Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, War Commentary

First Look

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Jeff Foust (who also has a summary of the current political state of play over at The Space Review today) has some initial budget numbers:

That building block approach includes heavy-lift launch vehicle R&D, “vigorous” technology development work in areas like automated rendezvous and docking and propellant transfer, and a “steady stream of precursor robotic exploration missions”.

For those who foolishly think that this new direction is the “end of human spaceflight” or even “the end of human spaceflight beyond LEO,” what do they think that those precursors are for? Not to mention the tech development work?

I guess, to them, that if you’re not repeating the folly of Apollo, you’re not doing “real” human spaceflight.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s the OMB document (doesn’t look like a permalink, though):

NASA’s Constellation program – based largely on existing technologies – was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020. However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA’s program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA’s attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations. The President’s Budget cancels Constellation and replaces it with a bold new approach that invests in the building blocks of a more capable approach to space exploration.

Killing off a dead end and reinvesting in something that actually has a hope of achieving the goals. Gosh, what a concept.

One thing that’s not clear yet, absent more perusal. When they say cancel Constellation, does that include Orion? Not that I’d cry, but I’m curious. Orion’s requirements, after all, are integral with the Constellation architecture, which is clearly dead now, so the program will need some rethinking regardless.

And is this just the opening position in a budget battle with Congress, with it and perhaps some kind of heavy lifter as bargaining chips?

[Update a few minutes later]

Bobby Block has more analysis over at The Write Stuff:

The flagship enterprise will be developing on-orbit refueling and automated approaches and docking technologies.

…Lots of parallels are being drawn with how the federal government used mail contracts to develop the aviation industry.

So far, I’m liking pretty much everything I’m seeing.

[Update mid morning PST]

Clark Lindsey has some notes from the announcement. This is a huge breath of fresh air, at least so far. Which is not to say it’s perfect, but it can be a long way from that and still a huge improvement over the previous plans.

[Update a couple minutes later]

A summary from George Herbert, over at the Arocket list:

Well, it’s out. As predicted, wth some additional benefits.

Constellation outright cancelled, message from the top on down.

$2.5 B of the new $6 B funding over 5 years (beyond flat) is in Earth Observation science missions. Major (claimed) focus on technologies for affordable long term human exploration of the solar system, including orbital demonstrations of propellant tank farm and orbital propellant transfers, automated rendezvous and docking (presumably, of human-sized vehicles, and vehicles far from earth), closed loop ECLSS, a new first stage booster engine (presumably big enough for a HLV), I think I saw mention of deep space propulsion. [all of the things that Mike Griffin starved to feed Apollo on Steroids — rs]

They’re explicitly stepping away from a roadmap, and onto the technology base that most of us long term experienced enthusiasts have been pushing for.

If I had to summarize my first impressions, especially of Bolden’s statement –

“We were doing Flags and Footprints. The President and I don’t want to do that. We want to colonize space for real. We’re going to do the foundations for that now.”

I assume that last is a summary of Bolden’s statement, not a quote.

Whether or not they follow through, this is (IMNSHO) the most visionary space policy that the nation has ever had. Now to see how badly Congress screws it up.

[Another update]

The thing that amazes me is that when I read comments from those defending Ares, and Constellation, and NASA, at places like Space Politics and The Write Stuff, is that they are entirely devoid of facts and logic. These people live in some bizarre alternate reality in which NASA didn’t kill fourteen astronauts at the cost of hundred of billions of dollars, Lockheed Martin has ever sent someone into space, SpaceX has achieved nothing, etc. In Senator Shelby’s case, I can understand that he is completely motivated to lie or delude himself about such things by what he perceives to be his political interest, but I can’t figure out what drives the irrationality of others with no dog in the fight except apparent blind NASA worship.

[Update a few minutes later]

I have some more thoughts on Ares, astronauts and safety.

And if you missed my post on Obama’s conservative (even if inadvertent) space policy, it’s here.

