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starship-design: Anger over NASA busness as usual direction
http://www.qconline.com/archives/qco/sections.cgi?prcss=display&id=176163
November 30, 2003 11:03 PM
New NASA looks like the old one
The Orlando Sentinel ,
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The ``bold agenda for space
exploration'' that the Bush administration has been
crafting since August is expected to be long on rhetoric,
but short on new goals and money.
Internal NASA documents obtained by The Orlando Sentinel,
and interviews with those close to the policy-making
process, indicate the new vision being drafted for the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration looks a lot
like the old one.
No final decisions have been reached. However, closed-door
meetings of administration officials, including Vice
President Dick Cheney, appear to be developing plans
committed to the status quo, with no major new programs or
specific destinations, no timetables and, most
importantly, no significant spending increases.
NASA funding is expected to rise slightly in 2004, from
just more than $15.4 billion in 2003 to about $15.5
billion. There are no concrete plans to go to Mars, return
to the moon or otherwise extend manned space flight beyond
low Earth orbit. In fact, NASA may squeeze existing
programs to help raise the estimated $280 million needed
to return the space shuttle to flight after the Feb. 1
Columbia disaster.
NASA will continue with the same human-spaceflight
programs that have been the agency's focus for more than a
decade: the shuttle and the international space station.
Likewise, incremental research will proceed on projects to
develop nuclear rocket propulsion and a small orbital
space plane that would ferry people and cargo to the
station.
This business-as-usual approach is cloaked in vague,
soaring prose, such as the following ``Prospective POTUS
(President of the United States) Vision Statement'' from
an internal NASA document prepared for the White House:
``A house with no foundation falls, and a journey without
a plan traps us in the wilderness. To move America and the
world boldly into our greatest frontier, we must build the
foundations of mind, technology and experience. Without
them, our journey into space would be only a visit. With
them, we can stay. Our children will lead us, and their
adventure will have no end.''
``I don't think they have the courage to candidly
characterize the present situation,'' said John Pike,
director of the public-policy research organization
GlobalSecurity.org. ``Namely, that we have a precarious
fingerhold in space, but we're not exactly sure where
we're going to go next, or when we're going to go there.''
The administration's familiar road map follows a call by
the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in August for a
national debate on U.S. space goals. There also is renewed
interest in Congress, on a scale not seen in years, to
pursue a shuttle successor or other projects.
Despite assurances from the White House and NASA political
appointees that the president is deeply committed to space
exploration, there is no indication President Bush is
willing to spend money on new programs in a time of
soaring budget deficits.
The accident board noted in its final report that how well
a program is funded is a direct reflection of the
importance placed on it.
``A strong indicator of the priority the national
political leadership assigns to a federally funded
activity is its budget,'' the report said. ``During the
past decade, neither the White House nor Congress has been
interested in `a reinvigorated space program.'|''
Board chairman Harold Gehman summed it up this way during
a Sept. 4 congressional hearing: ``Visions without
resources are just dreams.''
One of the accident board's chief findings was that the
United States lacked a national consensus on the goals of
its civilian space effort. The result was ``an
organization straining to do too much with too little.''
During the decade from 1993 to 2002, NASA's budget
remained flat, going from $14.31 billion to $14.87 billion
(after dipping as low as $13.6 billion in 2000). Adjusted
for inflation, that represented a 13 percent drop in
NASA's purchasing power. The shuttle program was hit much
harder, absorbing a 40 percent loss.
Nevertheless, plans taking form likely will call for
little change in programs or funding. No specific
near-term proposals are expected for big-ticket human
visits to the moon or Mars. Instead, a Sept. 11 draft of
NASA's ``Bold Agenda for Space Exploration'' describes a
far more indefinite goal.
``At this point in time, the American public is focused on
shuttle return to flight, and they seek greater clarity on
the long-term future of the American spaceflight
program,'' the draft said. ``The opportunity now exists to
establish this bold new vision for space exploration: To
enable permanent human exploration beyond low-Earth
orbit.''
How would NASA achieve this goal?
The document calls for a ``steppingstone approach'' in
which robotic missions would lead the way. The shuttle
would resume flying to complete assembly and ``full
utilization'' of the $100 billion space station this
decade. The station would continue to do ``world class
research'' on crew health and safety ``necessary to
support the survival of humans traveling far from Earth.''
An orbital space plane would be developed to eventually
replace the shuttle as transportation for astronauts to
the station. Research would be conducted on new forms of
propulsion, including nuclear power.
This ``bold agenda'' outlined by the draft document is
identical to NASA's plans before the Columbia accident --
plans universally criticized since as lacking a clear,
coherent, core vision or purpose.
