By Emelie Rutherford
A panel finalizing a report on alternatives for future NASA human spaceflight has decided on four options it will present the White House, with only one of those scenarios calling for continuing development of the Ares I rocket and Orion crew capsule.
Members of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee said during their final public hearing Wednesday that because of NASA budget cuts and technical-related delays the Constellation program cannot be executed. This space-shuttle replacement effort was envisioned to include the Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule, as well as the longer- term Ares V heavy-lift rocket and Altair lunar lander. ATK [ATK] is the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing [BA] is developing the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] is developing Orion.
“You have pressure from the bottom of the (Constellation) program costing more, you have pressure from the top with a lot less money being available, and therefore a program that was thought to be executable in the beginning we think probably isn’t executable with the funds that are available today,” panel Chairman Norm Augustine, the retired CEO of Lockheed Martin, told reporters in Washington Wednesday night.
The present Constellation program–intended to carry astronauts to the moon by 2020 and spots including the International Space Station (ISS) and possibly Mars–would need roughly double the current budget just to operate in future years, said panel member Jeff Greason, the co-founder and CEO of XCOR Aerospace.
“If Santa Claus brought us this system tomorrow, fully developed, and the budget didn’t change, our next action would have to be to cancel it,” Greason said.
NASA is currently projected to spend $9 billion a year on manned spaceflight.
The 10-member Augustine committee plans to submit its final report on the future of human space exploration to President Obama by the end of the month. Members agreed Wednesday to present the Obama administration with four overarching manned-spaceflight options, which both fit in and exceed by up to $3 billion a year NASA’s projected budget. The options either target the moon or deep space as the next destination beyond low-Earth orbit. The panel opted against recommending sending astronauts directly to Mars.
One option–which panel members bluntly said would not work–calls for keeping parts of the current Constellation program in place and making it fit the administration’s projected NASA budget. This setup, aimed at ultimately reaching the moon, would include Ares I, Ares V, and Orion. It would end U.S. commitment to the ISS in 2015 as currently planned, while the panel’s three other options would all extend the ISS date to 2020.
“You cannot do this (Constellation) program on this budget,” panel member and former astronaut Sally Ride said. She pointed to problems with trying to squeeze the current program of record into NASA’s dwindled budget, including that the Orion-Ares I capability would not be able to carry crew to low-Earth orbit until after the ISS is gone, leaving astronauts nothing to travel to. She also noted no lunar systems would be developed to be carried to the moon in the Ares V in 2028.
Another option the panel crafted to stay within the administration’s projected NASA budget would focus on the ISS and have the moon as a long-distance destination. It calls for using an “Ares V Lite” government-launch system and then using a commercial–instead of government–setup for carrying crew to low-Earth orbit.
Ride said that “it’s very difficult to find an exploration scenario that actually fits within this very restrictive budget guidance that we’ve been given.”
Thus, the panel also is preparing for its final report an alternative to the ISS-focused arrangement that would exceed the current budget. That ISS-focused setup would be part of an option for Obama that also includes a similar moon-focused, budget-exceeding arrangement that would delay the space shuttle’s retirement from 2010 to 2015, use a shuttle- derived government-launch system, and carry crew to low-Earth orbit by a commercial setup.
The Augustine committee also is fine-tuning a three-part option for deep-space exploration, including a Mars flyby, which also would require more funding than currently budgeted. Under this arrangement, a commercial setup would be used to carry crew to low-Earth orbit. Either an “Ares V Lite” or shuttle-derived rocket would be used as a government-launch system, or a commercial booster such as version of the the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) would be employed.
The Lockheed Martin-Boeing [BA] joint venture United Launch Alliance develops EELV military-lifter rockets for the Air Force.
“We very much like the deep-space option,” Augustine told reporters, adding he is “not promoting it,” but sees that option as viable and a way to help NASA ultimately reach Mars.
Augustine said the four options agreed to on Wednesday will be in the final report to Obama unless the panel receives new information before the end of the month.
Members of the 90-day panel plan to deliver preliminary findings today to NASA leaders and officials from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology Policy, he said.
Congress is weighing the Obama administration’s request to fund NASA at $18.7 billion in FY ’10.
The House approved a FY ’10 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill on June 18 with $18.2 billion, a slight cut, for NASA. The Senate is expected to consider an alternate appropriations bill in September with the full $18.7 billion for the space agency.
The House and Senate NASA authorization committees have been waiting for the Augustine report to craft authorization legislation for the agency.