As scandals pile up at the White House door, another example of amateurish government mismanagement slid under the radar last week: President Obama’s NASA unveiled its new rocket system designed to lift man into space sometime after 2021 with no clear mission or objective.
This is just the latest in a long string of embarrassments for NASA since Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver took over.
In January 2010, Bolden labeled NASA an “Earth improvement agency” and said it would essentially scrap manned space exploration and concentrate on “researching and monitoring climate change.” This redefined mission came with additional funding. NASA was going to spend more, and do less.
Then in July 2010, Administrator Bolden announced NASA’s mission as threefold: (1) “re-inspire children”; (2) “expand our international relationships”; and “foremost” (3) “reach out to the Muslim world.” He condescendingly explained that Muslim outreach would help Islamic nations “feel good” about their scientific accomplishments.
In this same interview, Bolden “inspired children” by declaring the United States could never reach beyond low-earth orbit again, as it did alone from 1968–1971, without international help, saying: “We’re not going to go anywhere beyond low earth orbit as a single entity. The United States can’t do it, China can’t do it — no single nation is going to go to a place like Mars alone.”
In March 2011, Russia raised the price of Americans flying on their Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station by more than 20 percent, to roughly $63 million a trip. With no near-term alternative, the United States is in no position to negotiate a better deal for taxpayers.
Then last month, a Soyuz rocket crashed in Siberia, and threatened to force an evacuation of the $100 billion International Space Station (ISS) by December. The reliance on Russia’s spacecraft means a certain end to ISS activity if the Soyuz cannot fly. For now, Russia has scheduled a manned flight in November, temporarily alleviating those concerns.
After all of this confusion over NASA’s mission and future, Bolden introduced a manned-space-exploration plan that is bewildering and lacks credibility.
The new Space Launch System (SLS) replaces the former Constellation program. Constellation was a two-vehicle system designed to carry a crew atop an Ares I rocket and carry heavy-lift cargo in an Ares V rocket. SLS is also a two-vehicle system with a nearly identical heavy-lift rocket, and a redesigned crew vehicle that resembles the Ares IV first seen in 2007.
Since this system so closely resembles its predecessors, Constellation’s purpose apparently wasn’t as misguided as the president has implied for the past two-plus years,.
However, under Constellation, the first manned test flight was scheduled for 2015, with a crew mission later that year, a cargo flight by 2018, and a man back on the moon conducting experiments for later flights to Mars by 2019.
Under the new Obama SLS system, the first unmanned test flight is in 2017, the first manned test is in 2021, and a possible mission to an asteroid is scheduled for 2025. The “gap” of America’s ability to put man into space grew from four years under President Bush to ten years under President Obama.
Obama and Bolden added at least six years to both the manned flight and mission schedules in exchange for what? A possible asteroid as the first stop instead of the moon?
Rep. Bill Posey (R., Texas) said of the new SLS plan: “[T]here is still a lack of vision, and no clear mission.”
Then, earlier this month, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., Texas) and Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) accused Obama of attempting to “sabotage” his own program by “inflating cost estimates.” Days later, the cost numbers apparently added up when NASA lowered their estimates.
This is not a good start to a decades-long space program. Either it’s too costly, which is surely exacerbated by the past two years of dithering and ‘brain-drain,’ or it isn’t. We need a clear cost assessment, and President Obama should clarify whether or not he supports his own space program.
To satisfy those who believe NASA’s core mission is, and always has been, space exploration, this new program seems to be reluctantly pieced together, mostly out of programs that sat in a purposeful state of disorder for nearly three years.
NASA has a long history of innovation and brilliant achievement. The men and women of that agency, along with U.S. taxpayers, are ill-served by this administration’s careless handling of its future.
— Rory Cooper was appointed as NASA’s first Director of Outreach and Intergovernmental Affairs in 2006 and is currently Director of Communications at The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org). You can follow him on Twitter @rorycooper.
Not much worse than Bush's idiotic plan to go to the moon AGAIN.
Also, Bush continued to let arch-criminal James Hansen create evil pseudo-science in the name of NASA without hindrance.
If your party had fired Hansen and ripped the whole Global Warming scam out of NASA, you'd be entitled to complain about the other party's nonsense.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo by wpa38's standard, less than half the country is allowed to complain about NASA. Great system you have there.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Not much worse than Bush's idiotic plan to go to the moon AGAIN. "
Explain, in detail, the "idiocy." In order to do this, of course, you have to explain the steps and goals of Project Constellation and how they contribute to the "idiocy."
