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July 18, 2010 in Nation/World
NASA mission at new low
Space agency beset by budget cuts, lack of political will
SANDUSKY, Ohio – In a cavernous structure at NASA’s Plum Brook Station near Lake Erie, a concrete chamber five stories high rises from the ground. Its walls are 2 feet thick to withstand the blast of powerful gas-operated horns strong enough to destroy human organs.
The $150 million facility was built to contain the next-generation manned spacecraft for the Constellation program, NASA’s project to send humans back to the moon. It is the largest acoustic test chamber in the world, created to buffet the spacecraft with intense sound waves, simulating the stresses of launch.
The only problem is that the Constellation program almost certainly will be dead within months.
President Barack Obama in January proposed canceling the troubled moon program, and a key Senate committee voted this week to kill Constellation.
Despite the apparent kiss of death, construction continues at Plum Brook Station and other NASA centers and at private aerospace companies across the nation, where more than 14,000 people are still working on Constellation. Under pressure from Congress, NASA has been spending an average of about $9 million a day on the project.
After accomplishing so much in space for a half-century, the nation now appears to lack the resources to mount a major human space program but also the political will to eliminate the thousands of jobs connected with it.
“It is a sad spectacle,” said Loren Thompson, a longtime aerospace policy expert in Washington, referring to the dual-edged political sword that has constrained the once ambitious U.S. space program. “It is devolving into everybody trying to protect their home turf.”
Veteran space industry observers say the manned space program is in deeper trouble and greater turmoil than at any time since the U.S. landed men on the moon more than 40 years ago.
“The choice is: Do we have a space program or a jobs program, because we can’t have both,” said Jeff Greason, president of XCOR Aerospace Inc. in Mojave, Calif., and a member of a presidential panel that delivered a scathing assessment of the space program last year.
Politicians cannot agree on long-term goals for the human space flight program, and the vast network of NASA facilities and private contractors is unable to make plans that keep pace with political action in the capital.
In Texas, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Ohio, NASA is going forward with new test facilities, machine shops and assembly rooms, among other things that were started for the Constellation program.
At Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, where NASA is developing the new J-2X rocket engine for Constellation, a spokeswoman said officials have not received guidance about what will happen after the end of the current fiscal year.
“The space program has never been in as much disarray as it is now,” Thompson said.
The manned space program is powered by $9 billion of NASA’s $18.7 billion budget this fiscal year and creates jobs by the tens of thousands across the country.
It is, by all accounts, a Cadillac enterprise, driven by high-profile failures in the past that have forced NASA into an extraordinarily risk-averse – and expensive – approach to spaceflight.
The Plum Brook acoustic chamber is part of that obsessive safety culture. It was sized to accommodate the entire Altair lander, which was originally designed to ferry as many as four astronauts to the lunar surface.
The planning for Plum Brook and a slew of other Constellation facilities began not long after the 2004 space vision proposed by President George W. Bush. One year after the Columbia space shuttle accident, Bush said the Constellation would start flying by 2012.
The program was a new pot of money for NASA, including a $1.2 billion contract to build the J-2X and $180 million to develop a new spacesuit for the moon program.
But, according to a report last year from the presidential panel of space experts, the program was never adequately funded, receiving perhaps only a third of what it needed to meet its objectives. The project was estimated to cost $240 billion but was getting about $3 billion per year.
“We were on an unsustainable path,” Greason said. “So, change of some kind was inevitable.”
When Obama said he wanted to kill the Constellation program, it ignited a political backlash. Congress was reluctant to cancel it, wanting to preserve jobs and expertise in the nation’s industrial base.
The battle over Constellation has revolved largely around jobs at NASA’s major centers in Texas, Florida and Alabama. But the termination of Constellation also threatens companies that have long supported NASA, such as rocket engine manufacturers Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., and ATK Aerospace Systems in Utah.
A possible compromise was struck last week by a Senate committee, but only after jobs were preserved. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee agreed to cancel Constellation but voted to add $1 billion to keep the space shuttle flying through next summer and possibly much longer to preserve jobs. The space shuttle was supposed to be retired this year.
The compromise was consistent with the Obama administration’s strategy of shifting focus to a new breed of private launch companies to ferry astronauts to low Earth orbit to avoid the high cost and slow pace of development by government-run programs.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, has a NASA contract to supply the space station with cargo and eventually hopes to develop a spacecraft that can carry up to seven astronauts into orbit. So far, the Torrance, Calif.-based company has developed its Falcon family of rockets and conducted six unmanned test flights.
“NASA used to be allowed to take more risks,” said Kenneth Bowersox, a veteran astronaut who is now a vice president at SpaceX. “A failure can paralyze them for years.”
The NASA centers have begun to sense the shift and are trying to market their capabilities to the new era.
David L. Stringer, a retired Air Force brigadier general who is director of Plum Brook, argued that even without Altair, the center’s acoustic test chamber will ultimately be useful for future programs, whatever they are.
Stringer is promoting a plan to build a $30 million runway at Plum Brook so spacecraft can be flown directly into the center, rather than to airports near Cleveland. Plum Brook has the world’s largest thermal vacuum chamber, which can simulate the conditions of deep space, as well as other unique testing facilities.
But experts worry that a loss of expertise within NASA could drain away the ambition to put humans in space that has been the driving force of the space program for more than 50 years.
