The Ares 1 Cancellation Backlash Begins - Before It Is Even Announced

The news coming out now about Obama's state of the union speech is looking pretty grim. It apparently contains a proposal for freezing *all* non-defense federal funding for the next three years. The future for any launcher, Ares variant or some alternative, is looking really dim right now...

With no Shuttle program and probable termination of the Ares I, that should leave NASA with at least $6.4 billion year, that's plenty of money to continue funding the Orion-CEV, a Jupiter core vehicle and an EDS stage.

Marcel F. Williams

"Views of the Agency's Watchdogs"... that title sort of (SORT of?) gives away what it's going to be - another *yawn* lambasting of Constellation critics. I am a supporter of the Constellation architecture and a believer (hugger) of Ares I. I fervently believe it is, technically, the best architecture. I'm also a realist and have come to terms with the simple fact that Constellation is dead. I don't like it, really don't like it, but that's how it is. And in light of what the next few years budgets will be like, Constellation CAN'T be executed anyway. In fact, NASA is just not going to have the funds to do any sort of human space exploration. The agency's new core purpose is funding (funneling money to) private corporations so they can develop their own means of accessing merely low Earth orbit, along with a few climate change study satellites and the standard fare of cheesy out-of-touch so-called "education" initiatives. That's NASA's new purpose, and that's it. Exploration doesn't fit in anywhere anymore. For those who thought that all that was necessary to enable "real" exploration was to kill Ares I, you got what you wanted, and more. Exploration is dead too, plain and simple, a sort of throwing the baby out with the bathwater kind of thing like some of us predicted. Now it's likely none of us except for the young will ever have the chance to witness human footsteps on another world in our lifetimes. It's sad, but it's (almost certainly) the truth. That's what we need to get used to now. Forget exploration and just focus on commercialization of low Earth orbit. The only thing I will say is that those who have worked hard to get to this point will have no right to complain in 10 years when we're STILL stuck doing nothing but going round and round the world endlessly, instead of outward into the Solar System. It's what you wanted.

I'm really not a fan of manned space exploration at this moment of time in our history.

I think NASA's primary focus should be on setting up bases on the Moon and then Mars and exploiting the resources of the asteroids. I also think NASA should help private industry develop the manned space flight capability for space tourism (not government contracts).

But once we have continuously growing colonies on the Moon and Mars and possibly on space stations, then, if I'm still alive, I'd like to see NASA focus on a new era of pure space exploration, visiting places like: Ceres, Mercury, Callisto, and the moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Marcel F. Williams

As Griffin said as he was booted out the door, 'this is all about who gets the money'. Well, he was right. And the money is now going to Commercial Space.

NASA has a habit of making all it's contractors 'do things the way NASA would do them'. So in the end, the contractors culture and technical processes (and therefore costs) tend to look just like NASA, if NASA were doing it.

I assume folks in the WH/OMB think this new 'outsourcing' direction will save the taxpayer money...I would not bet on that.

You really need to get over this bitterness spacearium. In reality, if NASA is stuck in LEO for the next ten years (i.e., until the earliest politically acceptable retirement date of the ISS), then that will, in part, be due to years and billions of dollars wasted on the Ares-I fever dream. If it were not for the fact that just building the LEO-only CLV virtually broke the agency's budget, NASA would likely be a lot further down the road to building exploration equipment such as a lander and a long-duration orbital module for NEO missions. The simple and inescapable fact is that, if NASA had gone with a directly-shuttle derived LV for its next-gen launch system, we might even be looking at a zero gap transition from Shuttle to Orion.

If the government is going to funnel lots of money into commercialising LEO, it is because that NASA has demonstrated that it seems institutionally incapable of doing the surface-to-LEO HSF mission cost-effectively. Any attempt to do so just ends up being more and more expensive ($1B per Ares-I shot?!?).

Ego, arrogance and an inability to see reality is what killed human exploration, not the spaceflight enthusiasts who saw the ESAS train wreck for what it was long before it hit the buffers.

Spacearium,

This is not the end, its only just the beginning.

To start, let's face facts of who is to blame.

Griffin and his team of acolytes arrogance and ego got in the way of serving the public interest of space, and instead of embracing a wide review of options created several very vocal and powerful critics, by closing the process of development off from public view. Visible failures (ARES PDR) were hailed as triumphs. Congressional efforts at oversight of Constellation activities were were derailed at every point of contact, putting some pretty powerful persons against support.

It was well understood that congress was only providing minimum support, as the administration was term limited, this would provide a fresh opportunity to fully review the program up to that point.

Ares had nothing to show for progress (ARES IX was a circus stunt, nothing more).

PDR's CDR's exist for a reason in a systems engineering process. They provide opportunities to identify problems and to resolve them. When you pervert the PDR process, and claim failure is success, then you are hopelessly lost.

