Review of space plans led to changes at NASA

James Dean, FLORIDA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EDT October 11, 2014

Five years after a presidential review panel found it was on an "unsustainable trajectory," NASA's human spaceflight program continues to suffer from a mismatch between its budget and goals, the panel's chairman says.

"The funding still doesn't match the missions," said Norman Augustine, the former Lockheed Martin CEO who headed the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, in a recent interview. "We've been there before, we know how that movie ends. I just hope we find a way to avoid that."

The so-called Augustine Committee's October 2009 report led to policy shifts — including the cancellation of a major exploration program — that changed Kennedy Space Center's future dramatically in some ways and less so in others, leaving reasons for both optimism and concern today.

On the bright side, KSC is leading NASA's push to help companies develop commercial rockets and spacecraft that could resume launches of astronauts from the Space Coast to the International Space Station by 2017.

Gloomier in outlook: a revamped exploration program won't launch a crew beyond low Earth orbit before 2021, and then anticipates infrequent launches to unspecified destinations because of limited funding — while claiming to be on a path to Mars in the 2030s.

NASA and Obama administration officials say the Augustine review prompted the agency to pursue new ways of doing business that have helped put human spaceflight on more sustainable footing.

"In just the last five years, we've made historic progress — metal is being bent, new rockets and capsules are being launched from U.S. soil, another rover is on Mars, private investments are creating jobs, and a new American industry is taking off," said Phil Larson, senior adviser for space and innovation in the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy.

But for all the program changes of the last five years, the administration and Congress have not delivered more money. That despite the 10-member review panel's core finding that no exploration into deep space was viable without upping NASA's budget by $3 billion.

The agency's budget is down slightly since 2009, to $17.6 billion, and projected to stay flat for years to come.

"It's disappointing where we are on our human spaceflight program," said Leroy Chiao, one of two former astronauts who served on the committee along with Sally Ride, who died in 2012. "We asked the administration, please don't do what so many administrations do, which is say we want to do it all and then underfund it, which is exactly what happened."

Commercial KSC

Before the Augustine Committee, there was little talk of KSC becoming a "multiuser spaceport" for both government and commercial missions, or sharing its facilities with private companies, as it has begun to do.

The center was on course to continue its traditional role supporting launches of a flagship government program, while bracing for mass layoffs from the shuttle's planned retirement in 2010.

While flying out the shuttle to finish assembly of the International Space Station, NASA's Constellation program was developing Ares I and Ares V rockets and an Orion capsule to return astronauts to the moon.

The agency then projected a five-year gap in its ability to launch astronauts after the shuttle, saying Ares I and Orion would fly crews to the ISS in 2015 and to the moon by 2020.

The Augustine Committee found those projections were far too optimistic.

Due to underfunding and technical issues, the committee said the new rocket and spacecraft wouldn't be ready until 2017 — two years after NASA planned to abandon the $100 billion ISS to free up money for the new exploration vehicles.

A lunar landing wouldn't happen until "well into the 2030s, if ever."

"The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory," the report opens. "It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources."

Guided by the Augustine report, the Obama administration in 2010 proposed canceling Constellation, extending the life of the ISS to 2020 and relying on commercial providers to fly astronauts to the station, as was already planned for cargo. Congress ultimately insisted on development of a new heavy-lift exploration rocket to replace the cancelled Ares system.

Today, KSC's work force of less than 8,000 is nearly half what it was five years ago, and there's no hiring surge on the horizon.

Shuttle flights continued into 2011, nearly a year longer than originally planned, but without the longer-term extension many employees hoped for.

Human spaceflight

Today, KSC leads NASA's new Commercial Crew Program, which emerged from the Augustine Committee endorsement of the idea that companies — not just the government — could be trusted to fly people in space.

"I don't think it was as revolutionary as it came out and was portrayed, but it clearly was disruptive," said Augustine, a retired Lockheed Martin CEO who chaired another NASA review committee in 1990. "It was clear something different had to be done, and you only have a certain number of options."

At KSC last month, NASA announced the awards of crew contracts to Boeing and SpaceX.