“What is really happening here is the end of the U.S. human space exploration program,” Thompson said. “It is emblematic of a shortening of American horizons.”
Ancient Roman wrecks found in deep water 
oneanddone on July 18 at 5:11 a.m.
NASA’s problems come primarily from an administration which doesn’t put any stock in scientific adventure. I realize that dollars are scarce but R&D is always the lifeblood of a thriving company and space exploration is just that for the country. Obama and his like would rather put money into avant garde art, such as a crucifix in a glass of urine. Can’t say if 2012 will be the end of humanity’s calendar but hopefully it will be the end of Obama’s administration.
opiemuyo on July 18 at 7:55 a.m.
NASA has created so much tech and so many jobs. Its a shame the current administration is to arrogant and incompetent to realize this. This program could have created many jobs and new tech. (sigh)
mikewsu on July 18 at 8:18 a.m.
oneanddumb:
Research spending has gone up:
“The space agency’s budget would grow to $19 billion in 2011 under the proposed budget released on February 1, 2010, with an emphasis on science and less spent on space exploration.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget
dkerns on July 18 at 9:46 a.m.
Actually, the mission of NASA was to put a man on the moon. They did it. It’s mission has been complete for decades.
And, it’s need is a thing of the past.
Spokane_Citizen on July 18 at 12:39 p.m.
Plenty of ‘earth-based’ basic and applied scientific research remains underfunded….it isn’t necessary, nor fiscally prudent, to fund space exploration at historical levels. A few people find it exciting, but that doesn’t mean we need to devote scarce revenue that has little relevant usefulness or ROI. There’s a lot of work to be done on this old planet!
Teseract on July 18 at 1:09 p.m.
People don’t realize that the space program has given back more into the economy than it’s ever taken from it. If you so much as use a tube of superglue to fix a broken toy for your child you’re using something developed for the space program. When you go to bed on your new mattress with a layer of memory foam, you’re using technology from the space program. When you drive your car to work in the morning, you’re using technology derived from the space program, etc. etc.
Going into space is dangerous. In our nanny-state, save-everyone-no-matter-what culture, a manned space program can’t survive. As soon as you lose one astronaut, or have one accident or catastrophic failure, the politicians step in to punish “those at fault”, when in reality what is at fault is the innate danger of pushing the envelope of human experience.
People in the space program know the risks and accept them as the cost of exploration and discovery and the advancement of science. There’s not a single astronaut in the space program that doesn’t realize and accept that any time they strap in to a spacecraft they’re putting their lives on the line.
Politicians and the average US Citizen don’t seem to understand the concept of putting your life on the line for something you believe in. How can you accept that some people accept the possibility of dying in the line of duty when you’re surrounded by warnings and safety devices meant to save you from injury from your own or other people’s stupidity?
What else can be expected of a culture that calls basketball and football stars “Heroes” and worships them, even though their biggest risk in life is blowing out a knee or dying from a drug overdose.?
Meanwhile people who risk their lives for the advancement of the human race are no longer considered heroes by our culture; they’re just a few people employed by the government who deserve to be safe no matter what, just like John Smith who works at the social security office. The fact is that for astronauts their job is to ignite tons of explosives strapped to their backs and ride them into the most hostile environment known to man. People need to accept this, or we need to give up and let someone else do it.
In reality this is what our government politicians want to do: leave the risk to someone else. After all, that’s the safe thing to do, and we all want to be safe, right?
empyrius on July 18 at 2:11 p.m.
“For astronauts their job is to ignite tons of explosives strapped to their backs and ride them into [space].
Doesn’t sound too smart to me. But the pay is good . . .
As far as space exploration creating jobs are being responsible for new-fnagled gadgets, I hear war does the same thing too!
So we might as well start more wars to create jobs and develop new toys: o, waitaminute, we already do that.
Why don’t we strive eradicating African poverty rather than sending more weapons, errr, “exploring”, space.
O, that is right, we will always have the poor, we would not want to make Scripture unture now would we?
nitro71 on July 18 at 4:21 p.m.
Politics aside the country cannot afford to have a massive military (that we should NOT be using), space programs, medicaid, social security and all the other programs the government pays for. Something has to give and NASA is one thing that can be cut. Until we put tariffs in place and bring manufacturing back, our country is going to have to cut back on unneeded programs.
remymartin on July 18 at 5:32 p.m.
People thought the Wright brothers were crazy and they thought you would kill yourself in a car if you drove over 25 mph. We could still be there at that state of affairs with the narrow minds of some. Unless we reward those that have the incredible guts to go where no man dares to go, others with no good in mind will take up the slack. Thanks teserac.
seymour on July 18 at 5:55 p.m.
@Teseract: Do the Mormons know John Smith works at the Post Office? I’m just asking.
Teseract on July 18 at 8:12 p.m.
@seymour: I’d have said John Doe, or Joe Blow, but I chose John Smith for a generic name.
Perhaps it was my (now agnostic) Mormon upbringing acting on my subconscious? We’ll never know.
toobright on July 19 at 12:29 a.m.
nitro71, have you been inhaling your name? We can’t afford to have military? We can’t afford NOT TO! And you seriously think the govt pays for medicaid, ss, and other programs? The American taxpayer pays for these! What planet did you drop in from?