Dave Huntsman has an interesting comment at this article about merging ESMD and SOMD:
Many (not all) in the ‘Code M world’ – including the relevant NASA centers, and some managers at NASA Headquarters – are viscerally opposed to the establishment of a competitive, American-led creation of new commercial space industries. Some literally see them as competition to the old Apollo way of doing things, which they consider sacrosanct. Others have been told – falsely – that expansion of American industry into economically-sustainable space industries that lead the world somehow means the death of human spaceflight and exploration. Not only is that not the case, sustainable human space exploration – space exploration with humans we can actually afford to keep doing – is in the long run dependent on the creation of economically sustainable space industries to support them, particularly for routine operations.
As Elon Musk has said, if you don’t do things that pay the bills you won’t achieve the ultimate objective of humanity’s expansion into space. The cutting edge far exploration items – to asteroids, Mars, etc. – are always cost sinks; after all, even Thomas Jefferson failed in his effort to get Lewis’ and Clark’s explorations to pay for themselves in the nearer-term, and he didn’t have to build rockets to go up the Missouri. That is why it is absolutely incumbent that NON-cutting edge far exploration items, such as LEO trucking and taxi services, followed by space servicing and refueling services, absolutely require economic viability and the development of sustainable industries. That will be threatened if these cost-sharing partnerships with industry is lumped in with the NASA Code M organization, whose very history has never been intended to work for anything other than those human space programs that NASA totally funds, owns, and operates.
Let’s consider re-creating Code M for the shuttle transition, space station, and NASA exploration (beyond Earth) functions. But in my view it would be a violation of our direction via Law and National Space Policy to subsume innovative commercial space development and partnerships to some of the same folks who are working so furiously behind the scenes to prevent sustainable space from ever happening. The Apollo-style Code M organization needs to be separate from innovative commercial space development partnerships.
I hope that Charlie and Lori understand the nature of the saboteurs that persist in the bureaucracy at the centers and HQ.
What does Code M mean?
In the olden days, NASA had “codes” to describe the different directorates, which generally, but not always were single-letter acronyms. For instance, Code L was legislative liaison. Code M was manned space. I think they’ve quit using that terminology in recent years, though, just using the directorate acronym (like SOMD for Space Operations Mission Directorate).
It’s inevitable, given the history, that a part of NASA will feel threatened by a substantial commercial space sector. Meanwhile, the rest of NASA gains nothing from their ability to block commercial space and in fact loses both by failing to have cheaper access to space and by having their own funding diverted to over-cos, over-schedule NASA space transportation programs. At the same time the commercial sector lacks any real effective advocate in the federal government, since the disproportionately tiny size of FAA/AST within their agency means they get very few of their administrator’s markers.
The purchase function (including safety review) for space goods and services must be entirely separated from NASA and placed in an agency with in-house technical expertise and substantial federal presence. You will never build a firewall strong enough within NASA to prevent this conflict of interest. NASA itself must be returned to science and deep space exploration and pathfinding for development.
It seems easy to talk about unnamed people inside NASA.. so long as what you’re saying is plausible, no-one can refute you.
I heard that people inside NASA are jealous of EELV.. or they’re too stupid to be jealous of EELV.. or they don’t care about EELV. All of them are plausible and could be said by different people to make different arguments and no-one would blink an eye.
Trent,
Knowing Dave Huntsman, I think he’s in a position to say that with some authority. Also, he probably can’t name names just to entertain commenters on the internet, because he doesn’t want to endanger his or other jobs. While it is true that NASA’s a big enough organization that you can probably find some people on any given side of a space policy issue, I think that Dave’s in a position to know if that is a widespread or high level issue. You don’t have to believe him. But I do.
~Jon
It’s a pain in the ass for any shop to hand off defining responsibilities once they can be handled by cheaper but equally capable hands. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any firm in any industry that even comes close to making it look easy.