[Update a few minutes later]

If your only template for a “successful” human spaceflight program is Apollo (big rocket, firm deadline, big bucks, a few NASA astronauts walking on some planet), then I can see why you’d be disappointed when instead the program is for enabling lots of destinations, by lots of people, with no specific deadline or destination. These are the same people who would apparently say that Lewis and Clark was “real exploration of the west,” and all those miners and trappers wandering around were just hobbyists. And that the government should have built its own heavy-lift railroad instead of giving land grants.

[Afternoon update]

Buzz likes it. No one would know the folly of repeating Apollo better than him.

[Update a while later]

More thoughts from Michael Mealing.

[Update a few minutes later]

With regard to the knee-jerk irrational complaints from many, this reminds me very much of six years ago, when the Vision for Space Exploration was announced. Many “progressive” and pro-space bloggers opposed it, even though they admitted to liking the idea. Why? Because it was proposed by the BusHitler, so there was obviously a catch, and he was up to no good. I’m seeing a lot of the same kind of partisan nonsense in opposition to this. This is the most truly visionary space policy ever (and that includes the Apollo speech), yet a lot of people are cavilling about it because it was proposed by Barack Obama. This is stupid.

82 thoughts on “First Look”

  1. Talk on NSF says Orion is dead. It also appears that the plan is to preserve the shuttle infrastructure, Obama doesn’t appear to be willing to burn the ships. At least in theory this allows for a later revival of the shuttle stack. The big question is how hard Obama is willing to fight and how much the members of Congress who do not have large NASA centers in their districts will care.

  3. > initial budget numbers:

    >> That building block approach includes heavy-lift
    >> launch vehicle R&D, “vigorous” technology
    >> development work in areas like automated rendezvous
    >> and docking and propellant transfer, and a “steady
    >> stream of precursor robotic exploration missions”.

    > For those who foolishly think that this new direction
    > is the “end of human spaceflight” or even “the
    > end of human spaceflight beyond LEO,” what do
    > they think that those precursors are for? Not to
    > mention the tech development work?

    Pork?

    Seriously Rand, they have been doing “precursor robotic exploration missions” to the edges of the solar system and “tech development ” for Maned Mars missions (including things like NERVA tests) since the ’60’s. No ones gone yet. So your claiming that these prove a actual nitention for NASA to fly beyond LEO is a bit naive. These just scream conselation prize to me.

    >One thing that’s not clear yet, absent more perusal.
    > When they say cancel Constellation, does that include Orion?

    Man I hope so!
    Seems likely givine they are killing constellation. Though they could rework Orion as just a ISS taxi to be lifted on EELV’s – at $20 billion adn counting – that could be a hard sell.

  4. “At $3.1 billion over five years, an aggressive, new heavy lift research and development program will focus on development of new engines, propellants, materials and combustion processes, ultimately leading to innovative ways of accessing space to go beyond low Earth orbit. This will increase our capabilities and significantly lower operations costs – with the clear goal of taking us farther and faster into space. And the budget also provides $4.9 billion over 5 years for a broad space technology program, including investments in very early stage and game-changing approaches, cross-cutting technologies such as communications, sensors and robotics, and a flight demonstration program for these game changing technologies. These programs will use prizes and other innovative research funding mechanisms to support the most worthwhile ideas.”

  6. Seriously Rand, they have been doing “precursor robotic exploration missions” to the edges of the solar system and “tech development ” for Maned Mars missions (including things like NERVA tests) since the ’60’s.

    No one called the outer-planet missions precursors. If you’re going to say they won’t follow through, well, neither did the last administration for the last plan. At least it’s a better plan. I’d rather have a good plan that won’t be followed through on than a lousy one. At least with the latterformer, you have a chance, and can continue to fight for follow through, and call them out on it when it doesn’t happen. Also, it will be clear by the mission design whether it’s intended as a precursor or not.

  7. Listen to the speech people, this is wonderful. He just mentioned stimulating commercial spaceflight and wanting to see thousands of people in low earth orbit.

