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Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Space news 5/8/12
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. Explorer Shuttle Replica Coming to Space Center Houston
2. This Week at Starport
3. Winner of Journey Through Innovation Passport Game
4. Out & Allied @ JSC ERG Meeting
5. Job Stress Screenings
6. Reducing Your Cancer Risks
7. Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Today
8. JSC Systems Engineering Forum: AES SE Leads Panel I
9. Nominate Your Peer for the POWER of One Award
10. Engineers Without Borders -- JSC Introduction Session
11. AIAA-Houston Email Distribution List
12. Fire Extinguisher
13. System Safety Seminar ViTS: July 13, Noon to 3 p.m. - Building 17, Room 2026
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ It seems safe to say that significant discovery, really creative thinking, does not occur with regard to problems about which the thinker is lukewarm. ”
-- Mary Henle
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1. Explorer Shuttle Replica Coming to Space Center Houston
The Space Shuttle Program has been completed, and Space Center Houston will soon have a lasting, unique representation of the program's impact. On June 1, Space Center Houston's new shuttle attraction, a full-scale shuttle replica, will arrive by barge in spectacular fashion, the largest item to arrive at the JSC NASA Parkway dock since the Saturn V arrived for display in 1977. When the new attraction opens at Space Center Houston later this year, it will allow guests to see the shuttle inside and out, including a walk-through interior, payload bay and crew cabin. The exhibit will be enhanced by a host of new displays and artifacts to tell the story of the challenges and achievements of the space shuttle and the team that flew it to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
The space shuttle replica was created by manufacturer Guard-Lee, Inc. in 1993. It was built using schematics, blueprints and archival documents provided by NASA and shuttle contractors such as Rockwell International (now part of the Boeing Company). Some of its core parts, including the tires used on its landing gear, are authentic to the shuttle program. Explorer will give Space Center Houston visitors a feel for the size and scale of the orbiter fleet. It will become a Houston landmark, positioned to welcome visitors as they arrive and it will be the backdrop for and subject of many human spaceflight educational and history programs.
Details of public events planned to welcome the new attraction will be announced soon.
External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
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2. This Week at Starport
Dreamtrips Vacations will be in the Building 3 Starport Café tomorrow, May 9, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Stop by to see what exciting trips are being offered at a discounted price. The health and fitness sale at Starport is in effect until May 18. Items include active wear, water bottles, towels, outdoor toys and family games. Don't forget to use your wellness certificates before the expiration date of May 31.
Lorie Shewell x30308 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
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3. Winner of Journey Through Innovation Passport Game
Congratulations to Parick Renaud, winner of the Kindle Fire. Renaud's participation in the Bioastronautic's Journey Through Innovation Passport game allowed him and many others the opportunity to will the Kindle Fire while learning about innovative ideas in Bioastronautics.
Marilyn Sylvester 281-212-1325
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4. Out & Allied @ JSC ERG Meeting
The Out & Allied @ JSC Employee Resource Group (ERG) will hold its next monthly meeting tomorrow, May 9. The Out & Allied @ JSC team consists of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees and their allies. This month, we'll be preparing for June Pride month activities, including two special events with guest speakers. Please join us to help! Those interested in participating can confidentially contact the ERG Chair via the link below to be provided with the meeting location and time.
Out & Allied @ JSC x37019 http://collaboration.jsc.nasa.gov/iierg/LGBTA/SitePages/Home.aspx
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5. Job Stress Screenings
May is National Mental Health Month. The JSC Employee Assistance Program will be offering free screenings for stress, burnout, worrying and other topics, as well as resources. We will be in the Building 3 café today, May 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Stop by and get information for yourself or a loved one.
Lorrie Bennett x36130
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6. Reducing Your Cancer Risks
The best defense against cancer is to be well informed. The JSC Clinic and Employee Assistance Program are jointly hosting Dr. Richard Ehlers, surgeon with M.D. Anderson, who will speak on "Reducing Your Cancer Risks." This informative presentation will be held today, May 8, at 4 p.m. in the Building 30 Auditorium.
Gay Yarbrough x36130
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7. Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Today
"Live and let live" is a slogan Al-Anon members use to ease into our summer. Our 12-step meeting is for co-workers, families and friends of those who live with the family disease of alcoholism. We will meet today, May 8 in Building 32, Room 146, from 11 to 11:50 a.m. Visitors are welcome.
Employee Assistance Program x36130 http://sashare.jsc.nasa.gov/EAP/Pages/default.aspx
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8. JSC Systems Engineering Forum: AES SE Leads Panel I
The next JSC Systems Engineering (SE) Forum will be Thursday, May 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Building 1, Room 360, as well as available via telecom/WebEx (see link). This forum is the first in a series of panel discussions with SE leads from Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) projects. Panelists will be Catherine McLeod from RadWorks; Jenny Mitchell from Morpheus; and David Rutishauser from Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT). Each lead will provide an overview of their AES project and approach to SE with associated challenges, successes and best practices. There will be opportunities for questions and answers throughout the session. Don't miss this chance to gain invaluable SE insights for application to your projects!
Liz Bauer x37702 https://oasis.jsc.nasa.gov/infra/syseng/default.aspx
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9. Nominate Your Peer for the POWER of One Award
We're currently taking nominations for JSC's only EXPERIENCE award, the POWER of One. Winners will be awarded based on contributions to NASA on one of the three levels:
- Gold (agency impact award level)
- Silver (center impact award level)
- Bronze (organization impact award level)
This award is open to civil servants and contractors. Nominations can be made at http://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov and must include a short write-up on the accomplishment and activities benefiting one of the three categories. If chosen, the recipient can choose from a list of experiences and have their name and recognition shared on InsideJSC. Our next round of winners will be chosen soon, so nominate someone deserving today!
Jessica Ocampo 281-792-7804 http://powerofone.jsc.nasa.gov
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10. Engineers Without Borders -- JSC Introduction Session
Want to know more about the non-profit organization Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and what the JSC chapter does around the world? Then stop by Building 7, Room 141, tomorrow, May 9, from noon to 1 p.m. to learn about all the things that the EWB-JSC chapter works on and what the upcoming work and events are. No RSVP necessary. For additional information about the chapter, visit:
http://ewb-jsc.org/index.html
Angela Cason x40903
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11. AIAA-Houston Email Distribution List
If you're interested in receiving updates and notices of events from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)-Houston section, please send your contact information to Eryn Beisner. You don't have to be a member to get the announcements, though it is highly encouraged!
Eryn Beisner x40212
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12. Fire Extinguisher
Fire safety, at its most basic, is based upon the principle of keeping fuel sources and ignition sources separate.
