How Congress Sabotages Space Exploration
The Space Shuttle Atlantis closed its hatch at the International Space Station on Tuesday, for the last time, not just for that orbiter, but for any. It separated from the ISS, and will perform a few final tasks in orbit over the next couple days. Then, weather permitting, it will fire its orbital maneuvering engines to slow itself, and start its long, last fall back into the atmosphere, with a final stop of the wheels on the runway in Florida, where it will spend the rest of its days in a museum at the NASA Kennedy Space Center. After a little more than three decades of operation, the Space Shuttle program will be over.
Ironically, it takes place on the forty-second anniversary of the first landing on the moon (July 20th), an event that many at the time thought would kick off a great age of space exploration, to be followed by lunar bases and human missions to other planets. In fact, the Shuttle program, initiated shortly after that monumental achievement, was thought to hold the key to the rest of the solar system. Instead, it served to keep us trapped in low earth orbit for almost four decades.
With the Shuttle’s retirement this week, the nation is now dependent on the Russian Soyuz to not only get its astronauts to and from the ISS, but to continue to provide the “lifeboat” in the event of an emergency in orbit. There is now no backup to that system — if something goes wrong with it, we will have no access at all, which could be disastrous for not just those aboard the station, but for the facility itself.
This situation has led some (including some who should know better) to panic and go off on flights of fancy about keeping the system going. Even former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who created a controversy a few years ago by declaring the program a “mistake,” is now saying that it should go on.
But it’s simply impossible at this point to close the “gap” with the Space Shuttle. As former Shuttle program manager Wayne Hale warned at his blog three years ago, the supply chain of expendable parts (such as external tanks) is gone, and couldn’t be recreated for two or three years. And beyond that, it would simply be impractical to fly safely with only three orbiters left.
The end of the Shuttle program ends more than the Shuttle era. Historians in the future will note that it ended a false notion, one half a century old: that humanity would open up space through the application of command-economy government programs. The future, even the immediate future, of human spaceflight lies not with a single type of vehicle developed by and for a massive government bureaucracy, but with public/private partnerships that create a robust, competitive commercial spaceflight industry. This is the only practical way forward to close the gap between the end of the Shuttle and new domestic capability that will eliminate our reliance on the Russians.
Unfortunately, Congress, caring more about space pork than progress, continues to have other plans.
Last year, it passed an authorization bill demanding that NASA build a new heavy lift vehicle by 2016, using Shuttle components and contracts. They called it the Space Launch System, but others have called it the Senate Launch System, after the rocket scientists on the Hill who came up with it. Absurdly, they expect NASA to build this vehicle faster than it was going to deliver the Ares launcher from Constellation, with less funding, and they want to use it as a launcher for an overpriced NASA-developed capsule to ISS, despite the fact that it is ridiculously oversized for that mission. In the markup that came out of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Committee last week, they insisted on funding these for three billion dollars for next year, an increase over NASA’s request (though below the level authorized last year, and not enough to actually make the program successful, if indeed there is any amount of money that can do that). Given that the overall NASA budget is being reduced to pre-2008 levels, they got the money for this in part by reducing the funding for the commercial crew program, from the $850 million request to a little over $300 million.
In other words, they are starving off funds from the one program that can quickly close the post-Shuttle gap and pouring it into a rocket to nowhere, but one that continues to generate jobs in the states and districts of the congresspeople and senators on the space committees. Beyond that, they also cut the funding to the technology programs that offer hope of actually making travel beyond earth’s orbit practical and affordable, demonstrating once again that while they talk a good game of wanting NASA to send humans out to explore, such a goal takes a distinct backseat to keeping the campaign contributions and votes coming.
Fortunately, while they can slow down American enterprise, they can’t stop it (unless they make it illegal for private entities to go into space). SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Bigelow Aerospace and others are going to continue to move forward and some time, probably within the next year (particularly if SpaceX docks a Dragon capsule with the ISS later this year, as currently planned), will be looking better and better. In fact, in an authorization committee hearing last week with administrator Bolden, even some of the committee members are starting to understand the implications of their disastrous policy preferences:
We’re still talking late this decade, early ’20s before we have a human-rated [SLS] vehicle,” [Bolden] said. That, a member of the committee later noted, makes it unlikely the MPCV would be able to serve as the backup for commercial providers for accessing the ISS unless the station’s life is extended beyond 2020.
As the commercial providers continue to meet critical milestones at modest costs, and the government rocket program continues to be bogged down in mismanagement and bureaucracy, just as Constellation was, it will become clear to everyone else in Congress that we cannot afford to continue to do space business as usual as the nation becomes more and more fiscally strapped. As not just the Shuttle era, but the government-directed human spaceflight era ends, we’re finally going to get a space program that looks like America, whether the defenders of the status quo like it or not.
