Still Not Quite Getting It

The WaPo has an editorial today on space policy, that points out some of the flaws in the Congressional rocket design, but misses the mark in many ways, as others have point out:

Last year, the Augustine commission found that without an additional $3 billion in funding over the next several years, the Bush administration’s Constellation program for manned spaceflight and a return to the moon would be impossible.

I’m not sure what they mean by this, but it would seem to imply that it’s only three billion over several years (perhaps half a billion per year) when in fact it is an additional three billion per year. That is how much bigger Mike Griffin’s rocket appetite was than his budget.

It goes on:

…the new plan added a manned mission to asteroids and even a visit to Mars by 2025 without allocating more funds for that. This makes little sense.

Yes, it would make little sense if that was actually the plan, but contra the editors, there is no date associated with a Mars mission. It is simply the “eventual goal.”

Referring to the White House, Senate and House plans, they note:

All three plans for space have in common an unwillingness either to abandon the dream of human spaceflight or to confront the budget reality. But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible. Something must give. If the administration and Congress truly want human spaceflight, they need to fund it adequately. Piecemeal funding that dooms programs to failure is a waste of money — especially when so many truly vital space functions, from the satellites that supply maps and communications to the telescopes that allow us to glimpse distant worlds, could benefit from such support.

That’s true of both congressional plans, but not the White House plan. It may not have been articulated very well to date, but the administration plan is the only one that is responsive to the grim choices laid out by the Augustine panel last fall. Congress seems to ignore them completely, continuing to prefer pork over progress, and potemkin human spaceflight programs over real ones. There is, of course, nothing magic about $19B — certainly the Congress could increase it if it wants, it light of the explosion of budget in all other areas (NASA used to be almost one percent of the federal budget — this year, it’s about half of that, not because its budget was cut, but because the federal budget essentially doubled in the past year). But there is no need for more money, and if it were forthcoming, reviving Constellation in anything resembling its previous form would be a ghastly waste of it. Unfortunately, actual accomplishments in space remain unimportant to those who decide the funding for it.

14 thoughts on “Still Not Quite Getting It”

  1. I agree Constellation had to die and the Senate, maybe did not kill but restructured it. Is it perfect??? No. Is any budget perfect? No. Commercial Crew got some, Technology demonstrations got some, SDHLV got some. No-one got everything they wanted, but sometimes something is better than nothing. But thing this article forgets to mention, is who proposes the budget in Feb–the White House. I may be wrong, but the total number allocated is pretty near the total the white house asked for. The WH proposed the cake size, the Senate sliced the cake slightly differently than the WH initially asked. As you rightly pointed out–the WH was all good for techology demo, but there was no BOLD plan to go anywhere anytime soon. People may say that we need to the R&D for this and that, but R&D has to lead somewhere. If Kennedy had said for his bold plan for the moon, I want to build a depot, and do this and that…does anyone think we would have gone to the moon. A great leader puts that bold goal to aim for. Without any goals, people do not want to follow.

  2. Neither the Senate or House plans called for going to any specific destination at any defined time. They mandated spending billions on a HLV but nothing for the payloads it would eventually carry. They can built it and spend billions a year maintaining the huge payrolls, but without a payload, no one is going anywhere. That’s why I call it the HLV Utopia – the rocket to no where. If they were serious, they’d be funding development of payloads. Since they aren’t, they just funding pork.

  3. But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible.

    That is $19b per year, right? Give me a desk and a telephone with that budget and I’d give you a manned space program you wouldn’t believe. Of course, as a government jobs program it would be a bust limited to a very few discrete programs. The private sector would be doing much better.

  4. The article says:

    “All three plans for space have in common an unwillingness either to abandon the dream of human spaceflight or to confront the budget reality.”

    and:

    “Piecemeal funding that dooms programs to failure is a waste of money — especially when so many truly vital space functions, from the satellites that supply maps and communications to the telescopes that allow us to glimpse distant worlds, could benefit from such support.”

    This is not a call for more funding for human spaceflight. This is a call for ending human spaceflight!

