Senators Question Removal of NASA Program Manager 67
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that one day after the removal of NASA's head of the Constellation Program, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, chairman of the committee that oversees NASA, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the committee's ranking Republican, have asked NASA's inspector general to look into whether the NASA leadership is undermining the agency's moon program and to 'examine whether this or other recent actions by NASA were intended or could reasonably have been expected to foreclose the ability of Congress to consider meaningful alternatives' to President Obama's proposed policy, which invests heavily in new space technologies and turns the launching of astronauts over to private companies. Congress has yet to agree to the president's proposed policy, and has inserted a clause into this year's budget legislation that prohibits NASA from canceling the Constellation program or starting alternatives without Congressional approval. The Constellation manager, Jeffrey M. Hanley, whose reassignment is being called a promotion, had been publicly supported by the NASA administrator and other NASA officials. But he may have incurred displeasure by publicly talking about how Constellation could be made to fit into the slimmed-down budgets that President Obama has proposed for NASA's human spaceflight endeavors."
Can you imagine... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
Then the Apollo program really would have been filmed in Hollywood studios.
Hey, scratch that. I now have definitive proof that the Moon landings were not filmed in a studio. The films were shown on TV; free of charge.
If Hollywood faked the Moon landings, they would have had DRM stuff on all of it. And if anyone said the word "Moon", the MPAA would have been all over it.
Bicker bicker bicker... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps when India or China start their mars missions congress will sober up.
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Perhaps when India or China start their mars missions congress will sober up.
I wouldn't count on it. It would be a truly remarkable event for recent Congresses.
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Yeah, I know this whole thing is wildly off-topic, but I'm bored, so whatever ;)
The congress is a fucking kindergarten full of uneducated, dishonest and selfish man-babies who feel entitled to have everything their way
I'll agree with dishonest and selfish, but it takes some brainpower to keep a job like that when you're not actually doing your job. I'm no bigger fan of the current congress than you seem to be, but if you had a job where you could gather crowds of (literally) thousands of cheering people, be paid well (both legit and through bribes), and wield that much power, wouldn't you want to keep it? We have a system which rewards dishon
Not to sound like a tinfoil hat... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Not to sound like a tinfoil hat... (Score:5, Insightful)
think about it this way:
Remember when, as a kid, you balanced a ruler on your finger? Launching a rocket is just like that--only the ruler is human beings and the finger is a (hopefully) controlled explosion.
If your system isn't PERFECT, people die.
Now, that's just a normal rocket. We've done those before. But to send humans to the Moon, you've got to launch a larger mass than to get just to the Space Station. Much larger. And you have to bring enough fuel with you (more mass) to carefully brake yourself as you get into lunar orbit. And you have to bring enough fuel with you to carefully brake yourself as you get down to the Moon's surface. And you have to bring enough fuel with you to launch off of the Moon's surface again. AND you have to bring enough fuel with you to get back out of lunar orbit and pointed back at the moon. AND you have to bring fuel tanks and rocket engines for each one of those steps, too. Plus food and clothing and toilets for your humans. All of that has to be lifted in the original rocket.
This still doesn't get at your question, though. We did it in the 60's, why can't we do it now? Well, lots of reasons. Primarily, we were trying to do it in a way that was less expensive to operate than the Saturn Vs--that program was cancelled because it was so expensive. Most of the technology, and all of the parts, are obsolete, so we couldn't just go with another Saturn V. Also, it takes $Billions to do this, so we have to satisfy all of our "stakeholders," which meant that we had to try to do it using Shuttle parts, because if you make a bunch of people suddenly unemployed, senators get upset. So it would be (arguably) better to launch with an all-liquid system, but we had to cobble together rockets out of the Shuttle parts. Well, performance-wise, they're slightly worse but safety-wise they're slightly better, so it's all good. But then it turned out that there were technical problems to using Shuttle parts when they're not attached to the Shuttle's stack--see the first point about balancing a ruler; if it's not perfect, things go dramatically wrong. So the design had engineering problems that had to be fixed. It takes time and money to fix those problems, and the program fell behind and went over budget.