  9. The two big surprises is that it looks like NASA may buy a module from Bigelow

    [[[New capabilities could include ….. inflatable space habitats]]]

    And has signed a Space Act agreement with Blue Origin, among others, to look at commercial crew to orbit.

    Not surprising as it looks like COTS-D is getting big funding. $500 million this year going to 1.4 billion in 2012 & 2013.

    Technology Demos (fuel transfer, docking, closed-loop life support) go from $662 million in 2011 to over 1.262 billion in 2012 and 1.8 billion in 2013.

    HLV seems pegged at $500 million year over the next several years so it probably won’t be a big deal as some are making out.

    Constellation close out is $2.5 billion

    Looks like New Space got all it could want, now the pressure is on them to deliver. It will be an interesting few years.

  10. Thanks, Rand. If there is another fellow out there who has had more influence on my view of space policy over the last eight or so years, I can’t think of him. I was poking around a couple of NASA fanboy sites (collectSPACE, among others) and they’re acting as if someone shot their dog. Whether these plans will get anywhere or not, I don’t know, but at least we won’t be wondering 20 years from now why Constellation didn’t do what it promised.

  12. Bolden said Blue Horizon. I assume he means Blue Origin.

    What incipient orbital capabilities do they possess?

  13. I was poking around a couple of NASA fanboy sites and they’re acting as if someone shot their dog.

    Well, someone did shoot their dog (two of them actually). Their names were Ares, and Orion. 😉

  14. What a lovely dream. Is my alarm clock about to go off?

    Amazing. Griffin’s Kafka-esque detour is at an end.

  17. I can’t figure out what drives the irrationality of others with no dog in the fight except apparent blind NASA worship.

    Same here. My main suspicions are brand loyalty to NASA, a desire not to see the shuttle stack end and enthusiasm for HLV. Lots of people have claimed they only supported SDLV because it was the only thing that was politically possible. It will be interesting to see their reactions to all this in the coming days.

  19. Not really, with the POTUS supporting what many claimed they would support if ony they thought it was politically possible. As I said elsewhere, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings, but an enlightened program certainly seems possible now. Especially since Obama made sure sufficient monies would continue to flow to Florida and Alabama. I wonder who will now try to support Obama’s attempt to reboot NASA and who will continue to support their previous preference.

  20. I suspect that Obama will be able to get this through Congress. He’ll lose some Democrats in districts hit by cuts, and some of the Republicans (the Shelby caucus) will baulk, but he should have enough votes. Actually, if the Republicans are serious about deficit reduction, they’ll be darn hard pressed not to vote for this.

  21. Damn, that just felt so…refreshing.

    I’m only sorry to see Orion itself disappear, as I’d hoped it might move to the ‘lite,’ launcher-agnostic vehicle some had already suggested..

    Then again, LockMart might take that upon themselves anyway. It would be consistent with the collaboration they’ve already had with Bigelow, who is already clearly ‘vehicle agnostic’ on how orbital access is provided for users of his hardware. Being a commercial alternative to Dragon would good for everyone. It could at least be inferred from some other statements in the conference.

    I know it’s early, but does anyone know if the entire teleconference is available as a podcast that I might download, and point others to?

  22. Let SpaceX go forward with their Dragon capsule. Let Lockheed-Martin go forward with their own manned spacecraft if they choose. Let Blue Orion and others enter the market as well if they choose. The more participants, the better the chances of finding out what really does and doesn’t work. It also opens the possibility of people trying different solutions to the same problem. For example, this might be the chance to finally explore truly reusable vehicles if someone can make them work.

    Imagine if the only car company in the world right now was Toyota. This latest set of recalls, factory work stoppages, and sales halts would prevent anyone from buying a car. That’s close to the situation we’ve long endured with NASA and manned spaceflight. Every time they have a failure, we’ve experienced a years-long grounding of American manned spaceflight. We need more egges in more baskets, not everything in one government controlled basket.

