Tell Us What You Really Think, Jeff

What utter bull. The reason there was no supporting data was IT WAS A PRELIMINARY SUMMARY. When the supporting data tables are published in the full report, what will be the excuse then? I am SICK of all of this whining about a report that hasn't even been published yet.
Since Jeff is so unable to cope with any deviations from Constellation, I am assuming that he will do the right thing and resign should the President so direct NASA?
This, on top of Mike Griffin's outrageous criticisms really don't serve NASA or the national interest. People should shut up and be patient-which is the professional thing to do.
And this is only my personal opinion.
These kinds of thoughtless public comments reflect poorly on those expressing them.

Frank,

I'm not being argumentative, but I read into Hanley's email that what really ticked him off was the delta between the data given and the conclusions reached, which didn't seem to match the data in his opinion.

Don't you think Ride and Bejmuk have a point--you can't talk just about mission safety while saying all paths to that mission are of an equal safety rating? Firstly, that's non-sense. Since Bejmuk is the only one on the panel with real launch experience as an operator, shouldn't his issues on Thursday's call with the above carry some weight? Bejmuk is, I would guess, in a position to know the trend of the Committee's final report. Perhaps that is why he was raising such a ruckus? I got the feeling on Thursday that Augustine's desire for post final report cohesion is breaking-up. Did you get that same impression? Bejmuk seemed on Thursday to have writer's remorse.

Well the only whining I see is coming from the petty posters here in the peanut gallery, who have no dog in this fight (and don't suggest that because of your being a taxpayer that you do, cause you don’t in the real world). Anyhow, based on the alleged language Jeff used it appears he made his comments to a set of close associates in a private e-mail as this is not his typical public choice of words. His problem appears to be in choosing whom he trusts to keep his comments confidential and not making them public. As for his technical comments, I have yet to see a legitimate counter point offered to Jeff's points. Perhaps its because journalists and non-engineers have only a big picture notion of what is going on and would get lost in technical details and so choose to do what they do best and…... well you know what I mean. Hey why let details get in the way of a good roasting of Jeff? From the Augustine "preliminary report" it is apparent that consensus among the panel was bi-polar or multi-polar at best which comes across as contradictory. Like Jeff or not he has served with distinction, dedication and is second to none in running the Constellation Program. Since everyone hear is in the business of giving free unsolicited advice let me try a hand at it. If reading this blog makes you SICK you should stop reading it as your health is not worth it. Thanks for reading through my RANT.

I'm still wondering who leaked the original email to the press. Was it Mr. Coats or someone in his office? Or did Mr. Hanley BCC to a friendly journalist? We'll probably never know. However, the generally combatative tone will probably not go down well with the anti-Constellation lobby in general and might cost Mr. Hanley should General Bolden be planning a shake-up at CxP. A Project Manager with an uncertain step over such things is a potential liability.

That aside, I do have to agree that, in an ideal world, the Augustine Commission would have evaluated not only alternate vehicles but also alternate strategies against a series of agreed milestones and objectives such as:

* Minimising the US indigenous crew launch gap;
* Technical achievability (exacly how many new things and proceedures are needed);
* Shortest time out of LEO;
* Mission capability flexibility (how easy is it to get this thing to do something else);
* Can we actually afford to fly this thing more often than once every six months?

I suspect that there is a lot of politics involved and Mr. Augustine and his panel did not want to be found 'contradicting' anyone in a position of power. Hence the very equivocal tone overall of both the summary and of Mr. Augustine's testimony before Congress.

Eagle Eye: these are not "private emails" that Hanley sent. He is discussing matters directly related to his job - to his boss and co-workers - and he used his nasa.gov email address and sent these emails to a wide distribution. If he truly had "confidential" information to share there are ways to do that so as to ensure that things are indeed confidential - and kept that way. Instead, Hanley decided to use plain old email.

It has to be said, I don't know much about the man's technical credentials, but he's hopeless at management and "soft skills": Who can be stupid enough to send that kind of email around in his position and in this context? If that cost him his job I'd say that's welcome Darwinian selection...