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2008/09/ares-pdr-was-not-as-smooth-as-nasa-says-it-was.html

Had Griffin and his acolytes chosen instead to develop an incremental growth plan, showing progress in stages, rather than putting a gun to Americas head with the "all or nothing" approach, we would not be where we are today.

Please take some time in honest open retrospection, to review the TRUE cause of failure, and then come back and lets talk about how we go forward, TOGETHER, as a proud country, in a positive constructive manner.

Only by coming forward with an accurate and realistic approach, with incremental proven successes to judge progress, will we work our way out of this situation.

Folks working on Constellation had the "best of intentions", sadly their leadership failed them.
The shame rightfully remains with them, however the proud employees of NASA and their contractors have no shame to bear.

SPOCK ( I don't do feelings. Just think of me as Spock)

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/07/spock-has-certainly-left-the-building.html

bears the full brunt of failure first and foremost, as NASA is a government agency, and government agencies by their very nature are political.

WHAT WAS HE THINKING?

The peasants worked hard, and did what they were told. Now its time for the peasants to take charge of this situation and put the program "back on solid ground".

This starts with adhearance to systems engineering principles.

1. Establish mission requirements

2. Define the vehicle to carry the crew.

3. Develop a propulsion system to carry the vehicle to orbit, with an abort system.

4. Refine, Build, Test

5. Incremental improvement, expand requirements.

6. goto step 4

Its time to FORGIVE AND FORGET!

If we all pull together and "put one foot in front of the other" then we can turn this situation around.

We are Americans, we can do anything we set our minds toward accomplishing!

Don't give up!

Put the past behind you and get working, towards our future!

Well, it may well be doom and gloom for US human space flight, but there are other nations that are moving forward. China have expressed ambitions for the moon and even mars. Many years away, of course, but in a worst case scenario for US spaceflight it may well help generate US political will to compete again in the future. You could even see the US funding situation as a very short term, politically necessary, postponent. In that view, beyond-LEO-things will get going again in some form as the economy recovers more. There's still things to look forward to with unmanned exploration missions meanwhile.

"ever have the chance to witness American footsteps on the Moon"

There fixed that for you.

Whilst this elderly space cadet doubts he will see any human return to the Moon in his life time, this may be a good thing; providing we concentrate on substantial tele-presence rather than symbolic "BootsnFlags."
In the long term Mars is a TR level too far. But the younger posters here may see a flexible Phobos Base. In the mean time be thankful for what you have got: an International collaboration that is slowly but surely changing the way in which we, as a species, are going to explore the rest of the solar system: Together!

The old paradigm is dead... long live the new paradigm.

Reading the runes on American politics is not my forte but surely the insulting way Rep. Gabrielle Giffords treated our Norm at the last Ares Love-In was noted by more than just the fellow Committee members. Based on my extensive knowledge of "The West Wing"... if she continues in the same vein I can see trouble a-brewing. Perhaps ATK could have a quiet word, as half a SRB is better than none! Failing that Leo McGarry will have to step in and she won't want that!

I was just thinking about this and it might be possible that the budget freeze might help NASA.

If I understand things correctly, the money ($3billion) saved from shutting down the shuttle and that was to be used for its replacement and Ares 5 was taken from the NASA budget by the administration.

If there is a budget freeze, then it could be argued that the freeze would prevent that loss.

I'm not a particular fan of Ares, I'm not a particular enemy of Ares, but I hate the way NASA programs change directions with every change in political winds. Please, please, just stick with one approach for long enough to fly something. I know that all the advocates of all the other approaches are going to complain, but we will never get anywhere when we keep on changing directions every three years.

Wow, I called it last year pre-bsArieX launch. All that would come out of Cx is nice CGI and fist pounding and shaking.. I hate being right and hate the fact this still leaves NASA with no clear direction. With the current atmosphere in D.C as far as cutting the fat off the budget, unfortunately where budget issues are concerned NASA is the redheaded step child of the US. At this point it would take a suicide bomber attack on the moon or NEO for the US to give a damn.

Bottom line, Soyuz (and Progress) keeps getting U.S. taxpayer money for the foreseable future.

Even if Dragon/Falcon-9 works the best estimate Elon Musk has on the table is still FOUR TIMES the cost/kg of Soyuz/Progress, and this doesn't even take into account the Chinese eventually undercutting even the Russians and forcing prices lower. Also, no one seems to want to acknowledge that much of ISS will be past its design life come 2020, so this discussion may be OBE if there's no decent 'HLV' launcher available to build ISS-2. Why funding commercial human space at all if there's no destination (other than perhaps a Chinese station) for them after 2020?

Also, is Elon Musk willing to assume liability issues? Since his supporters are trashing the latest safety report ... are they also willing to walk the walk and assume full liabilty if something goes wrong?

