Where Are We Going?

My Defense of Constellation

2010-02-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

I posted this on http://www.nasawatch.com/, a website, while indicating that it is a website for "our space program," sometimes seems to be committed to the demise of NASA. I thought the post would be appropriate here:

For most of you who frequent this website and believe you are doing something grand and bold by bringing down the evil NASA empire, I have to say that you just don't have a clue what you are supporting.

First of all let me be clear, I agree that NASA has some deficiencies and that as an engineering entity they have their faults. But, I am baffled that there are so many that frequent this site that have somehow been slighted by NASA that they feel that they need to bring it to its knees with evil thoughtless statements. Certainly everyone loves to bring up the famed Augustine commission and prove to themselves that Constellation was a useless endeavor.

But, I have this to say. Behind every NASA employee on the Constellation program there are 10 contractor employees that have given their lives to this endeavor. They uphold the concept that, the customer is always right, and have done everything withing their power to support their customer's needs regardless of the value. They have worked within limited budgets because the "customer" truly believed that it would be more beneficial to stay within budget then to hold timelines. they have answered requirements driven by the Columbia and Challenger accident investigation boards because no "real" engineer in the industry believes that any astronaut should die in the exploration of space. In order to do this they rely on historical lessons learned and put forth designs that are guaranteed to succeed the first time with full emphasis on mission success. And they would have succeeded regardless of how much emphasis you put on the Augustine commission.

So, while I don't stand too much in defense of NASA, I stand strongly on the contractors who have worked hard to make a program succeed. And, as an engineer in the business for 23 years I can tell you that most of you who stand in opposition to Constellation truly don't have a clue what you are talking about. And for those who believe the myth that a Space program can be run like an airline, you truly do not understand what is required to succeed in this industry.

So, on behalf of the contractor community I take strong offense to those of you continually bash the Constellation program as a useless NASA endeavor. Also remember that NASA employees are civil servants. While they may lose their dream and be transferred to another contract, they will still have a government job. But for each one of those employees, there are 10 contractor jobs behind them that beleived that pleasing their customer was the correct thing to do and they believed in a dream of taking humans to space and going to the moon again. Those contractor jobs will be gone and all they can hope is that NASA can issue RFPs fast enough to recover maybe 30% of the jobs that existed with Constellation.

While I don't believe in keeping a program going just to save jobs, I will say that regardless of what you say about the architecture, Constellation was going to succeed and it would have gotten us to the moon. And if my tax dollars are going to go to anything I would rather it go to those contractor employees that believed in a dream and put their lives into that dream.

And while I might express fault with small commercial companies I do find some pride in their desire to succeed. What I don't want to do, however, is put my tax dollars towards re-learning lessons of the past with these upstart companies.

So for you folks who think Constellation was outdated technology and some sort of bastard Apollo Redux, you are wrong and I take strong offense. I want my tax dollars to go to those contractors who believed in a dream and did everything in their power to make it come true. When you talk about politics and what state is trying to save their constituents remember this:

"The Lockheed Martin Orion Project office is based in Houston, Texas, near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The team includes major subcontractors Aerojet, Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Hamilton Sundstrand, Honeywell, Orbital Sciences Corporation and United Space Alliance; and a network of 60 minor subcontractors and small businesses in 22 states across the country."

From the SpaceX website "by keeping the vast majority of manufacturing in house"...

I would rather support the dreamers who exist in all of those 22 states and support what Constellation does and what we need it to do to provide assured US crew access to space. If SpaceX succeeds, I will be the first one cheering, but you have to understand that NASA represents more than just a lesson in how to succeed in the commercial space industry. If we have to spend a few more dollors to go to space in the right way and with pride not only in the acheivement but in our governement and ourselves, I go with Constellation.

And for those who continue to bash the Constellation program, you truly don't understand what it was like to watch a man walk on the Moon and to know that it was an American and have profound pride in your country.

Commercial Space, The Myth

2010-02-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

In the proposed NASA budget, the NASA administrator is trying to support a a statement that NASA is now creating an "enhanced US commercial space industry." I would like to propose that "commercial space" is a myth when it comes to launching humans to space. One only has to look at history, physics and the state of commercial ventures in space over the past 20 years.

After reading articles and hearing NASA administrator Bolden talk, there is a belief out there that space travel today can be run like Boeing's aircraft business. You build a new plane (based on profites from previous sales of planes) and companies buy 100's of them to move people through the air for a fee. Space travel still doesn't work that way, and won't for a long time.

Truly commercial, private industry requires economies of scale that make the development of a product economically viable in the marketplace. Space travel doesn't work that way yet. Imagine if I started a company and said I was going to build aircraft carriers and market them to the countries of the world. There is no way I could show a profitable outcome for my company as I could not make a profit on the few carriers that would be purchased. Obviously this is an extreme case, but it makes my point.

