Space Access Update #122 4/2/11
Copyright 2011 by Space Access Society
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Contents This Issue:
– Space Access ’11 Conference Next Week!
– NASA Exploration Funding:
Some Background
Latest Status
An Action Request For This Coming Week
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Space Access ’11 Conference Next Week!
Our next annual conference on
the business, technology, and politics of radically cheaper space
transportation gets underway shortly after 1 pm this coming Thursday April 7th,
and runs through Saturday evening April 9th at the Grace Inn in Phoenix
Arizona. If you can, be there – it’s
looking like another good one. If not,
follow what we expect will be extensive blog
coverage. In past years,
www.spacetransportnews.com has been one good place to find links to a wide
variety of conference coverage… (SA’11
details at http://www.space-access.org.)
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NASA Exploration Funding
Some Background
There’s a new development in
the ongoing debate over the wisdom of Congress ordering NASA to develop
in-house the “Space Launch System” (SLS) heavy-lift booster. Last year, NASA ran a study on what it would
take to do a twenty-year human exploration program culminating in human flights
to near-Earth asteroids. The HEFT study
(Human Exploration Framework Team) concluded that if NASA built its own 100-ton
payload Heavy Lift booster then used it to launch fully-fuelled mission stages
Apollo-style, the overall program cost would be $143 billion over twenty years,
or an average of just over seven billion a year.
For what it’s worth, NASA
Human Exploration looks likely to be funded at no more than four to five
billion a year for the forseeable future.
Now a team working out of
Georgia Tech has released a study looking at what happens to program costs if
you add propellant depots to the HEFT baseline, allowing everything to be
launched on medium-lift commercial launch vehicles with no need for a new NASA
SLS-style HLV.
(46 slides, at
http://www.nasawatch.com/images/F9Prop.Depot.pdf)
Under a range of assumptions,
their cost for this modified HEFT program comes in at between $73 billion and
$97 billion over twenty years – an average of between $3.6 billion and $4.9
billion per year.
These studies make it crystal
clear: NASA can probably afford a human deep-space exploration program based on
commercial boosters plus propellant depots.
NASA definitely cannot afford a human deep-space exploration program
based on the Congressionally-mandated 130-ton SLS heavy lifter.
(Mind, neither HEFT nor this
new Georgia Tech study are the last word in how much such a program really
should cost. Both are relatively quick
ballpark estimates based largely on existing NASA practice. The Georgia Tech study very conservatively
introduces one low-risk new element into the equation to come up with these
savings. We happen to think considerable
additional time and money savings are possible with further reform to the
traditional NASA way of doing business.
But that’s a discussion for another day.)
Latest Status
Meanwhile, Congress may be
approaching a decision point on overall federal government funding for the
remainder of federal fiscal year 2011 (FY’11 ends at midnight this September
30th.) The government has been funded so
far in FY ’11 by a series of “Continuing Resolutions” (CR’s) that essentially continue funding appropriations at
FY ’10 levels.
The latest of these CR’s runs out next Friday April 8th, and both sides in the
budget battle are currently talking tough about no more short-term CR’s. It’s possible
some sort of CR to cover the rest of FY’11 actually will be worked out during
this coming week.
There’s no way of knowing for
sure what sort of NASA language might end up in such a final compromise bill,
but a look at the competing House and Senate versions can provide some
clues. Both are roughly similar in
overall NASA funding levels, both provide NASA with some flexibility in moving
funds around for the rest of the year to deal with changing circumstances, both
cancel the “Shelby Amendment” that has been expensively delaying
final shutdown of Constellation since last year.
In fact, the only significant
difference we can see between the House and Senate positions on NASA is that
the Senate CR mandates spending $3 billion over the next six months on SLS plus
the MPCV son-of-Orion crew capsule (see SAU#121, at
http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau121.html) and the House CR doesn’t.
Given that:
– $3 billion is the majority of the
Exploration total so other more useful Exploration programs will suffer badly
– NASA funding in general may well be stretched
before the last two Shuttle missions have flown
– NASA has told Congress politely but
repeatedly they simply can’t build SLS for the money specified (or within the
time mandated)
– The Georgia Tech study makes clear that NASA
cannot afford meaningful deep-space exploration based on SLS
it looks to us that it would
be a very good thing if the Senate $3 billion mandate doesn’t make it into the
final FY’11 CR.