The Safety Learning Center invites you to attend a one-hour Fire Extinguisher Course that provides instructor-led training on the proper way to safely use fire extinguishers.
Students will learn:
- Five classes of fires
- Types of fire extinguishers and how to match the right extinguisher to different types of fires
- How to inspect an extinguisher
- How to use a fire extinguisher (P.A.S.S.)
- Understand the importance of knowing the locations of extinguishers at your location
- Rules for fighting fires and the steps to take if a fire occurs
- Hands-on (weather permitting)
Course Details:
Date: May 14
Time: 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
Location: Building 226N, Room 174
Use this direct link to register in SATERN.
https://satern.nasa.gov/plateau/user/deeplink.do?linkId=SCHEDULED_OFFERING_DE...
Aundrail Hill x36369
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13. System Safety Seminar ViTS: July 13, Noon to 3 p.m. - Building 17, Room 2026
This seminar provides an overview of system safety origins, definitions, principles and practices. It includes a discussion of NASA requirements for both the engineering and management aspects of system safety and answers the questions: Why do we do system safety? What is system safety? How do we do system safety? What does it mean to me?
Engineering aspects will include a brief discussion of three typically used analytical techniques: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA); Fault Tree Analysis (FTA); and Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). This course will not prepare attendees to manage or perform system safety, only to introduce them to the concepts. Students who have taken NASA Safety Training Center courses System Safety Fundamentals or System Safety Special Subjects should not take this course. Contractors, note: Update your SATERN profile with a current email, phone, supervisor and NASA organization code your contract supports before registering. SATERN registration required. https://satern.nasa.gov/plateau/user/deeplink.do?linkId=SCHEDULED_OFFERING_DE...
Polly Caison x41279
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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.
NASA TV:
· 9:55 am Central (10:55 EDT) – Expedition 31 with World Wildlife Fund Annual Global Conf
in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
HEADLINES AND LEADS
U.S. Commercial Crew Options May Be Limited
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
NASA managers and engineers evaluating the latest batch of proposals for private spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station fear their choices ultimately will be limited. There are growing concerns on Capitol Hill that it will be too expensive to back more than one design. The U.S. space agency received proposals for capsules, a lifting body and perhaps other approaches to transporting humans to and from low Earth orbit. But the House of Representatives is set to consider appropriations legislation this week directing an “immediate downselect” to a single commercial crew design.
Apollo Commanders Back Call For Quick Commercial Crew Selection
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
As the House of Representatives begins debate on funding legislation that would direct NASA to move quickly to pick a single commercial crew vehicle for public support, the commanders of three Apollo missions to the Moon endorsed the approach. Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell, commanders of Apollo 11, 17 and 13, respectively, told Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the U.S. space agency, that they support his panel’s approach to commercial crew vehicle development.
White House promises veto of GOP spending bill over cuts below last year's debt agreement
Andrew Taylor - Associated Press
The White House on Monday vowed to veto a House spending bill for the Justice Department, NASA and several other agencies, charging its GOP authors with violating last summer's budget pact and cutting programs like legal aid to the poor too deeply.
Q&A: NASA Engineer on Historic SpaceX Launch
Adam Mann - Wired.com
In the near future, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will liftoff the launchpad, bringing the Dragon spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Until now, only the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the European Union have accomplished such a goal. If SpaceX succeeds, it will become the first private company to do so. This week, Wired interviews experts in the spaceflight community to discuss the ways this historic launch will impact NASA and mankind’s presence in space. Is it a giant leap, or just a baby step? Today we have Mike Horkachuck, a NASA project executive overseeing work with SpaceX.
Crews pumped as Orion project takes shape
Thrill builds for those working on shuttle successor
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
The Orion spacecraft production line is starting up at Kennedy Space Center, and John Nesbitt is more than ready to begin building the capsule for a first flight test in early 2014. "You'll be able to pop me like a balloon because I'll be so excited. It's going to be great. I mean, everybody feels that way," said Nesbitt, a senior aerospace technician with Orion subcontractor United Space Alliance. "It's the coolness factor of the whole thing — on to the next program.”
Tech loves being involved from very beginning
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
NASA's first flight-worthy Orion spacecraft will come electrically to life this year at Kennedy Space Center, and power to critical vehicle systems will be coursing through wire harnesses fabricated by Andrew Biondi. So what's it like to be working on next-generation spacecraft that will carry American astronauts to the moon, Mars, asteroids — perhaps even the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos? “Oh, it's amazing to be at the beginning of the next program, to see everything from the ground level, from the very beginning,” said Biondi, 38, of Merritt Island.
'It's the beginning of a new future'
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
Dianne Ivey parlayed a job making electrical harnesses for Chrysler automobiles into a 32-year career in the nation's space shuttle program. Now she's working on what she calls “a third millennium vehicle,” a spacecraft that will carry astronauts on missions to the moon, Mars, asteroids or other interplanetary destinations. Her message to Americans: “We still have a human spaceflight program, and we're building harnesses and getting ready for our mission, and we're working toward that every day.”
Wanted: New Experiments for Space Station Science
Denise Chow - Space.com
A nonprofit organization that has been tasked with managing research on the American portions of the International Space Station will begin accepting proposals for specific projects beginning in June, company officials announced recently. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) was selected by NASA in 2011 to manage the space station's U.S. National Laboratory, and to maximize use of these facilities while the orbiting outpost remains operational — planned until at least 2020. Starting in June, CASIS will begin accepting solicitations for life science research projects to fly on the space station that examine osteoporosis, muscle deterioration, immune system responses, protein crystallization and vaccine development in a microgravity environment.
John Elbon, VP and General Manager, Boeing Space Exploration
Dan Leone - Space News
Boeing and its legacy companies have held lead roles on virtually every major U.S. human spaceflight endeavor since 1959, when a newly established NASA selected the prime contractor for Project Mercury, America’s first manned orbital spacecraft. Fifty years after Mercury’s first orbital flight, Boeing remains deeply enmeshed in NASA’s human spaceflight program. The centerpiece of that program is the international space station (ISS), a $100 billion orbital outpost finally completed a year ago this month under a prime contract Boeing won in 1995.
Endeavour powered up; orbiter readies for final power down of STS pgm
Mike Killian - AmericaSpace.org
Just 3 weeks after space shuttle Discovery left Florida for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, sister orbiter Endeavour is readying for one final power up this week – an event which, when the plug is pulled, will mark the final power down of NASA’s space shuttle program. Nearly a year after launching on her last mission, STS-134, Endeavour is on the brink of reaching a “point-of-no-return” in her retirement transition. Once the vehicle’s cooling systems are drained of all their fluids, Endeavour will not be capable of powering up ever again.