Meanwhile, congress SAID they supported NASA in a broad, bi-partisan fashion--and they did, they tried to give NASA more money...but Bush, who started the program, cut the budget. Every single God-damned year. When you start a complex program and give it less money than it is asking for, you cause more problems than just the dollar amounts represent. Work gets done out of order due to the financial constraints. This means people have to make assumptions about the work that should have been done already, but isn't. That means that some of those assumptions will be wrong. That means that some of that work will have to be re-done, and that means more time and money.
So, there you have it--why NASA can't do again what it did 40+ years ago: the physics are nightmarishly difficult, there were engineering difficulties (imagine that), there were constraints about how the system could be built due to congressional politics, and the president didn't support us with enough money. End of story.
Re:Not Controlled Explosion (Score:2, Interesting)
Rocket engines burn fuel at high pressure, they do not propel themselves by explosion. The only explosions are explosive bolts to separate the stages.
If you want a rocket propelled by explosions look at the Orion Drive, which fires nuclear bombs behind it, which then explode and propel it forward.
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Deflagration is subsonic
Detonation is supersonic
That must be that other kind of cutting funding (Score:2)
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True! Problem is, nobody knows what all that extra money can be used for. The NASA centers are trying to figure out how to invent new projects to fit into the programs dictated by that budget.
Very astute observation. The money isn't in an open pool for any department to use. They are predefined and constrained.
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Nice lengthy rant but NASA has spent most of their energy on Ares I the last 5 years. Ares I isn't even remotely as difficult as Apollo, Saturn or going to the Moon. Its closer to Soyuz, Gemini and Mercury. It was just launching a few people in a capsule in to LEO. After years of effort and billions of dollars all NASA had managed so far was to light off a largely unmodified Shuttle SRB with a bunch of dummy upper stages with a control system that was lifted wholesale out of an Atlas.
NASA and Ares simpl
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But, is the failure of the Ares I a lack of intellectual and creative ability to develop the project, or is it that we've become so accustomed to fearing anything less than perfection when human lives are on the line, that we're afraid to move forward?
Nobody wants to lose astronauts, but in the 1960s, we ALL (ok, I wasn't born yet, but Americans at the time) understood that it w
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It's not a technological problem -- as you say, it's been done before, and others have done comparable development in a fraction of the time and cost (SpaceX and other NewSpace companies).
The issue here is, and has been for the past 40 years, entirely political. Space is big money, and big money attracts politicians like flies. NASA is both a job program for engineers and a reliable means of buying votes. Why do you think the various space centers are scattered all over the country? Why do you think rockets
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What you said about "Get the politicians out of the mix" is EXACTLY what Obama wants to do (and exactly why Congress wont let him)
The Obama proposal (from my understanding) means NASA would be buying off-the-shelf space hardware (rockets, boosters, capsules, landers, whatever else) or hardware build by private industry to NASA specs. Either way, it would be built by the company in the location that is most benifical to the company and not to some politician. And using the work force that is most benifical t
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Obama *is* a darn politician. NASA's charter is not to buy off-the-shelf hardware, but rather to R&D low technology readiness level (TRL) projects and to and operate missions that no commercial entity would consider.
What you're missing is that NASA can both "operate missions that no commercial entity would consider" and "buy off-the-shelf hardware" to launch those missions.
Hutchinson (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not to sound like a tinfoil hat... (Score:4, Informative)
Two reasons:
1. The technology hasn't improved that much (there just isn't that much room to improve rocket technology)
2. The budget has been cut to a quarter of what it was in the 60s
We could probably repeat Apollo at about half of what it cost the first time, but its expensive just to operate that architecture. Constellation would have suffered the same issue -- as an Augustine commission member said, if we were given a fully usable system right now, we would still have to cancel it under the current budget constraints, because we couldn't afford to operate it.
Apollo was ideal for its time and goals. It got there quick, and it got there spectacularly, and they had money to burn due to external geopolitical factors. However, NASA thought that level of funding would go on forever and never had a good scale-back option. In order to do more than a mission to LEO under the current budget we need to rethink how an exploration system should look - small cheap manned launchers, on-orbit construction, and a focus on permanence. While these things may take longer, and be a little more expensive to build, we can do it piecemeal, and it will ultimately be far more sustainable.
