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House Passes NASA Authorization Bill
simonbp writes "The US House of Representatives has just passed the Senate version of the FY2011 NASA Authorization Act. This bill is a compromise between Obama's proposed budget and earlier House bills. It cancels Ares I in favor of commercially-operated crew transportation to ISS, adds technology development funds, and keeps a version of Orion and a new heavy-lift 'Space Launch System' to both be operational by 2016. The timing of this bill was crucial to keeping key NASA personnel and contractors from being laid off."
So does this bill include a realistic budget to actually accomplish these goals or is it just "oh yeah, we support NASA 100%" political pandering? Last version of the bill I read about included keeping the shuttle program going with no additional launches and no additional funding, just moving money from some other NASA program and pay people who won't be doing any real work.
The basic problem is this: Projects in NASA take longer than a president will be in office.
So presidents will announce some grand new space project that will take a decade. The next president, in the name of budget cuts, cuts the project. Then, in order to placate the pro-NASA folks, announces some other grand new space project that will take a decade. And of course the grand new space projects never get completed.
As far as the congressional representation, they're primary concern with NASA is directing as much of the activity as possible to their congressional districts. For instance, Ohio's representation will do their best to ensure that more work gets done at Glenn in Cleveland, while Texas's folks try to get the work done in Houston.
I am officially gone from
The timing of this bill was crucial to keeping key NASA personal and contractors from being laid off.
I've found that if you want to keep an organization personal, you can't have many contractors in it. Permanent employees tend to be more invested in the organization, which fosters a more personal culture. Contractors have a tendency to come and go, and act more like vendors than members.
Nasa gets less that 1% of the budget, while Medicare, Social Security and Welfare get 57%, Defense gets 19% and the interest on the debt is 5%.
Do you see the problem here?
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
So, it looks like the GOP fought tooth and nail against privatizing spaceflight because they wanted to brink the pork home and more or less are dictating rocket design to NASA. Juicy bits here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/30/congress-passes-nasa-authorization-bill-but-id-rather-watch-sausages-being-made/
What really galled me, though, was that several Republicans blamed Obama for NASA's current mess, including Ralph Hall (R-TX, remember him?). This is grossly and demonstrably unfair and untrue. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) hammered over and again the idea that Obama is trying to kill the manned space program. That is not true, and in fact the current situation (including the five year gap between the Shuttle and any follow-on rocket system) started in the Bush Administration. Constellation has been in trouble for some time, behind schedule and over-budget. I'm of the opinion that Obama's plan to defund Constellation does not kill the manned space program as Culberson said it will. I have written about this repeatedly: far from killing it, this new direction may save NASA from the mess it finds itself in right now.
What's weird is how Culberson used the bogeyman of Obama to try to gain sympathy for the bill, saying that a yes vote on the bill would stop Obama's plan to dismantle NASA. I find that odd, as much of the bill aligns with Obama's plan for NASA, including defunding Constellation and promoting a new rocket system*. Moreover, I want to point out that Obama's plan, and this bill, funds private space concerns (like SpaceX, which is preparing to launch its Falcon 9 rocket which will be man-rated and capable of flights to the space station). You'd think Republicans would support this, as they have a mantra of privatizing health care, social security, and so many other government efforts. However, many Republicans don't like private space companies. An exception I must note was Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who spoke up about funding private space efforts and how important it is. On most issues he and I disagree strongly, but on this one we agree.
The US space industry is at a critical juncture right now. The best crop of private space firms we've ever seen is out there now; from a funding standpoint, a technical maturity standpoint, and from a drive to make space routine & affordable standpoint. That being said, the government has the power to either foster them or chill the environment they are operating in and potentially kill them off (as has happened more than once in the past). For this industry to really take root and get strong enough to achieve routine & affordable space they need to get through this juncture where most people have difficulty seeing a future that is different from massive, expensive, apollo style nasa and to a place where they can see there is a realistic chance space can be more like the aircraft/airline industry. Investors don't invest significant money in long time horizon ventures that will pay back *if* the government doesn't compete with you *and* a market happens to materialize as expected. They want to see that someone else is already making money before the cash floodgates truly will open. These first few companies are crucial to demonstrating the business case for the rest.