  23. This is a great day for American space. I’m amazed at people choking in horror over the notion of NASA developing useful, state-of-the-art tech like closed-loop life-support, in-space refueling, and high ISP engines. And all with an extra 6 billion over five years! For my entire life NASA has been “starved of funds,” and now when it finally gets some, we hear something like, “Oh, well, it’s not the right kind of funds.”

    I don’t think the layperson, or the media, and especially politicians understand the stark choice Obama and Bolden had to make. There was not going to be a moon landing. The program committed suicide. Years ago. Even the one element making decent-ish progress — Orion — had ceased to be the Orion we thought we were getting when they gutted it of reusability and even methane engines in the SM. It was a shoddy product and we weren’t getting it until 2019.

    Now, when 2019 rolls around we’ll probably have a couple LEO taxis, capable of flying on multiple boosters (a huge thing). We’ll have a new tech infra structure. And we’ll have a vibrant unmanned program that was otherwise doomed to stagnation.

  24. This will entail accelerating artificial intelligence development and thus hasten the Singularity. Remember, though, Obama is a facile liar, so monitor his actions, not his words.

  26. This reminds me a little of airline deregulation and the subsequent demise of the civil aernautics board back in the 70’s and early 80’s. There was much gnasking of teeth by the powers that be at the time also. Hopefully, the unleashing of commercial space will have similar effects (across the board lowering of air fares, route innovation, explosion in the numbers of providers, etc.)

    Of course, the most striking similarity is that it was just about the only good thing to come out of Carter’s one-term administration also.

  27. Oh hey, on-orbit propellant transfers. THAT’LL sell those Liberty Bonds. And a closed-loop ECLSS, my God! Just the other day my niece was saying how she wanted to go into a seven-year engineering degree program just for the *chance* to work on a closed-loop ECLSS.

    “$2.5 B of the new $6 B funding over 5 years (beyond flat) is in Earth Observation science missions.”

    In other words, this isn’t about space; it’s a bone thrown to environmentalist zealots. Our science-focused EO assets are sorely in need of a refresh, but let’s not pretend that the Administration isn’t planning to score some broad-spectrum points with this plan.

    “automated rendezvous and docking”

    …has been a reality for five years now. See XSS-11.

    “all of the things that Mike Griffin starved to feed Apollo on Steroids — rs”

    Oh, PLEASE. Griffin didn’t “starve” anything. He allocated limited resources to the Administration’s stated national priorities at the time. Unless you’re suggesting that NASA’s attitude towards the government should be “screw you, we’re goddamn scientists and we’ll do whatever the hell we think is right, you’re a moron, also we need more money”. Even Augustine admitted that NASA was underfunded.

  28. Predictions: Shuttle program life extension and/or Shuttle-derived heavy lifter as consolation prize(s) for NASA’s old school constituency.

  29. Even Augustine admitted that NASA was underfunded

    Of course he’d say that.

    Nobody could be any more Big Aerospace big contracts big $$$ than old Norm.

  30. Predictions: Shuttle program life extension and/or Shuttle-derived heavy lifter as consolation prize(s) for NASA’s old school constituency.

    I wouldn’t bet too much on that. In fact, I think many insiders, who knew Constellation wasn’t going to happen, were internally banking on Shuttle extension. To the point that the new budget shocked and disappointed them, that’s the reason. No shuttle extension and no Constellation. Congress can push back for a consolation prize like Shuttle-C, but why? It doesn’t help MSFC. It may help KSC someday in the future, but not now. JSC may like it, but the JSC congressional delegation is weak, mostly Republican and Jackson-Lee, who backed the wrong Dem candidate.

    After reading the OMB articles today, I’m agreeing with Rand. This is looking better as time goes on. And if you remove the emotional, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The only thing that I really dislike about the budget, other than purely personal reasons, is the climate change funding. The climate change funding is politically tone death to the last couple of months.

