credit: NASA / caption: Orion is to be cancelled but what will Congress and NASA do now?
If president Barack Obama's plan for human spaceflight wasn't disconcerting enough with little detail then the lack of consultation with NASA personnel in its formation speaks volumes
NASA's deputy associate administrator for strategic partnerships, and prolific blogger, Wayne Hale spoke to the Orion project office's "all-hands" meeting that was held last Friday at Johnson Space Center. Hyperbola has been told that Hale said the agency submitted its fiscal year 2011 request and never received any feedback around Thanksgiving when it normally would. But neither was this just some sort of delay, this time around everybody, and apparently it was everybody, found out what the budget was at the same time this journalist and everyone else clicked on the webpage at nasa.gov
And this lack of consultation and detail is impacting on the staff, both NASA and contractor alike. At the all-hands Orion workers were told there is no plan in place at the moment for what happens to Constellation staff but there won't be any stop work order either
As we know from the FY2011 budget contractual obligations mean billions more are yet to be spent on Constellation and it won't be all wasted. Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Doug Cooke said at the budget telecon that the Moon return technology will be assessed for the new flexible path
In the meantime there is still plenty to do for Orion. The all-hands meeting was told that the project office's plan is still to close off the software preliminary design review (PDR), to complete the phase one safety review, finish pad abort tests and build the ground test article
The Orion team also see their work, up to and beyond the vehicle's Design Analysis Cycle four and Constellation's next PDR, as a standard bywhich the commercial crew and cargo programmes' companies could be judged.
Meanwhile Hyperbola also hears that the Constellation spacesuit contract has been cancelled. This seems a bit odd as that leaves NASA only with Extra-Vehicular Activity suits for ISS and nothing for the new commercial capsules. Will NASA own its own astronauts' suits or will they outsource that as well?
As for when Constellation workers can expect to know their fate? Planning is apparently going full steam at headquarters and the centers and that's because senior NASA personnel know that to make progress in FY2011 they need a plan in the next few months
It's just a shame certain members of Congress are going to make sure any plan anytime soon will be impossible because there will be no resolution on what NASA should be doing for the foreseeable future - but at least its flexible
on February 17, 2010 4:44 PM | Reply
Rob,
File this under "unverified rumor, but from a source I trust":
NASA passed its various post-Augustine analysis results up the ladder to the White House sometime in the middle of December. That part, I think is pretty well known. According to my source though, the White House's plan was to review that information over the Christmas Break, and make a decision so NASA could have some time to put things together. Unfortunately, external events (in this case the Underpants Bomber) made it so the Administration was really a bit too preoccupied with national security issues to spend time on NASA at that point. By the time they were out of crisis mode (underpants bomber, health care, the special election in Mass, the state of the union) and had time to formulate a plan, it was submitted to NASA only a day or two before the announcement.
The rumor does fit with the facts and timing of what was going on, so it has the air of plausibility. But ultimately it's just a rumor, and in the end only impacts going forward a tiny bit.
~Jon
on February 17, 2010 4:48 PM | Reply
It was clear space was way down Obama's agenda when the spending spree that was the fiscal stimulus virtually ignored the agency insteda of giving it the funds it needed. They could have given NASA that extra $3 billion with ARRA.
on February 17, 2010 5:13 PM | Reply
It is possible that the cuts to NASA's program's are a demonstration performed for the benefit of financial markets. Wars make the military budget sacrosanct. The recession reduces the possibility of cutting other domestic expenditure. If NASA's program hadn't been a
retread to the moon but to Mars then it would have stood a better chance. And if the Mars shot had involved other countries cancellation would have been very much more difficult .
on February 17, 2010 6:15 PM | Reply
Just a reminder, NASA's budget was *increased*, not cut. So I don't think that the changes are to benefit financial markets.
on February 17, 2010 6:44 PM | Reply
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no, because the Constellation 1.0 needs over $200 billion in ten years
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on February 17, 2010 7:03 PM | Reply
Rob,
When you're planning on reevaluating the direction of NASA, like Obama was at the time the "stimulus" bill was passed, throwing a bunch of extra money to expedite a program that probably will get changed isn't such a hot idea. Think about it, had they thrown another $3B of good money after bad, we still wouldn't have had an Ares-I/Orion system ready to fly till 2016-2017 even if it wasn't canceled. But at least we would've wasted another $3B of our posterity's money on a program about to be cancelled?
You're a Brit, so I don't expect you to care as much about the US government wasting US taxpayer money, but I pay taxes here in the US, and I for one think the approach Obama took was a reasonable one.
~Jon
on February 18, 2010 1:25 AM | Reply
Rob,
I am sorry, but you are just being journalistically dishonest, IMHO, with this comment.
First, exactly who had any idea about the $3 Billion number? Remember, when ARRA was passed, Augustine hadn't met, and *everyone* was saying that it was clear sailing for Constellation. Then, when the money was actually assigned, the Augustine committee was still doing its review.
And even given all of that, remember - NASA got $1 Billion from ARRA, $400 million went to Exploration. Of that money, CCDev only got $50,000,000. Where did the other $350,000,000? I seem to remember a certain senator from Alabama, having a hissey fit, until he got his money.
I stand by my first comment