised manned space travel.

We've lost our backbone for adventure as we've continued to reinforce the entitlement mentality that is draining our country dry of resources.

Yes, obviously it's those evil people who are ill who are just draining resources, obviously they should be paying for those who have a sense of entitlement to go travelling in space. There's no "entitlement" here - your view on how taxes should be spent is no less an "entitlement mentality" than anyone else's.

Re:false dichotomy

[nido]

I wish there was more money for space, but for heaven's sake - if it really was a choice between socialised healthcare for people, or socialised manned space travel, I'd still put the former first.

Here's a nice graphic that puts the budget in perspective:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

To make things even more clear, hit the button at the top that says 'Hide Mandatory Spending'.

To save NASA's Constellation program, methinks the military-industrial complex should take a haircut. I've read that the pentagon's off-budget items dwarf what's officially spent...

Re:false dichotomy

[c6gunner]

Heh. I think it's really funny that medicare is considered "mandatory spending", while defense - one of the few legitimate duties of government - is considered discretionary. It's also interesting that the FBI and the Department of Energy also fall under the "National Defense" label.

Unlike the parent poster, I'd much rather have a socialized space exploration program than socialized medicine. The medicare budget alone could fund NASA 20 times over. You could have had Americans walking on Mars by now, instead of paying for gang members to get stitched up after their weekly gunfight.

Re:false dichotomy

[sadler121]

Medicare and Social Security are NOT Mentioned in the Constitution, yet the national defense is. If you want to start cutting programs, go for Social Security and Medicare NOT National Defense.

Now, there are problems with the "Military Industrial Complex" that Eisenhower famously warned us of. Much of NASA's woes come from the boon doggle that are Cost Plus contracts. This is why switching to the COTS program is a big step in the right direction. Companies don't get money until they produce results, they can't just suck at NASA's teat.

Re:false dichotomy

[ppanon]

Oh, for goodness sake. When the constitution was written, doctors still thought bloodletting was a commonly useful treatment. Modern medicine didn't really get started until nearly 100 years later when the American Civil War demonstrated the usefulness of things like aseptic work areas. Of course the Founding Fathers wouldn't have thought it was important to socialize the support of glorified witch doctors! They didn't foresee the potential of modern medicine just like they didn't foresee Ingram Mac 10s or whatever the drug dealers' automatic pistol of choice is these days. The question is, would they think it's worthwhile if they were alive today? For the most part, they were really bright rational people who would look after the common interest, unlike nearly all Republican politicians (and far too many Democrats) around these days.

Re:false dichotomy

[badasscat]

The US spends far more on programs like SS and Medicare than it does on the Pentagon. Indeed, looking at the big items first would help. In order to support the existing medicare committments, with no further socialization of medicine, tax rates would have to reach 80% in my lifetime.

Quit pulling numbers out of your ass. That number you just quoted has zero basis in reality. Ok, how about this: in order to keep funding the military at the rate its growing, taxes will need to reach 90% in my lifetime. Top that!

And do you see that big chunk of the budget labeled "health"? Yeah, that's what the health care bill is designed to reduce. Without a health care bill, that chunk will only get bigger and bigger. It's amazing to me that some people don't understand this.

What is this "entitlement mentality"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear Americans so often talk of this so-called "entitlement mentality". It is a confusing concept for us non-Americans.

On one hand, many Americans claim there are certain abstract concepts that are inalienable. That is, things that everybody is entitled to, without having to earn it. Freedom of expression, the right to life, the right to bear arms, and so forth.

Yet those same Americans will turn around seconds later, and complain about how other Americans have an "entitlement mentality" when these other people want such basic things as affordable (not even "free"!) health care, or even a slight degree of job security.

What differentiates between those ideas that it's okay to feel "entitled" to, versus those that lead to a "entitlement mentality"?

Re:What is this "entitlement mentality"?

[paiute]

What differentiates between those ideas that it's okay to feel "entitled" to, versus those that lead to a "entitlement mentality"?

FOX News

Re:What is this "entitlement mentality"?

[pushing-robot]

Most Americans believe that they pay an inordinate amount of money on taxes, and therefore anything they can possibly take from the government is rightfully theirs, and any money the government gives to anyone else is "stolen" from them.

It doesn't help that the country is full of loonies on radio and TV that are telling them the exact same thing.

Of course, it all boils down to selfishness. If it benefits you in some way it's a right. If it benefits someone else it's an entitlement.

