Budget Reactions
Obama wants $2.1 billion for NASA’s Florida spaceport, Reuters
“The center’s proposed budget increase won’t mean more NASA jobs, however. Cabana told reporters he expects Kennedy Space Center’s workforce to remain at about 7,500 employees through 2013. That number includes about 2,050 civil servants.”
NASA Seeks More Money For Space Technology, Information Week
“NASA’s budget request for space technology for 2013 is $699 million, a $124 million–or roughly 18%–increase over last year.”
Rep. Rohrabacher Critical of Administration’s NASA FY ’13 Budget Request
“The administration’s FY’13 budget includes almost $1.9 billion for continued pursuit of the SLS Titanic, a ‘monster rocket’ based on 40-year-old Space Shuttle technology in an attempt to recapture the glory days of the Apollo Saturn V,” said Rohrabacher.”
Rep. Schiff Statement on Meeting with NASA Administrator
“As I told the Administrator during our meeting, I oppose these ill-considered cuts and I will do everything in my power to restore the Mars budget and to ensure American leadership in space exploration.”
Lost in all this hoopla about lost Mars programs and the reshuffling of money from robotic to manned missions is NASA’s decision to turn its back on hypersonics. People, the aeronautics budget for hypersonics has been zeroed out! There are no more NASA funds for continued research in airbreathing propulsion (scramjets) and now no follow on to the promise shown by the Hyper-X program. Evidently, NASA is now only concerned with supporting civil aviation and the evolution of the next big transport!? How exciting is that??? Revolutionary technologies, such as the “Orient Express” (ultra-fast transports) or 2-stage to orbit (cheaper space access), are no longer a focus of your nation’s aeronautics brain trust. Moreover, NASA has decided to move the other aspect of hypersonics, the “entry, descent, and landing” research, into Space Technologies, which does make some sense, but apparently provided no bump up in funds for this new function. That’s not good news! On top of all this is the slow decimation of hypersonic infrastructure through the under funding of facilities over the past decade (which recently led to the decision to close 2 NASA hypersonic tunnels). With NASA’s bleeding of hypersonic facilities and funds, the expertise is soon to follow. Forget about the old cliche of NASA “no longer able to redo Apollo”, it’s more like NASA unable to “redo Shuttle”. How’s that for progress???
Any idea if the details of this budget (shifted funds, zeroed line items, etc.) will actually make it through Congress? Given that this is an election year and the administration’s budget didn’t pass last year, should we think that members of Congress will restore the robotic Mars exploration budget, likely reducing commercial crew and technology below the request?
It’s interesting that even though the shuttle program is shut down and ISS is in a holding pattern, no civil servant has lost their job.
Probably because large majority of Shuttle and ISS employees are contractors. In some ways it is easier to layoff contractors than civil servants. However, kind of difficult to layoff astronauts and upper level decision makers (which many quit and retired anyway).
You can look at it that at least NASA did not get cut too much and that they are juggling their remaining dollars within their programs, though that is a losing proposition. If they did a good sales job that its an investment in the future then they could be getting more and not less. However, with NASA’s track record, that they continuously over run, and they do not move their workers from one project as its finished to the next, the reputation of the agency is not a good one and not improving. Its unfortunate for our Mars program and unfortunate for hypersonics but more significantly its unfortunate for the nation and the investment in the future is wasted.
“do not move their workers from one project as its finished to the next”
Lenny,
On programs and projects that typically run from years to decades, it’s pretty much impossible to simply roll people from one program to the next, because it’s not very often that a new program is starting just as an old one is ending. It’s good practice to schedule programs end to end when you can, but the reality is that the time that a program actually runs is never the same as what was in the schedule. And worse, for large programs, it’s often the case that even when you’re at the 90% complete point (as per plan), you can’t accurately predict the actual time to completion because of surprises and various delays. To delay starting a new program until people are available from a still-going program involves major costs (idle facilities, idle personnel, disrupted cash flow through delayed progress payments, and more…), and these costs have not been budgeted for, so they come out of the new program’s profit margin, day for day, before the program even begins. You have the same situation if you plan to delay the start of the new program to avoid the above problem, because you end up paying salaries, wages, overheads, etc. for people who are sitting around waiting instead of working.
So, all in all, usually the best choice is to not plan on jumping people from one program straight on to the next. Staff the new program with new hires (or better short-term contractors) and later let go people not needed. Just one of those harsh realities.
Steve
“To delay starting a new program until people are available from a still-going program involves major costs (idle facilities, idle personnel, disrupted cash flow through delayed progress payments, and more…)”
True, but somehow with the current method unbelievable amounts of money are wasted and programs keep failing, which I am guessing is partly due to re-invention of the wheel and brain drain (I realize there are other contributing factors).
There would be inevitable costs due to delaying a project while waiting for the first one to end, but maybe the project will have a better chance of succeeding by starting with an experienced team that has recently worked together instead of new hires and short timers.
Unless the costs are just too prohibitive and it’s not possible.
Steve,
I have no arguments with what you say, but then again, NASA doesn’t have the freedom to alter schedules, since budget allocations specify not just how much money can be spent on each program, but in which year it is to be spent, so unless programs suddenly get very short in duration, we’re kinda stuck. The only alternative I see is to not ask Congress for the money for a program until a later time, which means either asking Congress to revise allocation legislation if you choose to delay starting a program (when the earlier programs run late by unpredictable amounts), or wait until the last minute to ask for funding on the later program, and the time from when you finally know when you want to start until you get money allocated can be years, so you end up in worse shape, delayed even further.
We both know that this problem certainly isn’t unique to NASA, but it is exaggerated with NASA because of the lengthy budget cycle process.
Short of changing the governmental mechanics, the only possible way I can see to improve the situation is for the program cost and schedule process to be more accurate and more honest, and I can’t see that happening. Even if it did, I suspect Congress would find other ways to flaunt its power over an executive agency.
But I’m certainly open to any ideas that make the whole system more effective and more manageable. As things are, I think everybody involved is making things worse than they need be.
Steve