Shuttles’ retirement marks the next era of exploration
David Weaver - TheHill.com (Opinion)
(Weaver is NASA associate administrator for communications)
As the Space Shuttle Discovery and the other orbiter vehicles of NASA’s storied Shuttle fleet are transferred to museums around the country, it should be understood that NASA has entered a new era of exploration — one that holds great promise for our nation. We’re implementing the bipartisan space exploration plan that President Obama and Congress approved and making great progress. We’re ending the outsourcing of work on America’s space program and bringing these jobs back to the United States with our commercial space program. We’re developing a heavy-lift rocket to take us farther into space than ever before, and a deep space crew capsule to transport our astronauts, and we’re keeping on track the most sophisticated science telescope ever constructed to help us reveal the unknown.
Commercial Crew Needs Commercial Help
Donald Robertson - Space News (Opinion)
(Robertson is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. He is a small investor in some of the companies building commercial rockets and supplying components for them.)
It is easy to make the case that Elon Musk, founder and “chief designer” of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), has given enough to the cause of spaceflight. His company has successfully developed two rockets and a capsule that has returned to Earth from orbit and is designed to return from the Moon and beyond. SpaceX received its share of government help, and after 10 years and counting, progress has been much slower than anyone would have wished. Nonetheless, these achievements are real and primarily Musk’s. They would not have happened without his initiative, his perseverance in the face of seemingly endless delays and repeated early launch failures, and the investment of a great deal of his own money. If SpaceX and the other companies competing for commercial crew contracts with NASA are to succeed in creating a commercial transportation industry to low Earth orbit, they will almost certainly need to invest a lot more.
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COMPLETE STORIES
U.S. Commercial Crew Options May Be Limited
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
NASA managers and engineers evaluating the latest batch of proposals for private spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station fear their choices ultimately will be limited. There are growing concerns on Capitol Hill that it will be too expensive to back more than one design.
The U.S. space agency received proposals for capsules, a lifting body and perhaps other approaches to transporting humans to and from low Earth orbit. But the House of Representatives is set to consider appropriations legislation this week directing an “immediate downselect” to a single commercial crew design.
In an election year, “immediate” probably means later rather than sooner, perhaps in a lame-duck session after votes are counted. And NASA was working last week to find backing for an amendment removing the quick-selection language before the House vote, scheduled for May 8. Even if that succeeds, budget pressure will work against continuing the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) competition for federal seed money.
“In a climate of decreasing non-defense discretionary spending, the committee does not believe that the administration's proposed budget runout for commercial crew is sustainable,” the House Appropriations Committee states in its report accompanying the NASA funding bill. The report “directs” NASA to focus funding on a single vehicle, or use a leader-follower approach with a main choice and “a second small award to a back-up partner.” It also orders the use of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) contracts rather than the less-restrictive Space Act Agreements currently in force.
The House vote comes as Blue Origin, the secretive startup funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, revealed some technical details of its entry in the commercial crew vehicle sweepstakes. In an interview with Aviation Week, Brett Alexander, Blue Origin's director of business development and strategy, declined to say whether the Kent, Wash.-based company submitted a bid for the Crew Integrated Capability portion of the NASA competition now in evaluation at the agency.
But Alexander says the company is at work on separate vehicles for two different flight profiles—a suborbital vertical-takeoff-and-landing spacecraft called New Shepherd, and a seven-seat orbital capsule so far known only as Space Vehicle. While the Space Vehicle would fly to orbit on an Atlas V in early flights, Blue Origin plans to build its own partially reusable launch vehicle “several years in the future” for orbital flight. Under development with CCDev funding and money from Bezos, the Space Vehicle would parachute back to Earth. The New Shepherd would return suborbital space tourists and scientific researchers to a powered vertical landing reminiscent of the DC-X and DC-XA testbeds flown by the Defense Department and NASA, respectively, in the 1990s.
Initially, the orbital Space Vehicle will use a solid-fuel pusher-type launch abort system (LAS), positioned in the center of the capsule below the crew. Set for testing later this year to check out its thrust-vector control system, the solid-fuel LAS is designed to be carried to orbit and recovered.
Alexander, a former White House space-policy advisor who later worked as head of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, says Blue Origin is evaluating the pros and cons of that approach, and may adopt the liquid-fueled pusher technique used by some other CCDev vehicles that allows the propellant to be used in orbit. “We're using the solid for our suborbital demonstration of it,” he says. “For the orbital system for the Space Vehicle, we're trading solids and liquids and combined fuel . . . . We're trading all that in our system requirements review that's coming up next month. That will define those sorts of things.”
Blue Origin has completed more than 180 tests of the Space Vehicle's biconic shape at Lockheed Martin's High-Speed Wind Tunnel Facility in Dallas to validate computational fluid dynamics models of its performance (see illustration). Alexander says Blue Origin engineers chose the biconic shape to add a little cross range over a pure capsule for additional landing options on reentry, without the weight penalty of a lifting body like the planned Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, another CCDev competitor, or a winged vehicle like the space shuttle. The tests evaluated different versions of the basic shape, as well as trim flaps to optimize transitions from hypersonic flight down to subsonic speeds, when parachutes would deploy for the final touchdown.
The company is also preparing to test the thrust chamber assembly and nozzle of its BE-3 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine in test stand E-1 at NASA's Stennis Space Center. Alexander said the engine is being developed in-house, as is the turbomachinery for the 100,000-lb.-thrust rocket. Blue Origin has hired a “very talented engine department,” he says, which also developed the peroxide/kerosene BE-2 engine used on a suborbital test that reached 45,000 ft. and Mach 1.2 before it was destroyed over West Texas by range safety officers when it developed flight instability (AW&ST Sept. 12, 2011, p. 39).
The BE-3 will power the reusable first stage of the two-stage rocket planned to launch the Space Vehicle. The upper stage would be a throwaway, while the first stage would return to Earth in a powered vertical landing, Alexander says.
Like the Space Vehicle, Boeing's CST-100 capsule and the Dream Chaser would both be launched at first on the Atlas V, which is gaining software that would trigger a crew-vehicle abort in case of a deadly failure in the rocket after launch. The CST-100 would ride its liquid-fueled pusher abort system a safe distance away from the launch vehicle, and then parachute to an airbag-assisted dry-land 5g touchdown similar to the technique it would use on a nominal reentry from orbit.
The Dream Chaser would use its hybrid-motor pusher escape system to eject from a failing Atlas V, and fly a piloted return-to-landing-site maneuver with a 2g load on the crew.
Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) is preparing to launch the cargo version of its planned Dragon commercial crew vehicle as early as May 10 on its first mission to berth with the ISS. The company has long planned to upgrade the Dragon to carry crew with a pusher abort system for emergency parachute landings at sea. Because of its cargo work under the earlier Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) NASA seed-money effort, SpaceX probably is in the lead for the crew vehicle as well.