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... using comparatively horribly primitive technology?
It's not really that horribly primitive, at least not compared to 2010 technology rather than 2245 technology.
Sure, we've got better computers, sensors, cameras, etc. today -- but rockets haven't changed that much since then. They're made with similar materials (well, we probably like things like carbon fiber more now, but our new materials and methods aren't *that* much better than what was used 40 years ago) and fuels. And our new high technology does make it that much more expensive.
Going to t
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You can't tell me during the high flying economic times, when people were going to go into orbit with their dog just for fun, that countries like Russia or China haven't wanted to be known as the second c
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By easy I mean banging them out every few months without incident/deaths
James Lovell would like a word with you about the lack of "incidents" during Moon Shots.
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..."why is it so hard/expensive to repeat something that was done several times 40 years ago using comparatively horribly primitive technology? "
Because these days we have systems engineers involved.
This is news? (Score:2)
Congress needs to do more than complain (Score:5, Interesting)
If Congress wants the US space program to be top notch and succeed, then they need to *fully* fund it. Its "put up or shut up" time. Either give them the money to go to the moon, or close down the program.
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Why fully fund it, when you can do a half-assed job instead? Come on, it is the American way!
Constellation was a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
They wouldnt have been able to put up a manned version until 2018. The Ares I was unnecessary, you can use
Delta IV or Atlas V already proven rockets plus the Falcon 9 launching next month.
The Ares V heavy lift rocket could be done faster,cheaper and more reliably by a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle
such as the Direct 3.0 , the tooling is already in place for Directs version using the existing shuttle tooling.
Re:Constellation was a joke (Score:5, Informative)
The Delta IV and Atlas V rockets are proven for cargo. To get a rocket 'man rated', i.e. ready for a human to launch in, requires vastly different engineering.
No it doesn't. The cost of 'man-rating' the Delta and Atlas would be under a billion dollars; it's primarily a matter of trajectory changes to allow safe aborts, and allowing an abort to orbit after an engine failure.
After all, the shuttle is 'man rated' and kills its crew about 2.5% of the time, so it's a pretty damn low bar to pass; any current expendable with a launch escape system would be safer..
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The Space Era is Over, Get used to it. (Score:1, Insightful)
Space Exploration is a 20th century quasi-religion that is beginning to manifest itself as a mental disease among those people who continue to believe it too strongly.
Get over it. Manned space flight was a 20th-century phenomenon that has been determined to be to expensive and too limited in returns to be continued at its former funding levels. We have serious problems now that we didn't have then, and throwing hundreds of billions of dollars (that we don't have anymore) into space doesn't solve t
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As to why space exploration is important: resources, including energy: green-24/7 unclouded solar energy, and space in abundance you cannot comprehend, microgravity manufacturing could
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Money is not a physical good. Money can be created out of nothing and can disappear back to nothing. Technical people never understand this. They don't study economics, and they don't understand economics.
Since you understand that the economy is just a big game, perhaps you also understand that the rules of the game have been constructed in such a way that it cannot continue forever. When the current system fails, we will have an opportunity to establish a new reason to do things, rather than the current system in which greed is the primary motive. The burden of the current system is coming ever more apparent as the system has funneled more and more wealth to fewer and fewer people.
Humanity existed before
Unfair? Maybe. Overdue? Definitely. (Score:5, Informative)
Best short summary: Norm Augustine's testimony to Congress http://legislative.nasa.gov/hearings/5-12-10%20AUGUSTINE.pdf
"...the mismatch of ends and means coupled with technical problems that were encountered on the Ares I program were such that during its first four years the program slipped between three and five years...". Read that again. After four years of development and billions of $, the objective was no closer than it was at the start of the program. I could cut NASA some slack on that if they were attempting to develop new technology, but the Ares I program was largely based on well-understood technology and an existing industrial production base.
The Program Manager does not set the budget and he was not delivered the budget that was estimated for the job. So maybe the dismissal was unfair. But the PM's job is explicitly to develop the program within the actual (not wished for) triangle of resources, schedule and performance. If the delivered resources are so inadequate that the completion date never gets closer, then something else needs to change - this is the PM's job.
