He doesn’t seem very confident in commercial space:

Do you have any hope for commercial space efforts, like Space X?

It has been the commercial space industry, under NASA’s leadership and guidance, that has allowed us to get to the moon and build a shuttle and everything that has happened in the last 50 years. To entirely turn it over without any oversight to the commercial sector, which is a word I question anyway, is going to take a long time. Some of these guys are highly qualified, but some are young entrepreneurs with a lot of money, and for them it’s kind of like a hobby. Not all of them. But some of them are making claims to get into space in five years for $10 billion, and even the Russians say it’s going to take twice as long if we put our eggs into that basket. I don’t have a lot of confidence in that end of the commercial space spectrum getting us back into orbit any time soon. I’d like to hear all these folks who call themselves commercial space tell me who their investors are. Tell me where their marketplace is. A commercial venture is supposed to use private money. And who are their users? Suppose we, NASA, have no need for their services. There’s no other marketplace for them. So is it really a commercial venture, or is it not? Is it a group of guys who have stars in their eyes and want to be a big space developer? I don’t know.

I don’t think they’ll come anywhere near accomplishing what they’ve said they can do. I said before Congress, and it’s still true today, they don’t yet know what they don’t know. We, if you’ll allow me to include myself with NASA, have been doing this for half a century. We have made mistakes. We’ve lost colleagues. Don’t you think we’ve learned from some of those mistakes? You bet your life we have. They have yet to learn from those mistakes. And I’m not willing as a taxpayer to sit here and pay them to make those mistakes before they can ever get where they think they can go. Now the good news side of this is there are some of the larger aerospace companies looking into getting into it, the Boeings, the Lockheed Martins, the ATKs, are now looking to compete in the commercial side of the business. That’s a little more encouraging. Those are the folks who have been working on everything we’ve done for the last 50 years. They know how it can be done.

Not encouraging at all. Would I still vote for Romney over Obama, knowing this? In a heartbeat. Putting out of office the corrupt and dangerously incompetent disaster currently in the White House would be worth the (manageable) risk of strangling the Obama space policy in the crib. Would we need to keep a sharp eye on a President Romney’s space policy to make sure Mike Griffin and others with Griffinian proclivities couldn’t pull the stake out of the heart of Constellation and resurrect his dream rocket at the expense of a non-NASA-dependent space industry? Absolutely. But when has there not been a need for space advocates to stand watch on space policy?

UPDATE: Interesting that Robert Crippen, another Romney space advisor, served as president of Thiokol Propulsion. 

Scott Pace [PDF] was head of program evaluations at NASA during the Griffin years, and at least as of last August Pace was promoting a return to the Ares I/Ares V architecture (as a better alternative to the SLS, believe it or not):

“Ironically, the budget pressures being put on the program right now would in my mind argue for returning to the previous plan,” Pace said, “which was launch and build Ares I first and build Ares V later.”

Ares I was the first and smaller of tworockets in the now-canceled Constellation program, which also included a Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) that is being constructed. Ares I, which could have taken astronauts back to the moon, was being developed in Huntsville by many of the aerospace workers now facing layoffs.

For Pace, Ares has several positives. First, a lot of money and time have already been spent on it, and that work would feed into the larger rocket later.

“You build on the work that was already done,” Pace said of Ares I. “You can fly the MPCV. You have five-segment solid (rocket motors) that are already done. You have a use then on the upper stage for the J-2X engine, which is also in development.”

To encourage commercial cargo runs, NASA has hired SpaceX and a second company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to fly cargo to the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 countries, which orbits about 240 miles above Earth.

A successful test flight by SpaceX — as well as a similar run by Orbital scheduled for next year — would begin restoring U.S. access to the station, which is expected to remain operational until at least 2020.

As others have pointed out, space policy is the one area where the Obama administration seems to be getting things more or less right – and that’s all the more amazing for it involving commercial endeavors. (It’s early, of course – if and when these commercial startups hit their stride, that will be when the federal government starts taxing and regulating them out of business like every other successful industry.)

I did, however, catch a bit of commentary on the radio while running errands Friday afternoon. Not sure what show it was (didn’t recognize the host — name was something like “Joe Pax”), but I tuned in just in time to hear a rant about how the end of the Shuttle program without a replacement on hand was a national tragedy, and that it came about because Obama cancelled Bush’s space policy only because it was Bush’s space policy.

Let’s unpack that, shall we?

