Former Congressional space staffer David Goldston has a piece over at Nature about the grid-locked and paralytic state of space policy. He also describes the ongoing ignorance of much of the Congress, the media, and the public on the subject:

...the story one hears now from most members of Congress, and some in the media, is that the president made a speech about going to Mars in 2004, got nothing but grief for it, and the proposal went nowhere. This is, of course, almost entirely wrong.

As I've noted in the past, federal space policy has two problems: it's non-partisan, and it's unimportant. It has both supporters and defenders on both sides of the aisle, which might at first glance seem a good thing, but it's not, really, because we never debate the issue in ideological terms that can arouse the partisan passions necessary to really make things happen. Recall John Kerry's "space policy" from the 2004 campaign.

...he released a written space policy document, of sorts, the other day (which is unfortunately conflated with aeronautics policy, so it's a jumble of air and space, and NASA and the FAA), which is probably the best we're going to get before we head into the voting booth on Tuesday.

I haven't the space here to dissect it in all its glory, but it's rife with policy non-sequiturs and false choices, and vague in specifics, other than calling for "balance," and making the meaningless pledge of "assigning appropriate priority to all NASA programs" (we're presumably supposed to trust, or hope, that Senator Kerry's priorities are ours). The word "Bush" appears in it nine times, by my count, and there are zero occurrences of the words "shuttle" or "station." This is not a policy document -- it's a campaign document, and like most Kerry campaign documents, it's a pledge to be the un-Bush, no further details necessary.

And the unimportance of space policy (other than to those who get the pork) should be obvious--NASA's budget is now down to one half of one percent of the federal budget.

The other problem he describes, of NASA having too much on its plate, with too little budget, is unlikely to go away for the reason he states--those politicians who support NASA generally only support the part of it that's important to them, so they will all continue to make sure that the money flows to the right places, regardless of whether or not it's enough to actually accomplish anything. His analysis is depressingly familiar to any of us who have studied the situation for much time (and I've been watching it for about three decades now).

So, in that context, what to make of Dr. Griffin's recent offering over at Aviation Week's blog (first I knew they had a blog--cool)? He presents his thoughts on the next half century in space, which includes some interesting history for those who are unfamiliar with it. This part seems to me to be the foundation of his thoughts:

I will have some comments on the international scene and on the possible role of commercial space, but for much of the next five decades, the U.S. government will be the dominant entity in determining the course of human space exploration. We will, I hope, develop robust international partnerships that will enormously enhance the value of space exploration. And we must do everything possible to provide an accepting environment for commercial space entities, standing down government capability in favor of commercial suppliers whenever it becomes possible to do so. But with that said, the U.S. today is spending more than twice as much on civil space, per capita, as any other nation, and I believe this situation is unlikely to change significantly for some time. Commercial space firms offer great promise but, so far, limited performance. For a while yet, it is the U.S. government, through NASA, that determines the main course of human spaceflight.

Well, in light of the moribund state of space policy described above, is this really a good assumption? I certainly don't buy it, and his reason for believing it isn't very compelling. Why is "per capita" space spending an interesting metric? What matters is how much is being spent, not how much is being spent per capita. There are a couple countries over in Asia with a lot more "capita" than we have, so even if they spend less "per capita," they could still outspend us in space. Moreover, if they come up with a more effective way to spend it (perhaps by taking their lead from developments in the US private space industry, rather than from NASA), they could in fact leapfrog us.

But as long-time readers know, I'm not that concerned with international competition from other government space programs. I think that all government space programs (at least for human spaceflight) are going to fade into irrelevancy over the next twenty years, let alone the next fifty. But in any event, as I say, that's the assumption on which the rest of his talk is based.

From there he gets down into the budgetary weeds (probably more than we needed to know about various inflation indices, etc.) but presents a constant-dollar budget profile, with an expectation that NASA will be OK for the next five decades. But here, he reveals what I think to be his naivety:

In an attempt to offer a reasonable, but conservative, vision for government civil space activities, let us assume that NASA continues, in Fiscal 2013 and beyond, to be funded in constant dollars at the average level of the President’s request for Fiscal 2008-12. This is illustrated in Figure 2, with the average out-year budget assumed to be $14.2 billion in Fiscal 2000 dollars. We in the space community will certainly hope for more, but we should not expect less. More properly, we should expect to perform in such a manner – actually delivering a bold, exciting, efficient and effective space program, instead of PowerPoint charts with hopes and dreams – that policymakers do not want to provide less!