One factor pushing the White House toward a
``steppingstone'' approach is an unprecedented budget
deficit that is expected to top a half-trillion dollars in
2004 because of the Iraq war, U.S. economic woes and tax
cuts. Another is the experience of Bush's father when the
former president proposed a manned mission to Mars in
1989. The idea went nowhere when the cost was estimated at
more than $400 billion.
Current President George W. Bush ``saw his daddy try to
pull that stunt,'' GlobalSecurity.org's Pike said. ``It
had a high giggle factor.''
While NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has repeatedly
refused to discuss any details about what's being
considered, he says it would be a mistake to assume
anything yet about what the president will decide. O'Keefe
passionately insists the White House is fully engaged in
the debate.
``The administration, I think, has got a very strong
interest in what's involved here,'' he said at a September
media briefing. ``We are in the midst of working through,
as an administration, a reasoned, thoughtful, thorough
assessment of the U.S. space-exploration policy. That
shouldn't be confused with indifference.''
Even so, during almost three years in office, the Bush
administration's main focus at NASA has been limited
largely to controlling costs.
One of the White House's first acts in February 2001 was
to kill two modules and an escape ship for the space
station and limit the number of annual shuttle flights. A
day after the station cuts were announced, NASA pulled the
plug on the chronically over-budget, behind-schedule X-33
program to develop a shuttle replacement. Critics cite the
November 2001 nomination of then-White House budget
official O'Keefe to run NASA as further proof the
administration has little interest in the agency beyond
balancing its books.
Bush made one of his few public statements about America's
civilian space goals to a small gathering of reporters in
late September, four weeks after Columbia investigators
released their final report.
``We've got an interagency study going on now that will
enlighten us as to the best recommendations necessary for
NASA to proceed in a way that is a good use of taxpayer
dollars,'' Bush said. ``I really don't have an opinion on
Mars, but I do have an opinion that the more we explore,
the better off America is I believe in pushing the
boundaries.''
The administration has revealed little about its plans
beyond that. The interagency study is being co-chaired by
Margaret Spellings, assistant to the president for
domestic policy, and Steve Hadley, the White House's
deputy national-security adviser. A wide range of
administration officials on the Domestic Policy Council
and National Security Council are involved in the
discussions, which are being held in secret. While
insisting a variety of options are being considered, the
administration has refused to publicly disclose even the
most basic details about the group's work, when it will
report its findings or the sensitive issue of money.
There were rumors that Bush would unveil new space plans
-- including a possible call for an eventual return to the
moon -- at a Dec. 17 commemoration of the Wright brothers'
first powered airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C., or
during January's State of the Union address. However,
officials familiar with the process say it now appears
unlikely any substantive proposals will be announced at
the Kitty Hawk ceremony.
Cheney has been dispatched to Capitol Hill in recent weeks
to discuss space issues with lawmakers, who have grown
increasingly dissatisfied with business as usual. U.S.
Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., introduced a bill Nov. 5 that
would create a national commission to develop new space
policy.
Two weeks earlier, a bipartisan group of 101 House members
sent a letter to the White House urging Bush to show
leadership in space and increase funding for NASA.
A similar Nov. 14 letter from 23 senators noted: ``NASA
has attempted to do too much with too little for too long.
It is time to fix that funding shortfall.''
``I believe that until you get that kind of leadership out
of the White House, the space program will continue to
drift along as it is or there will be this annual budget
fight,'' said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who signed the
letter. ``It's not on the radar scope of other senators
who don't have a vested interest, and that's why the
program limps along.''
U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Science
Committee, is pushing for the administration to set a firm
date to retire the station and the shuttle before making
any decisions on the proposed orbital space plane.
``We're not just going to go along as we have year after
year, same-old, same-old,'' the New York Republican
pledged.
Boehlert has warmed to an idea, presented at an Oct. 16
committee hearing, that NASA could do a lot with a
relatively modest budget increase to about $20 billion
annually.
``The civil space program costs each person in the nation
about $50 a year or less than 14 cents per day,'' Michael
Griffin, a space-technology expert and former NASA
manager, testified at the hearing. ``A really robust space
effort could be had for a mere 20 cents a day from each
person. We, as a nation, quite literally spend more on
pizza than we do on space exploration.''
Boehlert, however, admits that the current fiscal picture
is bleak.
``There's stiff competition for the limited dollars, so
I'm not making book that we're going to get anywhere near
the $20 billion,'' Boehlert said. ``But I'm not summarily
dismissing the possibility that we will get more than the
$15 billion.''
U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Science
Committee's space and aeronautics subcommittee, said it's
unclear whether any major policy shift will happen. But,
he added, it's time to stop having meetings and start
making decisions.
``I think for this president to become a president who has
a major effect on American policy concerning technology in
space, he has to act sometime in the next two to three
months,'' Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said. ``Otherwise, he
will be left behind.''
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Subject: Anger over NASA busness as usual direction
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