No, a handwave a slogan isn't enough. Dazzle us.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo the moon AGAIN? We landed in 6 places and covered a couple football fields worth of area. We have barely been there at all!
So what should we do? Go to Low Earth Orbit AGAIN? We have been there like 200+ times now but nobody ever says that.
Will you grow tired of Mars after the first landing too?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat we see at NASA is a pack of bureaucrats trying to justify their existence. When they stated “Muslim outreach” is part of their “mission” it became clear this outfit needs to be scaled way back. If a worthy space mission is found, then restart it, but not until then. We are broke. Each project must stand on its merits. NASA is rudderless with Obama ideologues at the helm and sadly has become a haven for nonsense (like “Muslim outreach”) instead of serious science and space exploration. Shut it down and start over.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnyone else notice that message boards all over the internet are showing a specific pattern by Obama lovers. There is no longer any attempt to defend his policies. They are purely attacking/blaming previous admins (not just Bush, either, I've seen it go back to Nixon). This pattern is so complete, it's not even anecdotal anymore. This is true on his handling of NASA and every other fiasco he's presided over.
Don't listen to polls showing Obama even coming close to reelection. 2012 is going to rival 1980's results.
When your main statement in defense of Obama has become, "But the guys before were bad, too!!", it's over.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe new proposed launch system is called the Senate Launch System by those of us who favor reducing the political pork barrel approach to NASA's R&D for launch systems. NASA has become a jobs program for its armies of workers in Florida, Texas and Alabama who are protected by people like Sen. Hutchison (R. TX).
The alternative is for NASA to buy "rides" into space from American companies and not the Russians. We are still a couple of years from that reality, but throwing billions into rockets that will never fly (e.g. Constellation) won't get us there.
Space is a place and not a government program run by NASA. It's a frontier that the government should be trying to open to Americans who want to go there and make money - space tourism anyone?
Alternatively, establish a multi-billion dollar prize for whoever meets certain goals like building a lunar colony and inhabiting it for a specified time (big), or building a space hotel in LEO and operating it for 1 year (smaller). It will be a lot cheaper than the SBS.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis one is easy.
Right now, NASA is an amusement park ride.
The "long term benefits to industry" are either real, or not.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf they are, let the businesses pay for them.
If not, turn off the lights and leave.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Air and Space museum after a 26 year absence. The main exhibits have not changed much at all, but feel of the place is totally different. In 1985, just a few years after Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz, everything seemed new and exciting. People are still trooping through the same old Skylab mockup today, which much like looking at a mockup of an Aztec village. Today, the only new exhibits concern ancillary technologies, mostly weapons. I was shocked at how many of the new exhibits are from China. The most interesting aircraft addition to the ceiling exhibit is the ultralight that set the human powered flight record.
The dems cancelled the Superconducting Supercollider which set us back 20 years. Now they are in the process of ruining NASA. Why anybody listens to them on issues of scientific research is beyond me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis picture succinctly summrizes NASA's state of the art technology:
External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNASA outlived its mission and should have been shut down long ago. Once great, it has become an embarrassment.
NASA should be replaced by a national space port agency that merely gives businesses a hand in getting into space. Keeping it as a government PR program isn't working.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat's wrong with the Delta IV? Wikipedia even says they're gearing it up for manned flight.
"Muslim outreach would help Islamic nations “feel good” about their scientific accomplishments"
Both of them I suppose?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVisiting an asteroid, surveying it, actually landing men on it, is a worthwhile goal. Dawn is at Vesta right now, and will be on its way to Ceres later this year. MSL launches after Thanksgiving and will land a nuclear-powered rover in Gale crater on Mars next summer. If MSL were to find life or evidence of life on Mars, that would fast-track a Mars mission. Absent that, planning to visit a near-Earth asteroid probably makes more sense than returning to the Moon. A big asteroid hit on the Earth would be a seriously bad day. Deflecting one is a major challenge.