  31. The climate change funding is politically tone death to the last couple of months.

    Nothing wrong with honest research. If there’s global warming, they’ll find it. If not, then they’ll find there isn’t any. And Garver explicitly stated that this time round NASA would share its data sets with anyone who wanted to look at them.

  32. You’d have to be a monumentally naive f’n sucker to believe any promises, projections, or predictions to come out of the Obama administration. Obama has made a sucker out of smarter folks than you, so don’t feel too bad.

  33. You’d have to be a monumentally naive f’n sucker to believe any promises, projections, or predictions to come out of the Obama administration.

    I can’t discount that notion either.

  34. The future of US spaceflight is evident from this decision, and it isn’t in space. It will be a never-ending process of each administration axing the prior administration’s plans for space, only to lay down their own plan which will be axed and replaced with a newer, more visionary plan.

  35. “Oh hey, on-orbit propellant transfers. THAT’LL sell those Liberty Bonds. And a closed-loop ECLSS, my God! Just the other day my niece was saying how she wanted to go into a seven-year engineering degree program just for the *chance* to work on a closed-loop ECLSS.”

    This is funny, but in all honesty, Constellation failed to arouse any excitement in the masses and the Space Shuttle was the ambien of human space flight. If 99.9% of Americans aren’t gonna give a damn about space, I at least want NASA working on foundational techs, rather than dead-ends.

  36. All the good stuff in the current NASA budget proposal can be easily nickel-and-dimed, stretched, trimmed, re-scoped, etc in future years to help reduce the deficit. Possibly even in the current year, as the budget process proceeds.

    I think NASA’s budget is being set up to shrink, in absolute terms, over the rest of the Obama adimistration and probably beyond. No sudden mass layoffs in any congressional district. Just “nibbled to death by ducks.”

    And the alt-space folks had better have succeeded by then, or we have no future in space.

  37. “Oh hey, on-orbit propellant transfers. THAT’LL sell those Liberty Bonds. And a closed-loop ECLSS, my God! Just the other day my niece was saying how she wanted to go into a seven-year engineering degree program just for the *chance* to work on a closed-loop ECLSS.”

    As compared to work on Ares?

  38. Barry Soetoro, our Moooslim-Marxist in Chief, needs NASA’s money to re-distribute to his cult-like followers, – ACORN, SEIU union and “community organizing” groups and other Democrat voting blocs.

    And to think, there are “educated” Americans who follow this Chavez wannabe in the White House. So much for the “educated elite”.

    😉

  39. Best quips

    From OMB:
    The President’s Budget will also increase NASA’s funding, accelerating work — constrained for years due to the budget demands of Constellation — on climate science, green aviation, science education, and other priorities.

    From Lori Garver, thedeputy administrator of NASA:
    believes seeing humans on the Moon and elsewhere within our lives is very possible.

    [ I think shes in her 40’s. Which, given the projections for someone now in their 40’s of living to their mid ‘80’s, we could see another man on the moon by 2050!!]

    ::yeah:: NOT!!

    Not exactly boldly going forth here?

  40. Seriously folks. The new tech study money is just a going away gift. Restudy stuff either long known, or to trivial to justify as a research program.

    Bottom line.
    NASA human space flight won’t just be confined to LEO, it will now be limited to the ISS – via other peoples taxis – for the foreseeable future. To study climate change.

    No replacement for shuttle.

    No new program for NASA to build for.

  41. Oh hey, on-orbit propellant transfers. THAT’LL sell those Liberty Bonds. And a closed-loop ECLSS, my God! Just the other day my niece was saying how she wanted to go into a seven-year engineering degree program just for the *chance* to work on a closed-loop ECLSS.

    As General Bolden said, “Imagine enabling hundreds, even thousands of people to visit or live in low Earth orbit, while NASA firmly focuses its gaze on the cosmic horizon beyond Earth.”

    Yeah, what could possibly be more boring than that?

    Far more inspirational to spend $100 billion so a handful of astronauts can go where NASA already went 50 years ago.