Unfortunately, this means it is critical for the government to not directly compete with the fledgling industry (for things that industry can reasonably be expected to do) (the Ares and Orion programs for example) and for certain restrictions (like ITAR), which prevent the this industry from being competitive and being able to self fund things in the future, to be removed as impediments. If the government can also serve as an early anchor customer until the market demand for lower cost access to space kicks in, that is a bonus which helps to accelerate things. The president has already signalled his willingness to make sensible changes to ITAR, so now the other half of the equation needed for success is to kill the massive pork ridden constellation program and refocus nasa on doing real science and exploration again (and at the same time making it a customer for off the shelf industry provided products and services).
This bill does that. It's most significant contribution to a brighter future isn't what it funds (the Commercial Crew initiative for example) but what it does not fund (Constellation). Killing the most egregious pork siphon the NASA budget has ever seen is the first step in saner NASA budgets in future years. Did this budget do everything that should have been done to refocus NASA productively? Not by a long shot. You can read more about the downsides here:
http://restorethevision.blogspot.com/search/label/Not%20So%20Great%20Compromise
But it does do the one thing that sets the stage for a healthier trajectory going forward...it kills Constellation and clears the decks for a healthier trajectory to be set over the next few years. That much pork was not something congress wanted to part with lightly and had it managed to hang on to a significant portion of constellation, we may have been looking at another 30 years of nothing much happening just like the last 30, only in this case the impending budget crisis over social security would eventually squeeze the space program down to nothing.
So when evaluating this budget, look at it for what it will enable long term, not what the specific line items mean in the next year.
Pardon me, but from the timestamp on your comment its obvious that you didn't read shit about this bill before posting some inflammatory garbage that only helps bring down the SNR here.
The facts are the NASA was dying under Bush. Constellation was 100% unaffordable and on top of that falling behind with delays and budget overruns. Neither Clinton or Bush properly planned for the post space shuttle era. Obama is now tasked to keep NASA alive via privatization of easy launches to the ISS and building a new capsule and rocket for an asteroid mission 15 years from now. Its not 1967. Private industry can handle lofting meatbags to the ISS. Government should be doing what private industry can't.
This bill is a very interesting look into how our times have changed. Yes, it would be nice if it had more money attached to it, but we kinda spent our cash on tax cuts for the rich and two wars under Bush. You can't have nice things if you keep going into debt over war and cuts for people who don't need them.
Huh? How is it dead? NASA has money, they have goals, and a start on an idea of how to make manned exploration affordable and sustainable.
Constellation was never going to fly. It had to get through a few more administration changes before getting to the moon, and if past performance is any indication, the budget was going to grow more, and the target dates were going to be pushed back. 2030 is a long way off.
In its place we get a competitive market for Gemini class vehicles to reduce the risk of ever facing a spaceflight gap again, a push for a more affordable heavy lift vehicle that while I think is misguided will keep the politicians happy, technology development to make BEO missions 5-year projects instead of 20-year projects, and most importantly, a restatement of the goal that NASA should always have had: To facilitate the settlement of space, through trying to reduce dependence on the Earth, building LEO infrastructure, and focusing on in-space resource utilizatoin.
As a spacecraft engineer who has been viscerally opposed to working on anything in the past NASA HSF environment, I'm looking forward to what comes up in the next few years.
Why does our president want to grow the size of our government in most other areas, but privatize our space launch capability? His argument that the private sector is more efficient is a valid one. If he truly believes that the private sector is more efficient, then why not reduce our government by also outsourcing most other functions? Education is a good example. Bush tried to do this with his school voucher system and the democrats shot it down. What gives?