Recommended Action:
Contact your Representative
and both your Senators during this coming week – earlier is better – and tell
them (politely!) that Congress should stop telling NASA what kind of rocket to
build, that the SLS (or “Senate Launch System” if you prefer) is
unaffordable and unsustainable. Get as
many of your friends as you can to do it too.
Numbers count. We need to make as
many of our Representatives and Senators as possible aware of our concerns in
the next few days, before deals start being finalized on the FY’11 CR.
If you’re from one of the
districts or states with a major financial stake in SLS, you may not make any
converts, but it still helps to let them know that they have constituents who
disagree with them. They may bring up
the jobs SLS would bring home – you might respond that you’re not against jobs,
but they should be for building something useful; you’re more concerned with
what’s good for the country as a whole.
Be direct, be passionate, be persuasive, but stay polite – rudeness or
vulgarity just makes the whole position look less respectable.
Contact Info for Representative
and Senators: If you know their names, you can call the US Capitol switchboard
at (202) 224-3121 and ask for their DC office.
If you don’t know who your Representative is, go to
http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html and enter your home zipcode. (You may need the 9-digit version.) For
Senators listed by state, go to
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Once through to their office,
let the person who answers know you’re calling about the NASA provisions in the
FY’11 CR. They may switch you to another staffer (or that staffer’s
voicemail) or they may take the call themselves. (If you’re calling
after-hours or they’re getting a lot of calls, you may go directly to a
voicemail.)
Regardless, ask them to tell
(Representative/Senator TheirName) that Congress
should stop telling NASA what kind of rocket to build. Pick a reason from the list that follows (or
come up with your own) and give it. If
whoever you’re talking to has questions or wants to discuss the matter more,
fill them in as best you can. Then thank
them for their time and ring off.
Reasons:
– NASA has said they can’t build the SLS (or
“Senate Launch System” if you like)
for the money provided.
– NASA has said they can’t use a booster the
size of SLS for at least fifteen years – why insist it be ready in five?
– SLS as mandated would use thirty-year old
technology. Why not let NASA draw on the
best of current US industry capabilities instead?
– According to last year’s
HEFT study, NASA cannot fit a deep-space exploration program based on an
SLS-like heavy lifter within current budgets.
– According to the recent Georgia Tech study,
NASA can actually fit a deep-space exploration program using smaller commercial
boosters within current budgets. (We wouldn’t
recommend getting into propellant depots unless whoever you’re talking to shows
signs of sharing our serious space geekery…)
Or, to quote our friends in
the Space Frontier Foundation (they got their alert out two days ago, but then
they’re not putting on a conference next week…)
“
Our space program needs an open and fair competition among not just different
contractors but different and even multiple approaches to see which are the
most affordable, most flexible, and most sustainable…
“Instead,
some in Congress want to make NASA build their favorite rocket, without
competition, even though NASA has already told them it can’t be done for the
resources available on anything like the timetable Congress wants. It’s time to stop the Congress from mandating
the Senate Launch System, and let
NASA compete ideas…
“We
can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of Constellation, and just rubber-stamp a
pre-selected design for a rocket. No
more sole-source, non-competitive procurements…”
OK, that’s the basic
version. Some of you may want to get
more involved in this effort than making a few quick phone calls. Letters (faxed, at this point) are great! (Emails much less so; you know how much spam
you get – now imagine the amount a Congressman gets. Better to phone than to email.) Keep letters to one page, state your basic
point (Dear Representative/Senator TheirName, I am
writing to request that Congress not tell NASA what type of rocket to build in
the FY’11 CR, etc…) in the first sentence of the first paragraph, then go
into a paragraph of supporting detail, then politely wrap up. Faxes are much better than paper mails at
this point, in that you can be sure they’ll arrive on time.
What it comes down to is, if
we care about US space commercial and technical competitiveness, if we want to
see NASA with some hope of going new and interesting places in our lifetimes,
we need to keep at this. We won one
battle last fall, but the war continues.
Now go get ‘em!
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cost of reaching space. You may redistribute this Update in any medium
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Space Access Society
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“Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System”
– Robert A. Heinlein
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