A.

@ Jim,

"Since Bejmuk is the only one on the panel with real launch experience as an operator, shouldn't his issues on Thursday's call with the above carry some weight?"

All things being equal, I'd say 'yes'. However, all things are not equal. Unless my memory is faulty, Dr. Bejmuk is chairman of a major element of CxP management and thus has a significant dog in this fight. That means that his viewpoint will be naturally biased towards 'his' side.

I'm not stating or even implying any impropriety on his part. He has an opinion and he would be remiss to not state it. However, the rest of the panel must consider all factors and this includes the possibility that he is overlooking certain factors in his assessment of such things as Ares-I's actual (rather than projected) safety and the importance of these projections vs. the estimates of cost and schedule.

Keith: I guess the argument has descended to what private means. So lets go down that rabbit trail for a moment. Please enlighten all of us, did Jeff send NASA WATCH the email with his comments? Since its all public why not settle this simply by revealing who provided NASA WATCH the email? I think that would be an interesting bit of news and make this story all the more tantalizing.

Eagle Eye: Uh huh. Yea right - I am suddenly about to abandon 14 years of protecting my sources simply to satisfy your curiosity.

I'll restate my central thesis: the core of Hanley's argument is there was no supporting data supplied to back up their statements. The supporting data will come in the final, full version of the report-not in what passes as an executive summary. I believe as a result he is being disengenious, false, misleading and perjorative.

Keith: Just as I surmised, it was a "private" e-mail that was intended to remain that way, and not public as Frank suggested in his initial post.

Hey "Eagle Eye" it would be nice if I knew who you were - hmm, why are you hiding your identity? Could it be that you do not want attribution? Why is that? Guess what: my sources are in the same situation.

Last word on this: these were official NASA emails sent by one NASA employee using an official government email system to other NASA employees regarding their official NASA duties - period. I am simply not going to tell you how I got copies of them.

File an official FOIA request. I'll bet NASA sends it to you.

The executive summary is obviously affecting the public, NASA, and possibly congress. And, in my opinion, that is the purpose of an executive summary. Given that the caliber of the committee is high, I'm not sure it was professional to release such a document without supporting data. They should be capable of making more than two (I believe it was two) references and suppling an appendix with data and tables. It is my opinion that if we are to succeed with our space program, the bar needs to set higher.

no need to publish this as it was your last word. Just but because its an "official" government email system does not mean its for PUBLIC distribution. I guess you've lost your sense of where the line is. As for curiosity, I could care less who sent the Email to you. All I was attempting, I guess poorly, was to make a point that just as Jeff sent something in confidence with expectations of privacy so did the leaker send it to you with expectations of privacy.

Simple protocol, Eagle Eye, calls for discretion when using any form of electronic communications-especially a government, public agency one. If Hanley wanted to convey this message to his boss, he should have written it down on paper and put it in his inbox.
I strongly suspect it was sent this way-especially the second email-to gather support and encourage other internal Constellation staffers to rise to the project's defense. As I have said previously, this is inappropriate conduct for a public official-imagine his problem with credibility should Constellation be changed substantially by Presidential decision. He has already placed himself apart from his Commander-in-Chief under that scenario. Who would trust his decisions and management then? More careful consideration of the affects of such advocacy should be required BEFORE speaking out. Since nobody knows what will happen, Hanley puts his management in doubt should the decision go against his views.

"Eagle Eye" Everything that Jeff Hanley sends as part of his job on a NASA.gov email account is an official matter of record. Period. He knows this. He also knows that confidential matters can be handled in ways that actually are "confidential" if indeed the information actually is "confidential". If you saw how many people he sent this to, the last thing you'd imagine him thinking was that it was "private".

Many of the commenters presuppose that the Augustine Commission's report is actually good for the space program.

From what I have seen at this point, there is not too much in the report that I necessarily agree with.

Many of you seem to think that by following the report then NASA will be on the right and correct path regarding space exploration.

I pose this thought:

it is quite possible the Augustine Commission is simply a fancy way of delaying or slowing down the expenses on the program. And the report to be released is simply a redo of the obvious things that everyone already knew. It is a red herring so that everything gets simply delayed and put off.