The “national tragedy” bit simply repeated the received (un)wisdom that the end of Shuttle = end of US manned space exploration. Not so — NASA civil servant astronauts will still be flying to the predominantly-US International Space Station for the foreseeable future, albeit via the Russian Soyuz. New domestically-built and -launched spacecraft are a couple years out, so yes, we won’t be able to send NASA astronauts up on American-made vehicles for a while, but that does not equate to the end of an American presence in space. This part, though, I can understand — if someone hasn’t been following post-Columbia space policy, it may seem as though we are simply shutting down the manned side of NASA and giving up on space.

The worse flaw in his argument is the assertion (very strongly and unambiguously made by the host) that Obama cancelled the policy because it was Bush’s. This is utter bullshit, which a few minutes of research would have revealed as such. The policy that Obama cancelled (in part) was Mike Griffin’s, not George W. Bush’s. (While it’s true that Griffin reported to Bush who was in turn ultimately responsible, Constellation was unquestionably Griffin’s ill-begotten baby.) Bush gave us the broad policy of the VSE, which was later hijacked at the implementation level by Mike Griffin for his own vanity projects — the crowning glory of which was his Ares I launcher.

Griffin’s Constellation architecture is what was largely cancelled in February 2010, and with good reason — it was ill-conceived, over-sold, over-budget, under-performing, and behind schedule (more on that last in a moment). Obama’s cancellation of Griffin’s program was arguably the only good thing the man has accomplished as President, and it was done not out of spite for his predecessor (which I admittedly wouldn’t put beyond him), but because of the aforementioned problems.

And this brings us to the “gap” in American manned access to space, which was the inspiration for the rant. Had it not been for Griffin’s Ares-based Constellation architecture and its follow-on effects on the design of Orion, Orion might well have been ready to fly by now, or at the least with a minimal “gap” between Shuttle flyout and Orion IOC. Constant redesigns of Ares I and trouble meeting its performance goals meant redesigns and ultimately the stripping down of Orion, which in turn led to schedule slips with the latter. Had Orion (whether in in the original lifting-body form or the Griffin-mandated capsule form) been directed to fly on an EELV — in-production rockets with known performance characteristics and much more benign flight environments — a good portion of its development schedule slip could have been avoided. Which means we would have had little if any “gap” to cause radio talk show hosts consternation, nor reason for said hosts to suspect partisan motivations behind a necessary shift in space policy.

To be fair, when I came back to the program about fifteen minutes later, the host was admitting (apparently at the prompting of a caller I had missed in the meantime) that the shift to a more commercial orientation for manned access to space was a welcome development. But rather than rethink his earlier foolishness, he stuck to his guns and (incredibly, for a supposedly right-wing, pro-business, free-markets type of host) expressed doubt that commercial providers could ever fill that role. Which is disappointing — if people who are supposed to favor private enterprise allow their “national greatness” emotional priorities take precedence over letting a new industry take root, who will defend the new industry against those who don’t favor private enterprise?

NASA has reached an important milestone for the next U.S. transportation system that will carry humans into deep space. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced today that the system will be based on designs originally planned for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. Those plans now will be used to develop a new spacecraft known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV).

Peachy. Have we gone through enough iterations that we can start calling the new vehicle “Fred“?

This isn’t anything new, as this idea in general form has been floating around since shortly after the “cancellation” announcement in February 2010. What’s concerning, however, is the notion that the MPCV would be able to support crews of 4 for 21 days, all on its own. On Orion, that longevity had been been moved to a post-ISS-version block upgrade. If that becomes the baseline for the initial operational capability of the MPCV, it’s back to the drawing boards, at least for ECLSS.

I’d quibble with a few of Whittle’s comments that relate to Orion, but other than that, it’s worth watching. It’s almost enough to make me run out and join a startup right now…

NASA’s human spaceflight program is ‘adrift’ as budget cuts may doom deal

It’s merely a jobs/votes program.

I saw the same mindset in action when Mike Coffman (CO-6)  and – much, much later – Ed Perlmutter (CO-7) came to reassure us about their efforts to preserve our jobs even at the expense (if need be) of commercial space. To be fair, though, in a subsequent conversation with Rep. Coffman he did sound more amenable to commercial space, and regretted that he wasn’t on a committee with direct influence over that area of the budget. (Perlmutter? Who knows?)

I bet the Utah/ATK delegation will be really proud of their job-saving performance when they cause the entire Orion program to be cancelled.

(An amusing aside: the article cites February 22, 2031 as the launch date for a mission to Mars…which happens to be about six weeks before the launch of the fourth exploration mission to Mars in the backstory to our novel, a launch which includes the hab in which our protagonist grows up.)

I just hope they don’t wait too long for a commercial provider to emerge. There’s scuttlebutt going around that they are working with multiple contenders to assure that they aren’t left without some means of getting to their station(s).