The first job is to find a good candidate. Believe it or not, we don’t have a good candidate right now. Near Earth objects (NEOs) are hard to find, even though we know, statistically, that they are out there. A vital precursor mission is to design and build a NEO observatory and send it closer to Venus’ orbit so it can look for good candidates. This is needed because the sun from Earth frustrates ground viewing of NEOs inside Earth’s orbit. You need to find hundreds because the statistics are such that you have to winnow the candidates down. It needs to be big (at least a million metric tons); it needs to be accessible (low Delta V from Earth) during the 2020s; you have to get there and back in 6 months (crew health); it can’t have a chaotic rotation; it must allow the crew good in-situ tests of water and metal-extraction processes. The NEO visit is a learning mission. You need that before you actually try to deflect one. Check out www.TargetNeo.org
We need heavy lift, whether it is the Obama or Bush plan. We need a major objective. If the asteroid mission is too ambitious, then a moon mission might be an alternate. Long term, deflecting a big asteroid from hitting us will someday have to be done. Let’s get started now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe real problem isn't NASA, it's humanity as a whole. The governments of the world spend 1000 times more money on weapons, weapons development, and war than on any other collective expense. NASA would already be on mars and the moon carrying out missions if it had the same budget as the US military. Don't complain about Obama or Bush or anyone until you acknowlege the fact humanity as a whole is to blame for the lack of scientific interest and funding. Put it on the voting ballot and you will see what I'm talking about. Fund NASA or fund the military. The people are to disinterested in science. It could be the failing education in our country among other things
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis article is a joke and rife with inaccuracies. Please see Rand Simberg's rebuttal which includes real facts and states this issues facing NASA's Manned Spaceflight. External Link
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseConstellation was killed because it would have killed astronauts: Solid-fuel rocket to orbit manned space launch means - NO throttle - and NO directed rocket exhaust to compensate for changes in direction as center-of-gravity shifts as fuel is used. At Max-Q, tests showed that Constellation's side-to-side vibration forces exceeded 6G - and would have critically injured human passengers.
Any single-booster to space system is only good for non-human cargos that can sustain large vibrations like weapon payloads and hardened satellites.
The new SLS will use solid-fuel rocket motors BUT only to be jettisoned just prior to Max-Q altitude: All through launch SLS will operate up to 5 liquid fuel rocket motors based on the Shuttle's main engines with gimballed rocket motors.
ATK's new 44,000 lb thrust solid fuel rocket - arguably - was ordered for the US DoD to meet the new build-quick-launch-quick tactical requirements for placing intelligence assets in space during a crisis, a program that was hidden in the NASA budget by the Bush Administration.
NASA administrators are generally wary of joint development projects with the DoD. Killing Constellation was the right way to get attention from Congress that Constellation's solid fuel rockets were the wrong engineering project for manned spaceflight. By incorporating the ATK engines as drop-away boosters for SLS, NASA gets a human survivable rocket - AND provides continuing budget cover for the joint DoD NRO program.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRBobLee2012, your criticisms of Constellation and in particular the solids are variously wrong or misleading. I would refute them in technical and program detail, but ITAR considerations prevent me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe author doesn't understand that the SLS resemblance to Constellation is because key congressmen refuse to kill Constellation/shuttle idea because the loss of jobs in their states. Blaming it on Obama in this way is completely inaccurate. Obama is responsible for giving in to congress, which, if you want to take a negative view, means he either gave in to congress too easily, or you can try to argue that his commercial rocket slant is flawed.
Lets not forget folks that Constellation was doubling in cost every 2 years, and was basically way out of any conceivable NASA budget. The shuttle was an aging death trap. The new Commercial contracts are roughly 10x cheaper per flight, and billions less to develop.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGee-how terrible! Imagine congressmen and senators lobbying fo jobs in their districts-Oh, wait-isn't that what we vote them in them for? In this case, they were right to force Obama's hand. His commercial ideas are proving to be very flawed as launch and flight failures (and failures to disclose information) are cropping up. I hardly think the shuttle is an aging death trap either. If you look at the last 5-years of the shuttle, it was becoming more predictable and safer. Yous 10X cheaper is turning out to be true only in the PR departments of SpaceX and the other "new space" companies. It is not tied to reality and they are also becoming more expensive daily.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGoing to Mars or an asteroid is not possible until we have nuclear rockets with at least 100x or more increase in energy, so we can get there and back quickly. Man has only been "away" from Earth for less than 2 weeks at a time during the lunar missions. Anything longer than 2 weeks has been orbiting 225 miles above the earth. The ISS inhabitants have the comfort of knowing they are only hours from touchdown (shuttle took 1 hr, 5 min from de-orbit burn until landing) via the escape capsule if there is a life threatening emergency. Even if everything went perfectly (and that's a big if), there's no way a crew could be millions of miles away in a cramped capsule, for months at a time, without going mad.
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