Another possible commercial crew vehicle is the Liberty rocket that ATK and Europe's Astrium are developing with an unfunded Space Act agreement (see p. 21). Boeing and perhaps other companies developing commercial crew vehicles are considering Liberty as a possible lower-cost alternative to the Atlas V (AW&ST April 16, p. 40).
The upcoming House vote probably will set up a conflict for the conference committee that will reconcile the House and Senate NASA spending bills. Language approved earlier by the Senate Appropriations Committee, where Democrats hold the chair, is less specific on the question of commercial crew competition, urging the agency to “ensure that multiple competitors remain, but also . . . be mindful that, faced with a stagnant future budget, NASA should not take on obligations to more companies than can be practically supported.”
The House version would appropriate $500 million for commercial crew development within its $17.6 billion topline for NASA. The Senate bill would spend $525 million on commercial crew, and $19.4 billion on NASA as a whole—including a shift in weather-satellite procurement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the space agency.
Apollo Commanders Back Call For Quick Commercial Crew Selection
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
As the House of Representatives begins debate on funding legislation that would direct NASA to move quickly to pick a single commercial crew vehicle for public support, the commanders of three Apollo missions to the Moon endorsed the approach.
Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell, commanders of Apollo 11, 17 and 13, respectively, told Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the U.S. space agency, that they support his panel’s approach to commercial crew vehicle development.
“It seems unlikely that NASA will receive significant budgetary relief in the foreseeable future,” the three retired astronauts wrote in a May 4 letter (see attachment) to Wolf. “Consequently, it is mandatory to maximize return on the limited funds available to access low Earth orbit. An early downselect would seem to be prudent in order to maximize the possibility of developing a crew-carrying spacecraft in time to be operationally useful.”
House members are scheduled to debate the Wolf panel’s response to NASA’s fiscal 2013 budget request on Tuesday. Report language accompanying the Wolf bill, which was approved by the full House Appropriations Committee, calls for “an immediate downselect to a single competitor or, at most, the execution of a leader-follower paradigm in which NASA makes one large award to a main commercial partner and a second small award to a backup partner.”
NASA prefers to maintain competition among companies vying for funds under its commercial crew development (CCDev) seed-money effort as long as possible, in the belief that it will ultimately cost less to develop a vehicle that way. Under pressure from some of the CCDev competitors, the agency also opted to continue the program under Space Act Agreements, rather than using the more restrictive Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) approach.
Wolf’s panel argued that a quick downselect would allow NASA to move back to the FAR procurement approach and avoid a complicated transition from funding more than one company under the Space Act to a FAR procurement. The three Apollo commanders, who earlier urged Congress to resist White House plans to hand off human access to the private sector, agreed that a Space Act procurement “would be unlikely to provide the documentation that we normally depend upon to provide high confidence in reaching our technical goals.”
“We all agree that our country has painted itself into a corner and does not now, nor will for many years, have a U.S. government craft suitable for carrying cargo or crew to the International Space Station,” the astronauts wrote. “The reputation of our country and the potential liability associated with carrying United States and international crews to and from the ISS dictates that we do everything possible to ensure that any commercial crew service meets standards equal to those that we would enforce would the craft be government owned and operated.”
White House promises veto of GOP spending bill over cuts below last year's debt agreement
Andrew Taylor - Associated Press
The White House on Monday vowed to veto a House spending bill for the Justice Department, NASA and several other agencies, charging its GOP authors with violating last summer's budget pact and cutting programs like legal aid to the poor too deeply.
The legislation in question is the first appropriations bill to come to the House floor this year. Republicans are cutting domestic agency operating budgets below levels agreed to with President Barack Obama last year as part of budget legislation setting an overall "cap" on the day-to-day budgets for Cabinet agencies.
A GOP budget plan adopted in March cuts $19 billion below the $1.047 trillion agency budget cap agreed to last year and transfers an additional $8 billion to the Pentagon. The resulting $27 billion cut to domestic agencies has Democrats howling that GOP leaders are breaking a deal they agreed to less than a year ago.
At issue is a $51 billion measure funding the departments of Commerce and Justice, as well as NASA and other science programs. The GOP measure doesn't cut such programs very severely — just $731 million below Obama's requests — but the White House has taken a blanket stand that Obama won't sign any spending bills until Republican leaders agree to abide by the deal struck last summer.
GOP leaders like House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, orchestrated the additional $19 billion in cuts as a way to placate conservatives and win enough tea party votes to pass its budget blueprint in March.
The administration opposes cuts to the Legal Services Corp. and for hiring grants for local police departments, among others.
Some Democrats are likely to support the measure despite the veto threat as a way to keep the annual appropriations process on track. They expect Republicans ultimately to agree to the higher levels.
Q&A: NASA Engineer on Historic SpaceX Launch
Adam Mann - Wired.com
In the near future, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will liftoff the launchpad, bringing the Dragon spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Until now, only the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the European Union have accomplished such a goal. If SpaceX succeeds, it will become the first private company to do so.
This week, Wired interviews experts in the spaceflight community to discuss the ways this historic launch will impact NASA and mankind’s presence in space. Is it a giant leap, or just a baby step?
Today we have Mike Horkachuck, a NASA project executive overseeing work with SpaceX. A mechanical engineer by training, Horkachuck previously helped manage parts of the agency’s now-cancelled Constellation program, which would have brought astronauts back to the moon and, eventually, Mars. He also spent more than a decade developing and integrating science experiments for the ISS.
Wired: Will this launch be a big game changer for how spaceflight is done?
Horkachuck: I think it will be a benefit to both NASA and the overall country. The project was originally set up to try to lower the cost to get to low-Earth orbit, which is something NASA has been doing for quite a while. We broke the ground and have a lot of the technology available that SpaceX can capitalize on.
The long term goal will be getting to do commercial cargo to the space station, and getting the commercial industry to eventually bring passengers. Hopefully, it will be opening up a whole new industry like the commercial spaceflight industry.
Wired: How do you think this will this impact NASA?
Horkachuck: It provides a benefit and fills a gap that retiring the Space Shuttle left. It’s a good cooperative effort between us and industry, and both sides are learning new ways.
Plus, it frees up some of our budget to be able to develop deeper space missions. Hopefully changing the cost to low-Earth orbit will allow NASA to go further and deeper into space than we’ve gone before. So it’s a win-win for everybody.
Wired: How much closer does this bring us to a future where manned spaceflight is cheap and quick?