First of all, why should we not expect less? It's certainly politically conceivable. But the real error here is in assuming that it matters much whether hardware or view graphs are produced. Per the discussion that led off this blog post, all that really matters is whether or not jobs are produced, and in the right places. For instance, Ronald Reagan announced the space station program in 1984, with the hope of having it operational in time for the Columbus quincentennial, in 1992. In fact, ten years later, while there were some pieces and test articles lying around, the vast bulk of programmatic output was paper, including viewgraphs. It wasn't until late in the 1990s that the first piece of space station was actually launched into space. But the jobs persisted throughout, and so the program maintained its support.

And he attempts to make a good case for the notion that, despite complaints from the scientists and aero types, the agency budget remains well balanced:

The summary below shows a “then and now” comparison. In contrast to oft-repeated claims, human spaceflight is not growing relative to other portions of the NASA portfolio, and is not “eating everyone’s lunch.”

Category 1959-68 FY08 Request
Human Space Flight 63% 62%
Science 17% 32%
Aeronautics 6% 3%
Comm & Space Technology 10% 0%
Cross-Agency Support 4% 3%

The problem, of course, is that it's not possible to know what's really going on from this birds-eye view (also note that aeronautics has dropped by half, relative to the sixties, and it shows in terms of experimental aircraft projects, among other things). As Godston notes, it doesn't matter that much how much money is allocated to the various areas, if there are too many politically important projects having to share the funds.

Interestingly, he contradicts his earlier comment about the US being the big gorilla in manned space in his section on international cooperation:

Europe has a population 50% greater than that of the U.S., yet spends on a per-capita basis only about a fifth of what we spend on space. A future European generation could choose to do otherwise. India has a middle class population equal in size to the entire U.S. population, and produces engineering graduates equal to the best anywhere. Chinese space agency representatives have remarked publicly that, today, some 200,000 engineers and technicians are engaged in space-related work. And of course Russia could begin the development of a lunar transportation system today, essentially at its discretion, given its existing spaceflight capability and the recent and continuing flow of energy money into that country.

By the mid-to-late 2020’s, at the latest, several nations will have the independent capability to reach the Moon, and will be doing so. My hope is that the various programs can be bent more toward a cooperative than a competitive agenda. I believe that nations will find it to be in their interests to cooperate in lunar exploration and development, as they do in Antarctica today. But it will also be true that each nation to develop key elements of space infrastructure, especially transportation but also navigation and communications assets, will be unlikely to set them aside in favor of reliance on others. For the next generation, maybe as much as two decades, the U.S. may well be the only nation capable of reaching the Moon on its own. But much beyond that, and I suspect that we’ll be there with others. The Moon will be within the grasp of a significant number of advanced nations. It will be the next big leap, a voyage to Mars, where international cooperation is a requirement, rather than an option.

So in fact, it's quite conceivable that other nations could have a larger program than ours, if our budget remains steady, as he assumes. But I strongly disagree with the last statement. I'm long on record of opposing international cooperation, at least if it's international cooperation for international cooperation's sake. It certainly isn't needed to build a lunar base, or go to Mars. We can afford to do either of those things on our own, if they're important to do. If they're not important to do, though, perhaps international cooperation will be the only way they become done, simply because doing things internationally has a higher value to some people in the political establishment (including, apparently, Mike Griffin) than actually accomplishing things. The ISS is an emblematic example of this. And I should add that using Antarctica as a model would be disastrous, from the aspect of space development, because Antarctica is essentially off limits for development, by treaty. We can't allow the same thing to happen off planet.

Overall, I think that he's far too optimistic about stability, in either goals or budgets, for the next fifty years. And while his thought experiment of an alternate history is useful in hindsight, it doesn't offer the lessons for the future that he seems to claim that it does. Yes, it would have been better to continue the Apollo hardware rather than developing Shuttle, but that's a false choice. I don't know whether to laugh or cry when he talks about an Orion still being flown by the grandchildren of its first pilots. Yes, this happened with the B-52, but there's a critical difference. The B-52 was a successful and cost-effective vehicle. It didn't cost billions of dollars per mission--it cost mere thousands. If we're still flying Apollo-like capsules into and out of space fifty years from now, we will have failed to open up the frontier in any meaningful way. We will have squandered another half century.

There could have been a third way in the early seventies, and there is one now, with even more promise given the advances in all the non-space technologies over the past three decades. It is just forming, in hangars in Mojave, and industrial parks in El Segundo. Mike continues to seem to assume that the mistake of the Shuttle was in going for a reusable vehicle, chasing a chimera of low costs of space access, but Shuttle only proved that having a single vehicle attempting to satisfy all space transportation needs, developed by a government agency whose primary focus was on jobs maintenance, was foolish.

If we don't reduce the costs of accessing space, we will make no significant progress, and I doubt that even Mike's modest goals of a lunar base and Mars missions will be achieved with the current plans. Fortunately, because the third way is happening, despite NASA's paltry support for it, it probably doesn't matter that much what NASA plans.

