U.S. Space Policy Announcement

Those who follow space policy know that President Bush made a policy speech at the headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington, DC on 14 January 2004.

The President expressed confidence in NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe's leadership of this new program. He will also establish a new National Commission on Space, chaired by former Air Force Secretary Edward Aldridge, to oversee the effort. The Commission is to make its first report to him four months after its first meeting.

As expected, the President presented little in the way of budget detail. He did direct NASA to reallocate $11B out of its $86B total budget for the next five years to implementing the new program. He will also ask the Congress to provide an additional $1B over that half-decade.

The first thing to note1 in the President's timetable is the four-year gap between Shuttle's last flight and the first flight of the CEV. Undoubtedly, ISS will be supported in this interim period by Russia's Soyuz (as it is during the current hiatus in Shuttle flights) and/or by the ATV which the European Space Agency (ESA) is developing. As I understand it, ATV is now 12 to 18 months away from first launch. Also, NASA has RFPs out for vehicles to provide "Alternate Access to Space". This may bear fruit. It is also possible (though unlikely) that ISS may be deemed to have done its job sometime during those four years, and consigned to the same fate as Mir — a plunge into the South Pacific.

The CEV is apparently a replacement for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP), which itself is a replacement for the ISS lifeboat last known as the Crew Return Vehicle2 (CRV). As Bush described it, the CEV is to be capable of lifting personnel and small cargoes to ISS, returning people from ISS, and also venturing beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous orbit, to the Lagrange Points, or to the Moon. This is quite a demanding set of requirements for a single vehicle, and it will be most interesting to see how it develops. As originally conceived in 1990, the space station's lifeboat (then called ACRV) had only to provide for bringing ISS crew back to Earth quickly and safely in an emergency. Having watched that relatively simple design morph into a mini-shuttle capable of ascent as well as descent (OSP), and now into the even more complex CEV, I am skeptical that its development will succeed.

Another vital component of this exploration plan is nuclear power. Announced a year ago as Project Prometheus, the effort to develop nuclear power sources (both fission reactors and radioisotope heat sources) for use in space promises much shorter transit times for interplanetary voyages, as well as more capable science probes3. Yet although I listened carefully to the President's address today, I cannot clearly recall any mention of such power sources. Nuclear power in space is of course a political hot potato. I doubt that President Bush is afraid to support it; but the Congress may be.

Indeed, the Congress may refuse to authorize any part of Bush's space plan. Many will be disposed to object on the basis that it would pull funding away from essential social programs. There is the quite valid objection that it will increase the deficit. And there will also be concern that many existing NASA programs, such as Earth observation or aeronautics research, will be curtailed in favor of the upstart effort. Many of these NASA programs deserve to continue. Thanks to long-standing practice, they also employ people who are the constituents of widely distributed senators and representatives — a fact which makes even wasteful programs hard to kill.

Finally, there is the open question of out-year costs. This is a long-term program. Even if Bush is re-elected, most of its expense will be incurred during the administration of some other president. It is far from certain how many parts of the program will ever actually come to pass. (There is even some justification for the cynical viewpoint that Bush — or Karl Rove, said to be the architect of the plan — intends that it largely fade away. If that happens, it will happen after Bush leaves office. He will be seen as the courageous advocate of a bold, innovative space exploration effort, while his successor or the Congress of that period gets blamed for dropping the ball.)

I am strongly in favor of what President Bush has proposed on this day. Yet based on the above, and knowing what I do of American politics, NASA, and the American aerospace industry, I have to say that I don't expect it will lead to much in the way of worthwhile tangible results.

1 The next thing to note is that NASA, ESA, the Russians — nations or groups of nations in general — are not the only players in the space-access game. Several startup companies are using private funding to develop suborbital vehicles. At least one of those will fly within the next few years. It is a long shot, financially and technically, but it's quite possible that such a startup will, "before this decade is out," succeed in demonstrating a spacecraft capable of reaching orbit and returning safely to the Earth.

2 The original space station lifeboat had just one job: In the event of an emergency such as a major air leak or a sick or injured occupant, it had to carry station personnel back to Earth quickly and safely. Back then it was called ACRV (assured crew return vehicle) or CERV (crew emergency return vehicle). As modern aerospace programs go, developing something to do the same job, even with a longer service life and more cross-range capability compared to the Russian Soyuz capsule which serves as the lifeboat now, would not be a very challenging or expensive task. Instead, the requirements have been constantly changed and new functions grafted onto the design, resulting in steadily ballooning costs and slipping schedules. This is not the way to get a reliable spacecraft on a set budget by a known date.

3 Just one example: Using nuclear power, the long-delayed robotic mission to Pluto might well reach that distant world even before the arrival date projected when it was first proposed. As well, it could carry more instruments and return data at rates far greater than any probe so far.

To Open The Sky

U.S. Space Policy Announcement

Washington, DC — 14 January 2004