Would those who come down so hard on Ares 1 and Ares V, be so quick to condemn the rockets if they knew that the Ares was really the only choice for a long long time.

If Ares I is cancelled, i'll wager that 5 years from now we will be wondering why it was cancelled and wondering whether Americans will be able to go into space with any sort of domestic rocket ever again.

I'd like to ask a question. The question is not intended to bring forward a viewpoint of mine. I'd like to read what the many knowledgeable individuals on this site think. OK. If, the design of a new man rated system were to go to a commercial company, who are the current players to choose from? And, does that company have the intellectual capital (people and equipment) to support such a task? If they don't, how will they acquire it?

...And, does that company have the intellectual capital (people and equipment) to support such a task? If they don't, how will they acquire it?....

They will just hire from NASA.

If this whole debate about Ares happened during Mercury or Gemini, there would not have been a Saturn 1, IV, or V or any moon landing.

(both Mercury and Gemini were launched on icbm rockets... The Saturn was the first man-rated NASA designed launcher.)

"it is quite possible the Augustine Commission is simply a fancy way of delaying or slowing down the expenses on the program."

The Augustine Commission is filled with people who have had a stake in launch vehicles and human space flight for most of their careers. It's a stretch to propose that this time they all agreed to commit so much personal energy to a Machiavellian effort to delay and obstruct that grand endeavor. Even Bolden, in the most political job at NASA, will be unable to do such a cynical thing. Only someone outside the launch/HSF business could do that.

"Would those who come down so hard on Ares 1 and Ares V, be so quick to condemn the rockets if they knew that the Ares was really the only choice for a long long time."

That's what everyone has been debating for the last few months -- whether Ares I and V are the only feasible path forward. You seem to think you have the right answer already. Why didn't you come explain it to the Augustine Committee? ;-)

Papa, I don't think Martin implying that he knows of an Ares I replacement program currently. I think what Martin is worried about is that the Obama Administration created the Augustine Committee for the purpose of slowing down Constellation. And some new to NASA, not Bolden, are specific in their desire to see Project Constellation altered by first canceling Ares I. Given that last week Mikuski and Boxer came out in support of additional funds for Constellation, and that Kucinich did today, I'd say that if some wanted Augustine's Committee to hold back Constellation that they were very off the mark.

More generally, as Ares I is an ongoing, metal is being bent, code written and testing conducted, I think it is the Committee that has the burden of providing a contra program that is safer, will reach IOC before Ares I, and will cost no more than Ares I. And if that program is the Delta-IV-HLV, then Boeing should sign a fixed-price-plus contract with NASA to assure the American people that it is as confident as the Committee is with this choice. But if the Delta-IV-H were so attractive as a launcher, I imagine Boeing would have started it's own Delta-IV-HLV derivative by now.

I guess turn around is fair play. What makes Mr. Hanley think that NASA has the human capital to be able to design these spacecraft and rockets ?

NASA human space flight has not designed or built a spacecraft or rocket in decades.

Other than X-38 which was done in-house, no spacecraft or rocket since the early Saturn 1's were built by NASA civil servants. They have all been built by commercial industry under contract. Even all the later "US" ISS components, like the Nodes and Cupola, were built by foreign contractors. The earlier ISS hardware was done in the early to mid-1990s.

There are a few of the US people involved in the establishment of the design of Apollo, Shuttle, ISS, Spacehab, Spacelab and Mir, but none of the people with any serious and successful experience seem to be managers in Constellation.

It appears that the Constellation management excluded people out of anything other than operations organizations.

NASA is mainly the requirements and contracts managers. The performance by Constellation and Ares management to date; the inability to establish a consistent set of even the most basic requirements, or a stable design, or a straightforward, comprehensive and achievable budget, are what the OMB, Augustine and the White House all have cited as issues.