AN OPPOSING VIEW FROM J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: “Obama Pulls the Plug on a Great Run in Space“
Excellent op-ed, Rand, and one that will hopefully make an impact on the business-as-usual right that fancies its patriotism joined at the hip to the debacle that is federally-funded “space exploration”.
Apparently we’ve seen too much bad television and actually believe there’s something out there that warrants the colossal expense and waste. There isn’t, which is why government space has never had to balance its own books. And never tried.
You’re twisting and talking like an idiot. It’s the “right” that wants free enterprise in space, not a government-only structure of political hacks. NASA has become a too fat, too bloated and too politicized works-program for scientists and engineers. Private business is the only way to go. I don’t hear too many on the left agreeing. It’s always the left that demands more government control, saying private business is evil.
jarmo, I have bad news for you. The “right” isn’t as “right” as it should be on this. In 2005 Senator Shelby switched from Democrat to Republican, or rather, to the the “Trent Lott Wing” of the Republican Party, that would guarantee Alabama’s pork kept flowing. Unfortunately, like many ex-Democrats, Shelby was there for the pork, not the principle, and it shows in this. NASA keeps much of the Huntsville area in jobs, and the Senate Republicans and Democrats together are all too willing to turn a sixth of NASA’s budget into the Northern Alabama Space Agency, if that’s what it takes to get Shelby and his cronies their pork.
We are, as some space activists have noted before, in the peculiar position where Democrats don’t believe markets work inside the atmosphere, and Republicans don’t believe markets work outside the atmosphere. Strange days for us all to live through. As Rand notes, though, as long as the State does not make it illegal for commercial groups to fly crew into Space, then we will get at least several more ways to launch Americans into orbit that don’t send them to Baikonur first. I suppose we now have to watch out for that, though. My Democrat Congressman has made remarks that commercial space companies cannot be trusted with human lives at all, …”for some time yet”.
This is a proper move. We don’t need to continue to spend the major portion of space research money launching more vehicles into space using Newtonian methods. We have been at the point for many years now where that money should be redirected to propulsion research, navagation research, and detection research, all of which, for now can be done right here on terra firma.
The Shuttle system was obsolete before it was even built.
NASA – get out of the way and let Space-X and the Rutan brothers take the helm.
“Space pork”? Am I the only one who instantly thought of “Pigs in Space”?
“Pigs in Space?” More like “Piiigsss in Spaaaaacccceeeee!!!!” Needs more reverb.
I find it curious that the current president enamored with a blue state command economy for providing “social justice” in reparations for past colonial sins by state entities is now eschewing NASA for a red state model of private capitalist exploitation for low earth space, and ultimately off to Mars by skipping the moon. The irony is breath taking. Establishing colonies on the moon or mars–massive public works investments on the order of the Erie Canal and the 19th century railroads– has about as much chance of happening as JP Morgan providing all the capital to get the Panama Canal dug without state intervention and control; it didn’t happen, Jack. Columbus was not a pirate free booty capitalist, but a franchise expedition owned by the Spanish state. The “New World” wasn’t developed by a democratic process of poor community organizers, but by rapacious bunch of rich states representing the Dutch, Italians, French, and British sovereigns. It would probably take five hundred years to develop a livable colony on Mars, yet show me the private corporation that has been around for one hundred years, much less a business model that exceeds five years that Wall Street would invest in. I note the modified, private government partnership, NASA red state program that led to the shuttle was hardly a screaming success.
You say: “The “New World” wasn’t developed by a democratic process of poor community organizers, but by rapacious bunch of rich states representing the Dutch, Italians, French, and British sovereigns.”
But if these states hadn’t been able to make any money off these ventures, they wouldn’t have bothered either.
That’s the major difference. Exploration of the New World was for the purpose of bringing economic benefits that both governments and public-private ventures (the Dutch East India Company) considered worthwhile. Henry Hudson didn’t come to North America for the sake of pure science. He was looking for a sea route to Asia, to facilitate trade between Asia and Europe.
Whereas today, we’ve been paying NASA to send lots of missions into space which we already know in advance have no economic payoff whatsoever. A lunar base or a manned mission to Mars sound exciting, but they represent tens of billions of dollars with ZERO return on investment.
That doesn’t sound remotely equivalent to the Panama Canal, whose economic benefits were obvious.
Economic benefits may or may not always be obvious–most 19th century railroads, even with state involvements and land grants lost money, and they still do; the Panama Canal, like going to the moon, was a state funded military enterprise. Again, the “private companies” going to low earth orbit are going to make money on the government teat. I suspect a thousand years from now people will say making money on Mars was obvious, but today’s heroic corporation and the investors are not going to fund the million trillion dollars waiting for a return on the investment one hundred generations from; capital is a finite resource.
