Congress Warns NASA About Shortchanging SLS/Orion For Commercial Crew 170
FleaPlus writes "NASA and the White House have officially released their FY2013 budget proposal, the first step of the Congressional budget process. As mentioned previously on Slashdot, the proposal decreases Mars science funding (including robotic Mars missions) down to $361M, arguably due in part to cost overruns by the Webb telescope. The proposal also lowers funding for the in-house SLS rocket and Orion capsule to $2.8B, while doubling funding for the ongoing competitive development of commercial crew rockets/vehicles to $830M. The ranking member of the Senate science committee, Sen. Hutchison (R-TX), expressed her frustration with 'cutting SLS and Orion to pay for commercial crew,' as it would allegedly make it impossible for SLS to act as a backup for the commercial vehicles."
Commercial development has one purpose only: SPEED (Score:4, Informative)
Straight from the horse's mouth: The whole reason they want to increase the funding for commercial vehicles is so they can keep more than a couple competing companies in the running. The goal of course is to have multiple systems working in the end, which isn't going to happen if we start picking winners before they've even launched anything. Republicans should know that better than anyone, seeing how much they gloated over the Solyndra affair. The truth is that industry is much better equipped than the government to get something working and in orbit, given that all the underlying research has been done already, in order to get American astronauts back in American spacecraft as quickly as possible.
Plus, I don't know what Sen. Hutchison is smoking, but the part of SLS (also known as the "Senate Launch System") that remains funded is the smaller version of the rocket which is good for low Earth orbit--precisely the part that can be used as a backup to the commercial system(s). Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and the committee won't gut what's left of the Mars budget to fund their local firecracker factory.
Re:Backup? (Score:4, Informative)
SLS isn't only a "backup". It will be the primary means of launching heavy materials and vehicles beyond orbit for deep space missions
What "heavy materials and vehicles"?
No such missions are funded. No such vehicles are funded.
"Backing up" commercial launches, at $1.5 billion per launch, is the only mission SLS has.
Re:Senator Kay Hutchinson, representing Texas (Score:4, Informative)
It is hypocritical coming from the party that say government is not good at *anything*, and that privatization is *always* the best route.
Republicans say "smaller" government, not "no" government. They also say that government is "inefficient", not "never" the best route.
If you don't want conservatives to say that liberals *always* do this that or the other or that all liberals are X, then don't do the same or else YOU are the one being hypocritical.
So, please, allow me, as a conservative to FTFY:
Government is usually inefficient compared to the private sector, but there are some things that private industries should not control. NASA and the military are two good examples.
Re:Senator Kay Hutchinson, representing Texas (Score:5, Informative)
Well, look. The SLS program is projected to cost 18 billion in design costs through 2017, and an additional 23 billion to achieve four launches by 2025, with the full 130 metric ton capability coming some time after 2030.
Elon Musk says he can have a *150 MT* heavy launch vehicle ready in *five years* at *fixed price* of 2.5 billion, with a per-flight cost of around 300 million. And thus far SpaceX has shown it isn't just blowing smoke.
So why the heck are we taking only 175 million away from SLS? Why don't we give the private contractor *500 million a year* in return for a for a reasonable shot at getting the job done thirteen years sooner? Because this is not about getting job done. It's about keeping the spending on the program high for the indefinite future.
If SpaceX succeeded in building a heavy launch vehicle in five years for 2.5 billion, it's not going to be possible to even *pretend* to justify spending a couple of billion dollars per year over the next seven to twelve years on a system that will cost more to operate.