Many within NASA CxP disagree about Hanely & CxP & here's one of the threads http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/08/congressional-pleading-for-ares-1.html

just some of CornDogRocket's comments:

Now if you ask Hanley I am sure you’ll hear that everything is wonderful just like every email we ever get from him. Not to overly slam him…but Jeff Hanley is a Flight Director. I know what it takes to be a flight director. You respond to real time failures with pre planned procedures. You do deviate from the procedure but most of the training involves practicing how to respond to system failures. This skill set is absolutely not what makes a good project manager. To this day, I cannot believe that Mike G put Hanley – a flight director with zero project management experience – in charge of the single largest development effort in NASA history.

Actually, ya might want to do some more Apollo homework.

Chapters 7 "We Had More Hairbrained Schemes than you could shake a stick at":

http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Charles-Murray/dp/0976000806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255395148&sr=1-1

Yes, and every so often reminder email notices go out to all NASA & contractor employees that emails sent to certain GS level NASA folks are specially auto-archived for some public records storage, maybe for library of congress or something like that.

Seems like everybody's notified also that all govt/contractor email correspondence are subject to foia & such.

(Although, it seems like there was at least one KSC contractor that sent an email instructing all employees to regularly delete their work emails citing an example about a lawsuit against some commercial company that was won with old emails recovered. Might have been from the Alaska "FTE" contractor. Think work email deleting is prohibited or might be illegal in DOD).

Still skeptical about Augustine panel's objectiveness. Read at NSF that Bo is really pro-commercial, so supporting CxP fits nicely in that scheme, LoL!)

If you could think up everything to do for an unsuccessful rocket design, what's the most likely to fail (and therefore, commercial seems better):

-use solids rather than liquids
-assign project managers with none-to-little successful experience in project management much less rockets or HSF
-put a college professor in charge, instead of a from the grounds up know-how & know-why project manager

and the list goes on & on.

CxP just seems to be a make work project for keeping ATK busy so they don't raise prices for DOD (according to some @ NSF) or to end up with Commercial seeming to be better than NASA HSF.

Martin, to answer your question: SpaceX, Orbital, Boeing/Bigelow, Lockheed Martin, and all of the firms that lost out in the original CEV competition..

Frank,

I'm sorry, but "More careful consideration of the affects of such advocacy should be required BEFORE speaking out" is exactly the kind of statement that reinforces the "culture" problems that we have been seeing at NASA kill organizational innovation and flexibility for years. Passionate people must be encouraged, not burried.

Mr. Hanley might have used a questionable tone in certain instances, but I believe that it shows a person that is passionate about what he is doing and, yes, is defending it from a commission that is basically attacking his current life's work. We hear so much about "culture changing". Well, if we are serious about it, then comments like this should not be scolded or burried, but must be answered in a civilized manner. Mr. Hanley does bring up a number of very good technical points. In addition, we need to stop trying to rip people apart for speaking out - if we are to succeed, we need to find a way to address the technical points while communicating the errors in choice of tone or communication vehicle.

The passion that Mr. Hanley shows, I feel, is refreshing. Ultimately, I'm not to say whether he's right or wrong, but if I was trying to accomplish a big task, I would want someone that cared about it and was emotionally invested in it to be a part of running it.

Technically, the bottom line to me is that there are many ways to solve the manned spaceflight architecture problem, which is one of the most complex problems facing human beings today. We have, however, committed tens of thousands of man hours (if not more) to this solution and have began moving down the road on it. There might be more efficient, cost-effective, safe, or reliable ways to do this, but Constellation provides a good, flexible solution, and the other architectures are years behind where we are now. If we are able to committ to the program we have been working on for years, I am sure that we will be able to improve upon it greatly over time.

Just my 3 cents.

Anon, for a program manager to insert himself into the debate on the future of the very program he helps manage places him in an untenable position, should that program be revamped. Some would always question his loyalty to the new program, whether he was working in concert with those he initially criticized, etc. The place for his concerns, which may or may not be truly valid, is behind closed doors with his bosses, not in the public square.

Thanks Frank.