Augustine said the commercial program has exceeded his expectations, but companies must avoid overconfidence.

"One catastrophic failure in the commercial program could make it look a lot less attractive all the sudden," he said.

Meanwhile, KSC has leased one of its two launch pads to SpaceX and former shuttle hangars may house work on commercial crew capsules and military space planes. The runway is expected to be opened to commercial spacecraft and drones in the coming years.

"For everyone that wants to see progress and transition to the future, this is the place," KSC Director Bob Cabana said last week during a groundbreaking ceremony for a new headquarters building. "We continue to move forward."

But KSC has butted heads with state officials pushing for more systemic changes they say are needed to keep commercial ventures from moving to states like New Mexico, Virginia and Texas. KSC's new master plan ignores a state proposal to build a commercial launch complex at the northern border of KSC and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Destination next?

Beyond potential new commercial activity, KSC is waiting for a new exploration rocket to arrive and proceeding much as it was under Constellation, only now waiting for a different rocket to arrive.

Work continues on a launch tower, pad, crawler-transporter, Vehicle Assembly Building high bay and other infrastructure needed to launch the 321-foot Space Launch System, which is designed to eventually surpass the Saturn V in size and launch crews on deep space missions in the Orion capsule.

Orion is being assembled at KSC and nearing an uncrewed test flight in December, before a first launch on SLS in 2018 and a first crewed mission by 2022 — a slow development schedule limited by flat annual funding.

Critics believe the program is too expensive and doomed to fail like Constellation, and debate continues over where astronauts should go.

NASA is studying the possibility of robotically tugging an asteroid near the moon that crews could begin visiting by the mid-2020s, as a stepping stone to orbiting Mars in the 2030s.

"That's not a plan," said Chiao. "It's easy to say we're going to go to Mars in the mid-2030s, because this administration is going to be gone by then. It will be someone else's problem."

Another independent report this year concluded NASA's Mars goals were unrealistic without budget increases.

The National Research Council report said that continuing current plans under a budget that does not keep pace with inflation "is to invite failure, disillusionment, and the loss of the longstanding international perception that human spaceflight is something that the United States does best."

But a different point of view supports NASA's, which is that the agency is incrementally building capabilities as best it can with available funding, which over time may lead to affordable exploration.

That's a notable change from 1989 and 2004, when presidents rolled out grand exploration visions that banked on huge sums the public never supported.

"They've got a strategy that fits the budget," said Howard McCurdy, professor at American University. "It's got a chance. It's not a sure thing. But at least their strategy recognizes the limitations of the annual appropriations process, which the last two efforts did not."

Augustine cited the lack of consensus within the space community about its exploration goals as his second big concern today, along with inadequate funding.

"There appears to be no rallying together of the space community on what it is we should be doing," he said. "And as long as that happens, we're likely to not get a lot of support from the White House or the Congress."

He said he saw a striking parallel to the field of high-energy physics, which he's worked with more recently. Bickering among competing U.S. camps resulted in research leadership moving to Europe and its CERN particle accelerator, but groups now have come together on plans the government has agreed to fund.

"There's great optimism in that community today, and that gives me optimism that the space community can do the same thing," he said.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FlaToday_JDean

New rocket

The Space Launch System rocket, intended to grow more powerful than the Saturn V, replaced the Constellation program's Ares I and Ares V rockets for launches of the Orion capsule on deep space missions.

Commercial crew

In place of government-owned vehicles, NASA now plans to fly astronauts to the International Space Station on private space taxis. NASA recently awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX.

Where to: Mars, moon or asteroid?

After Constellation's focus on the moon, NASA shifted to an asteroid as its initial exploration target on the way to a Mars mission by the 2030s. Debate over destinations continues.

The Augustine Committee

Nicknamed for its chairman, former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, the 10-member Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee included aerospace engineers, astronauts and scientists. It's findings led to major changes in NASA's exploration programs and at KSC.

International Space Station

NASA once planned to abandon the ISS after 2015. The agency has since committed to operating the outpost through 2024.