What a change ten months can make.

While last year, the dome tooling was still mostly in place (a few of the mechanical assembly pedestals had been pulled up), most of the mechanical assembly area and associated material cribs have been cleared out, leaving behind only the more complicated tools used for NC machining of the SRB fittings. Last year, there was still a pair of LOx tanks in post-proof inspection near the end of the production line, and an LH2 tank which had just had its forward dome (the last major segment) welded on. Today, all of the weld tools (domes, barrels, ogives, and major weld) had been mothballed and wrapped up, along with the large milling machines and lathes used to trim the various segments – it was like walking through a winter storage facility filled with shrink-wrapped boats.

What impressed me the most, however, was that for the first time in twelve-plus years, I saw areas of the factory with the lights turned off.

What this suggests is that there isn’t any hardware work going on to extend the Shuttle program beyond the number of tanks currently on-hand or in final assembly. If, as rumored, NASA is directed to extend the Shuttle program, they’d better start soon if they don’t want to end up with the long gap such an extension would be meant to avoid or minimize – due simply to the time lag in tank manufacturing.  And if what I was told about spares is true, it may only be possible to manufacture two additional tanks, assuming at that that everything would go perfectly and none of the spare components on order or in house have unrepairable defects or damage. With the one flightworthy tank I’m told will be left over at the end of the Shuttle program, that means an extension of at most three flights before the supply chain would need to be restarted — at considerable expense and delay.

While it was amusing to see one of my friends from New Orleans and what I think was the back of my boss’ head in a couple of the clips, I have to agree with Keith that the video is propaganda. And not merely propaganda aimed at saving Constellation, but saving Ares I in particular – made clear by the emotional manipulation towards the end of the vehicle, where images of children set to funereal music segue into an image of Ares I, equating it with The Space Program and describing it as “America’s Rocket”.

But nearly as apalling in this regard is the map which appears at about 6:25. Notice anything missing from this map purporting to show the players in Constellation? It isn’t ATK, Boeing, or Pratt & Whitney. While Turzillo may have merely scavenged this animation from other public video, the way that it is used here suggests that these contractors, with NASA, are the only ones taking part in Constellation. It is spliced in under the “Who Are You Guys?” segment, after all, the question in-context implying Constellation as a whole – were this video explicitly showcasing Ares I, I’d see no problem with it, but as it very clearly attempts to encapsulate the whole program it comes across as a slap in the face to the rest of us.

About three or so years ago, when Ares I’s many, many problems really started coming to light andthe fixes started to eat away at other areas of the agency’s budget, I cynically speculated that at some point all other money at NASA’s disposal would be used up, and Orion itself would have to be cancelled in order to fund the development of the vehicle meant to launch it. In Gift of the Magi fashion, we might eventually end up with a rocket that worked, but it would come at the cost of sacrificing the purpose for which it was supposedly built.

I may be reading too much into this single video by a Ares I engineer (made on his own time, and not sanctioned by his employer), but I have to wonder if this is what it will come to when the new space policy is taken up by Congress.  I’m certainly no less cynical about such things than I was three years ago, so I can readily imagine the absurd prospect of the rest of Constellation getting the axe, while Ares I is saved by grace of its stronger Congressional backing – despite being shorn of its stated reason for being.

I think Michael Mealing comes closest to my own attitude towards this development:

President Obama’s new policy for NASA is the most fiscally conservative and downright capitalist policy to come along since the agency was founded. 

And yes, it really boggles my mind that that should be the case. Obama? Capitalist? Who’da thunk? As one co-worker quipped today, Obama seems confused: he wants to nationalize a private industry in healthcare, but privatize the national program in manned space. One thing that has really surprised me today is how many of my friends have called or emailed me, expressing shock and disappointment that we are now “abandoning” space – unwittingly accepting the premise that a government program is our only possible means of getting people there. The perception that government is the sole entity capable of conducting manned spaceflight is so ingrained and unquestioned that it doesn’t seem to occur to even those who claim to be capitalists to question it.

But of course, I have to temper my surprise and excitement at this prospect, much as I did regarding the newfound enthusiasm for nuclear power Mr. Obama expressed in his SOTU last week. There’s going to be a lot of haggling to get the Congressional NASA caucus on board with this (although one Senator who could have been expected to be among the biggest roadblocks seems to be climbing on board – however reluctantly). It’s going to take some time, and who knows, just as ESAS made a dog’s breakfast of the VSE, so too could Congressional compromises and NASA resistance turn the promise of this new policy direction into yet another dead end.