Horkachuck: It’s certainly the first stepping-stone along that path. But I think there’s still a fairly long way to go. There’s still quite a bit of work left before we have very, very affordable commercial passenger travel to space.
We’re heading in the right direction, certainly, and this creates an environment where you can have new innovative technologies developed that may significantly lower the cost. There’s a fixed need to get to the space station and this provides an incentive for companies to deliver on that. They can be financially solvent and stable, and hopefully start upgrading the fleet.
Wired: What happens if it doesn’t work?
Horkachuck: It is a test flight, and so possible failure is built into the thinking behind it. SpaceX has another vehicle being prepared and several more in flow.
Depending on the nature of the anomaly we would try to understand what happened, make any necessary corrections, and then go fly again.
Crews pumped as Orion project takes shape
Thrill builds for those working on shuttle successor
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
The Orion spacecraft production line is starting up at Kennedy Space Center, and John Nesbitt is more than ready to begin building the capsule for a first flight test in early 2014.
"You'll be able to pop me like a balloon because I'll be so excited. It's going to be great. I mean, everybody feels that way," said Nesbitt, a senior aerospace technician with Orion subcontractor United Space Alliance.
"It's the coolness factor of the whole thing — on to the next program.”
Nesbitt, 44, is one of about 300 people at KSC who already are working on the Orion project, doing prep work for the $375 million flight test. Funded by NASA, the mission will put the Apollo-style capsule through the type of high-speed re-entry it would need to survive on a return from the moon, Mars, asteroids or other interplanetary destinations.
Mounted atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, the Orion will blast off from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Orion manufacturer Lockheed Martin will carry out the flight and provide NASA with data after the mission.
With the production line at the Operations and Checkout Building ramping up, Lockheed Martin expects its Orion work force at KSC to grow to 350 to 400 by the end of 2013.
A married father of two, Nesbitt is a certified operator of the 125-ton overhead crane that will be used to precisely lift and lower Orion spacecraft components. In 1990, he started his aerospace career with Lockheed Martin, working on the U.S. Air Force Titan IV rocket program. Titan IV rockets launched heavy, “shuttle-class” national security satellites.
Nesbitt was the lead mechanic for Centaur structures and Titan core stage mechanical systems. He and his crewmates did everything from offloading Titan and Centaur stages at the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip to erecting the stages in an assembly building, transporting the stacked vehicle to the pad and ultimately launching the rockets.
The Titan IV program ended in 2005 after 16 years and 39 launches. Nesbitt was laid off and picked up by United Space Alliance. He was assigned to work as a technician in the shuttle orbiter’s aft engine compartment.
Then, in 2007, the Rockledge resident was selected to work on a small team responsible for establishing the practices and processes that will be used to assemble, integrate and produce Orion spacecraft in the “O&C.”
“They asked for volunteers, and I volunteered,” Nesbitt said.
Talk about a ground-floor opportunity.
At the time, the O&C had been gutted. Built in 1964 to receive moon-bound Apollo spacecraft, it also served the Gemini, Skylab, Space Shuttle, Spacelab and International Space Station programs. In January 2000, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
But as part of a $55 million renovation project, the O&C had been stripped down to its basic structural elements. Nesbitt and four other technicians were helping senior engineers and managers convert the building into “the Spacecraft Factory of the Future,” a model for highly efficient, cost-effective manufacturing.
“We came down to help with the start-up ... From a technician’s standpoint, they asked us what we wanted in here, and how we would go about it ergonomically,” Nesbitt said. “So it was really interesting being all a part of that — seeing how this program was evolving, seeing what it’s going to become.”
Today, the O&C gleams anew. There’s 90,000 square feet of air-bearing floor space. Advanced lifting and lowering devices. Portable tooling stations. A portable clean room. A blast room for high-pressure systems tests. A paperless processing system.
“You know, being here for five years, seeing it go from a bare building to a world-class facility like this, is just really cool,” Nesbitt said. “You can’t help but get excited. I mean, if you’re not excited, then you belong someplace else.”
Tech loves being involved from very beginning
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
NASA's first flight-worthy Orion spacecraft will come electrically to life this year at Kennedy Space Center, and power to critical vehicle systems will be coursing through wire harnesses fabricated by Andrew Biondi.
So what's it like to be working on next-generation spacecraft that will carry American astronauts to the moon, Mars, asteroids — perhaps even the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos?
“Oh, it's amazing to be at the beginning of the next program, to see everything from the ground level, from the very beginning,” said Biondi, 38, of Merritt Island.
Biondi is a senior electrical technician with United Space Alliance, a subcontractor to Orion manufacturer Lockheed Martin. He is one of about two dozen technicians and quality inspectors responsible for fabricating Orion electrical harnesses in a low bay at the KSC Operations and Checkout Building.
Biondi began working on the space shuttle program in 2002, specializing in electronics and electrical testing of systems in the shuttle orbiter payload bay — all “midbody” areas from the ship’s crew cabin to its aft engine compartment.
For eight years prior to that, he served in the Air Force as a crew chief for F-15 tactical fighter jets.
In 2008, Biondi began cross-training for work on the Orion spacecraft. He worked on the assembly of electrical test equipment at Lockheed Martin’s Waterton Facility near Denver, Colo., and also helped plan for Orion assembly, integration and production work at the O&C.
His greatest hope for the Orion project?
“To have the longevity of a sustainable project and venture out where we need to go,” he said.
'It's the beginning of a new future'
Todd Halvorson - Florida Today
Dianne Ivey parlayed a job making electrical harnesses for Chrysler automobiles into a 32-year career in the nation's space shuttle program.
Now she's working on what she calls “a third millennium vehicle,” a spacecraft that will carry astronauts on missions to the moon, Mars, asteroids or other interplanetary destinations.
Her message to Americans: “We still have a human spaceflight program, and we're building harnesses and getting ready for our mission, and we're working toward that every day.”
Ivey, 57, of Rockledge is a senior aerospace technician with United Space Alliance, a subcontractor to Lockheed Martin, which holds a $6.4 billion contract to manufacture Orion spacecraft for human expeditions beyond low Earth orbit.
Dressed in a white lab coat, Ivey works in a low bay at the Kennedy Space Center Operations and Checkout Building. She is one of about two dozen people fabricating the wire harnesses that will route power to Orion spacecraft systems, bringing the vehicles electrically to life.
“I enjoy what I do,” she said.
Originally from Savannah, Ga., Ivey and her family moved to Brevard County in 1970 and she graduated from Rockledge High in 1973. She remembers following the Apollo moon-landing project, “not knowing that as I got older and grew up, I would be a part of the space division.”
In 1975, Ivey went to work for the Chrysler Corp. in Cape Canaveral, fabricating electrical harnesses for the dashboards of automobiles. NASA at the time was developing the space shuttle, and Ivey wanted to be a part of it.