“Columbus was not a pirate free booty capitalist, but a franchise expedition owned by the Spanish state. The “New World” wasn’t developed by a democratic process of poor community organizers, but by rapacious bunch of rich states representing the Dutch, Italians, French, and British sovereigns.”
Columbus’ voyage was 50% financed by private investors. The first English colony at Plymouth, settled by Pilgrims, was financed by private English investors. The colony at Roanoke, Virginia was financed by Walter Raleigh under charter from the Queen of England. It took 3 years for a ship to return from England, looking for it, after the colony disappeared, because it took so long to get private investors to finance the project. Much of early America was explored by the Hudson Bay Company and other fur traders. Cortes was a free-booter, not even sanctioned by the Spanish king, etc., etc. Give me a good reason to put a colony on Mars, besides proving we can do it, with no economic return. It’s a waste of taxpayer money. Let private enterprise find a good reason to colonize Mars. Then let them do it.
I’m in favor of as much commercial enterprise in space as possible, but the history (if it applies here) isn’t that simple. The first successful English colony, Jamestown, was indeed a commercial venture by the Virginia Company. But the commercial returns weren’t sufficient and Jamestown had to be turned over to the Crown after a few years. A few years later Virginia was wealthy and successful, paving the way for Plymouth and the other colonies. But I’m really not sure what 17th century colonization has to do with space anyway.
BTW, “public/private partnerships”, beloved of the Obama administration, are just another species of pork (witness all the “green jobs” money squandered on such “partnerships”).
Yes, there were private investors, but under the auspices of the Crown, whatever its nationality; the “natives” didn’t have a “vote” about keeping their traditional “business plan” in the various “colonial governments” licensed by the Crown to impose a “free market private property economy,” except, perhaps, when “negotiating” with the bow an arrow, and later the gun. There are no know “natives” on Mars or the moon, but one gets the impression the current president views going to the moon or mars as somehow at the expense of the “natives” on earth who are apparently due some reparations for prior economic development projects; besides, aside from the risk and expense, why would the anti war anti colonial president from the left want to develop a Mars colony requiring say two trillion dollars a year in “investments” at the expense of funding Obamacare? A colony that may, at some future date, decide to “liberate” itself from the mother planet to better enjoy all those previous sunk costs and to better make money? Gee, didn’t the “founding fathers” do something similar?
It’s as simple as this – space will not be developed until someone figures out how to make a profit. That’s why Mars is a dead end, and Space is the Place. Ask yourself, what product will be produced on Mars and sold for a profit on Earth? None this side of a century.
But space, with both free, unlimited energy and materials, has the potential to increase America’s GDP by a factor of 10 (or 100).
Now that we have a destination in the ISS it is a perfect opportunity for the Gov’t to offer contracts to private enterprises to deliver supplies to the space station. It is quite similar to the air mail contracts offered by the gov’t in the heyday of aviation to deliver mail to isolated regions of the Midwest. Boeing was one of the first aircraft manufacturers that showed it was possible to reliably deliver mail by air and turn a profit doing so. Once they demonstrated this capability an explosion in the number of aircraft manufacturers and competing designs arose to create a viable and innovative aviation market. These same types of incentives for the space industry would go well farther to expanding our human presence in space than any government-built, pork barrel laden, “Grand People’s Rocket”.
“… and turn a profit doing so.”
Unfortunately, the market for cross-country mail delivery was large, while transport to and from the ISS is quite limited.
For the immediate future, my fingers are crossed for Bigelow – sex in space will sell and is as close as LEO. Longer term is the market for energy, either from Solar Power Satellites or fusion fuel from Luna.
Well. I have disagreed with Mr. Simberg in the past, on a few of the numerous occasions when he has bashed NASA. NASA has done the best it could as an organization, given the constraints it operated under (primarily fiscal, but including things like having the DOD weigh in on Shuttle performance requirements).
In an ideal world, Congress would fund NASA enough to take care of defined requirements, but also set aside monies for private space launch efforts, until the private sector relegated NASA to a research organization. Unfortunately for all of us, Mr. Simberg’s assessment above is pretty much correct.
While I disagree with Mr. Simberg on how big a part of the problem NASA is, I agree with him wholeheartedly that the part of the government that sets NASA priorities is a bigger part of the problem.
“NASA has done the best it could as an organization,”
No it didn’t. It three times made assumptions as to the safety of what later became lethal flaws in their systems. Just with the shuttle, NASA’s negligence killed 14 people. If that’s the bet they could do, they should have been shuttered a long time ago. Space is dangerous enough without bureaucratic complacency.
The O-ring failure vs temperature graph was really galling–someone at NASA should have done prison time for that.
Yeah, smart guy. If those lethal failures were so obvious and simple, why didn’t you just, you know, write them down on the back of a napkin and mail them in? A lot of smart engineers missed details in very complex systems, and people died. But then again, those same complex systems worked as designed most of the time.
