Measure Would Reauthorize Space Agency In Next Fiscal Year At $19.21 Billion

Bill Orders NASA To Add A Space Shuttle Mission To Carry Costly Experiment Aloft

NASA would receive $1 billion toward accelerating the next-generation Orion-Ares U.S. spaceship development, under a $19.21 billion NASA reauthorization bill that a key House panel produced.

The House Science and Technology Committee space and aeronautics subcommittee, in a brief 10-minute meeting, unanimously voted to report the bill to the full committee, providing the authorization to fund NASA in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009. There were no amendments offered in the brief session to the authorization bill markup.

That $19.21 billion total amount for fiscal 2009 well exceeds the $17.6 billion that President Bush requested for the space agency, which would be only a 2 percent rise from the current fiscal 2008.

The authorization bill provides $6.074 billion to support space operations, such as the International Space Station and the space shuttles.

Further, the measure would provide a total $3.886 billion authorization for space exploration programs, such as the Constellation Program producing the Orion space capsule crew vehicle and the Ares rocket to propel it into orbit.

That doesn’t include that additional $1 billion to accelerate initial operational capability for Orion-Ares.

The aim is to reduce what otherwise would be a half decade when the United States would have no manned space transportation program, from the mandated end of the space shuttle program in 2010 until the Orion-Ares spaceship system begins flight in 2015. During that time, the fear is that the United States would have to depend on Russia and its recently ailing Soyuz spaceship to take U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

Some lawmakers hope that NASA instead could buy transport services from commercial firms, or from space agencies of allied nations. The bill orders NASA to attempt to devise a universal docking system that would be common with “other spacefaring nations [that] have or plan to have crew transportation systems.”

Also, without the cool, high-profile sight of manned U.S. space missions lifting off, many youths might not become scientists and engineers, just when those skills are needed to replace a graying workforce of thousands of NASA, defense and contractor employees nearing retirement.

That $1 billion extra in the authorization bill might accelerate the Constellation Program by a year or so, according to rough estimates that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has used previously. In other words, instead of the initial manned space flight of Orion-Ares occurring in March 2015, it would be sometime in 2014.

The most the Orion-Ares program could be accelerated would be about two years, to a 2013 initial mission, which would cost roughly $2 billion extra, Griffin has indicated.

That Orion crew exploration vehicle capsule development effort is led by Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT]. Various companies are involved in different components of the Ares rocket system, including The Boeing Co. [BA], Alliant Techsystems Inc. [ATK], and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp. [UTX].

One Added Shuttle Flight

The authorization bill also would require NASA “to take all necessary steps to fly one additional space shuttle flight to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the” space station “prior to the retirement of the space shuttle” fleet in two years.

That AMS is a huge, and hugely expensive, $1.5 billion experiment that has been assembled, paid for by other nations and universities. It will sit uselessly on the ground, however, unless an additional shuttle mission is added to the shuttle program flight manifest.

Currently, the manifest only provides for seven shuttle missions after the imminent Space Shuttle Discovery mission, each with full cargo payload bays, to complete construction of the space station, plus a mission this year to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, and two missions to haul spare parts to the space station that will be needed after the shuttle fleet is retired. (Please see full story in this issue.) There is no room on any of those shuttle flights for the AMS.

An extra shuttle mission to transport the AMS aloft would lift off in 2010, before the shuttle fleet retires, the bill envisions.

Many lawmakers have decried the decision to retire the space shuttle fleet by Sept. 30, 2010, saying that it was a nickel-dime effort to save money, so extra funds wouldn’t have to be appropriated to cover costs of developing Orion-Ares.

Even Griffin has said it is “unseemly” and regrettable that the United States, the only nation to put men on the moon, for years won’t have any means of transporting its astronauts even to low Earth orbit.

Nonetheless, a huge gap looms between the shuttle program termination and the start of Orion-Ares flights. And Orion-Ares never will employ as many people, at least among contractors, as the old shuttle program now does.

Accordingly, the bill requires NASA to establish an Office of Human Capital Management “to assist local communities affected by the termination of the space shuttle program,” and that office will continue operating for two years after the last shuttle flight.

Both House and Senate lawmakers have expressed fears that laying off thousands of workers as the shuttle program ends will deal a devastating blow to some areas, including regions in Florida and Louisiana.

Further, the measure requires NASA to begin planning how it will dispose of the three remaining space shuttle orbiter vehicles (Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour), and other hardware and facilities, under a plan that must be submitted to Congress.

Space Station: No 2016 Retirement

The authorization bill also forbids NASA from taking any steps that would preclude continuing to operate the space station beyond its current official retirement date in 2016.

Rather, the bill orders NASA “to take all necessary steps to ensure that the [station] remains a viable and productive facility of potential U.S. utilization through at least 2020.”

The bill also looks at space exploration missions that will push out far beyond the space station, to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Under the measure, NASA must ensure that any moon exploration program be designed to accommodate “requirements of future exploration and utilization activities beyond” the lunar missions.

Also, the lunar outpost would be designed so it can remain viable even if it is unmanned.

That outpost would be named the Neil A. Armstrong Lunar Outpost, in honor of the first man to ever set foot on the moon.

The bill also urges NASA to make maximum possible use of commercial services in supporting its lunar outpost activities.

Within a year, NASA must provide Congress with a plan as to how space exploration will be conducted in missions going beyond low Earth orbit, and what the risks are in those missions.

A printed statement prepared by Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), the subcommittee chairman, noted that the bill was supported strongly by both Democrats and Republicans on the panel, sending “an important message to Congress as a whole — as well as to the next president — namely that NASA is a national resource that is worthy of our strong support.” The bill authorizes an 11 percent rise in NASA funding to the $19.21 billion total, he noted in the prepared statement. Udall didn’t attend the subcommittee markup session, which was chaired by Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.), the lowest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee.

Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, also expressed strong support for NASA. His congressional district includes Kennedy Space Center.

Regarding the bill, “I want to particularly note the unambiguous endorsement of America’s human spaceflight program,” including voyages to the moon and beyond, he said.