Re:What is this "entitlement mentality"?

[CrimsonAvenger]

What differentiates between those ideas that it's okay to feel "entitled" to, versus those that lead to a "entitlement mentality"?

The one set is free, the other set involves taking my money and giving it to someone else.

If the "someone else" then gets the notion that he has a "right" to my money, problems come up.

Note, by the by, that few Americans are categorically opposed to a social safety net. The debate is usually over the size (and cost) of the net, not the presence or absence of a net.

Re:Dynasoar Was Also Canceled

[FleaPlus]

Project Dynasoar was nearly complete when they canceled it. It is probably they way we should have been going into LEO.

Coincidentally, the Air Force is getting ready to launch a vehicle to orbit which could be considered in many ways a spiritual successor to Dyna-Soar. I submitted an article about it yesterday (unfortunately rejected, but that's the way it goes sometimes), and have pasted the text below for the curious:

Air Force Spaceplane Preps For Launch

The US Air Force is currently preparing for the launch of the secretive X-37B OTV-1 (Orbital Test Vehicle 1) spaceplane; NASA had previously dropped the project in 2004 so it could devote more funds to the Constellation project. The reusable spaceplane is set to launch in April on top of a commercial Atlas V rocket, orbit for up to 270 days while testing a number of new technologies, reenter the atmosphere, then land on auto-pilot in California. The X-37 previously conducted drop tests and autonomous landing tests using the Scaled Composites White Knight carrier aircraft.

Re:Reminds me of the super collider

[Teancum]

The final funding bill to allocate the required funds is what ultimately failed in congress. No, the funds really weren't allocated, but the project had started earlier and the land purchased to get the project built.

As for why they didn't use the grounds of Fermilab, that is located in the middle of Illinois and the real estate was valuable enough that they couldn't afford to buy out the required land to get it built. The land for the SCSC was available in Texas, which is why it was done there. Yes, I know that CERN was built in land that was about as valuable as that found in Illinois, but that was a European decision and not an American one.

This is actually a pretty good analogy, although at the time I was a supporter of the SCSC and let my elected representatives know that too. Little good that did.

As for the "Blame Bush" crowd.... I should point out that Bush knew full well that he was not going to be the president to see people get back to the Moon and that any such program would be at least a couple of presidencies beyond his own. The time to make decisions on this is now, and that onus belongs to Obama... for good or ill. Bush did what he could at the time, as did his father before him. Neither were willing to do a JFK-type moment and strongly commit a substantial fraction of the federal budget to spaceflight activities like the Apollo program.

Keep in mind that the Apollo project ate up about 5% of the federal budget. At the moment, NASA is only 0.5% of the budget. That is a huge difference and something that I don't see Obama changing either.

The problem was the name . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"Superconducting Super Collider": that just sounds too expensive.

When Congressmen are hunting for some pork for their district, they look for the biggest beast to slaughter. So that there will be enough pork to go around for a group of them. This collider project got their attention, just because of the name.

So my advice to physicists: avoid "super" and "collider" in the name of your project. Call it something like, "mini-micro particle separator." That name will not draw any attention, because it sounds innocuous.

Oh, and the reactions of Alabama's politicos seemed like a giveaway: it just smelled like someone had just stolen their pork.

Unfortunately, Congress is more interested in pork procurement, than science.

We lose.

Re:Your chart lies

[badasscat]

What else would you expect from the New York Times? The chart is highly misleading.

The "mandatory spending" is only mandatory because of the !@&#(* spending bills that REQUIRE certain monies to be spent on certain things.

Uh, yes? In what way is this misleading?

I realize that during the Bush years, Republicans didn't think laws were much more than general guidelines. But we're back in the real world now, buddy.

Our (Democrat Party controlled) government has been spending like a drunken sailor with no regard whatsoever how to come up with the funds to meet our spending obligations. Democrats will typically point to the Bush administration and say "Look at what he spent!". Does one irresponsible act warrant another?

When eight years of deficit spending got us into this mess, it's going to take about that long to get us back out of it.

Were you not listening when some of us were saying it's going to take 20 years to undo the damage Bush was doing to this country during his two terms in office? He took a surplus and turned it into the largest deficits this country has ever seen. And he did it during economic prosperity. How do you expect Obama to take a recession he inherited and turn that deficit spending around in a year?

The damage Bush did is going to take a long, long time to recover from. This should not be news to anyone.