Anyone have recommendations for what to use as a sanity check for the development cost of a commercial launch vehicle to low earth orbit? I know it's not apples to apples, but, from the internet, I see that the development cost for the 777 is between 5 and 10 billion (closer to 10 it seems) and the development cost of the A380 is 15 billion. One idea of mine is to use this as a crude metric since I would think the two companies are making every effort to minimize that cost. (OK, I'm not sure of the politics of Airbus so maybe that statement doesn't apply and I'm not certain what goes into the development cost as used here) Anyway, should one expect the development cost of a commercial LEO launch vehicle (an Ares-1 replacement) to be less, in that range, or more? If it is less, why is it less?

@ Eagle Eye - he sent it from a tax-payer funded email address to other tax-payer funded emails. Unless it's classified info it is absolutely public and fair game.

Sorry, another question. I saw the NASA budget history on wiki. In 2007 money the budget was 15.8 billion and in 2009 the budget was 17.2 billion. The budget bounces around with 17.2 being the high and 15.6 being the low. It doesn't seem that the development of Ares-1 has changed the budget that much. Is NASA doing full cost accounting? Is some of the Ares-1 development money going for people, facilities, etc that NASA would be paying for regardless of the existence of the Ares-1 development? I guess what I'm asking is, how much money would NASA truly save if it stopped development of the Ares-1?

Frank, I agree that it does put him in an untenable position and that if the program is revamped, Mr. Hanley may not be able to "recover" from these statements, and therefore, might not have a place in the new program.

This, however, is exactly what I give him credit for - he has to realize that that is what he has done by sending out this email, but the importance to defend his program, in this case, is more important than potentially that of keeping his job if the program were to be revamped.

The difficulty with discussing these concerns with his bosses, is ultimately, I'm not sure anyone in the NASA chain really has the ability to counter the commission's report. Mr. Hanley has made a plea for public support through his comments, which might have been his only avenue of truly defending the program.

JO5H you are misguided. All government e-mail are not public. That is a simpleton view of FOIA. Keith if you think all of Handley's e-mail's fall under FOIA then why not help us "learn something" by filing and seeing all the e-mails he sent, since lets say July through September. I don't believe you'd be successful. Some here are trying to equate FOIA with leakers. They are not.

I don't think Martin implying that he knows of an Ares I replacement program currently.

I was responding to esmithatty, who claimed pretty directly that Ares I and V is the only viable path.

I think what Martin [esmithatty] is worried about is that the Obama Administration created the Augustine Committee for the purpose of slowing down Constellation.

And my point is that the Commission doesn't have to go along with such games, once they're seated. They'll follow their own noses and come up with something they think they can defend. I sat on a committee that was small-scale but similar, and the only such direction we had was guidelines about the likely NASA budget for that activity for the next 10 years. That clearly happened to the Augustine Commission, apparently something like "don't expect budget increases"; and their response was saying that the current plans don't match the current budget. Increase spending or suffer with delays. They looked for low-hanging fruit that would solve the disconnect, and basically found no savings other than commercial transport to ISS.

"Eagle Eye", I think you are the one who is confused. This discussion is now off topic.

ThinkTwice: "No other design is even close to providing the capabilities of Ares. Jeff Hanley is right. Mike Griffin is right."

This sentiment which I've heard from others in the Constellation is counterproductive and abortive to the discussion of policy of national importance which is funded with public funds. Similarly a statement like "Ares is bad. Jeff Hanley, Mike Griffin and co. are wrong. So there." be counterproductive. Everything of such matter has to be scrutinized.

The capabilities of Ares are limited: witness the downsizing of crew from 6 to 4. Witness the budget and time ( that were generous for such a primitive system to begin with ) overruns. Witness high operational costs for a launcher that has no other uses but infrequent flights within the HSF program.

To the best of my knowledge neither Jeff Hanley, nor Mike Griffin have ever led a single new system design effort (especially as complex as an entire approach to human space flight for the next decades) to completion, so they can't possibly automatically be assumed right either (but the lack of experience doesn't necessarily disqualify them either)

On the other hand, both SpaceX and the 2 EELV teams have created capable launchers just recently, each with a track flight record already, and that is where the real competence and expertise lies.