Excellent points! A lot of people here seem to assume that the US has some monopoly over the capitalist system. We're currently getting our butt kicked in clean energy production (nuclear, solar, wind, an biomass) by other countries. And we're currently getting our butt kicked in automobile production.

The emerging space tourism industry is going to need new destinations since it doesn't look like the ISS will ever allow tourist to visit there again-- not enough room.

That's why I advocate terminating our support for the ISS after 2015, and using that $2 billion a year to fund new individual HLV launched Skylab-like space stations for NASA, the US military, friendly foreign countries, and the commercial space tourist industry.

And that's why I also advocate establishing a permanent and continuously growing facility on the Moon for science and the commercial space tourist industry.

Marcel F. Williams

"Also, is Elon Musk willing to assume liability issues? Since his supporters are trashing the latest safety report ... are they also willing to walk the walk and assume full liabilty if something goes wrong?"

SpaceX does not have a choice, in a non-government flight liability is given automatically.

The simple but unpleasant reason things are what they are in human spaceflight is a fundemental lack of public enthusiasm and support for raising the NASA budget much beyond its current amount. The space station survived but barely-(at one point by a single vote) and while the VSE has bipartisan support that support has never extended to major budget increases. The Bush proposal in 2004 was the first time a major new space project was proposed without a commeasured funding increase-and Mike Griffin's preference for ballistic capsules and solid rocket boosters is a manifestation of that. Absent the early Apollo years (1961-1965) NASA has always been on the short end, and there is no reason to think this sad fact will change anytime soon.

The fact that Congress approved via authorization legislation the VSE, but not a commensurate appropriations, means they were never sold on it.

That's like walking into a Ferrari dealership , falling in love with the car, but not buying it.

I think Congress liked the idea of the VSE (I love that Lexus!), but in the end never bought it (not going to sign the contract)

And I don't think Bush ever wanted to 'buy the Ferrari' either. He was a total phony baloney.

Sometime, no matter our desire to not repeat the error we saw our parents execute, we repeat their patterns anyway

Bush I exploration vision died, and his son repeated the error.

Democracy is the wrong venue to be executing HSF.

As someone else also said, I see this as an opportunity. NASA has the opportunity to learn to do things efficiently, a skill which they've yet to display. It's an opportunity to cut some fat from the agency, lose some pencil pushers and replace them with technical staff (I don't know if it's still true, but at one time, late 90's, only 25% of GRC staff was technical, split between engineers, scientists, and technicians). This is also an opportunity for NASA to learn all about marketing its successes and core competencies to the public. That's not such an expensive thing to do, and it's one important way to increase public awareness and enthusiasm.

What about the switch to commercial enterprise providing the lift to at least LEO and possibly beyond? I say, "Why not?" It can't be denied that the commercial sector was already arrived at some creative solutions and systems. Creativity isn't exactly something that's been associated with NASA for a while. Perhaps this switch might deliver a kick in the pants to NASA.

Lastly, people need to remember what sort of economic environment we're drowning in right now. We know that NASA isn't and has never been on line one of the national budget, and we have to remember that there are more than a few programs and agencies that arguably deserve more attention.

You seem to be in denial of the fact that the existing CxP architecture was never headed anywhere but LEO either. The VSE plan to go to the Moon is laughable given the budget. Griffin himself said we would proceed at the pace that the budget allows. Unfortunately with the architecture that he foisted on us, it would be 2020 before Ares 1 would fly to LEO. Ares V would never have flown due to the outrageous operational costs of Ares I.

NASA will fail at CxP 2.0 just as we did with the existing program. Our senior management is completely incapable of managing such a program. The individuals put in charge of the Constellation program and every single project within the program are incompetent and have ZERO experience in successful project management in the design phase. Not a single one has a clue of how to execute this program. They are too arrogant to realize this and don't have the integrity to admit it even if they did. Our Agency's leaders think that anyone in management can do any job they are assigned. This is ludicrous and suicidal. We will fail no matter what if this does not change, and it will not.

I find it odd the LRO team is still noting Cx areas of interest on their LRO images. Maybe that's what it will become, moving from a program to a "study". NASA will be stuck in LEO for the next decade concerning human space flight anyway. If we are gonna give up on something beyond LEO human wise are we gonna step robotic missions? I think that would be a great idea. I personally believe in boots on the ground but when those boots cost to much, they just cost to much. I sit and think sometimes about an alien race sitting beyond our solar system above the plane looking down scanning seeing all the space junk in heliocentric orbit and on assorted bodies. They must think we are careless with our little bitty part of the sky. Yet they would also think coming so far themselves that we are a kin to a newborn baby taking its first tiny steps.What if that same alien race found the voyager probe and brought aboard like the TNG enterprise did so many times to investigate while studying it several aliens die of radiation sickness from exposure from the RTG's Radioisotope thermoelectric generators aboard the craft. Were that to happen would they avoid us or follow the directions we gave them? Sorry to get off topic.