NASA: 5 Interesting things from the Augustine Report

[rhoenix]

NASA released the full text crafted by its Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee (the so-called Augustine committee) today. The 157-page examination lacked an endorsement of an overall strategy, but there are a few passages of interest that were not included in the summary that was released in September. Here are a few passages that leapt out at us.

1) The gap is worse than we feared.
A central question facing NASA is the impending retirement of the space shuttle. Without the shuttle fleet, which is facing serious age issues, the U.S. must depend on foreign or unproven domestic private companies to deliver astronauts or cargo to the International Space Station.

"Under current conditions, the gap in U.S. ability to launch astronauts into space is most likely to stretch to at least seven years. The Committee did not identify any credible approach employing new capabilities that could shorten the gap to less than six years. The only way to close the gap significantly is to extend the life of the Shuttle Program."

2) The current plan, designed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, will be already too late to help.
Delays and anemic funding to the Constellation program have limited the usefulness of the ISS. The program includes a rocket called Ares I and a capsule called Orion, both of which are being designed to link with the ISS. Too bad they'll probably never go there unless the space station's life is extended or the Constellation program gets an unlikely spending boost.

"The results of the analysis indicate to the Committee that, under the FY 2010 budget profile, there is likely an additional delay of at least two years, with first launch in 2017, and perhaps as much as four years of delay, with first launch in 2019. This suggests that Ares I and Orion will not reach ISS before the Station's currently planned termination."

3) The Orion capsule is built to hold too many people, but it's too late to fix it.
Complaints over the design of the Constellation hardware have been manifest but the report generally says the design is sound. With a few exceptions: "The capsule is five meters in diameter, considerably larger and more massive than previous capsules (e.g., the Apollo capsule), and there is some indication that a smaller and lighter four person Orion could reduce operations costs. For example, such a configuration might allow landing on land rather than in the ocean, and it might enable simplifications in the (currently large and complex) launch-abort system. In addition, this would also increase launch margin, which could reduce the cost and schedule risk to the Constellation Program. However, a redesign of this magnitude would likely result in well over a year of additional development time and an increase of perhaps a billion dollars in cost."

4) Bush and Obama are both guilty of underfunding the next NASA spacecraft and the return to the moon by billions.
Political blame-games could start as the U.S. public sees how far the U.S. is lapsing in spaceflight, especially if private firms like SpaceX and Orbital Sciences can't follow through with ISS delivery spacecraft that will bail out NASA.

"Since Constellation's inception, the program has faced a mismatch between funding and program content. Even when the program was first announced, its timely execution depended on funds becoming available from the retirement of the Space Shuttle (in 2010) and the decommissioning of the ISS (in early 2016). Since those early days, the program's long-term budget outlook has been steadily reduced below the level expected by NASA. The Exploration Systems Architecture Study of 2005 assumed the availability of a steady-state human spaceflight budget for exploration of about $10 billion per year. In the subsequent FY 2009 and FY 2010 budgets, the long-term projections for funding have decreased. The FY 2010 President's Budget Submittal suggests a steady-state funding of about $7 billion per year.

5) The Air Force's way of launching into space could be a cheap alternative but it would mean a radical restructuring at NASA. Expendable launch vehicles like the Delta V could be converted for NASA missions. Called Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs), these rockets could be adapted to carry humans and help make deliveries to the ISS.
"The Committee considers the EELV-heritage super-heavy vehicle to be a way to significantly reduce the operating cost of the heavy lifter to NASA in the long run. It would be a less-capable vehicle, but probably sufficiently capable for the mission. Reaping the long-term cost benefits would require substantial disruption in NASA, and force the agency to adopt a new way of doing business.

6) NASA is handicapped by rules that limit the way it does business.
Unlike other federal departments, NASA's relationship with the industrial world is antiquated, discourages innovation and suffers from inflexible bureaucracy.

"Currently, NASA labors under many restrictions and practices that impair its ability to make effective use of the nation's industrial base. For example: NASA is commonly not allowed to change the size and composition of its workforce or facilities, which limits its ability to save money through the purchase of commercially available products.

• NASA has limited ability to shift funds between related projects to adapt to technical challenges without a protracted approval process.

• NASA is not permitted to make loan guarantees or employ other mechanisms by which it could create a market for commercial providers that might otherwise invest private funds in meeting some of NASA's needs. (The Department of Defense has procurement rules that allow this.) For example, NASA could very likely acquire propellant depots by making a "bankable" commitment to purchase propellant from such a depot; but depending on a "promise" from NASA today would almost certainly not be viewed as a reasonable risk by private investors.

• NASA is expected to undertake long-term projects with little hope of budget stability."

Well. This looks concerning. What really makes me wonder is all the recommendations to our current administration to skip Luna altogether and go directly to Mars - it makes me truly wonder about whether people are reading the same information.