“I heard about the shuttle coming, and I didn’t know anything about it, but I wanted to find out about it,” she said. “So I started applying, and seeing it on the news, and hearing word about it, and I just kept applying and sending my resume and my applications, and I got chosen to be one of the elite in May of 1979.”
Ivey joined shuttle orbiter manufacturer Rockwell as an electronics technician and was assigned to work in the payload bay area of Columbia, the first of five winged spaceships NASA ultimately would build.
In 2008, she began cross-training for work on the Orion spacecraft, making electrical harnesses for capsule development tests. Now Ivey is working on harnesses for the Orion spacecraft that will be launched on an inaugural flight test in early 2014, and she’s happy to tell people she still works in U.S. human spaceflight.
“They think it’s pretty cool, and they ask, ‘What are you doing now that the Space Shuttle program has gone away?’ ” Ivey said. “I say, we have other programs that we’re working on in the space division. And Orion is a great one. It’s the beginning of a new future.”
Wanted: New Experiments for Space Station Science
Denise Chow - Space.com
A nonprofit organization that has been tasked with managing research on the American portions of the International Space Station will begin accepting proposals for specific projects beginning in June, company officials announced recently.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) was selected by NASA in 2011 to manage the space station's U.S. National Laboratory, and to maximize use of these facilities while the orbiting outpost remains operational — planned until at least 2020.
Starting in June, CASIS will begin accepting solicitations for life science research projects to fly on the space station that examine osteoporosis, muscle deterioration, immune system responses, protein crystallization and vaccine development in a microgravity environment.
"The thing that the space station provides us with is tremendous capability already on orbit," Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and a science advisor to CASIS, told reporters at the 28th National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., via a video conference call.
The specific life science topics were decided upon following a review of more than 135 experiments NASA flew in space over the past decade. The CASIS Biological Sciences Review Panel was led by Timothy Yeatman, CASIS' interim chief scientist.
The identified areas of research will act as a starting point, but eventually the scope of the projects will be expanded, said Jim Royston, CASIS' interim executive director. The aim is to build upon the findings of previous studies, and to spur innovation and commercialization in the process.
"We are really excited by the potential of what we will be able to learn on orbit about treating these problems on Earth," Yeatman said in a statement.
In April, NanoRacks LLC, a private company already operating research facilities on the station's U.S. National Laboratory under a NASA Space Act Agreement, announced a solicitation call for experiments that will fly outside the orbiting outpost in the vacuum of space.
The platform, which will be attached outside the station's Japanese Kibo laboratory, will be launched in 2014, and is designed to test how materials, biological samples, and electronics fare on the exterior of the station as it orbits 240 miles (386 kilometers) above Earth.
After CASIS selects research proposals, the organization will try to leverage its core $3 million budget to also attract investment from other sources, including other research organizations and private companies.
"I really look at it more as a call to action," Royston said. "We have looked at what is there from a commercialization standpoint, what's there from a business model, a sustaining model, and more importantly as a pipeline to this emerging market. I look at this as the first step to this emerging market. It's like our Lewis and Clark moment, and it's time that we really move forward with this."
As part of CASIS' agreement with NASA, the organization has access to 50 percent of the mass available on vehicles traveling to and from the International Space Station for science experiments. This includes existing manned and robotic spacecraft, such as the Russian-built Soyuz and Progress ships, to new commercial vehicles being developed by American companies to ferry cargo to the orbiting complex.
One such, SpaceX's Dragon capsule, is due to make its first test flight to the station May 19, delivering science equipment along with food, clothing and other supplies for the astronauts.
CASIS will develop and manage all the research on the U.S. segments of the space station, which will be conducted for NASA and non-NASA scientists.
After 13 years of assembly, construction of the $100 billion space station is finally complete.
The space station typically houses six astronauts at any one time. The amount of science conducted aboard the outpost depends on the crew size, and astronauts usually divide their time between scientific research, daily maintenance and exercise.
Now that construction of the space station is complete, CASIS is aiming to maximize use of the facilities for scientific research.
"I think this is the first of a number of initiatives that you'll be seeing from CASIS," Stern said. "They're going to be individually small steps, but we're going to add incrementally — and you'll see it over the next weeks and the remaining months of the year — new opportunities for putting new research payloads up, for using the facilities that are there, and to exploit the space station that the United States built."
John Elbon, VP and General Manager, Boeing Space Exploration
Dan Leone - Space News
Boeing and its legacy companies have held lead roles on virtually every major U.S. human spaceflight endeavor since 1959, when a newly established NASA selected the prime contractor for Project Mercury, America’s first manned orbital spacecraft.
Fifty years after Mercury’s first orbital flight, Boeing remains deeply enmeshed in NASA’s human spaceflight program. The centerpiece of that program is the international space station (ISS), a $100 billion orbital outpost finally completed a year ago this month under a prime contract Boeing won in 1995.
Today, Boeing Space Exploration — a Houston-based division employing 3,000 people in Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas — is performing the sustaining engineering critical to keeping the space station up and running while also helping NASA develop cryogenic stages and avionics for a new heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) and angling for a novel contract to build a commercially operated crew capsule.
Overseeing this diverse set of initiatives is John Elbon, a 30-year Boeing veteran who ran the company’s commercial crew program before replacing astronaut Brewster Shaw last August as vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration.
Elbon, who joined Boeing right after earning his aerospace engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982, has held management positions on every program that now makes up his portfolio. That background should come in handy as he sets out to manage the interplay between these increasingly intertwined efforts.
“NASA, the administration and Congress are lining up around the path forward. We’ve had a national debate for a couple of years about what that ought to be and although it’s not totally in alignment now, there’s a lot of alignment coming out around a plan that says, ‘We’ll use the space station.’ There’s a lot invested in it and we need to use it to get the science out,” Elbon said in a recent interview. “So use the space station [and] use commercial providers to provide cargo and crew to the space station. … That way it will be affordable so that there’s funding left in the NASA budget for NASA to focus on exploration beyond low Earth orbit.”
Elbon discussed Boeing’s human spaceflight portfolio with Space News staff writer Dan Leone last month at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.
How much longer will Boeing remain the ISS prime contractor?
Our contract runs through 2015 and then hopefully NASA will extend that contract. But there’s potential it could be a competition. We’ll see.
Do you anticipate a broad field of competitors trying to replace Boeing as ISS prime at this point?
I don’t know what the field would be. I’m hopeful that we won’t have to cross that bridge. We have the expertise in-house to do this because we did the design for the space station. I think as long as we continue to perform and continue to work on affordability by introducing innovation and improvements that it will be in NASA’s interest to extend us.