So lets look at history and see if there is a "true" commercial market for space flight. In the 1990s there was a belief in the industry that satellite programs like Iridium would make these economies of scale viable in the development of launch vehicles. Many start-up aerospace companies arose from this belief. These were companies like Rotary Rocket, Kistler Aerospace, Pioneer Rocketplane, and others. One may not have heard of these companies, because they either didn't survive or are only a second or third tier supplier of aerospace parts. The reason they didn't survive is because the satellite market didn't manifest itself and there was no reason for customers to purchase that many launch vehicles.

We can also look at the history of the United Launch Alliance.  They launch satellites to space commercially. But they didn't build a rocket and a customer came with money.  The boosters they are flying now were developed based on a DoD Evolved Explendable Launch Vehicle contract in excess of a billion dollars. Also, the United Launch Alliance did not merge the giant launch vehicle providers Boeing and Lockheed Martin because business was booming. ULA was formed to leverage both companies assets in an ever reducing market. The economies of scale are still not evident in that market.

Now NASA wants to kick start the "commercial" human spaceflight industry and they parade companies liek SpaceX and Orbital in front of the world as pioneers of this emerging market. I have to ask, what market?   Is there really a market for flying humans to space. Yes we can send researchers to ISS, but I would guess that any company would need about 20 launches to space in a year to make the endavor commercially viable. Are there really 20 customers out there a year that want to fly to ISS? Can the Space Station support 20 trips a year? The answer is no.

So how do companies like ULA, SpaceX, and others fly vehicles to space? They do it through the foundational government contracts that allow them to build the capabilities they desire. In the end, "commercial space" is just "where can I get my next government contract." I, therefore, submit that the "commercially" funded crew access to space in the 2011 budget proposal is a myth. It is just another government contract to fly human's to space.

Given that this is a myth, then the statements made by Administrator Bolden that this is a new way of doing business are false. With the Constellation program, there were many contractors that fairly won competitions to get a government contract to provide crew access to space.   If NASA is just using the 2011 budget to kill the Constellation program under the guise of a new way of doing business, I say that is a myth, and the government just threw away $9 billion of our taxpayer dollars. And we still won't be providing US access to the ISS in the next 10 years with this new way of doing business. With the US debt over a trillion dollars, does it make sense to change course now and throw away billions of dallars?

We are still going nowhere, and its costing us a lot of money.

First Post, I Have To Speak Out

2010-02-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

The release of President Obama's 2011 budget this week has stirred me to make my voice heard. Specifically, I want to discuss the NASA budget proposal for 2011. The following are my initial thoughts and I will continue to discuss where we are headed in the space program as time moves forward.

I would like to preface this discussion with the admission that the change of focus/direction for NASA is nothing new. NASA is always driven by politics and the whims of the administration in power. While this is not new, there are some instances where the ability to make sense of certain decisions fades away and I am left with a basic sense of utter confusion.

I would also like to fully disclose that I am heavily biased in this area. I am employed by the Aerospace industry and my future employment goals highly depend on the decisions that are made in this budget year. Take that as you will, but I will attempt to defend all of my arguments and statements with supporting evidence and not just with a statement that "I am right so just support me."

That being said, I want to say that I am very upset with the current 2011 budget proposal for NASA! The NASA budget proposal has no clear focus, no clearly defined purpose, and will destroy the United State's position in space.

So, let's look at the budget comparison for 2011. I will look at it from the perspective of what we can gain with a "Constellation" (program of record) baseline budget versus a "bold and innovative" (Obama) baseline budget. After reviewing the budgets for 2010 and 2011, I am going to compare certain elements of the budget. A significant portion of the budget remains similar between the budget proposals for the two years. Thes similarities exist in the following areas: Science, Aeronautics, Space Shuttle, Education, Support, Management and Operations. In these areas there is no argument to be had. For those that say this is a good budget because it will cause NASA to rework their bloated management, I would disagree.

The management and operations budgets are effectively the same with the 2011 proposal. For those that invision a "new, streamlined" NASA with all of this talk of commercial crew and innovation, there is $3 billion a year in the budget that makes this defense of the budget irrelevant. NASA will remain the same. I would, however, acknowledge that the management and oversight of NASA can sometimes be non-value added. I have worked on both DoD and NASA programs and would argue that the DoD model is much more effective at producing a product. This is probably due to the fact that the DoD has to produce products or fail (especially when $700 billion is on the line), whereas NASA apparently has a different philosphy.