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WIsh I had mod points for you.
Every year of Ares' existence pushed out first flight by at least a year. That's a jobs program not a flight development program.
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CxP takes Shuttle and other legacy technology and tries to make it safer than any of the previous systems ever were. Apollo and Shuttle were developed without any idea what the reliability would be or what the risks were. Constellation was given the go-ahead with the understanding that it would be made much MUCH safer. Unfortunately, we actually tried to make it that much safer and the peanut gallery wondered why it was costing so much.
I'm sorry, but I fundamentally disagree. Ares I was based on a solid fuel rocket -- a fundamentally expensive, inflexible, and unsafe technology. There's no redundancy, no engine-out capability, no early engine shut-off capability, no restart capability, no possibility of practical stage re-use. Once the rocket segments have been poured and cured they're effectively "loaded" and have to be handled with great care to make sure there's no possibility of accidental ignition -- something totally avoided with li
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no possibility of practical stage re-use.
The solid rocket motors are reusable. I'm sorry, but you're wrong.
Once the rocket segments have been poured and cured they're effectively "loaded" and have to be handled with great care to make sure there's no possibility of accidental ignition -- something totally avoided with liquid fuel rockets where the oxidiser and fuel are kept completely separately
Red herring argument. Cryogenic liquid oxygen is way more dangerous and expensive to handle than loaded solid propellant.
I'm just glad that the Ares-I got cancelled before it killed yet more astronauts.
It isn't canceled. Constellation won't be canceled unless congress approves the Obama budget. Unless that happens, NASA is required by law to continue working the program of record. Just curious: which space industry do you work in? Your British spelling makes me curious :)
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Just curious: which space industry do you work in? Your British spelling makes me curious
I'm a PhD student at Surrey Space Centre, which is in the UK.
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That's cool! I appreciate your concerns about Constellation. There's a lot of bad press and unfortunate misinformation floating around, yet despite that it's extremely important to listen to the criticism.
Ares may be a polished turd, but it's the best turd ever built to date. It has the most thorough fault detection, caution and warning and abort systems of any human rated launch vehicle. First stage is reusable, just like Shuttle solid rocket motors. Hypergol and cryogenic handling is safer and more effici
Politics over engineering... (Score:2, Interesting)
The Obama administrations efforts to kill Constellation is rooted in a desire to prevent Bush from receiving credit for any future moon landing or exploration of Mars.
This is not idle speculation, and has been reported in many places. NASA finally had a "engineer" in the top position leading the program (Michael Griffin). Griffin was focused on engineering and science instead of playing politics and the Obama administration has crushed him.
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There's zero chance that Bush would receive credit for the 18th moon landing. History wouldn't be interested in such a non-event.
As far as a Mars mission is concerned, it wasn't Bush's idea anyway.
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There's zero chance that Bush would receive credit for the 18th moon landing.
Bush might get some credit for the 7th, though.
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Yep, I screwed up and confused the 18 in "Apollo 18" with the number of moon landings.
Poltics of harping (Score:1)
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Checks and balances. This is what Congress does when the White House tries to overstep its Constitutional authority.
The issue today seems to be that all three branches regularly overstep their Constitutional authority.
It will fall to the American people to check and balance the system.
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The White House proposes a budget. Congress then decides whether to approve it or not. If they don't approve it, the White House can work with Congress to reach a budget that will pass.
It's not rocket science.
Micromanagement. (Score:1)
Micromanagement by Congress and incoherent, patch-work legislation are at the root of America's problems. A politicized public service makes failure inevitable. People don't trust congress, they don't trust 'government'. Who can blame them? Who is out there with sufficient public trust to do the oversight and regulation than the economy desperately needs? Do professional, non-partisan technocrats exist in America? Where do they come from?
Fuck congress (Score:2)
I don't recall that dipshit Hutchison complaining when GWB also proposed increased space mission spending. I'm not familiar with Rockefeller's record or even how long he's been in office. He's a senator, though, which means I can safely assume he's a fuckup too.