How long can ISS safely remain in service?
Right now the baseline is through 2020 but we’re doing studies that would extend it to 2028. Space station systems were originally designed and qualified for a certain life on orbit and we’re doing the analysis required to say that those systems can operate safely for longer than they were originally certified. Whether or not the country will decide to do that is not the purpose of this study; this is just to show that from an engineering perspective it’s feasible.
Does this study explore any major changes to ISS operations, such as moving it to another orbit?
Our study is focused on the U.S. modules, but the international countries are also looking at their own hardware, and the idea would be to keep the station, as it currently is on orbit, together and operating. It doesn’t involve, at this point, any kind of repurposing of those assets. It’s focused on doing the work to determine that the space station could operate longer in its current operational scenario.
What’s the status of Boeing’s work on SLS?
SLS is approaching its systems definition review, moving towards a preliminary design review in December. NASA selected us as the provider of the core stages just at the end of last year. We’re currently in the process of definitizing the contract for that, and I would expect that will take through the end of the summer. In parallel with that, the Boeing team that had been working the avionics and the upper stage under Ares 1 contracts awarded in 2007 has switched over to SLS.
Appropriators in the House and Senate have proposed funding SLS at less than $1.5 billion in 2013. Is this enough to keep SLS on schedule for the 2017 unmanned test flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle?
The funding required for the cryogenic stages Boeing is building is only a portion of the total SLS funding. We’re currently in the process of going through with NASA what the funding levels will be on the stages, and what the schedule associated with that will be, and how much risk is in that schedule, based on the funding level. Until that settles down, it’s difficult to comment on whether the funding level, at the top line, is enough. From my perspective, the piece that is kind of new and needs to be developed and so is the critical path through the whole process is the cryogenic stages, as compared with the solid-rocket motors that are fairly well through their development.
How many Boeing people are working on SLS?
At the moment it’s about 350. Depending on what funding is made available and what schedule we agree on in the negotiations with NASA for the contract, there’s opportunity for that to increase. Perhaps double. The majority of those SLS employees are in Huntsville, Ala. We have a small team supporting in Houston, and also some support in Huntington Beach, Calif. And we’re beginning to put a small level of support in place at the Kennedy Space Center as well.
NASA and Lockheed Martin plan to conduct an unmanned test launch of the Orion crew capsule in 2014 using a Delta 4 rocket. If Orion can be flown on a Delta 4, why build SLS?
The Delta 4 heavy could put Orion into low Earth orbit, but certainly if we did that, it would only be a low Earth orbit transportation, only capable of things like taking crew to station. And as compared with commercial alternatives, it would be quite expensive. So we would have a capability to take people to low Earth orbit, to the international space station, but we wouldn’t have funding available to develop the capability for taking people beyond low Earth orbit, to cis-lunar space, to asteroids and eventually to the moons of Mars and Mars itself. A national capability for heavy lift is important.
What can NASA do with SLS besides launch Orion?
A lot of other things, such as launching large pieces of a complex that we would use to go Mars or other deep-space destinations. We could also lift large science payloads; you could put a Mars rover as big as a van on SLS. Large telescopes, certainly those kind of payloads could be lifted, too. There’s also potential for Defense Department payloads.
Boeing recently submitted its bid for NASA funding to continue development of the CST-100 commercial crew capsule. Assuming you ultimately win a flight services contract, what launch vehicle will you use?
We will do a subsequent competition to select whatever launch vehicle we will use for the service missions. That’s the way that whole procurement process works. But the design we’re working on now is a CST-100 on an Atlas 5.
Besides providing a destination for commercial crew taxis, what role will ISS play in NASA’s human space exploration program during its remaining years?
The space station really is an incredible laboratory and it’s enabling a lot of science and a lot of discovery, but the other big thing for space station is to be a test bed for exploration. Things like an environmental control system that can take wastewater and turn it into potable water, or turn wastewater into oxygen and methane for rocket fuel. Those kinds of systems you can design and test on the ground, but they behave differently when they’re operating in zero gravity. So at the station, you have the opportunity to do long-term kind of testing on those systems that, once you go on deep-space exploration missions, to an asteroid or Mars, you need to have.
Endeavour powered up; orbiter readies for final power down of STS pgm
Mike Killian - AmericaSpace.org
Just 3 weeks after space shuttle Discovery left Florida for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, sister orbiter Endeavour is readying for one final power up this week – an event which, when the plug is pulled, will mark the final power down of NASA’s space shuttle program.
Nearly a year after launching on her last mission, STS-134, Endeavour is on the brink of reaching a “point-of-no-return” in her retirement transition. Once the vehicle’s cooling systems are drained of all their fluids, Endeavour will not be capable of powering up ever again.
All three of NASA’s orbiters had to be powered up throughout their retirement transitions in order to allow technicians to open and close vents and other access points to remove various hazards and toxins such as hypergols, fuels, oxidizers, and ammonia (among others) from the orbiters before they could safely be put on display.
Technicians must ”de-service” various systems, sometimes even removing systems and hardware all together, in an effort to ensure that there be no chance of any leaks or out-gassing that could be hazardous to the public while the orbiters are on display.
Endeavour was built as a replacement for space shuttle Challenger, and flew her first flight, STS-49, on May 7, 1992. The last of NASA’s shuttles to be built, Endeavour would go on to fly 25 missions from 1992 – 2011, closing out her career with 4,671 orbits of the Earth, 296 days in space, and over 122 million miles travelled.
Designated as OV-105 by NASA, or Orbiter Vehicle 105, nearly half of all Endeavour’s missions were ISS construction flights. OV-105 was also the first to service the Hubble Telescope in 1993 and flew various scientific missions such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which generated the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Earth up until 2009.
Endeavour’s final power down is scheduled for Friday, May 11, 2012. It will be the last for the shuttle program, as Atlantis has already undergone her final power down and Discovery is already on display at the Smithsonian. The displays, controls, and switches of mankind’s most sophisticated vehicle will go dark, permanently, this Friday.
Endeavour will make her final flight atop a NASA modified 747 shuttle carrier aircraft in the fall; a one-way trip from Kennedy Space Center to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. As of this week, NASA plans to fly Endeavour from Florida to California sometime in September.
The logistics involved with moving the orbiter through the city are currently being planned; the shuttle is so big that trees must be cut down, traffic signals and light posts must be removed, and roads will have to be closed to allow for the orbiter to safely pass without damaging itself or other property.
Once arrived at LAX, Endeavour will be transported on a pre-determined route through Los Angeles on a day-long trip from the airport to a temporary climate-controlled home at the California Science Center, where the orbiter will go on public display while a permanent Air and Space Center is constructed to the northwest of the museum.
