By Emelie Rutherford
Lawmakers vexed by President Barack Obama’s attempt to cancel the Constellation moon-exploration program grilled NASA’s leader Feb. 25 about its plan to help commercial companies build human-spaceflight vehicles.
House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said he fears the space agency’s plan to spend taxpayer money on generating a commercial crew-transporting industry could end up making those firms “too important to fail” and “wards of the state.”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, during the contentious hearing on the agency’s fiscal year 2011 budget proposal, insisted having multiple companies work in the near term to build systems that transport crew to low-Earth orbit is the wise route for NASA to take, instead of proceeding with the Constellation programs’ Ares I rocket.
The White House’s Feb. 1 NASA budget request calls for eliminating Constellation, a space shuttle replacement effort intended to return astronauts to the moon, which includes the developmental Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule and future Ares V heavy-lift rocket. ATK [ATK] has been the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing [BA] has developed the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] has been making Orion.
The administration’s proposal seeks $500 million next year, and $6 billion over five years, to spur the development of human-spaceflight vehicles by commercial companies in the United States. The agency hopes to do this through a range of competitive solicitations. It also is using funds from the economic-stimulus law passed last year to drive the beginnings of a commercial crew-transporting industry.
Bolden faced many skeptical lawmakers who do not want to see Constellation canceled when he testified Wednesday before the Senate Commerce Space and Science subcommittee and yesterday before Gordon’s House committee, both NASA authorization panels.
Amid concerns about the government supporting financial institutions that are “too big to fail,” Gordon questioned if under the new NASA plan the commercial space firms would become “too important to fail.”
“If the companies are going to provide the commercial crew transportation don’t have other markets, then are we going to wind up having to support them?” he asked Bolden, asking for “some type of concrete evidence that there’ll be other markets for their services.”
Bolden said that such evidence exists, but it was generated by the industry itself, and NASA has not done any of its own market surveys.
Gordon also questioned why the FY ’11 budget request seeks increased amounts needed for commercial endeavors, questioning how those numbers jibe with the administration’s argument that the commercial route would be less expensive that continuing with Constellation.
The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, a blue-ribbon panel led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, found last year that Constellation was facing major schedule problems and needed a substantial funding boost.
Bolden promised the House panel more follow-up information Feb. 25. When lawmakers questioned what the backup plan is if the commercial endeavors fail, Bolden insisted NASA’s new plan “puts us in a better situation than we would have been with Constellation.”
Under Constellation, he said, one vehicle–Ares I–would go to low-Earth orbit, and one vehicle–Ares V–would eventually go further. Now, Bolden noted, two companies “are competing to handle access to low-Earth orbit,” and NASA plans to “reopen the competition to see if we can add even more companies into the mix.” NASA currently has contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences [ORB] to develop unmanned rockets to bring cargo to the International Space Station.
“Conceivably there could be multiple companies that we recognize as having met the safety criteria for what we want to do, and then we are much better off than we would have been with a NASA designed and built system in a single Ares 1,” Bolden said.
Many House Science and Technology Committee members remain unconvinced.
Ranking Member Ralph Hall (R-Texas)–in an opening statement another lawmaker read in his absence–said he fears relying on the “unproven capabilities of a nascent commercial space industry” could threaten U.S. leadership in space and harm the aerospace industrial base with its highly skilled workforce.
Bolden noted established firms such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and ATK can compete in the next round for the commercial space program. He insisted SpaceX and Orbital Sciences employ professional engineers and are not “hobby shops.” Quizzed about the two young companies being “behind schedule,” Bolden insisted he had “not been informed that anyone has missed a milestone.”
House Science and Technology Committee Space and Aeronautics subcommittee Chairwoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) said she was upset varied parties, including at the Pentagon, were not consulted with more about Constellation’s proposed cancellation before the Feb. 1 budget release.
“To make such a radical shift is hard to stomach,” said Giffords, who is married to an astronaut. She cited “very strong bipartisan concern” on her subcommittee about the proposed Constellation cancellation.
As Congress digests the administration’s NASA proposal, Bolden said the agency is proceeding with its new commercial orientation.
“We are working feverishly now and will be working over the coming months to come up with follow-on programs that are going to replace the Constellation program to ensure that we can get humans beyond low-Earth orbit, to ensure that we maintain the ability to get humans into low-Earth orbit by American-manufactured rockets, and we’re going to do that,” he said.
Bolden said there are “aspects of the Constellation program” he wants to keep, and has asked for studies to be done to determine “what technologies, what projects that we have in the Constellation program that we cannot do without, and that will serve as a nucleus for emerging programs.” He said two such Constellation systems already have been identified, related to thermal protection and launch abortion.
On Wednesday, Senate Commerce Space and Science subcommittee members also expressed concerns about the Obama administration’s new human-spaceflight plans. Yet the panel, led by Chairman Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Ranking Member David Vitter (R-La.), did not discuss space-hardware plans to the extent the House panel did yesterday.