Posted: Feb 02, 2010 05:08 am EST
(By Tina Sjogren) The brand new NASA budget has been proposed by the government. Basically, the main points are:
Scrubbed:
1. The constellation program.
2. Human exploration.
Resources will go to:
1. Climate change sensors and satellites.
2. Robotic exploration and observatories.
3. Staff increase.
4. ISS extended from 2016 to 2020.
5. Education.
There is a general mention of "game changing technologies" to lower cost and enhance reach of human space exploration - but no real goals or time lines have been specified. NASA survived a number of presidents so the question remains what the new budget will mean.
What exactly is "private"?
Although the overall budget remains basically the same; 6 Billion over five years are to be allocated to private entrepreneurs, in order for them to come up with commercial human transportation to orbit. The program has been dubbed "Commercial Crew Development Program" (CCDev).
Private US aerospace such as Boeing and Lockheed built the vehicles and space hardware for NASA to begin with so who are the new entrepreneurs? Seems they are mostly familiar faces.
$50 million in seed money from the program have been divided between United Launch Alliance, Boeing, Paragon Space Development Corporation, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. Except for Origin, most are close cousins.
The United Launch Alliance is structured as a 50-50 joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Paragon folks are reportedly motorcycle racers, extreme surfers, competitive bikers, scuba diving masters, white-water kayakers, and world adventurers. "We know how to push the limits and the need for the most reliable support equipment," states the website. The reason you never heard of them is because they are all NASA folks, some from the ill-fated Biosphere 2 project. One played a key role in securing a 7-year, $315 million NASA contract for Lockheed Martin according to the company website.
Sierra Nevada Corporation is mainly leaning on a SpaceDev vehicle. SpaceDev partnered with the United Launch Alliance (see above) in 2007 and was acquired by Sierra Nevada the next year.
The only "outsider" is Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Founded in 2000, six years later Origin launched an experimental vehicle from an estate in Texas but there have been little news on the project since. An explanation to the grant could be that the company has been hiring aggressively over the years and jobs - more than exploration - seem to be favored in the current NASA budget.
The ultimate aim: staying local
Another interesting aspect is that Robert Bigelow has partnered with Boeing. Bigelow used Russian rockets to send his two inflatable space stations to orbit but showed with his America Space Prize that he would prefer to keep business in US.
Boeing plan to build a crew module (they already have a suitable rocket) that will carry crew and cargo to and from the ISS and Bigelow's space hotels. As part of the Boeing CCDev team, Bigelow Aerospace will reportedly "provide requirements for crew transportation to support its planned Orbital Space Complex, as well as additional investment and expertise [...]."
Most players within the CCD program seem to shoot for the rocket/capsule system, well known from the American Saturn/Apollo missions and latest the Russian Soyuz spacecrafts serving the space station alongside the shuttle. Elon Musk, already in NASA's care with ISS contracts promised, is another player building on this concept.
The ultimate aim is to beat the Russian $50 million seat ticket by half and keep production in US.
The private B-plan
It is not surprising that the constellation project - a mega version of the shuttle - has been scrubbed. NASA have long been criticized for monstrous enterprises (such as the shuttle) killing budgets and deadlines while under-delivering projected results. The agency deserves the black eye but will still be in charge of the same money and so the question is who will get the last laugh.
Bretton Alexander of Commercialspaceflight.org arranged a media Teleconference yesterday to discuss the supposedly expanded role of commercial space in the NASA budget.
Elon Musk who plans the first cargo test flight next year estimated that once SpaceX got the contract it would take about 3 years to have Dragon ready to shuttle astronauts to ISS at around $20 million per seat.
Robert Bigelow plans to have his first human-ready platform up in 2014, to be operational in 2015, followed by a second in 2017. He will charge 23 million per seat in an all inclusive 30 days stay on his private space station.
A real problem is that in the past, NASA have been somewhat infamous for at first luring in private initiatives and then killing them with impossible rules and costs.
Elon Musk said he believes there is a "middle ground" this time and that "even they recognize that the program can't succeed at too high cost." Bigelow figured that at the right price, NASA should be willing to lease his premises.
Still, Elon Musk's timeline "depends on the safety rules NASA imposes on us," he said. Bigelow in turn worried that he would bump up against supply problems - will there be enough CTV's (Crew Transport Vehicles), rockets, platforms? "We need to have autonomy, not being held up by military agendas and NASA missions," Bigelow said.
And while Elon Musk said that he welcomes milestones, performance, and personal financing - the $50 million in seed money already administered from the new "Commercial Crew Development Program" clearly didn't take such variables into account.
Cutting our losses, but for what?
It should be fully possible for the "real" private sector to build safe and price competitive rockets to LEO. At around $30 million in production cost, the Soyuz is not a complicated rocket and has proved safer than the Shuttle for that reason. Boeing's Atlas V launch vehicle is already there and 6 billion should cover the needed crew capsules more than well.
The trouble is that the private space companies simply want to make money on low orbit tourism. The idea is basically to let NASA focus on "game changing technologies" (heavy lift, propulsion) while, said Alexander, "we focus on LEO."
The private space entrepreneurs hoped though that their efforts somehow would ignite a "new" space. "New privates will lower cost and drive new tech," they agreed, comparing to computers and Google. "We need more exploration/dollar - right now the only access to space is by the government and only if you are the government," they said. Adding, "we have no choice - it's a matter of urgency - the rest of the world will not be standing still."
But who will we fly? The orbital astronaut market isn't exactly huge.
"It's the future, we need to democratize space, millions want to go," said Eric Anderson from Space Adventures. Yet while the possibilities are already there (thanks to Space Adventures) out of the hundreds of thousands of millionaires on earth only 8 private astronauts have actually jumped at the chance.
The Third Space
Beside NASA and tourism; there is a third space out there and Richard Garriot (the 6th private astronaut) touched on it briefly. "There are 1500-2000 billionaires on earth, many would be willing to invest in the new space industry - mining meteorites, manufacturing - that enables everything," he said.
No US plans in any foreseeable future to go beyond LEO are evident neither in the current NASA budget nor in the private initiatives though. This means that since we went to the moon, with the shuttle we have descended to orbit and are now back down on Earth.
Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin commented the new budget to the Times: Only once previously has a US president recommended to the Congress that this nation take a backward step in space. On that occasion, President Nixon cancelled the Apollo programme, a decision which will come to be regarded as one of the most strategically bankrupt decisions in human history. If such a thing is possible, this decision is even worse.
It's not clear what will happen to the Orion/Ares moon return project that already swallowed 10 Billion in R&D. With the scrubbed constellation but about the same budget as usual; seems money will go where they always have gone only this time providers won't even have to fly.
A much worse picture - apart from the danger of a lack of bold visions - is a wing-cut America while a totalitarian and power hungry country rules the Moon.
#Space #topstory