Shuttles’ retirement marks the next era of exploration
David Weaver - TheHill.com (Opinion)
(Weaver is NASA associate administrator for communications)
As the Space Shuttle Discovery and the other orbiter vehicles of NASA’s storied Shuttle fleet are transferred to museums around the country, it should be understood that NASA has entered a new era of exploration — one that holds great promise for our nation.
We’re implementing the bipartisan space exploration plan that President Obama and Congress approved and making great progress. We’re ending the outsourcing of work on America’s space program and bringing these jobs back to the United States with our commercial space program. We’re developing a heavy-lift rocket to take us farther into space than ever before, and a deep space crew capsule to transport our astronauts, and we’re keeping on track the most sophisticated science telescope ever constructed to help us reveal the unknown.
We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to ensure we have a robust space exploration program, full utilization of the International Space Station and launches on American spacecraft from U.S. soil. We’re planning missions to destinations like an asteroid and ultimately to Mars. And we’re hiring astronauts today for the deep space missions of tomorrow.
Early this year, NASA opened the recruiting process for a new class of astronauts, receiving a record number of almost 6,300 applications. And while we are preparing for future exploration, we have U.S. astronauts living and working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on the International Space Station.
We have a football field’s worth of solar arrays powering life support and hundreds of experiments; more than 400 scientific studies were conducted on the station last year in an array of disciplines. Our Shuttle program was an historic achievement, but an even brighter future is on the horizon. Make no mistake about it — the future is happening right now, and it is being built right here in America.
Commercial Crew Needs Commercial Help
Donald Robertson - Space News (Opinion)
(Robertson is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. He is a small investor in some of the companies building commercial rockets and supplying components for them.)
It is easy to make the case that Elon Musk, founder and “chief designer” of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), has given enough to the cause of spaceflight.
His company has successfully developed two rockets and a capsule that has returned to Earth from orbit and is designed to return from the Moon and beyond. SpaceX received its share of government help, and after 10 years and counting, progress has been much slower than anyone would have wished. Nonetheless, these achievements are real and primarily Musk’s. They would not have happened without his initiative, his perseverance in the face of seemingly endless delays and repeated early launch failures, and the investment of a great deal of his own money.
If SpaceX and the other companies competing for commercial crew contracts with NASA are to succeed in creating a commercial transportation industry to low Earth orbit, they will almost certainly need to invest a lot more.
A surprising cast of enemies, often powerful Republican legislators, have queued up to oppose the commercial crew contracts. Increasingly, opponents argue against even modest government investment in the commercial transport of astronauts to the international space station. They succeeded in cutting more than half of President Barack Obama’s budget request for this year, resulting in at least one year’s additional delay to the program. Now they argue that commercial crew is so tardy that, even assuming no further delays, the currently approved life of the international space station will expire only three years after the first commercial flight. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has gone so far as to suggest raiding the commercial crew budget and removing competition from the program in order to restore Mars science funding.
These are decidedly odd positions for conservative Republicans. (A better case could be made for using Mars funds to accelerate commercial crew and cargo, which has at least a chance of lowering the cost of spaceflight for everyone, Mars scientists included.) To Rep. Wolf, at least, commercial crew contracts seem to have become little more than a pool of dollars to bail out unrelated NASA projects.
The reasons for this enmity are not hard to find. The Obama administration’s original proposal amounted to replacing billions of dollars in Constellation contracts to return astronauts to the Moon, often in congressional districts highly dependent on NASA dollars, with hundreds of millions of dollars in support of relatively small private companies mostly headquartered elsewhere.
The proposal was bound to ruffle feathers even if it had been carefully planned and presented. That it was not is no excuse for the naked hypocrisy of lawmakers who argue in favor of privatizing health care for the elderly and poor while simultaneously fighting tooth and nail for a hugely expensive and essentially socialist space program.
It is important to note that not all the jobs are leaving traditionally space-oriented congressional districts. Boeing, which to its great credit is competing for commercial crew contracts in addition to its work on the Space Launch System, established its commercial crew program office in Florida and plans to utilize retired space shuttle infrastructure. California’s SpaceX has chosen to place major facilities in both Texas and Florida. SpaceX, already the nation’s largest producer of rocket engines, continues to rack up commercial sales that in the past would have gone to Europe’s Ariane or Russia’s Proton rockets. If they successfully deliver on those contracts, their employment rolls will expand accordingly.
Yet two self-described “free market” Republicans from Texas (Rep. Ralph Hall and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who frequently quotes Adam Smith) and a conservative Florida Democrat (Sen. Bill Nelson) have led the charge to severely restrict funding for these activities. Though Nelson lately seems to be moderating his stance, these lawmakers want the money to go to Orion and the Space Launch System, traditional government developments that Congress saved from the ashes of Constellation.
On the other side of the fence, “new space” advocates have their own inconsistencies. It is all too easy to ridicule a “commercial” project to deliver astronauts to the international space station that wants $830 million next year from taxpayers. NASA is seeking this before the last service it subsidized — cargo to the space station — has delivered so much as a kilogram. That may change if SpaceX’s first cargo delivery, currently scheduled for May, is successful.
If NASA is to keep its goal of supporting a minimum of two providers, the “new space” industry will have to put more of what former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin liked to call its “skin” on the table.
When seeking commercial crew contracts, SpaceX claims its Dragon cargo capsule was developed with astronauts in mind and now requires little more than an escape system already under development. If its product really is almost astronaut-ready, why wait for government handouts that stretch development to 2017? SpaceX could fly as soon as practical and safe, and claim the $65 million NASA now pays the Russians for every astronaut they orbit. Since Dragon can hold seven astronauts, SpaceX is passing up potential revenue of up to $455 million per flight — as much in one mission as the company could expect in NASA subsidies. Likewise, Boeing’s bid is developmentally conservative and has the huge resources of the parent company behind it. Why wait for government money to claim a market that already exists?
The other two contenders, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada, probably are not as close to flight, appear to be developing more challenging systems, and likely have fewer resources — which should give them the greater claim to receive government help.
If the two leading contenders behaved as the commercial vendors they claim to be, NASA could put their money into actual contracts to deliver astronauts — and possibly have enough left over to restore Mars science.
The market for space station crew delivery is predictable and real. It is also finite. The longer the U.S. Congress, NASA and the commercial crew companies squabble and delay, the more this limited market will go to Russia, or disappear altogether when the space station is retired.
Is “new space” really new, or is it traditional government contracting under a different name and slightly different rules? If commercial competition is good for the rest of the economy, why not for space transportation?
If the United States is to extend the nation’s storied history of space exploration and commerce into the future, both sides need to act on what they claim to believe.
END
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