Congress Starts To Seek Policy Compromises

You can sure tell this is a political press release. I like this part especially...

"The Administration proposes to retire the shuttle as scheduled while discontinuing years of work on development of a new launch vehicle and provides no short term solution to deliver critical equipment and components to the International Space Station that are essential to extending the life of the station until 2020."

As if Ares was any kind of short term solution. Continuing to fly the Shuttle will remove the gap, but what does that really buy us? Even if the Russians jack up the Soyuz seat price above $50M it still comes out far less expensive than flying the Shuttle.

What they're proposing means more money for NASA that they weren't able to deliver in the past. I doubt they'll be successful this time around.

> today introduced legislation to close the gap in U.S. human space flight that will occur if the space shuttle is retired before the next generation of space vehicle is developed.

A $200,000,000 per seat stimulus package. Another rocket without a payload. Business as usual in politics.

There's an Augustine interview where he basically says the gap doesn't matter as long as there is something new waiting on the other side. Consider the opportunity cost of the shuttle filling "the gap". Is that US leadership in space? Is the shuttle leading anyone anywhere?

The gap is old news. Was congress not paying attention, and just noticed?

You think they might have noticed the gap a few years back.

It's also worth adding that none of these people raised a fuss when about the five to seven year gap we already had with the "Program of record" before the new budget killed their pet project, costing jobs and more importantly to them, votes.

Great news !

Most critical is to keep America flying.

This means we can focus HLV on a Shuttle derived launcher too !

Her bill kills the entire R&D line? Funny. It's all about jobs and perception rather than rational space policy.

It had been critical to get Orion flying but Constellation missed that by about 8 years.

Keeping Shuttle flying means the pressure could be taken off Orion, and if any version of it survives, then they could decide on a configuration, size and mass that makes sense-presumably one that can fly on EELVs.

While Congress should have thought about keeping Shuttle flying 3 or 4 years ago, remember that no one, including NASA, was raising a fuss about shutting it down. In fact until Griffin left, the party line was to shut the Shuttle down in order to put the money into Ares.

I just hope they have enough spares and dollars to keep the Shuttle flights going for a few years.

These are not policy compromises but a wish list. Commercial, Constellation, Heavy Lift, Shuttle, ISS until 2020, any other requests out there? How about Bolden's aircraft that takes days to get to Mars?

IMO it makes sense, but only if you FUND IT. The Bush administration had these grand plans for VSE but never FUNDED IT properly.

It would also help make a better case for Jupiter or another truly Shuttle derived HLLV.

One other thing. Keeping the STS flying gives us a fall back plan if commercial manned flight doesn't work out.

It may have been seen coming for years.
But now the wall of reality is seen in the windshield by the American public and congress.
You will see a reaction from congress entirely different then before.

moonman: "This means we can focus HLV on a Shuttle derived launcher too !"

Agreed. If they extend the Shuttle, that would increase the likelihood that the heavy lifter of the near future will be that side-mount Shuttle Derived one,
(or some other SD concept, I suppose).

It would also mean the idea of NASA getting out of the vehicle business may be reconsidered, since so much of the reason for it is an opportunistic use of private space taxis to close the "gap". If Dragon's going to be there, why continue to struggle with Orion?

It's interesting how sentiments have changed. After the Columbia tragedy it was unquestioned that we should move away from the Shuttle. Now the Shuttle is starting to look like our salvation.

1. Increase the annual NASA budget by $3 billion as recommended by the Augustine Commission

2. Keep the Shuttle program going until other American space craft are ready to replace it

3. Immediately start fully funding the development of a directly shuttle derived Jupiter HLV and EDS vehicle

4. Immediately start fully funding a reusable man-rated space plane that can be utilized by the HLV and other launch vehicles

5. Provide $1 billion a year in support for private manned space launch companies for the next 10 years

This is what should be done at minimum! Once you get the hard stuff out of the way then it will be a lot easier to fund the development future nuclear powered interplanetary vehicles, light sails, lunar and Mars landers, and habitat modules for permanent lunar and Martian bases.

Marcel F. Williams

One thing for sure, if they are serious and truly want to extend shuttle (an honest to God miracle really), they had better move FAST! As in yesterday. I don't think congress is capable of that kind of swiftness. But who knows, there may be some things we don't know about yet.

Go Girl Go!

Hey SETI, We just found intelligent life on the hill!

It may be a political hack move, but it is the right one for this screwed up mess.

Carl (Surfduke) Hewlett

I seem to recall that NASA announced some time last year that the manufacturing lines for spare &c. were all shut down, so this would really going to cost a bundle. This sounds like it's just for the punters at home.

The story is old, but welcome. It is better then a kick in the head.

Not sure what will come of this. This is what happens every time we start a large program. The CxP effort just about killed the agency as we know it. It is just getting back to stability now. The discussion about CxP has not even started yet. ESMD will be re-organized this is for sure. I really find it hard to believe I still work for this MD. It is really hard to believe after four long years of back to the future effort. I have always told whoever would listen, we need to build the Human tended inter-planetary spacecraft on orbit, it is now appears we will.

My goodness this took a long time.

> Keeping the STS flying gives us a fall back plan if commercial manned flight doesn't work out.

Ridiculous. The only way this happens is in a new dark age. You don't need a backup plan because barbarians don't have space programs.

@HLVer

"Her bill kills the entire R&D line? Funny. It's all about jobs and perception rather than rational space policy."

How do you figure? First of all, the 2011 budget did not hae an R&D line. R&D fell under Exploration as well as Aeronautics and Space Research and Technology. A line by line comparison shows that the budget is identical to the administration budget. The only difference is that it adds $1.2 billion for shuttle in 2011 and $2 billion for shuttle in 2012.

The difference comes in the proposal which says to extend shuttle to 1 or 2 flights a year until 2015, pushes for a HLV now and says to use Constellation by keeping parts of it (Orion) and examining parts of it like Ares I to see if it can be salvaged. It also keeps going with the commercial plan but says "it is in the United States' national interest to maintain a government operated space transportation system for crew and cargo delivery to low Earth orbit and beyond."

All in all, it goes with everything - extend ISS, extend shuttle, keep developing Orion, develop an HLV, choose a destination and promote the commercialization of crew and cargo to LEO. The problem is, it does all this and only adds money for shuttle extension. If you want to do all of this, you need to add more money. If commercial keeps the $6 billion over 5 years, than you need an additional $6 billion over 5 years to go back to Constellation (or Constellation replacement program) since that $6 billion came out of Explorations' hide.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Obviously I am not a fan of the new plan. However, I have faulted both administrations and Congress for failing to fund any program adequately. It's great to put a bill out that promises the world, but in the end, you need to put budget behind those words, and that is lacking in this proposal. Especially considering all it hopes to accomplish.

p.s. - I havent seen a link here anywhere, so if anybody wants to see the bill, here is the link:

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=1cacb498-64bb-4fa3-a42e-d861e87700d5

not confused, I'm looking at the hyperlink in the term "Human tended inter-planetary spacecraft on orbit" and I get a picture of a tow truck. Obviously that's a mistake, was there a descriptive link you intended to refer to?