    Eyeballs rolling!

  43. NASA human space flight won’t just be confined to LEO, it will now be limited to the ISS – via other peoples taxis

    It’s worse than that, Kelly. Even access to NASA Headquarters is dependent on other people driving taxis. NASA doesn’t even own and operate its own fleet of cabs!

    (Shaking my head.)

  44. Restudy stuff either long known, or to trivial to justify as a research program.

    Are the long-term effects of partial gravity (between zero and one gee) long known, or too trivial to justify?

  45. Edward: You talk as though there are dozens of private-sector LEO spaceflight operations RIGHT NOW. In fact there are NONE, unless you want to pretend that Russians allowing people to buy seats on Soyuz is a going concern. The closest we’ve got is Virgin Galactic is selling suborbital hops, and that won’t result in a sustainable business–it’ll be like those dippy blimp rides that Airship Ventures is selling here in California.

    INSPIRATION IS NECESSARY. The elephant in the room of the aerospace industry is that new students are NOT COMING INTO IT. Everyone in the industry is over forty, and do you know why? Because everyone in the industry grew up with Apollo and wanted to do it themselves.

    Now here we have people saying that spaceflight isn’t useful, and flight programs are wastes of money, and that NASA is run by idiots and that its efforts were doomed from the start. Kids watching science programs on TV see an industry full of doddering old farts talking about how we USED to do this, and we USED to do that, and how we USED to be able to get things done and we USED to be smart and we USED to fly to the Moon, but how we don’t need to fly to the Moon and anyway we couldn’t make it if we tried. Who’d go into aerospace engineering with that kind of talk as their inspiration?

  46. >> Oh hey, on-orbit propellant transfers. THAT’LL sell those
    >> Liberty Bonds. And a closed-loop ECLSS, my God! Just the
    >> other day my niece was saying how she wanted to go into
    >> a seven-year engineering degree program just for the
    >> *chance* to work on a closed-loop ECLSS.

    > As General Bolden said, “Imagine enabling hundreds, even thousands
    > of people to visit or live in low Earth orbit, while NASA firmly
    > focuses its gaze on the cosmic horizon beyond Earth.”

    ROTFL

    Yeah, studying another life support system no one has any plans to use is real important. Especially since you could just order contract for them from the builders – rather then restudy the tech for another decade.

  47. > Edward Wright Says:
    > February 1st, 2010 at 3:07 pm
    >
    >> NASA human space flight won’t just be confined to LEO, it will
    >> now be limited to the ISS – via other peoples taxis

    > It’s worse than that, Kelly. Even access to NASA Headquarters is
    > dependent on other people driving taxis. NASA doesn’t even
    > own and operate its own fleet of cabs!

    So the point of having a NASA, is going to a remote office and maintaining the air-conditioning?

    NASA reduced from explorers, to trucking and builders, to tourists visiting the station they built – or facilities staffs maintaining it.

    Cool me excited.

  48. > Edward Wright Says:
    > February 1st, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    >> Restudy stuff either long known, or to trivial to justify as a research program.

    > Are the long-term effects of partial gravity (between zero and one
    > gee) long known, or too trivial to justify?

    Nearly. Its pretty clear they arn’t tolerable to humans — but no ones planing to fund studys of it that I know of.

  49. > ==
    > Now here we have people saying that spaceflight isn’t useful,
    > and flight programs are wastes of money, and that NASA is run by
    > idiots and that its efforts were doomed from the start. Kids watching
    > science programs on TV see an industry full of doddering old farts
    > talking about how we USED to do this, and we USED to do that, and
    > how we USED to be able to get things done and we USED to be smart
    > and we USED to fly to the Moon, but how we don’t need to fly to the
    > Moon and anyway we couldn’t make it if we tried. Who’d go into
    > aerospace engineering with that kind of talk as their inspiration?

    Yeah. Just what it will take to inspire a new generation of engineering students. That or another couple decades of studying the same space technologies.

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