There are three areas where increases are evident in comparison. The one item that I found interesting is that the ISS budget increased fairly significantly (on the order of $0.5 billion a year for the next 5 years). I find this interesting in the fact that, as I will discuss later, there is nothing in the budget that would allow the US to fly to the station in the next 5 years. Another area of increase is in Space technology. This amounts to about $1 billion a year for the next 5 years. The NASA budget summary indicates that this will "spawn game changing innovations." Through funding such as "prizes." They even use a picture from a Lunar Lander Challenge participant to exemplify these "innovations." I hate to say it, but none of the Lunar Lander Challenge participants came up with any "game changing innovations." This country has been doing miraculous things with spacecraft for years as early as the 1960s with the Apollo program and I can tell you that flying to 3000 feet with a few tanks and an engine won't get us anywhere in the next 10 years. So, if anyone wants to claim that the 9 billion spent on Constellation got us nowhere, I've got at least 5 billion more that is taking us nowhere in the current budget.

Note that by saying we are getting nowhere, it is important to recognize that the shuttle will no longer get US astronauts to space in 5 more launches. Getting nowhere is more critical now in the fact that the US is surrendering its ability to launch humans to space. It is also critical to note that in getting nowhere, the additional $2 billion spent on ISS leaves me wondering. Russia alone cannot support a fully functioning space station. Are we spending just a couple of billion just to see it cross the night sky?

The third area of increase is evident in the 21st Century Launch Complex line item. I am not sure what is going to be done here, but it includes changes to the KSC perimeter and enhanced environemental clean-up. This increase is $2 billion. That takes us to 7 billion over 5 years that won't get us any closer to carrying humans to space. The OMB budget discussion states "working with partners around the world, NASA will maximize return on this investment by deploying new research and test technologies in space and by making Space Station research capabilities available to educators and new researchers." Its hard to maximize return on investment if you can't get there. If anyone wants to argue with me about the $9 billion spent on the Constellation program, I would say that in having a real life booster test, being 8 weeks away from a launch abort system test and having hardware on a factory floor, the nation is closer to getting to ISS than the $7 billion that is in the new budget will ever get us.

One can argue that we don't have to get anywherein a hurry, but I would counter that if we don't get anywhere in a hurry, there is $5o billion in ISS costs that will have been spent on hardware that will be inhabited by 3 astronauts each year that will have gone to waste.

OK, so that is where I think the "real" increases are in the budget. Of these increases, i would venture to say that the administration could have save the increase of $6 billion over the next 5 years and put it towards something else. Inversely, however, it will create jobs. So there is benefit there. Are they jobs with purpose? They are probably similar to the jobs created by the stimulus funds that have been working to pave the 3 miles of highway near my house that has taken close to 6 months now with no asphalt on the highway yet.

Now that I have indicated that the increases in NASA budget will get us nowhere, lets see what the restructuring of the remaining budget will do to our future in space. That restructuring is the conversion from the Constellation program to a program that will apparently allow us to embark on 21st century space exploration, contract with American companies to get to the Space Station, and use "game changing technologies." I have to laugh at the "contract with American companies" to get to ISS. For those that say we don't need to go to the moon with Constellation, I would note that the mission to ISS was added to the Constellation baseline and due to several years of underfunding, the ISS mission was the primary mission of Constellation for the past few years (with block upgrades for lunar later). I would also note that those who were going to develop the spacecraft and launch vehicles were American companies and they were going to get the US back to the space station in US built spacecraft sooner than this budget proposal will.

So let us see what this "bold" new budget will give us relative to keeping the US at the forefront of space technology and also relative to making sure our investment in ISS is worth the billions spent on it.

I need, however, to counter the arguments I have heard that say that this new budget gets NASA doing what it should be doing and that is research and development and not to be managing or developing rockets to launch astronauts and that should be left to the "commercial" sector. I would like to note that the Space Act of 1958 defines the purposes of NASA. In that act it states "the Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that adequate provision be made for aeronautical and space activities." It also states that "space activities shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives." One objective being "the development and operation of vehicles carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space." In the definitions section it states that aeronautical and space activites means "the development , construction, testing, and operation for research purposes of aeronautical and space vehicles." It is clear that it is in NASA's charter to develop, construct, test and operate space vehicles.

I should be open and say that NASA should "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space." I am not sure, however, that this says NASA should fund the commercial use of space, however, I do agree that it should encourage the commercial use of space and it certainly has sought it. For those who say that the current NASA structure doesn't support the commercial use of space, I would counter that there are many commercial satellites in orbit, launched on purchased launch vehicles and NASA and the Air Force support that use daily. And when and if a commercial venture is ready to launch a human to space, I would project that NASA would fully support it with launch facilities and other support.