Refresh my memory- how did SpaceXs’ first launch turn out? Lucky for everyone that no Astronauts were on board, huh?
This is a refreshing change from J. Christian Adams’ dumbfoundedly ignorant hit piece on “Private Space.” (Pulling the Plug, etc.)
I don’t like tearing into Mr. Adams, because he has done the country a great service by exposing the sandals at DOJ, but he should stick to what he knows, and not parrot the nonsense from “Republicans” who just want to spend vast sums of taxpayer money on projects that will either not be completed, or will never complete any intended missions (are there even intended missions anymore?).
The analogous economic event is the transcontinental railroad, and
the analogous political event is the Revolutionary War;
Ground-side governments _will_ try to keep control
and take their cut of the profits.
Space development needs to be handed off to private enterprise. However, burning down everything and putting out our hands in defeat is not the solution. A vehicle to bridge the gap should have been in development for 10 years and ready to go today. Instead, we’re begging the Russians for a ride. For which the obliged, by doubling the fee. We’re idiots, and private space companies have all my support and hope they put the hacks in NASA out of business asap.
“A vehicle to bridge the gap should have been in development for 10 years and ready to go today.”
NASA and the Congress weren’t up to letting, let alone making, that happen.
I am reminded of a story by Conan Doyle, in which a group of Britons in year year 410 AD go to visit the Roman governor to complain about defects in the Roman administration.
The governor answers something like, “Well, gentlemen, you’ll be glad to know that we are leaving, and you will be able to take care of things here as you choose.”
“What,” they reply, aghast. “You’re leaving and taking all your legions? Then who will protect us from the Saxons?”
In other words, be careful what you wish for. NASA could certainly do a lot of things better. But the claim that it is the roadblock to commercial space development is simply false. There are about 200 countries on this planet without government space agencies, and none of them have accomplished anything in space.
Even “commercial” space like SpaceX, et al, is largely about selling space hardware/services to the government and that generally remains how you really make money in space. Still, I’ll take my chances with the more market-based model offered by new space versus the command and control-based old-space model. And while we’re at it, can we trash the Outer Space Treaty along the way and get some agreements in place that will support true commercial development in space? That could actually make life on earth better.
Not necessarily true. Look at the launch manifest from the SpaceX website. Yes, you’ll see several scheduled flights for NASA but you’ll also see multple launches for customers like OrbComm and Iridium. You’ll also see quite a few single launches for other customers. Now, when and if they get the manned version of Dragon available, the Bigelow market alone could well be far larger than NASA. In short, it’s true they’re selling launch services to the government but they’re successfully booking many other customers as well.
A single Falcon 9 booster uses 9 Merlin engines on the first stage and a specialized verion of the engine for the upper stage, totaling 10 engines per launch. A SpaceX company rep told me at the Space Symposium last April that they’re gearing up to build 400 of the engines each year. Unlike other companies, their engines were designed for easy mass production. They’re also working to recover the rocket’s first stage for reuse. Each engine was designed to be reflown many times if they can manage to recover them. They’re working hard to lower launch costs and even the Chinese admit they can’t match SpaceX’s prices.
We need to end the government monopoly on space travel and open it up to entrepreneurs. There is money to be made, so profits can finance it rather than our tax dollars.
A lot of regulations aren’t needed, because those who lose payloads or people will quickly lose their paying customers.
The End of the Shuttle, the End of Exceptionalism
The final flight of America’s space shuttle does not simply represent the end of an era. The successful landing of the Atlantis signaled an undeniable indicator of the beginning of the end of American exceptionalism.
The belief in the United States of America as an exceptional nation long pre-dated the Atlantis. Indeed, it long preceded President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s 1961 Special Address to Congress in which he pledged to send a man to the moon and return him safely within the decade was just the capstone of our exceptionalism.
In that speech, JFK called for a national commitment from “every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant . . . that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”
We accomplished that goal a year early in 1969. America’s incomparable feat not only put the U.S.S.R. on notice that we were in the space race but that we were far in the lead and planned to stay there.
As momentous as the Apollo 11 lunar landing was, it merely represented a footnote to our exceptionalism.
Apollo 11 and our subsequent achievements accented what Americans had known for almost two centuries, that this nation had accomplished more in 200 years than any other country in the history of the planet, that we had become the richest, most powerful, most influential, the most free, most innovative, and most productive country ever to grace the Earth.
Long before 1969, most Americans were well aware that the United States was “different” in the best sense from the rest of the world. We had and have our flaws but among boundless other benefits, our nation offered every citizen opportunities and potentialities denied to even the most free of European countries. We had achieved more in a scant few centuries than Europeans had accomplished in hundreds.
We had gone to the moon and back, our horizons were unlimited, we were exceptional.
American exceptionalism ended on Thursday, July 21st, 2011, as per the design of President Barack Hussein Obama . . .