    It has the back of the mouth taste most of the “robots only” crowd has always left me with. They demand their priorities be served by human spaceflight, and when they can easily say it won’t serve them, they call for dropping it. This was the standard Van Allen theme for decades.

    Space is not politically important, and cannot be made so.

    While I have always felt that the majority of Space Science academics supported human spaceflight, their colleagues in the rest of academia were always calling for “real science”, that would, just coincidentally, move a lot higher percentage of NASA money into academia than with human spaceflight. This article is nudging non-NASA Center Congressmen and Senators towards getting rid of human spaceflight, IMHO. It is the mirror of the pork-barreling that Senator Shelby does, but just as destructive, or more, if it achieves its full objectives.

  5. This is the WP we are talking about. They are barely credible when talking about the one topic they supposedly know about (Washington politics), never mind something like space policy. What you are getting is the DC conventional wisdom on this, nothing more or less.

  6. There seems to be a common theme among all of the human spaceflight related blogs and web sites, that we can do a lot with our current technology. No need to wait for a SHLV, just design a vehicle, launch it in pieces, assemble it in orbit, and go to the Moon, Mars, an asteroid, or Lagrange point.

    Which is great. In an ideal world we would be doing that and working on a new SHLV at the same time. Eventually, having one will be beneficial.

    I think what is missing, is an overall strategy for HSF.

    It would be interesting to pose the problem to a bunch of game theory students or even some pros at RTS or turn based empire building games.

  7. “But with the funding for NASA set around $19 billion and not likely to change, bold plans for humans in space are simply not feasible.”

    That is $19b per year, right? Give me a desk and a telephone with that budget and I’d give you a manned space program you wouldn’t believe. Of course, as a government jobs program it would be a bust limited to a very few discrete programs. The private sector would be doing much better.

    Not all of the NASA budget is for HSF. Having said that, for only a tenth that over five years ($1.9b/yr for five years), I would expect to be able to get say five different low cost RLVs developed and operational (~5x$200m), around a thousand people in orbit a year, large space stations, depots, tugs, serious orbital assembly, large satellites and what not and a start made on developing lunar and asteroid mining.

    In doing so space would be of significant political interest (and not in the jobs program context). Looking at Ares I, we can see that the NASA HSP cost structure is about a 100 times what it should be. For example, ISS cost ~$100b, it should have only cost ~$1b.

  8. in fact it is an additional three billion per year.

    You are right, of course. It’s this kind of little detail (the difference between an increment to a program cost and an increment to an annual cost) — whose significance eludes the innumerate generalists who thrive inside the Beltway — that seems to underlie our trillion-dollar deficits, somehow.

    That is how much bigger Mike Griffin’s rocket appetite was than his budget.

    Now this part isn’t quite right. There is nothing intrinsic to the PoR that costs out at a delta of $3B/yr. This is just a delta that the Augustine Commission used for the overall exploration budget to illustrate a “less-constrained budget” scenario.

  9. I will report an interesting fact.

    I live in the DC suburbs. Because I like to read the newspaper while cooking and eating breakfast, I get the paper copy of the Post.

    I did not see this editorial in the paper edition yesterday morning. Since the day was busy in meatspace, I did not really check the Internet this morning. That’s when I found out about this editorial. Unsigned editorials Sunday included Name That Senator (about holds in the Senate), Justice’s Web reach (about DOJ investigating terrorism on the web) and What vindication? (about local figure Marion Barry).

    Thoughts?

  10. One of my professors used to say that trash collection is never an issue in elections. As long as your trash is picked up every trash day, no one will be thinking about it. No one cares about how the trash is picked up or what happens to the trash after it leaves your curb. As soon as your trash isn’t picked up on trash day, it is a big issue.

    The same could be said for NASA, which is why now people are starting to pay attention.

  11. I said:
    Space is not politically important, and cannot be made so.

    Trent Replied:

    “It’s important to Florida.. apparently going to be an election issue even.”

    What is important to Florida is *jobs*, not the spaceflight they are purported to produce. Spaceflight itself is not politically important.

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