So, let's see how that works with Constellation and with the future budget. NASA, working within its charter, as defined by the Space Act of 1958, developed the Constellation program. The goals of the Constellation program were to develop the technologies required to return to the moon. NASA had already started the construction of the ISS which can be used to support the commercial use of space. The only problem was, there was no capability to support the ISS through commercial vehicles, however, knowing that the space shuttle could not support the ISS with the appropriate launch rate, it did, in some sense, "commercially" purchase Soyuz and Progress flights to support the station. In addition, it was clear that no US commercial endeavor was going to be available after the shuttle was retired, it added the ISS mission as a baseline mission for the Constellation program. Therefore, it could continue to "encourage" the commercial use of space on the ISS. In addition, when it was realized there would be a gap in the ability to launch cargo to ISS on US assets it funded the commercial cargo effort to the tune of $3.5 billion. I would state that the path that NASA was taken was exactly what the Space Act of 1958 intended.

Therefore, the Constellation program has been funded at about $3 billion per year while the shuttle is still flying and the funding was going to increase to about $5 billion per year when the shuttle was retired with the specific goal of researching technologies to get back to the moon and continue to be able to support the ISS with US assets. With the 2011 budget proposal, that is all destroyed. Instead of 5 billion a year to support human spaceflight to ISS and to beyond LEO, the NASA budget now contains the following: Exploration and Technology Demonstrations - $7.8 billion over 5 years, Heavy Lift Propulsion R&D - $3.1 billion over 5 years, Robotic Precursors - $3 billion over 5 years, Commercial Crew - 5.8 billion over 5 years. This equates to a total of about $4.8 billion a year for these mutiple elements. this is roughly equivalent, in amount, to the Constellation program, but, what will it do for supporting the ISS with US assets and exploration beyond LEO.

Exploration and Technology demonstrations will be "generally funded at $0.4 - $1.0 billion over lifetimes of less than 5 years." These won't support ISS with US assets and human exploration beyond LEO. There is no mention of human rates spacecraft and the money isn't there to support it.

Heavy Lift and Propulsion R&D will address first stage launch propulsion and in-space engine technology development. These won't get a human to space in 5 years.

Robotic precursors are by definition "robotic." They won't get a human into space.

Commercial Crew will "build on successful progress in the develpment of commercial cargo capabilities." First of all the budget line indicates it depends on "successful progress." What if it is not successful. The two COTS contractors are SpaceX and Orbital. SpaceX had 3 failures in its first 3 launches and has yet to launch anything resembling a commercial cargo vehicle. I have not seen Orbital launch anything resembling a commercial cargo vehicle, however, its DART spacecraft hit the satellite it was to rendezvous with and ran out of fuel earlier than expected. The Japanese have done this successfully with ETS-VII, but the US hasn't. The Japanese have also gotten to the station with their HTV and ESA has automatically docked with ISS with their ATV. These were all government funded efforts. It should also be noted that it took ESA 10 years from the start of development to the flight to ISS.

So, we don't have US commercial cargo capability yet and that, from ESA experience takes about 10 years from development ot successful flight. Does anyone really expect the US will have a commercial crew carrier in the next 5 years, the next 10 years? While NASA will succeed at supporting commercial ventures in cargo and crew systems with this budget, I think they will ddo that at the expense of not supporting the commercial use of ISS ($50 billion) because we will not have a US capability to fly to ISS before the current ISS extension to 2020 expires. So while I am all for supporting commercial space ventures with government money, I don't think it is going to meet the charter of NASA.

NASA's 2011 budget is supposed to be bold and innovative. It may yet be, but I find it hard to connect the term "bold" with a budget that doesn't support human spaceflight for the next 5 years. I have worked 26 years in the industry. It just won't happen with this budget. Some may be happy with that but I think it is a disgrace to NASA and this country that the US is giving up on Constellation for this new set of mismatched goals that don't get us anywhere. They also don't achieve the goals for which NASA was originally intended. Bold and innovative it's not.

Finally, for my first post, I want to challenge those who say we could use the money elsewhere. First of all this budget is status quo for NASA. They are not losing budget in this deal. the US is not saving money for anything else. And for those who say we spent $9 billion on Constellation and got nowhere, I can't wait until 2015 when those folks are looking at $23 billion spent on "Exploration" and there is no exploration to show for it. For those who say we spend too much money on NASA, I will close with this. The entire NASA budget, since its inception, in 2007 dollars is $840 billion. In the last year and half this country has spent that much on TARP (to save banks) and the Stimulus Package (to save no one). In 52 years, with the amount of money dumped in the past year and a half, NASA has gone to the moon, built the Hubble Space telescope, has rovers on Mars, built the ISS, built and operated the Shuttle, and was going to go back to the moon.

Now, we are going nowhere.