[Update at noon Eastern]

Jon Goff has further thoughts:

I would go a bit further by stating that commercial space transactions are probably the single best method for expanding the scope of what NASA (and the rest of us) can accomplish in space. A lot of commenters on the internet have tried to paint those of use who'd like to see NASA do more to promote commercial space as "alt.spacers looking for handouts from Uncle Sugar." The reality is though, that with a vibrant and innovative private space sector, NASA can accomplish far more than it possibly can with an anemic and small one. As more and more non-NASA markets for space transportation, services, and products blossom, the cost of space exploration for NASA will also go down, allowing them to do much more for the same amount of money. With how obviously powerful of an impact a vibrant commercial space industry would have on NASA's plans, you'd think they'd be investing more of their time and money into making sure private space blossoms, instead of ambivalently watching from the sidelines to see what happens.

That assumes that NASA's primary goal is to open up space and engage in as much space activity as possible. There are both theoretical reasons (see "public choice theory") and abundant empirical evidence to realize that's not the case.

Good comments Rand.

Another thing that Mike misses, which he should know because he was there, is that in 2008 NASA could take another left turn toward Earth centric missions rather than exploration.

Another thing that Mike misses, which he should know because he was there, is that in 2008 NASA could take another left turn toward Earth centric missions rather than exploration.

Bill Richardson may be an able advocate against that. Also, a campaign to persuade the Democrats to keep Mike Griffin as NASA Administrator if they (we?) win the White House in 2008 would seem in order, especially if Richardson is Veep.

As for taking another road to LEO, Griffin also said:

Some have opined that the scale and difficulty of spaceflight is such that it will remain an inherently governmental enterprise for the foreseeable future. I do not share this view. For me, the question is more properly “when,” not “if,” the state of the art in astronautics will permit a private enterprise to develop a successful orbital transportation capability without the direct support – and the accompanying onerous and expensive oversight – of a government prime contract.

NASA can do better. However, given the realities of federal contracting, low cost LEO access will need to come from the private sector in fulfillment of private sector demand.

Letting the aerospace primes build an on-orbit fuel depot on a cost plus basis will bleed money far faster that ESAS will bleed money.

NASA and the administration had an opportunity to make a compelling case for VSE, but failed to do so. I view this as the larger reason for the continuing space malaise. Lacking this justification, the real justification becomes pork and individual political advantage.

The interesting question to me is why they failed to make a compelling case. I suspect it's because they simply couldn't construct one. The business case (loosely defined) for NASA just doesn't close.

Bill,
You keep assuming that the only way NASA can interact with the private sector is through cost-plus prime contracts. It isn't. NASA *could* if they wanted to find ways to act as a better customer. They could push for congressional authorization to put some money into an escrow account to purchase orbital passenger tickets or to buy propellants on orbit. They can use Space Acts to do firm, fixed-price contracts with payments based on meeting milestones (like they're doing with COTS). They actually have a lot of options available, even if they're most comfortable with prime contracts.

There are ways for NASA to help make it easier to close the business case for a propellant depot without doing it on a cost-plus contract, and without violating federal law.

~Jon

> given the realities of federal contracting, low cost LEO access will need
> to come from the private sector in fulfillment of private sector demand.

Okay, Bill, we get it already! You don't think NASA should do anything that would help generate demand. You don't need to keep repeating yourself.

But you still want us to give NASA all the money it can waste. Why? You still haven't answered that question.

If you don't want NASA to do anything useful to the economic prosperity or national security of the United States, then why should US taxpayers give NASA any money at all? Let alone the large increases you want?

> Letting the aerospace primes build an on-orbit fuel depot on a cost plus basis
> will bleed money far faster that ESAS will bleed money.

Can you point to a post where anyone here actually propose that, Bill? Or are you just beating another strawman?

> Bill Richardson may be an able advocate against that.

Bill, do you have reason to believe Richardson is even interested in ESAS? Yes, he's interested in commercial space. That doesn't mean he automatically supports everything with "space" in its name.

> Also, a campaign to persuade the Democrats to keep Mike Griffin as NASA
> Administrator if they (we?) win the White House in 2008 would seem in order

What about the fact that Griffin says he doesn't want to remain as NASA Administrator after 2008? Are you planning to nowak him?

If ESAS were as sustainable as you say, you wouldn't need to dream up a string of political miracles just to keep it alive past 2008.

Congress ignorant? I don't believe it! It can't be possible!

/sarcasm

Wasn't it Harrison Schmitt that declared that Congress was the place good ideas went to die? Or maybe it was John Adams...